When we first started putting together our dedicated teen TV lists a couple of years ago, we were pleasantly shocked to discover that it was Hulu, of all the many, audience-hungry streamers out there, that boasted the most robust teen-centric catalog. Hulu! Initial shock aside, it only took two seconds of critical thinking to understand why that might be. First and foremost: Freeform (neé ABC Family). As a branch of the same behemoth Disney/ABC tree Hulu joined in 2019, Freeform gives the streamer access not just to its current slate of young adult-oriented programming, but also to a veritable time capsule of post-Y2K, pre-streaming American Teen Content. Add to that lot all the 20th Century Fox titles Disney scooped up with the same FOX acquisition that netted it majority stakeholder status in Hulu in the first place, a handful of iconic teen-centric shows from ABC’s TGIF era, and the streamer’s own ever-growing catalog of high school-set Hulu Originals, and you have a recipe for teen TV streaming dominance.

Not a streamer to rest on its laurels, Hulu has managed, in the brief period that’s passed since we first published this list in 2020, to make its teen-centric TV catalog even stronger. One development that made this possible is that FX—one of Hulu’s prestige-ier Disney-family partners—stepped into the teen TV space with 2021’s standout Reservation Dogs. Another is that Hulu, somehow, solved the music-rights conundrum that had kept one of the best teen series, Freaks and Geeks, from ever having been available to stream. And these weren’t the only teen heavy hitters Hulu brought on board over the course of a single year! 2021 also saw the return of Gen X/Millennial classics My So-Called Life, Felicity, and Blossom, as well as the establishment of another home for MTV’s late, great Teen Wolf. (Now just to snag the rest of MTV’s lost mid-2010s bangers…)

A note on our selection process: Teens are not a monolith. Middle school-aged teens are interested in different kinds of stories than those in high school, who are in turn interested in different things than those attending college and who will become the twentysomething young adults whose newly won freedom high schoolers can’t wait to seize for themselves. As such, we endeavored to make sure the following list runs the gamut, including everything from the retro middle school growing pains of The Wonder Years and the mid-aughts thriller/high school rom-com that is Teen Wolf to the sleekly au courant college-year shenanigans of grown-ish and, well, whatever it is PEN15 perfected during its run. Which is to say: We hope this list is, in short, as thorough and entertaining a mix as any discerning connoisseur of teen TV could ever hope for.

Honorable Mentions: Skins UK, Looking for Alaska, The Hardy Boys, Blossom, Beverly Hills, 90210, PLL: The Perfectionists, and Moesha.

30. Roswell

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The 30 Best Teen TV Shows on Hulu