Best dramas on Disney+

When you sit down to watch a show like The Bear, a comedy drama about a talented chef that was met with widespread acclaim when it arrived on US screens, there’s always a chance that your expectations won’t meet reality and you’ll be left disappointed. But if it is the best thing you end up watching this year, with three exceptional seasons now available, no one will question your taste. ABBY ROBINSON

If you’re looking for the kind of well-paced drama that keeps you hooked throughout, Snowfall is the series to hunker down with. Led by British actor Damson Idris, the series returns for its fifth run and things just don’t get any easier for Franklin Saint (Idris) and his family.

Throughout the series, we follow Saint from a relative nobody to a drug kingpin on the Los Angeles cocaine scene. The series explores the first crack cocaine epidemic on the American city in the 1980s through various storylines – all of them riveting.

This time round, things are finally looking great for Saint as his family enjoy the wealth of his recent exploits, but South Central Los Angeles has never been so dangerous. The Saint family must now navigate the police, the warring gangs and the CIA in order to survive. JAMES HIBBS

Donald Glover’s surreal comedy masterpiece has now finished airing, with all four seasons available on Disney Plus for UK viewers to watch. It follows Earn (Glover), who manages his cousin Alfred AKA Paper Boi’s (Brian Tyree Henry) rap career, as well as their friend Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) and Earn’s ex-girlfriend Van (Zazie Beetz).

If you’re looking for traditional story structure and arcs, this isn’t it – Atlanta frequently rips up its own rule-book, especially in season 3 which featured multiple episodes without any of the main cast. This may be the aspect of the show that keeps you on your toes, but it’s the biting humour and cutting social commentary which will keep you coming back for more. JAMES HIBBS

It’s taken a while to get to the UK but the fourth season of Good Trouble is here and it’s set to be another heavy dose of big life decisions, lies and deceit. What more could we want?

While the series picks back up with Callie and Mariana as they embark on the next adventure in their lives in Los Angeles, we also continue to follow their group of friends as they all navigate life’s highs and lows, romances, challenges and much more.

In this season, Mariana is tackling the male-dominated world of tech and Callie faces the harsh realities of the legal system as she becomes the clerk for a federal judge. With episodes landing each week, we know this is one series we’ll be counting down the days till streaming. MORGAN CORMACK

Writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner brings her own much-discussed 2019 novel to the small screen, making heavy use of narration to create the not-unpleasant feeling that we are watching a book. Manhattan doctor and dad of two Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg) has just emerged from a bad marriage to the apparently hideous Rachel (Claire Danes); he is just starting to enjoy a new life of one-night stands and rekindled old friendships when a mysterious event causes him to re-evaluate.

What seems like naughty fun proves to be an astute, bracingly honest take on class and careers as well as life and love in one’s 40s. JACK SEALE

Writer Tracy McMillan has drawn on her own experiences for this bittersweet half-hour dramedy. Kerry Washington is a relationship therapist and single mother whose already chaotic attempts to achieve perfection in all aspects of her life are thrown into total disarray when her father (Delroy Lindo) moves in, having just completed a prison sentence. Strong lead performances power a show with plenty to say about modern family relationships and whether it matters when cherished life plans are forced to change. JACK SEALE

This National Geographic drama was released in weekly episode instalments, making for the perfect kind of release for such a thought-provoking and important look into real historical events.

The series stars Bel Powley, who many will recognise from Everything I Know About Love, as Miep Gies, a secretary who helped to hide Otto Frank and his family from the Nazis in the Second World War. The series explores the responsibility and pressure that Miep and her husband Jan (Joe Cole) were under as they strive to protect the Franks and others during one of the darkest moments in history. MORGAN CORMACK

From Australia, a highly atmospheric psychological thriller inspired by the real New Age group the Family. Teresa Palmer (A Discovery of Witches) plays a woman whose youth was spent as a member of a cult, with a mysterious female leader (Miranda Otto) and an army of spookily blond children – an organisation which may now be linked to the disappearance of a schoolgirl. Guy Pearce co-stars in a drama that scores strongly on creepy, crepuscular visuals. JACK SEALE

Television loves a movie spin-off/sequel these days, but they rarely have such a direct link to the original film: 26 years since the film The Full Monty introduced us to a gang of ex-steelworkers in Sheffield, forming a striptease troupe to try to make ends meet, the same characters are back, played by the same actors.

As the first episode makes clear with its montage of real-life politicians emptily promising to improve life in the post-industrial North, the underlying theme of people left to cope with their dwindling prospects remains. As the lads and their loved ones get into a series of light comedy-drama scrapes, the portrayal of a society that has simply abandoned these characters is unflinching.

Sometimes that’s an uneasy mix, but when The Full Monty is funny it’s hilarious, and when it’s hard-hitting it’s devastating. JACK SEALE