Best non-American sitcoms of all time: 'Derry Girls', 'Schitt's Creek' and more

Sitcoms are often seen as an American genre, and it is not hard to see why. 'Friends', 'Seinfeld', and 'The Office' have had such an enormous impact on television that it is easy to forget the genre does not begin and end in the United States. But some of the funniest, sharpest, and most enduring sitcoms ever made have come from Ireland, Canada, and the UK, built on a sensibility that is entirely their own and all the better for it. Here are six non-American sitcoms that are every bit as good as the classics, and in some cases considerably better.

Set during the final years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, 'Derry Girls' follows five teenagers navigating Catholic school, family chaos, and the particular absurdity of growing up in a place where history is happening loudly all around you. The show balances its comedy and its context with a lightness and warmth that is genuinely remarkable, and the characters grow across three seasons in a way that feels completely earned. It is one of those rare shows that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny and quietly moving at the same time.

When the super-wealthy Rose family loses their fortune and is forced to relocate to the small town of Schitt's Creek that the family patriarch once bought as a joke, what follows is one of the warmest and most quietly moving comedies of the last decade. Created and written by Eugene and Daniel Levy, who also play father and son in the show alongside the incomparable Catherine O'Hara, it is a sitcom whose humour is never cruel and whose character arcs are among the best written in the genre. It is the kind of show that sneaks up on you completely and leaves you genuinely bereft when it ends.

Long before the American version became a cultural institution, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created the original 'The Office' for British television, a two-season mockumentary set inside the fictional paper company Wernham Hogg that was equal parts excruciating and genuinely moving. Gervais plays David Brent with a specificity and commitment that makes the comedy land harder precisely because it never tips into caricature, and Martin Freeman anchors the emotional core of the show with a restraint that the format demanded. It is credited with popularising the mockumentary style that went on to influence an entire generation of comedy television.

One of the most inventive structural conceits in sitcom history, 'Blackadder' sets each of its four seasons in a completely different historical era, with the same cast playing their own descendants and reinventing their characters entirely each time. Rowan Atkinson is magnificent across all four incarnations of the title character, and the supporting cast includes Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Miranda Richardson, all of whom went on to become household names in their own right. Its final episode remains one of the most unexpectedly emotional endings in British comedy history.

Built almost entirely on the quality of its dialogue, 'Letterkenny' follows the daily lives of the residents of a small fictional Canadian town, centred on three distinct social groups whose interactions produce some of the most rapid-fire, endlessly quotable comedy on television. The show has run for twelve seasons and every season maintains the same sharp, specific energy that made the first one so compelling. It brings Canadian culture to the screen with a specificity and pride that make it feel unlike anything else in the genre.

Written by Irish writers and set on the fictional Craggy Island off the Irish coast, 'Father Ted' follows three misfit priests living together and bickering their way through rural life in a show that works as both a satire of Catholic Ireland and a genuinely warm character comedy. Ted is the only relatively normal character surrounded by magnificent caricatures, which gives the show a comic engine that never runs out of fuel across its 25 episodes. It built a devoted cult following across the UK and beyond and remains one of the most purely enjoyable sitcoms ever made.