The 5 Best Late Night Shows of 2024

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2024 was quite interesting for the landscape of late night television here in the United States. Where to begin?

One notable, albeit not unprecedented, development was the September death of The Tonight Show’s Friday night broadcast, a move that came only four months after a highly-rated anniversary special to mark Jimmy Fallon’s 10 years as host, and just weeks before the most venerated brand in late night was set to celebrate 70 years on the air. The cruel irony: the anniversary came on a Friday, leaving no room for a trip down memory lane, and showcasing once again just how far the program has fallen from its place atop the culture.

There have been a few wins in late night television this year, though. New faces have continued to flourish as old(er) ones (see: the Monday host of The Daily Show) have returned. Eric Andre won an Emmy for the final season of The Eric Andre Show. So too did another host, a man by the name of David Letterman, for his Netflix special, My Next Guest with David Letterman and John Mulaney (more on them below).

While the ratings continue to favor the three marquee brands for each network—Fallon on NBC, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC—it is clear that each of these programs are more comfortable in a ratings war of attrition than, well, actually attempting to innovate. The topical monologues, the celebrity guests, and a recurring staple of bits endure: popular with late night loyalists, but unlikely to capture the next generation of viewers.

And so, notably, none of those programs make our list of the year’s best late night shows. Instead, we turn to the innovators: those who, in our fractured media environment, are boldly carrying the late night torch into the second quarter of this century.

5. John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA (Netflix)

by Adam Rose / Netflix

One of the more interesting bits of late night programming this year came from John Mulaney, who across six nights hosted a live talk show that aired at 10 p.m. EST on Netflix, a tie-in with the company’s larger Netflix is a Joke Festival. Much of the show was a glorious mess, or, as Jon Stewart put it on the second episode, “I feel like this whole show is a Banksy.” The show itself functioned as Mulaney’s ironic love letter to his adoptive hometown. Each episode featured a theme that, in turn, highlighted some aspect of Los Angeles.

On the program, Mulaney delivered a monologue, chatted with A-listers on a couch and set that mirrored the spirit of, say, a Dick Cavett broadcast, aired pre-recorded bits, and ended each episode with a musical guest. New Yorker Richard Kind served as the show’s Andy Richter/Ed McMahon. At the outset of the program, Mulaney jokingly warned that given the fleeting nature of the program, it would never find its footing. And while it certainly never did, that was never really the point to begin with.

For six nights, Everybody’s in LA, at its best and worst, breathed new life into the late night landscape, and perhaps showed one possible path forward for late night programming, which is often at its best around big events and news cycles. In January, for example, ABC will launch They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce, a five-episode series set to run at 1 a.m. EST during the NFL playoffs. The Mulaney Effect is real.

4. Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC)

Of the old guard of network late night shows, Seth Meyers and his team of writers remain at the top. While they lost their in-house band this year due to budget cuts, the show has continued to thrive with its more bare bones approach to the genre. As he has from nearly the show’s beginning, Meyers remains behind the desk, where he has been broadcasting since his Weekend Update days, delivering what are often the most incisive political monologues on network television today.

And even the program’s recurring bits remain fresh, including “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” which the host performs with writers Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel, and his “surprise inspections,” of his monologue writers, during which he repurposes rejected jokes to great effect. Meyers is also deeply skilled as an interviewer, whether taking a trip down Saturday Night Live memory lane with old pals who stop by, or talking with politicians and authors about their work. And he is just as comfortable getting weird, like when one of his former writers, Conner O’Malley, stopped by for a visit. Just watch.

3. After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson (CBS)

Among the most consistently forward-looking late night programs is After Midnight, the talk and parody game show hosted by Taylor Tomlinson. With the launch of its second season this fall, the show, which tapes in Los Angeles and airs after Colbert on CBS, has drifted further away from the former and more towards the latter, with Tomlinson delivering longer monologues and the introduction of a couch segment featuring a more intimate chat with her panelists. And it’s working.

While not garnering the ratings of the marquee names, After Midnight is perhaps the freshest program on late night television, featuring a mix of celebrity guests, both household names and emerging talents. With a primary focus on responding to internet trends and viral moments ( not a first for television), the show is among the few, as the saying goes, to skate to where the puck is going. The 31-year-old Tomlinson brings to the show quintessential ‘90s-kid energy, offering that specifically millennial blend of detached sincerity. It’s a post-ironic show of, by and for our times, and the one we are most looking forward to seeing grow in 2025 and beyond.

2. The Daily Show (Comedy Central)

In 2024 a grateful planet welcomed the return of Jon Stewart, probably the most beloved and respected late night host currently on the air. He returned to The Daily Show as the nation entered what became the oddest presidential campaign cycle in living memory. The Stewart-helmed episodes, including his broadcast following the Biden-Trump debate (remember that?), landed record ratings for the program.

But the The Daily Show is far more than Stewart, who in his return not only brought some of the greatest monologues of the year to late night, but elevated the work of a remarkably funny cast of correspondents and rotating program hosts: Ronny Chieng, Desi Lydic, Dulcé Sloan, Michael Kosta, Josh Johnson, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Troy Iwata, and, of course, contributors Lewis Black and Jordan Klepper, who returned to cover the election.

The “most-hosted show in late night” remains the perfect blend of new and old, in both hosts and structure, finding exciting ways to continue the tradition of one cable’s most venerated late night brand, the television viewers’ one-stop-shop for news, comedy, and culture. While we here encourage a broad media diet, the simple fact of the matter is, if you have room in your nightly routine for only one program, it should be The Daily Show.

1. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

The bespeckled bloke from Britain remains the king of late night television. To describe the work that John Oliver and his team do on Last Week Tonight runs the risk of dipping into cliche. He is better at late night than most comedians, and better at broadcast journalism than most of what can be found on cable and network news. He remains an essential voice, sharing stories that do not merely react to the news of the day, but that attempt to anticipate it, warning of everything from the threat of deep sea mining to what a second Trump term might/will look like.

He is also a very silly man. The Cake Bear Saga was one of the best recurring bits of late night television in 2024. And he remains unafraid to criticize his corporate bosses, like when he publicly disagreed with their decision to withhold his program from video sharing websites like YouTube. The man cares only for his audience, which he rewards with, simply, the best late night program on air today—and there really isn’t a close second.

Honorable Mention: Letterman on YouTube

Don’t click away just yet. Stay with me. In 2022, Letterman and his team launched a YouTube page to mark 40 years since the premiere of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. In 2024, the YouTube page has only continued to thrive, posting original content featuring folks like longtime Letterman producer Barbara Gaines, “fan request” segments, and clips featuring recently deceased former guests, often posted within hours of their passing—a kind of YouTube clip obituary. See, for example, recent clips of MLB legend Rickey Henderson, sportscaster Greg Gumbel, and former President Jimmy Carter.

“20 years ago, when I went on a talk show, you would talk and then it would just evaporate into nothingness,” Norm MacDonald said in 2016 of this new norm. “And now it’s forever.” By opening up the archive, Letterman has joined this trend, upending the once ephemeral nature of late night comedy. No longer are his broadcasts merely of the past. Now, they are living pieces of the historical record, landing with a new generation of viewers while simultaneously showcasing the innovative nature of the man himself.

Earlier this month, Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants announced the debut of “Letterman TV,” a 24/7 channel streaming moments from his decades on the air, now available on Samsung TV Plus. Time will tell how this move plays out, but if the YouTube page’s success has taught us one thing it is this: great comedy, no matter the form, endures.

Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.

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