What To Watch
These 13 Reality Shows Are the Real Deal
Reality bites, but these shows don’t.
By Allie Baker
April 14, 2025
13 Best Reality Shows on Netflix That are the Real Deal - Netflix Tudum
Whether they’re dating through walls, baking masterpieces, or competing in superhuman feats of strength, we love to watch what happens when people stop being polite … and start getting real. Shows like The Real World and Survivor ushered in a new era of reality TV in the ’90s and early 2000s, and ever since, audiences have been fascinated by the adventures of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations.
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These days, there are plenty of reality TV options to choose from — from the adventurous and dramatic, to the soothing and heartwarming. We’ve rounded up 15 of our favorites, so you can take a break from reality and lose yourself in, well, reality.
The Great British Baking Show
This beloved series is known for its very friendly competition. A talented batch of amateur bakers rise to the occasion and vie to impress the judges with their sweet treats — all while being sweet to each other. Longtime judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood often steal the show, and co-hosts Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding bring their own exciting, encouraging energy into the tent. Come for the delicious confections, stay for the feel-good vibes. It’s the ultimate comfort food.
Is It Cake?
A meme inspired this mouthwatering game show series. Skilled bakers craft incredible, edible confections that look like handbags, exercise equipment, camping gear, and other common objects. These elaborate designs are definitely not a piece of cake to create! The contestants’ goal is to trick a panel of celebrity judges into not being able to tell which objects are the cakes, and which are the fakes. The winner of each episode takes it all — a $5,000 cash prize — and the show’s subsequent seasons (including a holiday edition) serve up even more sweetness.
Love Is Blind
Is love really blind? Eight seasons in (with multiple international versions), contestants still aim to answer that question — after they pop the “Will you marry me?” question. In this love experiment hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, dating hopefuls get to know each other in “the pods.” Based on their emotional connections, several couples get engaged, sight unseen. Once they’ve put a ring on it, the couples take a romantic getaway, then live together in their home cities to test their bond. Will their love survive real-world complications like finances, family issues, and disapproving friends? We find out at the altar, where they tie the knot or untangle themselves in a dramatic fashion.
Love on the Spectrum
This docuseries centers around young adults on the autism spectrum who are searching for love. They navigate the joys and pitfalls of dating and relationships, from fairy-tale first dates to heartbreaks. Now in its third season, Love on the Spectrum follows a new group of hopeful romantics, along with familiar fan favorites, like James, Abbey, and Dani, to name a few, as they look for their own happily ever afters. You can also catch the two-season Love on the Spectrum Australia.
Million Dollar Secret
In this game of treachery, one player has a Million Dollar Secret. This competition series brings together a group of 12 players, one of whom is awarded a million dollars right from the jump. Over eight episodes, the rest of the players have to sniff out the secret millionaire and remove them from the game if they want a chance at keeping the cash for themselves. With a life-changing amount of money on the line and one possible winner, the stakes only get higher as the game goes on — watch your back.
The Mole
This 2022 show is a reboot of the cult classic reality competition, which ran on ABC from 2001 to 2008. Like the original, the series gathers 12 contenders who complete challenges to earn cash for a group pot. The twist: One of them is the titular mole, tasked with sabotaging the assignments and purposefully losing money. The contestants have to dig into the clues and suss out the saboteur. There’s a lot of bickering and backstabbing along the way — and Season 2 is now here for you to stream, with even more sabotage than the first.
Perfect Match
This is the perfect show for fans of the Netflix reality universe. Standout contestants from some of your favorite series unite to compete for love and influence. Season 1 featured familiar faces like Francesca Farago and Chloe Veitch from Too Hot to Handle, Joey Sasso from The Circle, Damian Powers and Shayne Jansen from Love Is Blind, and Dom Gabriel from The Mole. Season 2 took it up a notch with some of the cast of Dated & Related like Alara Taneri and Kaz Bishop, Too Hot to Handle stars Brittan Byrd and Dominique Defoe, and Bryton Constantin from Squid Game: The Challenge. These players all know how to compete, but is it more than just a game to them? As relationships form, the most compatible couples get the power to make or break other duos. The show is half strategy, half seduction — and all fun.
