The Best Current TV Shows with Non-White Stars

If you’ve ever scrolled through an endless wall of TV thumbnails and thought, “Wow, this
looks like the world… if most of the world lived inside a mayonnaise jar,” you’re not
alone. For decades, TV has badly underrepresented people of color in front of and behind
the camera. Even now, as streamers churn out content at record speed, the number of
leading roles for non-white actors has actually dipped in the past couple of years.

And yet, when diverse stories break through, they hit hard. We’re talking ratings,
Emmys, glowing critic reviews, and most importantly fans who finally see pieces of
their lives reflected back at them. From Black-led comedies and crime sagas to Latinx
family dramedies, Indigenous coming-of-age stories, and Japanese historical epics,
today’s best shows with non-white stars prove that representation isn’t a “nice to
have.” It’s where some of TV’s richest, funniest, and most moving storytelling lives.

Below, we’ll walk through some of the best current TV shows with non-white stars
series that critics love, fans rank highly, and awards bodies can’t stop nominating.
We’ll also talk about why representation still matters in 2025 and share some
real-world viewing experiences that go beyond buzzwords and marketing slogans.

Why Representation on TV Still Matters

Let’s start with the reality check. A 2024 analysis found that only about 39% of
top-billed TV cast members were Black, Hispanic, Asian, mixed race, or from another
non-white ethnicity and that share actually fell compared with the prior
year. At the same time, GLAAD’s most recent TV report shows LGBTQ+
characters on the rise again, with more than half of those characters being people of
color. In other words, progress is happening, but it’s fragile and uneven.

The stakes are more than just who gets cast in primetime. When people of color lead
shows, it changes which stories get told and how. We get:

• Comedies that treat Black teachers as complex professionals, not background props.
• Dramas that explore life in communities like Chicago’s South Side or East Los Angeles
  with nuance instead of stereotypes.
• Indigenous and Asian casts centered in their own histories, languages, and cultural
  debates, not just as sidekicks to white protagonists.

The good news? Some of the most acclaimed and most-watched series right now are
led by non-white stars and audiences are clearly here for it.

How This List Was Put Together

To build this guide, we looked at:

• Fan rankings of current Black-led shows, including a large 2025 poll of viewers
  ranking the best Black shows airing new episodes in 2025.
• Curated lists of Black, Latinx, and POC-focused TV shows from outlets like Essence,
  Good Housekeeping, Common Sense Media, and Harper’s Bazaar.
• Coverage of award-winning series like Abbott Elementary and
  Shōgun, both of which have racked up Emmys, SAG Awards, and critical
  acclaim while centering non-white stars.

We focused on shows that are truly “current” airing new episodes recently, renewed
for upcoming seasons, or newly released and actively streaming while giving a little
love to a couple of recent, now-complete series that are too important to skip.

The Best Current TV Shows with Non-White Stars

1. Abbott Elementary (ABC / Hulu)

Led by creator and star Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary follows a group of
underfunded, overworked teachers at a predominantly Black public elementary school in
Philadelphia. The core cast including Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Sheryl Lee
Ralph, and Janelle James is majority Black, and the show balances laugh-out-loud
mockumentary-style comedy with real commentary about public education and community.

Since premiering in 2021, Abbott has become a bona fide awards magnet,
winning major prizes from the Television Critics Association, SAG, and the Emmys, and
it’s now headed into a fifth season with its full ensemble returning. The show
also plays a big role in boosting both Black and LGBTQ+ representation on primetime TV
lineups.

Why it belongs on this list: It’s one of the rare network comedies that feels both
classic and totally current and it puts Black educators and students at the center of
the story, not just in the background.

2. Shōgun (FX / Hulu)

Historically, whenever Hollywood has adapted stories about Japan, the “Japanese”
narrative somehow ends up orbiting a white guy. Shōgun flips that pattern on
its head. While an English sailor is part of the plot, the power, point of view, and
emotional core are driven by a predominantly Japanese cast, led by Hiroyuki Sanada and
Anna Sawai.

The 2024 season became the first Japanese-language series to win the Emmy for
Outstanding Drama Series and racked up a record-setting 18 Emmy wins. Sanada and Sawai
made awards history as the first Japanese actors and in Sawai’s case, the first
actor of Asian descent to win in their respective lead drama categories. FX has
already greenlit more seasons, turning what began as a “limited” series into an epic
ongoing drama.

Why it belongs on this list: It proves that a subtitled, majority-Asian historical
drama can dominate awards season, ratings charts, and social media chatter no
“Americanizing” required.

3. BMF (Starz)

At the top of several fan rankings of current Black-led shows, BMF dramatizes
the rise of the Black Mafia Family in 1980s Detroit, following brothers Demetrius “Big
Meech” Flenory and Terry “Southwest T” Flenory. The series leans into a gritty
crime-saga tone while exploring family, loyalty, and ambition inside Black communities
that are usually only shown through a narrow lens.

