15 Best TV Shows Of 2024 (So Far)

It's a close race between this and Shōgun, but, as it stands, Ripley is the best show of 2024 so far. The latest and best adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley," it's a slow-burn thriller constantly twisting, constantly evolving, and always nail-bitingly intense.

Developed by writer/director Steven Zaillian, the series follows Tom Ripley (a steely-eyed, frightening Andrew Scott), a conman who infiltrates the glamorous life of the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and his girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning) and finds himself drawn into a world of riches, leisure, and deceit. 

Shot in entrancing black-and-white by Robert Elswit, Ripley is a game of cat-and-mouse that's also a game of patience; the creeping character study of a man whose motivations are never clear but whose actions grow increasingly dangerous as his desires unfold.

With Scott giving perhaps the finest performance of his career to date, Zaillian's drama is as troubling as it is impossible to resist, from its enticing first scene to its deliciously ambiguous last. Ripley, like the man himself, is going to be a tough show to beat.