Every Season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ranked

Over the course of 24 years and 12 Seasons, Curb Your Enthusiasm highlighted the genius of Larry David, the mind behind the hit 90s sitcom Seinfeld. The show follows David playing an over-the-top version of himself as he engages in a series of misadventures in Los Angeles. His friends include well-known comedians such as Richard Lewis and Ted Danson, who also play semi-fictionalized versions of themselves.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of the few longest-running sitcoms that never jumped the shark, maintaining consistency even after a 6-year break between seasons and members of the main cast sadly passing away. It’s a delight to see David is still overflowing with ideas even after Seinfeld‘s 9 Seasons. Although Curb Your Enthusiasm is good from beginning to end, there are definitely highest and lowest points throughout the show.

12 Season 11 Introduces Great Guest Stars But Isn’t Funny Enough

• Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
• Air Date: Oct 24, 2021 – Dec 26, 2021

Season 11 of Curb Your Enthusiasm isn’t by no means a complete let-down, but it suffers from an inconsistent pace: some episodes are a delight, while others are a pain to get through. The season opens with a burglar drowning in Larry’s pool, an incident that nearly ruins Larry’s plan for a new promising show, “Young Larry.”

The main arc is split into multiple interconnected storylines: some of them pay off, others simply go nowhere. Thankfully, Season 11 of Curb Your Enthusiasm introduces an unforgettable roster of guest stars that includes Bill Hader, Jon Hamm, and Woody Harrelson. These brief yet hilarious appearances stand out as the season’s highlight, often saving rather unamusing episodes.​​​​​​

11 Season 9 Struggles to Get Back on Track After a 6-Year-Long Hiatus

• Rotten Tomatoes: 74%
• Air Date: Oct 1, 2017 – Dec 3, 2017

Back in the days of Seinfeld, David exited the show after Season 7 fearing the show would lose its charm with more seasons. By the end of Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 8, the star of the show struggled with the same fear of running out of ideas. For this reason, it took six years for Curb Your Enthusiasm to return for its 9th season, and while David had time to chew on plenty of promising ideas, retrieving the chemistry between the cast and finding the right rhythm after so long proved to be a difficult task.

Although Season 9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm delivers one of the most intriguing multi-episode storylines of the show — with the Supreme Leader of Iran issuing a fatwa against Larry — the show’s attempt to pretend everything is still the same after all this time doesn’t pay off in the character interactions. Larry and Leon’s absurd dialogues are at their sharpest in Season 9, but beloved characters such as Jeff, Susie, and Lewis don’t shine like they used to in earlier seasons.

10 Season 10 Finds its Tone in Running Gags and Past Storylines

• Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
• Air Date: Jan 19, 2020 – Mar 22, 2020

Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm feels like a major improvement from Season 9, with David making the most of the irreverent persona he developed in the show. Right in the first minutes of Season 10, Episode 1, “Happy New Year,” Larry violently bumps into people on the street, breaks a selfie stick, offends a pregnant woman, and promises to boycott Mocha Joe’s new establishment.

While new ideas are always welcome, David managed to find a great balance between continuing older arcs and developing new funny plotlines. The whole feud between Mocha Joe and Larry’s spite store is hilarious, as well as Larry’s attempts to get Cheryl back and his Cold War against Ted Danson- all storylines that came into play in the past. However, the sexual harassment arc getting increasingly out of hand is equally engaging, showing that no one knows how to blow simple misunderstandings out of proportion like Larry David.

9 Larry Gets Arrested in Season 12

• Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
• Air Date: Feb 4, 2024 – Apr 7, 2024

Curb Your Enthusiasm is the kind of show that could go on forever, but it was about time for Larry David to get some rest. The season starts off with a scandalous plot that pokes fun at Georgia’s Voting Law system, a promising beginning that leads to Larry’s arrest and flirts with the idea of Curb Your Enthusiasm recreating the Seinfeld Series Finale.

After a hard-boiled start, it takes some time for Season 12 to get back on track, although the return of Vince Vaughn’s Freddy Funkhouser and Richard Lewis bring about a good amount of laughs — the latter was absent for the entirety of Season 11 and sadly passed away before Curb Your Enthusiasm aired its final episode. The season’s highlight is, of course, the incredible redo of Seinfeld’s ending in the final episode, redeeming a rather underrated episode.

8 Seinfeld Stars Steal the Show For Themselves in Season 2

• Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
• Air Date: Sep 23, 2001 – Nov 15, 2001

It’s in Season 2 of Curb Your Enthusiasm that the show finds the balance between a serialized comedy and isolated punch lines, setting up a plot where Larry comes up with a new show. He enlists Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander to play an actor who can’t shake off the shadow of an iconic role he played in the past: the exact same struggle that Alexander faces with the character of George.

The propensity of things turning out badly for Larry was already in effect in Season 2, and he goes to extremes to successfully make his new show happen, from replacing Alexander with Julia Louis-Dreyfus to changing networks due to meaningless quarrels. This season of Curb Your Enthusiasm gives fans a taste of how the interplay between the Seinfeld cast and Larry David is a nostalgic factor that can distract the audience from the new show but often works as an effective fan service.

7 Season 1 Introduces the Genius of Larry David

• Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
• Air Date: Oct 15, 2000 – Dec 17, 2000

Seinfeld was a show that struggled to find its tone, and for that reason, one of the best sitcoms of all time nearly got canceled after a short first season. It wasn’t the case with Curb Your Enthusiasm, which immediately showed what it came for: three episodes in and Larry has already offended his best friend’s girlfriend, made an enemy at the golf course, and brought his wife Cheryl to a former porn star’s dinner party.

