The Best Mindy Kaling Movies And TV Shows, Ranked

Mindy Kaling didn’t create Velma (that title goes to showrunner Charlie Grandy), but she did executive produce and star in the adult animated series. This show uses graphic animation to put a mature twist on the children’s cartoon. Even so, Velma is still an origin story for the titular character and the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang. It was also a diverse reimagining of the original characters, with Velma being South Asian, Daphne (Constance Wu) being East Asian, and Norville (Sam Richardson), who would later become who we know and love as “Shaggy,” being Black. Fred (Glenn Howerton) is the only white character, and Scooby-Doo does not appear. 

Both of which are two of the many reasons why Velma was the subject of less-than-favorable conversations during its two-season run. It does try to be too edgy and self-deprecatory at times, but Velma still has an interesting hook in Velma experiencing hallucinations as she solves mysteries. That detail opens the show up to explore Velma’s sexuality when Daphne kisses Velma to pull her out of a hallucination. This show is never meant to be a continuation of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969), which still exists as its own series. Velma offered something different, and it brought Kaling back to voice work after Monsters at Work (2021).

Champions, which she created with Charlie Grandy, is one of Mindy Kaling’s most underrated comedies. It’s a real shame that the NBC sitcom couldn’t find an audience to give it more than one season. I was invested! It came on the heels of The Mindy Project’s (2012) ending. Beyond the shows’ sense of humor and overall tone being similar, Champions reunited Kaling with Anders Holm and Fortune Feimster, who both starred on The Mindy Project. Holm starred as Vince Cook, who runs the titular gym with his brother, Matthew (Andy Favreau). 

When his high school girlfriend, Priya (Kaling), introduces him to their son, Michael (Josie Totah), everything changes. I like watching characters come of age at every age, and Champions has that at its heart. Also, as someone who’s watched Totah’s comedic excellence since the days of Jessie (2011) and adored her in the criminally short-lived Saved By the Bell (2020) reboot, it’s safe to say that Josie Totah is, once again, a scene stealer in Champions. 

Running Point is Mindy Kaling’s newest show, which she co-created with Elaine Ko, Ike Barinholtz, and David Stassen. It follows the Gordon family legacy of running the fictional basketball organization, the LA Waves. Kate Hudson stars as Isla Gordon, who takes over as the company’s president after her older brother, Cam (Justin Theroux), can no longer do the job. Running Point takes its (loose) inspiration from the real life of the owner and president of the Los Angeles Lakers, Jeanie Buss. She’s even an executive producer of the sports comedy. 

This show mainly focuses on the Gordon family, including Isla’s brothers Ness (Scott MacArthur) and Sandy (Drew Tarver), and Ali (Brenda Song), Isla’s best friend and the Waves’ Chief of Staff. It’s a family-driven workplace comedy more than it is a sports comedy, which is unfortunate. The sports aren’t all that present in the show until big games, like the playoffs and the championship. Running Point is laugh-out-loud funny, but it still has room to grow into an even better show. Hopefully, it gets to continue to do so in another season. 

Mindy Kaling created The Sex Lives of College Girls with Justin Noble, and I’ve never wanted a Mindy Kaling show to have a final season more than I did with this one. It really felt like it only needed one more season to wrap things up, but final seasons are rare now. The show had three seasons, the last of which saw a core member of its first two seasons (Reneé Rapp’s Leighton Murray) exit. While the departure worked for the character and Rapp, the loss of such an integral character disrupted the “core four” that this show built its success on in its first season.

The friendship between Leighton, Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet), Bela (Amrit Kaur), and Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) was the most important thing on the show. I still think about the scene where Leighton comes out to Kimberly. Of course, given its title, The Sex Lives of College Girls explored the sex lives of its characters, but it wasn’t the part of the show that made it all work. Without Leighton, it just couldn’t find its footing again. It had peaks, like Bela exploring her sexuality, and valleys, like Kimberly’s activism leading to her arrest. But when The Sex Lives of College Girls was at its best in that first season, it was truly fantastic TV. If you’re looking for more great, college-set TV, ABC Family’s Greek (2007) remains supremely underrated. 

