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The next season of HBO salacious, schadenfreude-rich dramedy The White Lotus doesn't premiere until October, so you'll need to wait months yet to witness the antics of an all-new all-star cast (Helena Bonham Carter! Heather Graham! Rosie Perez! Sandra Bernhard!) as they travel to paradise and encounter murder, mystery, and the inevitable consequences of their own greed. In the meantime, here are 10 more shows about wealthy people getting their comeuppances (or not) in lush locales.

The Perfect Couple (2024)

Though the cast includes names like Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, and Dakota Fanning, the real star of The Perfect Couple is Donna Lynne Champlin as Nikki Henry, a police detective who has no idea what she's getting into when she shows up in a wealthy Massachusetts island community to investigate a dead body on a beach. The beach is attached to a lavish mansion playing host to a society wedding involving some of the most self-satisfied rich people you'll ever encountered on television. Kidman plays novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, the mother of the groom. She has nothing but icy disdain for her future daughter-in-law, who has committed the cardinal sin of having grown up not-rich. As in The White Lotus, the murder exposes the secrets and the fault lines in a seemingly "perfect" family. Stream The Perfect Couple on Netflix.

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The Resort (2022)

Starring Christin Milioti and William Jackson Harper (The Good Place). this one plays a bit like a romantic drama take on White Lotus—the set-up and setting are similar, but it's much more about relationships than social status. A couple celebrating their tenth anniversary arrives at a luxury Yucatan resort, but things aren't as happy as they seem on the surface. Their marriage is quietly crumbling, but a young woman who went missing 15 years earlier might be the thing to bring them back together. The mystery has threads that catch on the pair's own secrets, as well as the shady history of the the resort itself; eventually, things travel into even weirder territory than what we've yet encountered on The White Lotus. Stream The Resort on Peacock.

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Nine Perfect Strangers (2021 – )

It's Nicole Kidman again, this time as Masha Dmitrichenko, overseer of up the posh wellness resort Tranquillum House. The nine strangers of the title (each season has a different all-star cast—sound familiar?) show up hoping for a little healing, but get much more than they bargained for from the mostly well-intentioned, but shady and mysterious Masha. She's secretly drugging them, for one thing, and her therapy regimen includes things like digging your own grave. It's pretty bonkers, but nobody ever said that personal growth would be easy. Stream Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu.

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The Comeback (2005  – )

Though it's significantly less murder-y and generally much funnier than The White Lotus, this is another show about clueless rich people moving through life amiably enough while only occasionally realizing how fragile their self-worth is when tied solely to money and status. Lisa Kudrow is brilliant as actress-of-a-certain-age Valerie Cherish, who has plotted one comeback after another over the course of three seasons released across two decades. Her utter shamelessness in her quest for greater fame is simultaneously admirable and embarrassing, even as the show makes clear that women face different burdens in the effort to maintain relevance. It's cringe comedy par excellence. Stream The Comeback on HBO Max.

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Big Little Lies (2017 – )

Much as with The White Lotus, part of the thrill of Big Little Lies is in watching some very rich, very attractive, very white (mostly) ladies facing tough times in beautiful locales (in this case, Monterey, California). And as on The White Lotus, any threat to the status quo can lead to big drama, as at least as much as small differences in perceived wealth. In season one, five women (played by Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz) become involved in a murder investigation connected to a school fundraiser that threatens to bring all of their private dirt out into the open—and there are secrets aplenty to uncover. Stream Big Little Lies on HBO Max.

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Billions (2016 – 2023)

Billions doesn’t have quite the bite of White Lotus, but it’s still plenty of fun, with Paul Giamatti playing rather ruthless U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (based in part on the real-life Preet Bharara), who is working to bring down shady hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). The tone is that of a darkly comic soap opera, and it stays fresh over seven seasons by playing off the contrast between Axelrod's willingness to use all the money and power at his disposal to stay on top and out of jail, and Rhoades' willingness to resort to shady, not-entirely-legal tactics to reel in his big fish. Stream Billions on Paramount+ and Prime Video.

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Enlightened (2011 – 2013)

Before The White Lotus, Mike White co-created (with star Laura Dern) this beloved, if short-lived, comedy-drama about a middle-aged woman who experiences a complete mental breakdown following a demotion at the job to which she's devoted her life. Following a two-month stay in an holistic treatment facility, Dern's Amy Jellicoe becomes determined to approach life with a new perspective, focusing on meditation and positive change at work and at home. The results are mixed, but there's also a rather beautiful sense that while change is absurd and difficult, but also entirely possible (in that, it's perhaps a lot less cynical than White's subsequent series). Stream Enlightened on HBO Max.

