10 of the best TV shows to watch this June

1. The Acolyte

The newest Star Wars live-action spinoff is also the oldest, chronologically. The Acolyte is set 100 years before the earliest of the movie prequels, at a time when Jedi are being murdered. Lee Jung-jae, the Emmy-winning lead of Squid Game, is the Jedi master Sol, who is searching for the killer, and Amandla Stenberg as his former student, Mae, out for revenge, in a cast that includes Carrie-Ann Moss and Jodie Turner-Smith. The series was created by Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) who infused the action with martial arts, along with the traditional light sabres. She told The Hollywood Reporter that she was intrigued by the fact that the Jedi were once peace-loving guardians of justice who "got embroiled in politics and then got embroiled as a military presence". The series explores how that happened. "Where are the cracks?" Headland asked. "Is the call coming from inside the house?"

The Acolyte premieres 4 June on Disney+ internationally

2. Queenie

Candice Carty-Williams has adapted her own bestselling 2019 novel and is showrunner for the series, shot largely on location in South London. Dionne Brown, who had a supporting role in the recent Apple TV+ series Criminal Record, plays Queenie Jenkins, who is trying to sort out her life after a breakup with her long-time boyfriend, making plenty of bad choices along the way. The series' tone is set by the character's brash, straightforward, winning personality, and by her frequent voiceover narration. The singer-songwriter Bellah, in her first acting role, plays Queenie's childhood friend Kyazike, and Samuel Adewunmi is Kyazike's cousin Frank. Early reactions to the novel called it the "Black Bridget Jones", but Carty-Williams explained that race makes that comparison invalid. "That's how I thought of her in the beginning, too," she said. "But this book is also naturally political just because of who Queenie is. She's not Bridget Jones. She never could be."

Queenie premieres 4 June on Channel 4 in the UK and 7 June on Hulu in the US

3. Fantasmas

One thing we know about Julio Torres is that he has a phantasmagorical imagination. He wrote, directed and acted in the delightfully surreal 2023 film Problemista, as a would-be toy inventor working for a narcissistic artist (Tilda Swinton) who has cryogenically frozen her husband, and he is a co-creator and star of the HBO comic series Los Espookys. That same vision and gentle but bizarro tone infuses his new absurdist series, in which he plays a character named Julio, who loses a gold earring and goes on a search for it, not necessarily bound by time, space or logic. Torres has enlisted more than 20 guest stars who pop up in dreamlike vignettes, including Paul Dano, Steve Buscemi and Emma Stone (who is also an executive producer of the series), and comic actors with whom he has ties – via his days as a writer on Saturday Night Live – including Bowen Yang, Aidy Bryant and Rachel Dratch.

Fantasmas premieres 7 June on HBO and Max in the US

4. Becoming Karl Lagerfeld

Daniel Bruhl plays the fashion designer in the years before success and his white ponytail made him the iconic Karl Lagerfeld we know today. The sumptuous French-language series covers the years 1972 to 1981, when Lagerfeld was starting out, met his long-time lover, Jacques Bascher (Theodore Pellerin) and began competing with his more successful friend Yves Saint Laurent (Arnaud Valois), a rivalry that became even more personal when they competed for Jacques. Agnes Jaoui plays Gabrielle Aghion, founder of the house of Chloe, who gave Lagerfeld his first big break. Other characters based on the famous people in Lagerfeld's orbit include Marlene Dietrich, Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso. This is the second series this year focused on designers, after The New Look, about Coco Chanel and Christian Dior. That says a lot about the enticing visuals and high drama that make the fashion world so perfect for the screen.

Becoming Karl Lagerfeld premieres 7 June on Disney+ in the UK and Hulu in the US

5. Presumed Innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal is galvanising in this new adaptation of Scott Turow's legal thriller as Rusty Sabich, a lawyer in the Chicago prosecutor's office who is accused of murder, the role Harrison Ford played in the 1990 film. The victim, Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) was not only a colleague but also Rusty's former lover. That basically makes everyone around him – played by a first-rate cast – angry or suspicious, including his wife Barbara (Ruth Negga) and his friend and boss Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp), who didn't know about the conflict of interest. Nico Della Guardia, (O-T Fegbenle, Luke in The Handmaid's Tale) the assistant district attorney, and his associate Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard, who makes the character the picture of villainy) are out to get Rusty. The prolific David E Kelley (Big Little Lies) is the showrunner of a series that stays close to Rusty's point of view, which makes him sympathetic even as his story of innocence begins to unravel.

