Yes, comedy format shows exploded this year. But that doesn’t mean that traditional standup took a backseat. On the contrary, 2025 was one of the best years for the art form in my opinion, both local and international. The sharpest specials came from comics who treated the stage like a confession booth, a therapy session or a roast of themselves and the world. These are the hours that cut through the noise, the ones that felt less like performances and more like great conversations that just happened to be hilarious.

10. I Found My People – Kaneez Surka (YouTube)

Kaneez Surka’s I Found My People feels like a homecoming—but not the kind that’s about returning to where you came from. It’s about discovering where you finally belong. After a decade in India as a much-loved, familiar face on the circuit, Surka moved to New York City two years ago and found her people among immigrants, misfits, and fellow comics casually mining their identities for laughs. That newfound confidence is almost visceral in this full-length debut. Despite the new stage, she’s embraced a far more physical style of comedy, digging into themes that one can imagine may have not been as well received in India—especially for a woman in standup.

The hour traces her hopscotch life—from South Africa to India to the United States—with a comfort that elevates the punchlines. But the special truly shines when Surka wades into territory she once avoided: booty calls, anal sex, and anything that might make your mother “fetch a glass of water” if she were watching alongside you. I Found My People isn’t flashy, but it’s smart, warm, and a testament to what happens when a comedian bets on herself—and wins.

9. Model Comedian – Caleb Hearon (JioHotstar)

Caleb Hearon steps into the spotlight with Model Comedian, his debut hour-long special for HBO Max, and what shines first is confidence. He shifts effortlessly between sharp cultural commentary and personal reckoning, unpacking everything from internet virality to grief, performance and what it means to succeed when the rules keep changing.

What makes the special compelling is its refusal to settle in one territory. Hearon’s delivery is clean-cut but emotionally open. Whether he’s dissecting the satire of influencer culture or exposing the raw underside of losing a parent too young, Hearon always goes for the jugular. The jokes click because the stakes feel real. His willingness to interrogate resentment, ambition and belonging gives the set depth beyond the set-up. This is particularly evident in the section where he addresses his haters. Model Comedian is standup with ambition, and a special where identity and comedy overlap perfectly.

8. I Never Promised You A Rose Garden – Joe Derosa (YouTube)

Joe DeRosa’s I Never Promised You A Rose Garden is an hour of beautifully strange, often dark humour about failure, identity and the tiny cruelties we internalise. The show trades broad crowd pandering for something more surgical. Each joke feels like it’s digging a little under the skin before you realise you’re laughing.

The strength of the special lies in DeRosa’s tight, cutting and unflinching material while still keeping things conversational. He brings his trademark cynicism without it feeling tired and riffs on his personal wreckage with enough wit that the weight never crushes the laughs. It is standup that balances authenticity with craft. If you like comedy stripped of showmanship and layered with real-world bruises, this is the one.

7. Don’t Be Gay – Jerrod Carmichael (JioHotstar)

Jerrod Carmichael stepped onto the stage after three years with Don’t Be Gay. His latest special marks a confident shift from the emotional volatility of Rothaniel to something sharper and more controlled. The hour turns the title into a lifelong command he’s finally ready to interrogate, and the result is a set that’s funnier, cleaner and far more self-assured than anything he’s done before.

Carmichael digs into sexuality, race, fame and therapy with a precision that makes even his quietest observations sting. The Grindr stories, the open-relationship confessions, the childhood shame—none of it feels performative. He’s finally speaking from a place of clarity rather than crisis, and it shows in the craftsmanship. The jokes land harder because the emotions are steadier. Don’t Be Gay is a disciplined, tightly built hour that signals Carmichael’s evolution.

6. A Different Animal – Iliza Shlesinger (Prime Video)

Iliza Shlesinger’s A Different Animal is her most confident hour in years—an unflinching look at motherhood, generational friction and the everyday absurdities women are expected to swallow. Taped in Salt Lake City, the special shows her toggling effortlessly between physical comedy and razor-sharp commentary. One minute she’s breaking down the logistics of shower sex, the next she’s dismantling male “expertise” on childbirth with the throwaway jab, “There’s no way—better ask Joe Rogan.”

What sets this hour apart is how cleanly she fuses punchlines with critique. Shlesinger takes on beauty standards, medical gaslighting and the patriarchy without slipping into lecture mode, often turning the joke back on herself to keep things honest. The material feels more grounded, more lived-in, and her timing is as lethal as ever.

5. Small Ball – Joe List (YouTube)

Joe List’s biggest strength lies in his ability to obsess over the tiniest of things, turning his micro-observations into elaborate routines. He’s a joke writer, through and through. On Small Ball that same neurotic charm gets a grown-up upgrade. The hour is about playing life in the margins—finding meaning in the small victories, the awkward silences and the quiet humiliations that never make it to Instagram. Rightfully so.

He waxes eloquent about being a new dad, aging out of cool, and even the existential horror of going to Starbucks. What keeps it fresh is how he never reaches for profundity. The laughs land because they come from honest discomfort. There are no gimmicks here. Small Ball is just an hour of tight, thoughtful standup from a comic who’s mastered the art of understatement. You don’t always have to swing for the fences to knock it out of the park.

4. Naya Bharat – Kunal Kamra (YouTube)

Yes, it’s that special. The one that immortalised the desperate voice that asked, “Tamil Nadu mein kaisa pahuchega, bhai?” The one that Kamra refused to apologise for. The one that led to the venue being broken down. The one that earned him a show-cause notice. The one he refused to abide by saying, “Show-cause notice is your Privilege. Jokes are my Right.” What a wild ride.