The first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm does a great job of dealing with relatable situations in the worst possible fashion, thanks to Larry’s indomitable bad habits. Although it lacks the serialized approach of other seasons, the way each Season 1 episode works like an isolated joke will definitely please those who came from Seinfeld.

6 Larry Teams Up With Mel Brooks and David Schwimmer For a Broadway Musical in Season 4

• Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
• Air Date: Jan 4, 2004 – Mar 14, 2004

In an attempt to free himself from the busy routine of a play producer, Mel Brooks chooses Larry David to star in his musical, hoping for an immediate fiasco. A series of misunderstandings almost leads to Brooks’ plan success: Ben Stiller quits the musical after Larry insists on sitting in the back seat of his car, Larry insults David Schwimmer’s father, and Larry forgets his lines in the middle of the show. Hopefully, the inner comedian inside Larry takes over his stage persona, keeping the audience hooked while the lines come back to him.

Not only does the musical storyline set up a brilliant finale, but Season 4 also delivers a handful of great isolated episodes: “The Car Pool Lane” literally saved someone else’s life, and “The Survivor” is one of Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s most controversial episodes. At the end of the day, Season 4 stands out as a great self-deprecating celebration of David’s own genius, delivering a rare happy ending.

5 Larry Moves to New York in Season 8

• Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
• Air Date: Jul 10, 2011 – Sep 11, 2011

There’s nothing more like Larry David than moving to another state just to avoid a charity gig. The majority of Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm is set in New York, where Larry is forced to stay for three months after an excuse he uses with Matt Tessler backfires. It offers the show a refreshing change of scene, moving away from Larry’s wealthy neighborhood in LA to the busy city that never sleeps.

Larry stumbles upon all sorts of eccentric characters, both fictional and real, in New York. Among them are MLB’s former player Bill Buckner, who redeems himself for a fatal error in a World Series match, the inventor of a “car periscope,” and even Michael J. Fox, who gives David the green light to address his Parkinson’s condition with an irreverent sense of humor. The New York storyline is a great breather from Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s standard structure, yet the episodes that precede Larry’s trip are equally hilarious: “The Divorce” finally wraps Larry and Cheryl’s divorce arc and “Palestinian Chicken” is one of the show’s most relevant episodes.

4 Larry Pays a Visit to Heaven in Season 5

• Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
• Air Date: Sep 25, 2005 – Dec 4, 2005

Season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm is Larry David at his most disrespectful, which by the show’s standards is always a big plus. In this season’s multi-episode arc, Richard Lewis needs a kidney, and Larry goes to extreme lengths to find a way to help his friend, which doesn’t require him to donate his own kidney.

The reason David gets away with making problematic jokes is that they are always accompanied by a self-aware, unpretentious sense of humor. In that sense, jokes about people falling into comas, failed kamikaze soldiers, and women with unusually large vaginas are all part of a self-deprecating punch line that leads to a series-finale-worthy conclusion: Larry David is offered a glimpse of heaven — a place where he has hair, and Marilyn Monroe is dying to meet him — only to be called back again to the world that annoys him too much.

3 Larry Invests in a Cursed Restaurant in Season 3

• Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
• Air Date: Sep 25, 2002 – Nov 17, 2002

By the time Curb Your Enthusiasm reaches its third season, fans are already familiar with the characters and Larry’s perpetually inconvenient persona, which makes the absurdities that unfold somewhat easier to digest. Season 3 offers plenty of memorable episodes: in “The Nanny from Hell,” Larry hires a psychotic nanny whose previous job she lost because of him, and in “Krazee-Eyez Killa,” a gossip results in a violence-prone rapper coming after Larry.

However, the biggest highlight of Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 3 is Larry investing in a lavish restaurant that has everything going against it. It’s difficult to judge by the way things unfold, whether it’s Larry or the restaurant that is cursed, but the safest option is both. The irrational situations that delay the restaurant’s big opening and cause key investors to withdraw their money are unbelievably funny, leading up to Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s most hilarious season finale.

2 Season 6 Introduces the Hilarious Black Family

• Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
• Air Date: Sep 9, 2007 – Nov 11, 2007

The lack of black characters in Seinfeld hasn’t aged well over the years, but with Curb Your Enthusiasm constantly addressing white ignorance, David’s decision to welcome a black family into the show’s main cast brings about relevant discussions without leaving the show’s distinctive dark humor behind.

“So your last name is Black? That’s like if my last name was Jew, Larry Jew,” jokes Larry when he first meets Loretta Black and her family, who are displaced victims of a hurricane that stay at Larry’s house. The iconic Leon Black, Larry’s permanent houseguest, also makes his first appearance in Season 6. Beyond the great characters joining Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 6 delivers a surprising twist: Cheryl finally has enough of Larry and decides to leave him, launching Larry into a bachelor life that’s faded to failure.

1 Season 7 Gives Fans the Seinfeld Reunion They Always Wished For

• Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
• Air Date: Sep 20, 2009 – Nov 2, 2009

Curb Your Enthusiasm isn’t made exclusively for Seinfeld fans, but since the beloved sitcom marked a turning point in David’s career, there’s no shortage of references to past Seinfeld episodes. For one thing, the character of George, an overly neurotic, hysterical jerk, is based on Larry himself. Season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm doesn’t deliver a straight-up Seinfeld reunion, but something even more precious: viewers get to see both the actors reprising their iconic roles and their interactions in the backstage chaos.

Jerry Seinfeld as a recurring character in Curb Your Enthusiasm was something that fans have been hoping to see for a long time: it’s crystal clear how the great chemistry between Jerry and Larry was fundamental for Seinfeld to work. In many scenes featuring the two, Larry’s genuine laughs are a delight to see. It isn’t solely the Seinfeld reunion that makes Season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm the best, as characters such as Marty Funkhouser and Jeff are also at their best.