The 6 Best Animated Shows for Grownups

Hit series like ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ and ‘King of the Hill’ prove that cartoons aren’t just kid stuff anymore

Tim Appelo,

AARP

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Published August 13, 2025

a still frame from the series 'k pop demon hunters'

When they aren't selling out stadiums, Kpop superstars Rumi, Mira and Zoey use their secret identities as demon hunters to protect their fans from an ever-present supernatural threat.

Netflix

Cartoons used to exist strictly to sell cereal to kids on Saturday mornings, but nowadays some of the biggest, smartest hits are animated series for adults. They can have staying power: 1990s toons Futurama and Beavis and Butt-Head will premiere new seasons this September, and Hulu’s revival of King of the Hill (1997-2006) is a succés d’estime with a perfect 100 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. Here are some of the finest animated shows worth a grownup’s time these days:

King of the Hill, Season 14 (Hulu)

Unlike the Simpsons, Hank and Peggy Hill (voiced by show creator Mike Judge, 62, and Kathy Najimy, 68) have aged. After years working in the Saudia Arabian propane business, they’re back in suburban Arlen, Texas, to retire. Though they’ve changed a bit — Peggy tells somebody Hank spends more time in the bathroom since “he now has the urethra of a seven-month-old” — they lived in a cultural bubble in the Arab desert, and Texas has changed way more in the meantime. Their son Bobby (Pamela Adlon, 59) runs a Japanese-German-Texan restaurant. There are all-gender restrooms now, and stock market scams and bewildering apps like ChoreChimp. Still, it feels good to be home, for the Hills and for comfort-seeking viewers alike. Despite all the changes in society, as Hank says, “It’s gonna be okay —America is still the best God-dang country on Earth!”

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KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix)

AARP’s advocacy work includes fighting ageism in Hollywood and encouraging the entertainment industry to tap into the unique perspectives and talents that actors, writers and producers who are 50 and older bring to their work. AARP’s annual Movies for Grownups Awards, telecast on PBS, celebrates the achievements of the 50-plus community in film and television. This year’s honorees included best actress Oscar winner Demi Moore (The Substance) and best actor Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Brutalist).

Don’t miss the animation phenomenon of 2025, the fourth-most-watched movie in Netflix history, still a Top 10 hit after two months. An action comedy that The Telegraph compared to “a KPop Hannah Montana meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in [Disney’s] Frozen,” it’s about the battle of a girl band and a boy band to win a televised global music contest. Besides beating the boys with tunes that are soaring to the top of Billboard’s real-world music charts, the girls are sworn to kill demons, and the boys are all demons — the mythology is rooted in Korean folk tradition, and rides high on the KPop music craze. The demons are out to lure unsuspecting fans to the dark side. Alas, the boys are devastatingly cute, causing girls’ pupils to morph briefly into pulsating red hearts. Yet duty calls, so kill them they must to save the fans. Another problem: the girls’ leader is secretly half-human, half-demon. It’s eye-poppingly gorgeous, musically superb, a ripping yarn and from a grownup standpoint, better than almost every movie in theaters this year. Disney is doubtless utterly terrified by this hit.

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BoJack Horseman (Netflix)

Remember how lighthearted and silly the ‘60s TV sitcom about a talking horse, Mr. Ed, was? BoJack is the opposite, and also infinitely funnier and smarter. Critic Jennie Richardson calls it “the darkest and most devastating sitcom of all time.” Will Arnett, 55, voices the hero, a horse who’s the washed-up star of the fictional 1990s sitcom Horsin’ Around, now writing a tell-all memoir in the Hollywood Hills and struggling with alcoholism, addiction, depression, his ex-girlfriend and agent (Amy Sedaris, 64), and his agent, an aged turtle named Lenny Turtletaub (J.K. Simmons, 70), who tries to land him the part of Secretariat in a movie, and a human named Character Actress Margo Martindale (voiced by the real Margo Martindale, 74). The satire is all very dark indeed, but it’s really clever and imaginative.

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Big Mouth (Netflix)

This extremely crude yet artistically sophisticated show about adolescents and sex, inspired by the coming of age memories of showrunners and childhood besties Andrew Goldman (Family Guy) and Nick Kroll, both 47, beat Grace and Frankie’s record as the streamer’s longest-running scripted original show, concluding its eighth season in May. Its ebullient vulgarity is all in a good cause. Maya Rudolph, 53, who won four Emmys for playing Connie the Hormone Monstress, who teaches girls how to navigate puberty and love their bodies, told Deadline the role gave her “this gift of being free and sexy and nasty and honest and emotional and talking about all of these human things in the form of a very hairy lady monster.” The show boasts an incredible procession of guest voices, including Jean Smart, 73, as sinister Depression Kitty (who purringly tries to get girls to give in to despair), Thandiwe Newton, 52, as Mona (who advises girls to quit being doormats), Kristen Wiig, 51, as a talking vagina, Jon Hamm, 54, as a plate of talking scallops, and Paul Giamatti, 58, as Poop, who is impacted and very angry.

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Undone (Prime Video)

The least-seen performance by Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk, 62, is way more than a voice role. This sci-fi mystery with a near-perfect 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score is the first episodic series made with rotoscope animation (like Richard Linklater’s films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly) — artists trace over actual footage, so the images look midway between live and animated. A ghostly effect, perfect for his character Jacob, who died when his deaf daughter (Rosa Salazar) was young. After a car wreck, she starts time-tripping, fearing for her sanity, and Jacob appears, guiding her in the use of her newfound powers (or is it madness?) and asking her to find out who murdered him. It’s an absorbing intergenerational drama and a mystery that messes with your mind.

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Pantheon (Netflix)

If Undone isn’t weird enough for you, try this similar (but excellently conventionally animated) show about a teen (Katie Chang) who’s contacted by her recently deceased father Daniel (Daniel Dae Kim, 57, star of Lost and Butterfly). Or is it really him? In life he worked for the shady company Logorythms, founded by tech genius Stephen Holstrom (William Hurt in his last role), who wanted to attain immortality by scanning his brain and uploading it to the Cloud via Uploaded Intelligence. UI seemed to work for Daniel, if not Holstrom, but Logorythms is not to be trusted, and now the world is at risk. With a perfect 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and some intriguing ideas, this is definitely a show for grownups.

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.