Over the last couple of years, he’s been introducing sections of experimental comedy in his specials. On this one, he packs the set with parody songs, like the ones that drew the ire of a political party and a certain music label. Naya Bharat will make you laugh and make you wince in equal measure. It’ll prove why Kamra is the most fearless and ambitious comedian, one who isn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers. Because at the end of the day, that’s what comedy is about.

3. Drop Dead Years – Bill Burr (JioHotstar)

On Drop Dead Years, Bill Burr trades in the relentless rant-machine of his early career for something a little deeper. It’s still just as incisive and sharp, but in a quieter way than you would expect from him. The hour sees Burr dissecting middle-age, male emotional neglect and the absurdity of “being a grown man” in a world that keeps changing its definition of what that means.

He retains his signature bite as he skewers elite tech bros, pokes holes in populist anger and questions all the rules men were told to follow. The most hard-hitting moment of the special comes when Burr gets real about mental health. It introduces a confessional and honest side to the angry Boston comic everyone is well in love with. He’s real about his insecurities and his fears. Drop Dead Years is Bill Burr recalibrated. This time he’s holding his audience’s hand while still flipping them off.

2. Take Me With You – Jordan Jensen (Netflix)

Jordan Jensen’s debut Netflix special Take Me With You announces itself with a jolt and never loosens its grip. She barrels through hookup culture, beauty myths, “failed femininity,” and the chaos of ADHD brain with a blunt, breathless confidence that feels both, unruly and unmistakably her. The style fans know her for—equal parts self-laceration and sharp social read—is intact, but here it’s more focused and assured.

Jensen uses standup as a kind of emotional excavation, picking at her own wounds while skewering the absurd logic of modern dating and the quietly impossible standards women navigate. The material is personal without slipping into self-pity, universal without sanding down its rough edges. Take Me With You is a fearless debut from a comic who has already found her voice and is bold enough to lean fully into its messiness. The moments when the hour turns jagged or uncomfortable are, fittingly, where Jensen’s comedy really hits its stride.

1. Panicked – Marc Maron (JioHotstar)

Marc Maron has spent his entire career turning anxiety, dread and emotional static into comedy gold—but Panicked is where he perfects the craft. The veteran comic leans fully into the spiralling energy that’s defined him for decades, yet this hour feels sharper, more distilled, almost like he’s finally learned to tame the chaos just enough to make it resonate more deeply.

He grapples with mortality, politics, ageing and the fragile absurdity of existing right now, but never from a place of detachment. Maron’s gruff honesty and raw vulnerability—what made his podcast a cult favourite—are in lockstep here. He doesn’t chase punchlines; he circles an idea, furiously worries about it, interrogates it, and then suddenly something unexpectedly profound clicks into place. The result is an hour that feels alive in the moment: part confession, part existential autopsy, fully human. Panicked isn’t Maron mellowing with age. It’s Maron honing the panic into something that sounds a lot like poetry.

Well, that’s not it to be honest. There were many other specials that made us laugh. But two in particular stood out for us. We couldn’t add them to our roundup though because you would call us out for pandering or some such. Read on, you’ll know what we mean.

[Special Mention] CAN’T – Daniel Sloss (danielsloss.com)

If not for the very real conflict-of-interest concern—this is the hour he brought to India on The Loop by DeadAnt Live last year—this would be sitting comfortably at number one. Daniel Sloss’s CAN’T comes from a comic who’s been at this long enough to know exactly how far the envelope can be pushed—and when to tear it open. Filmed in front of massive crowds in Istanbul and now streaming on his own website, CAN’T takes direct aim at the tired refrain that “you can’t say anything anymore,” then gleefully proves otherwise. The hour skewers taboo subjects, cultural hypocrisy, and the theatre of cancel culture, delivered with Sloss’ trademark bluntness and a conspiratorial sparkle that pulls you in just before the punch lands.

Sloss still traffics in dark, uncomfortable territory, but there’s a noticeable layer of introspection and empathy here that keeps the set from feeling like a blunt-force assault. Whether he’s interrogating modern masculinity, exposing the quiet self-deceptions that prop up social life, or simply revelling in how ridiculous we all are, he consistently anchors big ideas in recognisably human moments. The result isn’t just provocative—it’s thoughtful. CAN’T won’t be for everyone, but for those who like their comedy sharp, audacious, and unafraid to hover near the line, it’s another compelling chapter in Sloss’ evolution as one of stand-up’s most daring voices.

[Special Mention] Thief of Joy – Gianmarco Soresi

Gianmarco Soresi’s Thief of Joy is what happens when a comic weaponises overthinking into a full-contact sport. The hour circles his favourite pressure points—modern relationships, the performance of wokeness, the tiny humiliations baked into daily life—but what makes it land is how effortlessly he pivots from anxious spirals to razor-sharp observation.

The set truly hits its stride when Soresi turns inward, mining his childhood as a theatre-obsessed kid growing up in New York City, the spiritual home of Broadway. His comedy has always lived in the uneasy space between insecurity and ego, and here he leans into that tension with remarkable precision.

If there’s a throughline, it’s the exhaustion of trying to be a good person while quietly resenting everyone around you—a feeling Soresi captures with charm rather than cynicism. Thief of Joy isn’t just funny; it’s airtight. A comic in full command of his rhythm, his neuroses, and—most importantly—his punchlines.

Good news: you’ll be able to catch Soresi live when DeadAnt Live brings him to India in February 2026. Tickets highly recommended—this is an artist who plays even better in the room.