The Best TV Shows on Adult Swim

Every Adult Swim Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Across the timeline from 1994 to 2025, Adult Swim has presented audiences with over 20 captivating shows. Highlighting Adult Swim’s quality programming, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Aqua Teen Hunger Force stand out, premiering in 1994 and 2000. Our curated list, current as of September 2025, showcases over 20 of Adult Swim’s highest-rated series.

  • Rick and Morty
    Rick and Morty (2013)8.7

    Rick is a mentally-unbalanced but scientifically gifted old man who has recently reconnected with his family. He spends most of his time involving his young grandson Morty in dangerous, outlandish adventures throughout space and alternate universes. Compounded with Morty's already unstable family life, these events cause Morty much distress at home and school.

  • Primal
    Primal (2019)8.6

    A caveman forms a bond with a dinosaur as they struggle to survive in a hostile world.

  • Samurai Jack
    Samurai Jack (2001)8.5

    A great warrior is displaced to the distant future by the evil shape-shifting wizard Aku. The world has become a bleak place under the rule of Aku, segregated into fantastic tribes and ruled by Aku's evil robot warlords. Jack travels this foreign landscape in search of a time portal that can return him to his home time so he can "undo the future that is Aku!".

  • Common Side Effects
    Common Side Effects (2025)8.5

    Former high school lab partners Marshall and Frances begin to unravel a conspiracy involving big pharma and the federal government to suppress knowledge of a rare mushroom that may hold the key to curing all the world’s diseases.

  • Smiling Friends
    Smiling Friends (2020)8.4

    Smiling Friends Inc. is a small company whose main purpose is to bring happiness and make people smile. The series follows the day-to-day lives and misadventures of its representatives, the lazy, cynical Charlie, and the cheerful, optimistic Pim, as they try to cheer up and comfort the troubled people who call their company's hotline. They receive seemingly simple requests but the jobs turn out to be more complicated than they seem, making it difficult to bring happiness to the world.

  • Ninja Kamui
    Ninja Kamui (2024)8.3

    A team of assassins exacts a bloody retribution on Joe Logan – a former ninja who escaped his clan – and his family for betraying their ancient code. Rising from his seeming "death," Joe will re-emerge as his former self – Ninja Kamui – to avenge his family and friends and bring down the very clan that made him.

  • The Boondocks
    The Boondocks (2005)8.2

    When Robert “Granddad” Freeman becomes legal guardian to his two grandsons, he moves from the tough south side of Chicago to the upscale neighborhood of Woodcrest (a.k.a. "The Boondocks") so he can enjoy his golden years in safety and comfort. But with Huey, a 10-year-old leftist revolutionary, and his eight-year-old misfit brother, Riley, suburbia is about to be shaken up.

  • My Adventures with Superman
    My Adventures with Superman (2023)8.1

    Twenty-somethings Clark Kent, the bright and driven Lois Lane, and their best friend Jimmy Olsen begin to discover who they are and everything they can accomplish together as an investigative reporting team at the Daily Planet.

  • Lazarus
    Lazarus (2025)8.0

    In 2052, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist develops a drug called Hapna — a cure-all that has the unexpected side-effect of causing death three years later. In response to this threat, a special force of agents—nicknamed "Lazarus"— is assembled to take on the malevolent Skinner.

  • The Venture Bros.
    The Venture Bros. (2004)7.9

    Hank and Dean Venture, with their father Doctor Venture and faithful bodyguard Brock Samson, go on wild adventures facing megalomaniacs, zombies, and suspicious ninjas, all for the glory of adventure. Or something like that.

  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast
    Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1994)7.8

    A cartoon superhero interacts with live guests via his television set in this parody talk show based on 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Space Ghost.

  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force
    Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2000)7.6

    The surreal adventures of three anthropomorphic fast food items: Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad, and their human nextdoor neighbor, Carl Brutananadilewski.

  • Robot Chicken
    Robot Chicken (2005)7.6

    A series of pop-culture parodies using stop-motion animation of toys, action figures and dolls. The title character was an ordinary chicken until he was run down by a car and subsequently brought back to life in cyborg form by mad scientist Fritz Huhnmorder, who tortures Robot Chicken by forcing him to watch a random selection of TV shows, the sketches that make up the body of each episode.

  • Metalocalypse
    Metalocalypse (2006)7.6

    Part-American, part-Scandinavian death-metal band Dethklok has a lingering effect on its fans, who take the words seriously and do anything Dethklok lyrics say. The government fears the band's influence and sets out to destroy it by covert means; for example, by sending military pharmaceutical psychotropic drug manufacturers. Deemed sociopaths for tossing hot coffee at their concert attendees, two of the band members are alcoholics, and they all have self-esteem issues.

  • Black Dynamite
    Black Dynamite (2012)7.6

    Black Dynamite is an American animated television series based on the 2009 film of the same name, although the series follows a separate continuity, with some back-references to the film. The series was announced shortly after the release of the film, the 10-minute pilot episode was released on Adult Swim Video on August 8, 2011, and the full series premiered on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim, on July 15, 2012. Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Tommy Davidson and Kym Whitley reprise their film roles as Black Dynamite, Bullhorn, Cream Corn and Honeybee, respectively.

  • Space Dandy
    Space Dandy (2014)7.5

    Space Dandy is a dandy in space! This dreamy adventurer with a to-die-for pompadour travels across the galaxy in search of aliens no one has ever laid eyes on. Each new species he discovers earns him a hefty reward, but this dandy has to be quick on his feet because it’s first come – first served! Accompanied by his sidekicks, a rundown robot named QT and Meow the cat-looking space alien, Dandy bravely explores unknown worlds inhabited by a variety aliens. Join the best dressed alien hunter in all of space and time as he embarks on an adventure that ends at the edge of the universe!

  • Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
    Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (2007)7.4

    Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is an American sketch comedy television series, created by and starring Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, which premiered February 11, 2007 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim comedy block and ran until May 2010. The program features surrealistic and often satirical humor, public-access television–style musical acts, bizarre faux-commercials, and editing and special effects chosen to make the show appear camp. The program featured a wide range of actors, spanning from stars such as Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Will Forte and Zach Galifianakis, to alternative comedians like Neil Hamburger, to television actors like Alan Thicke, celebrity look-alikes and impressionists. The creators of the show have described it as "the nightmare version of television."

  • Childrens Hospital
    Childrens Hospital (2008)7.1

    A hospital isn't a place for lazy people. It's a place for smart people who take care of people who aren't smart enough to keep themselves healthy. So begins Children's Hospital, a parody series that follows the lives, loves and laughs of a hospital staff.

  • Tom Goes to the Mayor
    Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004)6.8

    Tom Goes to the Mayor is an American animated television series created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim for Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. It premiered on November 14, 2004 and ended on September 25, 2006, with a total of thirty episodes.

  • Squidbillies
    Squidbillies (2005)6.8

    Squidbillies is an animated television series about the Cuylers, an impoverished family of anthropomorphic hillbilly mud squids living in the Appalachian region of Georgia's mountains. The show is produced by Williams Street Studios for the Adult Swim programming block of Cartoon Network and premiered on October 16, 2005. It is written by Dave Willis, co-creator of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Jim Fortier, previously of The Brak Show, both of whom worked on the Adult Swim series Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The animation is done by Awesome Incorporated, with background design by Ben Prisk.