Why it belongs on this list: It’s a rare show where Black characters aren’t reduced to
tropes they’re business strategists, flawed antiheroes, and complex family members
whose choices have weight.

4. Power Book III: Raising Kanan (Starz)

Another fan favorite, this prequel in the Power universe centers on a young
Kanan Stark, played by Mekai Curtis, with Patina Miller as his mother, Raquel.
Set in 1990s New York, the series dives into Black family dynamics, neighborhood
politics, and the making of an antihero, all against a backdrop of a killer R&B and
hip-hop soundtrack.

Why it belongs on this list: It expands a popular franchise by turning a Black woman
Raquel into one of the most compelling criminal masterminds on TV, without flattening
her into a stereotype.

5. The Chi (Showtime / Paramount+)

Created by Lena Waithe, The Chi explores interlocking lives on Chicago’s South
Side, following kids, parents, and community leaders dealing with love, violence,
gentrification, and hope. The show’s 2024 season (its seventh) earned recognition as
one of the standout Black TV series of the year.

Why it belongs on this list: It treats a Black neighborhood as a fully realized world
of its own, not just a “dangerous” backdrop, while giving space to stories of queer
characters, working-class families, and local politics.

6. Harlem (Prime Video)

If you’ve ever wanted a millennial, Black-women-led version of a friendship comedy in
the “Sex and the City” lane but actually set in a real neighborhood Harlem
is your show. Centered on four Black women navigating careers, relationships, and
gentrification in (you guessed it) Harlem, the series has earned spots on lists of
essential Black shows and Black-women-led TV.

With its third season in the mix alongside other buzzy Black series, critics have
praised the show for giving its characters full interior lives instead of making them
one-note “strong Black woman” tropes.

Why it belongs on this list: It’s fun, stylish, and unapologetically centered on Black
women trying to figure out adulthood not just supporting someone else’s storyline.

7. Ms. Pat Settles It (BET)

Think of Ms. Pat Settles It as what happens when you hand a gavel to a
no-nonsense Black comedian and tell her to solve people’s mess. Hosted by Patricia
“Ms. Pat” Williams, this reality-comedy courtroom show on BET has already run multiple
seasons and was renewed again in 2025.

The cases are real, the stakes are often petty, and the reactions are gloriously
dramatic but what keeps viewers coming back is Ms. Pat herself, a Black woman whose
life experience and comedic timing make her judgments feel both outrageous and weirdly
fair.

Why it belongs on this list: It shows that non-white stars don’t just belong in “Very
Important Dramas.” They can anchor goofy, delightful reality formats too and pull in
audiences who might not watch scripted TV at all.

8. Reservation Dogs (FX / Hulu)

While it wrapped up in 2023, Reservation Dogs is too important not to mention
if we’re talking about recent TV with non-white stars. Created by Sterlin Harjo and
Taika Waititi, the show follows four Indigenous teens on an Oklahoma reservation,
blending absurd humor with grief, family history, and community lore.

With an almost entirely Indigenous writers’ room and cast, critics have hailed it as a
breakthrough for Native representation on television both for its authenticity and
its refusal to flatten Indigenous life into trauma porn.

Why it belongs on this list: It opened the door to more Indigenous-led series, and it
proved that Native characters can be messy, funny, and deeply specific while still
resonating with audiences worldwide.

9. With Love (Prime Video)

With Love is a Latinx family dramedy that follows the Díaz siblings and their
relatives over a series of holidays, mixing romance, intergenerational conflict, and
queer storylines. The show spotlights a mostly Latinx ensemble and has been
praised for handling queer Latine romance with warmth and nuance.

While it completed its run after two seasons, it’s still a go-to streaming pick on
lists of great shows with Latino leads and characters.

Why it belongs on this list: It’s one of the few modern series where Latinx characters
get to be front and center in a multigenerational love story without being reduced to
the usual “spicy” stereotypes.

10. The Sympathizer (HBO / Max)

Based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer
stars Hoa Xuande, an Australian actor of Vietnamese descent, as a communist double
agent navigating the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese diaspora in the
United States.

The miniseries premiered in 2024 and has been praised for giving a Vietnamese
perspective on a war that Hollywood has historically told almost entirely through white
American eyes. Xuande’s performance has already picked up multiple award nominations,
signaling how much this kind of casting shift matters.

Why it belongs on this list: It re-centers a familiar historical story around a
Vietnamese protagonist, refusing to treat him as collateral damage in someone else’s
drama.

