5 Best Pedro Pascal TV Shows, Ranked

When Oberyn Martell was squished to death at the end of “Game of Thrones” Season 4, a star was born. Well, technically he was born several weeks earlier when Pedro Pascal first debuted in the role, but the swift elimination of the sudden fan favorite only magnified the effect. Today, Pascal is one of the biggest stars in the world, with leading roles in everything from “Gladiator II” to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But while he has become a big-screen actor, Pascal built the foundations of his career on television.

Pascal’s early career included bit parts on shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “NYPD Blue,” and “Law & Order” and a brief recurring role on “The Good Wife.” Since his ascent, he’s spoken candidly about the grind of being a working actor and the moments when the struggle of trying to make it on television was almost too great. “My vision of it was that if I didn’t have some major exposure by the time I was twenty-nine years old, it was over,” Pascal told Esquire in 2023, “so I was constantly readjusting what it meant to commit my life to this profession, and giving up the idea of it looking like I thought it would when I was a kid.”

After taking home the SAG Award for his performance on “The Last of Us” in 2024, Pascal told Entertainment Tonight, “My entry level lasted about 15 years,” explaining how a residual check from “Buffy” allowed him to keep auditioning when healthcare costs and rent had drained his finances. In honor of that grind, and of the heights Pascal has now reached, let’s take a look at his best shows, counting down to number one.

Even more devoted Pedro Pascal fans may not be too familiar with his role on “Graceland,” the USA Network FBI drama that ran from 2013 to 2015. Though the series lasted three seasons, it never gained much traction in larger pop culture circles, and Pascal’s character of FBI control officer Juan Badillo appears only in Season 1. Pascal has had recurring roles on more acclaimed series — most notably as a supporting character later on in the fantastic crime series “The Mentalist,” but those parts are all too small to categorize them properly as “Pedro Pascal series,” so “Graceland” is the natural choice to start our list.

The show itself is better than its relatively generic premise might suggest — a group of undercover government operatives working to suss out drug activity in Southern California. Series creator Jeff Eastin previously cut his teeth on the more successful USA series “White Collar,” and the ensemble is strong, with Pascal delivering an expectedly great performance full of intrigue and secrets.

With “Graceland” having largely faded from public memory, it is perhaps most fascinating these days for showing off Pascal in an early major role, just a year before his big breakout on “Game of Thrones.”

These days, “The Mandalorian” is a bit of an odd show to rank. Its lackluster Season 3, combined with the declining reputation of the Disney+ “Star Wars” shows during the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Book of Boba Fett” era, has cast what was once the most popular part of the franchise into less favorable territory. But let’s not forget just how massive this show was at the start, and through the end of Season 2. Even masked, Pedro Pascal was a huge draw on “The Mandalorian,” and Baby Yoda Mania took the world by storm. At a moment when the “Star Wars” films had lost much of their luster, “The Mandalorian” delivered the sci-fi-Western adventures fans had been asking for.

The reason this series ranks no higher on this list is twofold. Not only does it take a pretty severe dip in quality later on, but Pedro Pascal isn’t in the show as much as you might think. Pascal told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that he was inside the Mandalorian armor “a significant amount” while filming early episodes, but that amount of on-set time fell substantially during the run of the series, until the part became mostly a voice-over role, with stunt actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder credited as the in-suit performers. “Frankly, my body wasn’t up for the task as far as, like, the four months of it,” Pascal said.

Even still, Pascal’s performance goes a long way. He delivers a reserved, zealous performance as Din Djarin that anchors the whole tone of the show, and those few helmet-off moments are always tearjerkers. That plus the overall quality of the first two seasons makes this an easy choice over “Graceland,” but that’s as far as “The Mandalorian” goes.

It truly is astounding how little time Pedro Pascal spent on “Game of Thrones” given how significant his impact was. It is perhaps the greatest “perfect storm” in modern TV history — a show that had already come to dominate pop culture, reaching a definitive creative and narrative pinnacle in Season 4, with the ideal guest star showing up to the established cast to shake things up. And then, of course, it all ended with one of the most famous, violent, unforgettable fight scenes ever aired on television.

Oberyn Martell was a cultural moment in himself, and that’s entirely due to the effortless charisma with which Pascal played him. It still might seem odd to put “Game of Thrones” so high on this list given that he’s credited in only seven episodes — fewer even than in “Graceland.” It’s rare that a character who appears so briefly can feel so intrinsic to a show that ran for eight seasons, but that’s exactly what happened here.

Regardless of how you feel about the show’s final season, or those later years as a whole, when the cultural movement around the series seemed to eclipse the actual story, most will agree that “Game of Thrones” Season 4 was the zenith — arguably the biggest show in the history of television, at the absolute peak of its powers. And there was Pedro Pascal, marking the occasion with a defining performance. “Who wasn’t enamored with actor Pedro Pascal and his portrayal of the salty Dornishman?” wrote Vanity Fair in 2014. “He left us too soon, but he also left us with a bang.”

If “Game of Thrones” was Pedro Pascal walking onto an established series and making a brief but memorable impression, “The Last of Us” is the inverse — a show whose profile and gravity was due from the start in large part to him. Equal credit is due to co-star Bella Ramsey and the cultural footprint of the video game series on which the HBO series is based, which was itself a critical and commercial darling. Season 1 of “The Last of Us” in particular is defined by Pascal’s Joel, the choices he makes, and the way the actor brings the depths of that character’s soul to the surface.

A show full of darkness, “The Last of Us” is a grim zombie apocalypse story that’s more about the depravity of humankind than it is the dangers of the walking dead (or rather, mushroomed dead). The rare glints of light shine through in the relationship between Joel, a man who’s lost everything, and Ellie, the young woman whose need for protection gives him something to live for again. 

Though Pedro Pascal doesn’t feature quite as prominently in “The Last of Us” Season 2, his absence looms as large as his presence, and the season’s most impactful moments are those that still draw from the muddy, messy, gorgeously rendered bond between Ellie and Joel.

Whether or not “Narcos” is a better TV series than “The Last of Us” or “Game of Thrones” is a debate worth having, but looking at the three series strictly in terms of their use of Pedro Pascal, the Netflix drug cartel drama is the clear winner. It’s the only show on this list in which the Hollywood star appears in person in a starring role all the way through, playing DEA agent Javier Peña across the full three seasons.

That alone wouldn’t net the show the No. 1 spot here if it weren’t also outstanding. But “Narcos” is outstanding, from the scene-level writing to an overarching approach to filmcraft that gets the most of the crime genre’s natural tension and layered storytelling. While Wagner Moura gets the lion’s share of attention for his turn as Pablo Escobar, and understandably so, Pascal is fantastic here, finally given a long runway to build out a complex character over a full series arc. 

“Narcos” is a crime show without a single bad season. Pascal’s big moments are some of the strongest in the whole show, and he’s a huge reason why the series became such a hit for Netflix.