Physical: 100
In this Korean series, 100 fierce competitors go head-to-head in grueling physical challenges — called quests — to test their strength, balance, agility, endurance, willpower, and strategy skills. Only the strongest survive to the next round of the tournament. Every participant has a plaster cast of their torso. If they’re eliminated, they must destroy the cast with a sledgehammer, also shattering their hopes for glory and a cash prize. (Talk about a crushing defeat.) Seasons 1 and 2 are a smash, and you can stream them both on Netflix now. Flex your viewing muscles accordingly.
Queer Eye
Queer Eye has been serving up makeovers and warm-fuzzy feelings for nine seasons. The Fab 5 — Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Karamo Brown, and Jeremiah Brent (who joined the cast in Season 9, succeeding Bobby Berk) — each lend their expertise to help the episodes’ “heroes” level up their lives with food, grooming, fashion, relationship advice, and home design. But this show isn’t just about surface-level makeovers. The Fab 5 go deep with each of their charges and inspire uplifting transformations. By the time the credits roll, there won’t be a dry eye in the house — or on the couch.
Selling Sunset
If you’re in the market for a glitzy real estate show, you’ll feel right at home. Selling Sunset follows a glamorous group of agents from The Oppenheim Group, a high-end brokerage firm in Los Angeles owned by twins Jason and Brett Oppenheim. All-star agents like Chrishell Stause, Mary Fitzgerald, and Heather Rae El Moussa have become household names. Each season offers up more expensive mansions, more personal drama, and more gorgeous — and always memorable — fashion choices. If you’re looking for even more high-end real estate, you’re in luck: Selling the OC heads south to Orange County, and Selling the City takes off across the country to New York City, with both spin-offs featuring a new group of agents and plenty of drama. The zip codes might be different, but the energy is the same.
Squid Game: The Challenge
This reality competition sees 456 competitors zip up those iconic tracksuits to take on physical and mental challenges inspired by the hit series Squid Game, all to try and score a massive $4.56 million prize — the largest cash prize in Netflix television history. The stakes here aren’t life and death, but there’s plenty of nail-biting suspense as alliances are formed and tested and players are put through their paces. Don’t freeze (unless you’re playing Red Light, Green Light) on your way to adding this show to your queue — you’ll want to be ready when it returns for Season 2.
Temptation Island
This scandalous reality dating show follows four couples to a tropical island paradise for a vacation — from each other. In Temptation Island, a group of couples is at a crossroads, and puts their relationships to the test by temporarily splitting up and moving into two villas. But as they go their separate ways for three weeks, they’ll also be living in a house full of eligible singles of the opposite sex who are looking for love. As the couples navigate their time apart — and the temptation of a new potential match — they’ll have to decide if the relationship has what it takes to continue, or if it’s time to call it quits.
The Ultimatum: Queer Love
A spin-off to The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, Queer Love follows five queer couples on the precipice. One partner is ready for marriage; the other is not — so they turn to a social experiment to determine their fate. The duos temporarily split up, and each person moves in with a new partner for three weeks. Then, they return to their original relationship for three weeks. Finally, they must answer the ultimatum: Will they say “I do” to their partner, fall for their trial love, or walk away alone? There are love triangles, love squares, and a lot of feelings more complicated than geometry. Keep an eye out for Season 2 — which will be based in Miami — with 10 episodes featuring a new batch of couples who are ready to put their relationships to the test.
Additional reporting by Erin Corbett
Your Reality Obsessions Are Here on TudumWhether you’re into dating drama, food competitions, or selling… wherever, Tudum has the stories and stars you can’t get enough of.
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