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Mine (2021)

South Korean TV creators have no problem criticizing the ultra-wealthy, particularly the plutocratic chaebol families who control huge portions of the country’s economy. Mine targets the women who are jockeying for control of the massive, fictional Hyowon Group from within their family’s outrageously opulent (and extremely photogenic) residential compound. The plans of two increasingly powerful women who married into the family, Hi-soo and Seo-hyun, are thrown into disarray when the new housemaid begins a romantic relationship with one of the family’s male heirs, while a new tutor seems ready to expose old family secrets. It's a Dynasty-style soap opera, but one that isn't particularly besotted by its wealthy characters, and with a self-awareness that leads to moments of dark comedy as various family members crawl over one another in pursuit of power. Stream Mine on Netflix.

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The Prisoner (1967 – 1968)

You want a show with a beautiful setting that confronts issues of identity and authoritarianism in a capitalist context? Fifty years on, The Prisoner remains one of television’s most starkly realized dystopias—and it's set in a candy-colored, pop-art-inspired village that actually looks like a pretty great place to relax. Creator/director Patrick McGoohan plays Number Six, who has resigned from his government job over a matter of conscience. Apparently knowing too much, he’s rendered unconscious and taken to the remote, inescapable “Village,” which is full of others with numbers and no names. The Village has all the comforts and conveniences one could want, and most are perfectly content there—but rebellious Number Six can’t appreciate luxurious surroundings that look to him like a gilded cage. This surreal, psychedelic series builds to a wild conclusion as the mystery of where he really is and why plays out, and makes as good an argument against the soul-crushing impacts of consumer culture and conformity as anything ever on TV. Stream The Prisoner on Prime Video and Tubi.

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Your Friends and Neighbors (2025 – )

In Your Friends & Neighbors, Jon Hamm plays Andrew "Coop" Cooper, a recently divorced, recently unemployed New York hedge fund manager. In an effort to keep up an illusion that nothing in his life has changed, he begins breaking into the homes of his wealthy neighbors to steal and sell their stuff, inadvertently catching on to their secrets as well. This dark comedy isn't exactly about how hard it is to be a once-rich white guy, but neither is it a pointed lesson in the downfalls toxic masculinity—Coop is an insider forced into the role of an outsider (playing an insider), offering him a unique perspective on the artifice at the center of a life based on flaunting wealth. Stream Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV.

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While I'd never presume to speak for her, I suspect that Margaret Atwood would be perfectly happy to be a little less hot right now, if only it meant that her works of fiction, always prescient, weren't so alarmingly present. Written in 1985, The Handmaid's Tale feels closer than ever, and its 2019 sequel, The Testaments, now has a much-anticipated adaptation of its own. While Handmaid saw a generation of women coming to grips with an oppressive Christian nationalist regime consolidating its power, The Testaments finds a later generation of young women who've never known any different; for whom this is all perfectly normal. Which feels rather real. Stream The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments on Hulu, and then check out these other fascist dystopias.

Alias Grace (2017)

It’s the other big Margaret Atwood novel adaptation (existing well in the shadow of the bigger, buzzier Handmaid’s Tale), but this miniseries is every bit as biting and well-crafted. It’s based on the true story of a poor Irish immigrant found guilty of a double homicide in 1843 under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and following a life of trauma. Years later, a psychiatrist comes to examine her and explores her past and the circumstances that might (just might) have driven a disenfranchised and powerless girl to murder. Stream Alias Grace on Netflix.

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Pluribus (2025 – )

In some ways, this is a bit of an anti-Handmaid's Tale, with Pluribus leaning toward dark comedy, but we remain in a fascist dystopia in this show from Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan, albeit of a different variety. Rhea Seehorn plays Carol Sturka, a fantasy romance author and general grouch who becomes one of only 13 people on the planet immune to the "Joining," an alien virus that transforms the rest of humanity into a peaceful, perky, and perpetually content hive mind. Carol refuses to surrender her miserableness in the face of a loss of identity, fighting instead to restore humanity to its admittedly cruddy ways. Thrilling, heartbreaking, and oddly funny, the show manages to address big questions about what it means to be human, but also, more specifically, suggests that even women who don't quite have their shit together deserve freedom of thought and bodily autonomy. Stream Pluribus on Apple TV.

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3% (2016 – 2020)

It would be tempting to see this as a metaphor for the American dream but, of course, it’s a Brazilian show, and it’s not as though inequality was invented in the United States—we’re just particularly good at it. In 3%, the impoverished young Inlanders have one shot at success: completing “The Process,” a series of interviews, puzzles, and escape rooms designed to test their worthiness to join a futuristic offshore utopia. Most fail, and many don’t survive, leaving a success rate of ... 3%. This is very much Hunger Games territory in terms of its themes, but the show has a darker, more adult edge. Stream 3% on Netflix.