More Great TV Shows with Non-White Leads to Add to Your Queue

There are far more shows than we can break down in full, but if you’re building a
watchlist of series with non-white stars, you should also check out:

• Reasonable Doubt (Hulu) – A Black woman defense attorney tries
  high-stakes cases while juggling messy personal relationships, often showing up on
  lists of top current Black shows.
• All American (The CW) – Inspired by the life of NFL player Spencer
  Paysinger, this drama about a Black high school football star bridges South LA and
  Beverly Hills worlds.
• G.R.I.T.S (BET / streaming) – A newer addition on 2025 lists of
  Black shows fans are voting up, offering Southern-flavored drama and comedy.
• Latino-led kids’ and teen shows like Elena of Avalor and
  other titles highlighted by Common Sense Media’s list of great TV with Latino leads
  and characters perfect if you’re introducing younger viewers to diverse
  storytelling.

Put together, these shows push against the idea that representation is just a box to
check. They prove, over and over again, that when non-white stars drive the story,
everybody wins: audiences, networks, and the culture at large.

Experiencing These Shows: What It Feels Like When TV Finally Looks Like You

Lists and stats are helpful, but they don’t fully capture what it actually feels
like to watch TV that centers non-white stars. For a lot of viewers, the experience is
surprisingly emotional not because the shows are always heavy, but because they’re
familiar in a way TV rarely was growing up.

Picture someone who has worked in a public school for years. They turn on
Abbott Elementary expecting a goofy sitcom and instead find a staff room full
of teachers who look like their colleagues, trade the same jokes, and share the same
frustrations about broken photocopiers and outdated curricula. The show is funny, sure,
but the laughter hits differently when the humor comes from a world you know deeply
instead of a caricature built from outside assumptions.

Or think about a viewer from an immigrant family who grew up hearing stories about
their parents’ homeland but only ever saw that country onscreen as a war zone or a
punchline. When they watch The Sympathizer, they’re seeing a Vietnamese
protagonist whose internal life, conflicting loyalties, and dark humor feel closer to
the family stories they heard at the dinner table than to any Hollywood war movie. The
series doesn’t tidy up history for American comfort and that friction alone can feel
strangely validating.

Indigenous viewers talk about Reservation Dogs in a similar way. For them, the
show’s weird, surreal jokes and small-town mischief don’t feel like a quirky writing
choice; they feel like home. The characters tease each other the way cousins do at
family gatherings. Elders are respected but also lovingly roasted. Spiritual elements
show up casually instead of being exoticized. Even non-Indigenous viewers can tell that
the show is operating from an insider’s point of view and that insider lens is what
makes the comedy land so hard.

For Black women watching Harlem or Ms. Pat Settles It, seeing
characters who look like them allowed to be messy, hilarious, vulnerable, or downright
chaotic can feel like a breath of fresh air. They aren’t just the wise best friend or
the no-nonsense boss; they are the main event. The stories acknowledge racism and
sexism without making trauma their only defining trait. It’s the difference between a
character who exists to “teach a lesson” and one who feels like someone you might group
text about after every episode.

There’s also the joy of watching shows like Shōgun blow up internationally
while keeping Japanese language and culture at the center. For many Asian and Asian
diaspora viewers, seeing a majority-Japanese cast sweep major American awards without
switching to English halfway through or explaining every cultural nuance can feel
quietly revolutionary. It suggests that non-white stars don’t have to contort
themselves to fit a narrow idea of what “global” TV is supposed to look like.

Even for viewers who aren’t part of the communities represented, these shows offer a
different kind of experience: the chance to be a guest instead of the default. That can
be uncomfortable in the best possible way. You might need subtitles. You might not get
every reference. You’re not being spoon-fed explanations. Instead, you’re invited to
sit with unfamiliar details, to laugh at jokes that weren’t designed specifically for
you, and to recognize that feeling a little off-center is something many people of
color have lived with in media their entire lives.

And that’s the real power of the best current TV shows with non-white stars. Yes, they
are entertaining and wildly bingeable. But they also redistribute who gets to be the
hero, who gets to be complicated, who gets to be funny, and whose cultural references
get to be part of the shared pop-culture language. When that shift happens, TV doesn’t
just get “more inclusive.” It gets better.

Conclusion

The TV landscape in 2025 is still far from perfect leading roles for non-white actors
fluctuate, and industry pressures can erase progress as quickly as it appears. But
series like Abbott Elementary, Shōgun, BMF,
Reservation Dogs, With Love, and The Sympathizer show what’s
possible when people of color aren’t just cast; they’re trusted to anchor the story.

If you’re tired of shows that feel like the same five perspectives on an endless loop,
let this list be your sign to refresh your queue. You’ll discover new settings, new
rhythms, and new kinds of heroes and you might just realize that once you’ve gotten
used to TV that looks like the real world, going back isn’t an option.