Presumed Innocent premieres 14 June on Apple TV+ internationally

6. House of the Dragon

The second series of the Game of Thrones prequel goes exactly where it's been heading all along. "War is coming and neither of us may win," Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) says in a trailer, referring to the civil war between her Black House and the Green House of her rival, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), over whether Rhaenyra or Alicent's boorish son will sit on the Iron Throne. Some of the usual suspects continue their scheming. For the Black side, Matt Smith returns as the sardonic, ambitious Daemon, Rhaenyra's uncle and also husband. (Incest and inbreeding are just a thing in the GOT world.) Eve Best, who signals layers of plotting with a single glance, is Princess Rhaenys. For the Greens, Rhys Ifans is Alicent's endlessly ambitious father, Otto. New cast members include Gayle Rankin and Simon Russell Beale. Even viewers who can't remember all the dragons' names may be gripped by the vengeance and intrigue, as well as the fire-breathing action. Talking to Den of Geek, Ryan Condal, the series' showrunner, promised "two of the biggest battles this franchise has ever seen".

House of the Dragon premieres 16 June on HBO and Max in the US and 17 June on Sky Atlantic in the UK

7. Land of Women

Eva Longoria has been multitasking everywhere lately. Last year alone she starred in the travel show Looking for Mexico, and directed the film Flamin' Hot. Now she is the executive producer and star of this multigenerational dramedy. Longoria plays Gala, whose husband's financial crimes have put the entire family in danger. She flees New York for Spain along with her teenaged daughter, Kate (Victoria Bazua) and her mother, Julia, played by Carmen Maura, the star of classic Pedro Almodóvar films including Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The women arrive in the very village in northern Spain Julia left 50 years ago, she assumed forever – a gossipy wine town that is not ideal for keeping family secrets or eluding hit men. The series was shot in both English and Spanish and will be available in both languages.

Land of Women premieres 26 June on Apple TV+ internationally

8. The Bear

This Emmy-winning show dared to change courses in season two, as chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) closed his sandwich joint and started an upscale restaurant called The Bear, returning to the fine dining he was trained for. As season three starts, the new restaurant is about to open to the public, and we can expect the series to pull off its usual magic trick – that is, managing to be tense and anxiety-inducing, yet totally enjoyable at once, whether in the fiasco-prone kitchen or in the midst of family turmoil.  Ayo Edibiri returns as the talented chef Sydney and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Cousin Richie, who has transformed himself into a smooth, front-of-house maitre d'. The official description from FX says, "Their quest for culinary excellence will propel the crew to new levels and stress the bonds that hold the restaurant together". Given all the yelling in the teaser trailer, it's safe to assume the stress will be off the charts.  

The Bear premieres 27 June on FX in the US

9. My Lady Jane

In real life, Lady Jane Grey was a teenager in the Tudor line, and queen for nine days before she was beheaded in 1553. But this romp of a romantic fantasy gleefully throws history out the window, with Emily Bader as Lady Jane, an action heroine who is perfectly capable of saving herself from the axe. Being an independent woman in the 16th Century is another matter, but she tries. Her mother (Anna Chancellor) wants to marry her off to Lord Guildford Dudley (Edward Bluemel), whether she likes it or not. It's a love story, so no shocker: she does. Some of the nobles around her are played by Dominic Cooper, Rob Brydon and Jim Broadbent. Based on the popular YA "romantasy" (romance meets fantasy) novel, this alt-history is fuelled by irreverent wit and contemporary dialogue. "As if!" Jane says in the trailer, which is pretty much the key to the whole idea. As if she wasn't just a Nine Day Queen.

My Lady Jane premieres 27 June on Amazon Prime

10. Supacell

The musician and filmmaker Rapman (Andrew Onwubolu) created and directs this action sci-fi superhero series about a group of ordinary people in South London, with nothing in common except that they are black, who unexpectedly develop extraordinary powers. Netflix hasn't revealed all of the powers, but apparently some fly through the air, one can lift a car and ­– a big tell that something supernatural is afoot – the irises of their eyes turn yellow. Rapman earned much praise and a little notoriety for his 2019 crime film Blue Story, which was controversially pulled from some UK cinemas temporarily because of alleged violent incidents at the theatres. Rapman said at the time "Blue Story is a film about love not violence", a purpose that also runs through Supacell beneath its kinetic action. In a video he made when the series finished shooting, he said, "The deeper theme of the show is love, because everyone in it is trying to help someone that they love."

Supacell premieres in June on Netflix internationally

-bbc