I often see people say that if you love Richard Curtis’s Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), then you shouldn’t watch Mindy Kaling’s adaptation for TV. I disagree! I just think if you’re going to watch the Hulu series, you should understand that the existence of it doesn’t negate the movie. The show takes the movie’s concept—four weddings and a funeral—and makes it its own. I’m also of the mind that there should always be more romantic comedies on TV, and I’m going to watch every Mindy Kaling show. So, maybe this show was always going to pull me in. 

Nikesh Patel stars in Four Weddings and a Funeral before he became the male lead of Rose Matafeo’s rom-com series Starstruck (2020). This show is inspired by another rom-com, full of couples living out the rom-com tropes, and even features a rom-com-themed party for Ainsley’s (Rebecca Rittenhouse) 30th birthday. The movie’s original star, Andie MacDowell, makes a special guest appearance. Dermot Mulroney has a guest-starring role that results in one of my favorite couples on the show. I should expect nothing less from the man who starred in one of the best romantic comedies of all time—My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997). Ultimately, Four Weddings and a Funeral is a comforting watch for rom-com fans, which Kaling clearly is.

I need everyone who loves Hacks (2021) to watch Late Night. Kaling wrote the script and stars as Molly, who becomes the only woman in comedian and late-night TV show host Katherine Newbury’s (Emma Thompson) writers' room. It’s an insightful, optimistic movie that takes a more inspirational lens in 2026. After all, no woman is hosting a late-night TV show in the United States right now. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (2016), A Little Late Night with Lilly Singh (2019), The Amber Ruffin Show (2020), and After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson (2024) have all ended. Meanwhile, all their male colleagues have had their shows for years, if not decades. 

As a matter of fact, Kaling was one of Lilly Singh’s first guests on her late-night show, as a promotion for Late Night. That alone paints a picture that the movie reflects in its commentary about women in comedy and in power. Kaling’s script is as good as her chemistry with Thompson, elevating the mentorship between Molly and Katherine. It also feels like a special movie, given that Kaling had an internship at Late Night with Conan O’Brien (1993) before she became a writer and star on The Office. I really can’t suggest this movie enough.

There have been few teens on TV who have been as relatable as Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) in Never Have I Ever. She is painfully selfish at times, like teenagers can be, and she’s realistically and unabashedly never perfect. Kaling created the coming-of-age comedy with Lang Fisher, and it’s incredible. Its explorations of young love, changing friendships, and grief are impactful. The show’s use of voiceover is as silly as it is intentional, with the likes of John McEnroe, Andy Samberg, and Gigi Hadid all bringing a specific lens to the episodes. 

I’m also convinced that Devi’s dream sequence about Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet) is one of the reasons why Glass Animals’ song “Heat Waves” went viral in 2020. Perhaps that’s more about the fact that I’ll never be over how Never Have I Ever resolves its love triangle between Devi, Paxton, and Ben Gross (Jaren Lewinson). What can I say? I’m still Team Paxton! But where this show disappoints me with its endgame romance, it never loses me with Devi’s relationship with her mother, Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar (Poorna Jagannathan). Also, as YA shows continue to dwindle on TV, it’s a relief that Never Have I Ever got to end Devi’s story with a fourth and final season. So, if you’re going to watch this one, know that its end is intentional. 

To steal a turn of phrase from Jane Austen in Emma, if I loved The Mindy Project less, I may be able to write about it more. As an admirer of Mindy Kaling’s work, I still believe that this show is her best project yet. It’s also the one I come back to the most—it’s a total comfort watch. With every new show and movie, The Mindy Project is also a great retrospective watch as a fan of Kaling’s work. You can see Kaling’s collaboration with her creative friends like Charlie Grandy, Lang Fisher, David Stassen, and Ike Barinholtz before Champions, Never Have I Ever, and Running Point ever existed. It’s also full of incredible guest stars that will leave you gasping.

The romantic comedy series, created by and starring Kaling, follows Mindy Lahiri’s personal and professional life as an OB/GYN in New York City. Given how some of Kaling’s projects have had unceremonious endings, I am so grateful that this show got to end on its own terms. Thankfully, Hulu picked the series up after FOX canceled it after Season 3. It ran for three more seasons on the streamer. Those seasons do have a slightly different tone—streaming lets the show be a bit more mature than network TV—and several new cast members. The Mindy Project never becomes unrecognizable; it remains endearing and silly and witty until the end. It also has one of my favorite romances in a romantic comedy series between Mindy and her coworker Danny Castellano (Chris Messina). There are some rough moments, but the show nails the ending.