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Watchmen (2019)

A standalone sequel to the groundbreaking Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins graphic novel from the '80s (one that ignores the point-missing Zack Snyder movie), this series plays in the sandbox of that book (arguably the wellspring of all modern superhero deconstruction) while advancing its themes. In an alternate Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a world where super-powered vigilantes exist but have been outlawed, the series starts, dramatically, with a depiction of the real-life massacre and destruction of Tulsa's Black Wall Street by white residents in 1921. Regina King plays Angela Abar, a modern cop whose grandparents were killed during those attacks, an event that echoes throughout the series—it's a dystopia that doesn't look all that much different from our own, with masked police operating on the edges of the law, and overtly racist organizations that hold increasing political sway. Generational trauma is at issue here, and, like The Handmaid's Tale, it's a show that looks more depressingly prescient with each passing year. Stream Watchmen on HBO Max.

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The Man in the High Castle (2015 – 2019)

From a novel by Philip K. Dick (whose work has been the basis for Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, among many others), The Man in the High Castle takes place in an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War II, and in which the United States is split down the middle; Japan governing the west and Germany the east. The title’s man in the high castle offers an alternate view, though, one in which the Allies actually won, with the potential to rally opposition to the Axis rulers. As the show progresses through its four seasons, the parallels to our increasingly Nazi-friendly world only grow. Stream The Man in the High Castle on Prime Video and Netflix.

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Mrs. America (2020)

Though fictionalized, Mrs. America dramatizes the ‘70s-era fight over the Equal Rights Amendment, the moment being, simultaneously, a high and low point in the hope for equity and autonomy. Cate Blanchett plays activist Phyllis Schlafly, who lead the fight against the (once) broadly popular proposed amendment, weaponizing the ERA by tying it to radical and pro-choice feminists, homosexuals, desegregationists, and other maligned groups. She was at the forefront of the broad conservative cultural shift that was very much in full swing when Atwood was writing Handmaid, and it’s not a bad time to take a close look at the people who made basic equality sound radical—a reminder that misogyny is not nearly only the province of white men. This is one hell of a supporting cast as well, including Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba, and Elizabeth Banks. Stream Mrs. America on Hulu.

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Mask Girl (2023)

Kim Mo-mi (Lee Han-byeol, initially), the Mask Girl of the title, is a uniquely complicated woman in this twisty-turny K-drama, one that borders on the experimental in its shifting-perspective format. Mo-mi always wanted to be a K-Pop idol, but it was always made clear to her that she's not nearly pretty enough for that kind of stardom. So, in order to fill that void, she's got a side hustle: On top of her boring office job, she puts on a blonde wig and a mask to perform as a camgirl for anonymous men. It's a means to express herself creatively and sexually with a level of control—until a mistake causes her to lose that control, a co-worker discovers her secret life, and desperation leads to murder. It's a thoroughly twisty thriller with a dark sense of humor, but one that never forgets that Mo-mi's increasingly disturbing actions are fueled by a culture that sees her as plain, and therefore as merely incidental. Stream Mask Girl on Netflix.

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Kindred (2022)

Adapted from the essential 1979 novel by Atwood contemporary Octavia Butler, Kindred sees Dana James (Mallori Johnson) pulled back through time to antebellum plantation in Maryland. Having just moved to Los Angeles in 2016 (that year being no accident), Dana finds herself repeatedly transported even as her white neighbors are concerned about the new Black woman on the block. It's not nearly as effective as the book (which should be required reading), granted, but, like the book, it makes clear that the corrupting influence of American slavery has infected everything it has touched, then and now, and that Black women bear an even greater part of that burden. Stream Kindred on Hulu.

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Leila (2019)

Plenty will seem familiar here: Adapted from the Prayaag Akbar novel, Leila finds Shalini (Huma Qureshi) living in a segregated India of the 2040s, one in which water and clean air have increasingly become luxuries. For all of that, Shalini and her family are doing better than most, until they're attacked for their interfaith marriage—husband Rizwaan is killed, their daughter is kidnapped, and Shalini is sent to a re-education center alongside other women who are seen as sinners or otherwise unclean. There's the possibility of taking what's referred to as a Purity Test, but not for women with "mixed blood" like Leila. It's a future where women are held to strict but shifting moral standards, dissent is ruthlessly put down, education that's not religious is dismissed, and the environment is increasingly precarious. Couldn't happen here, of course. Stream Leila on Netflix.

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Shining Girls (2022)

Handmaid's Tale lead Elisabeth Moss stars in this other sci-fi story from an acclaimed novel (in this case by Lauren Beukes). Moss plays Kirby Mazrachi, an archivist at the Chicago Sun-Times who was attacked and left for dead years ago. She still suffers from the trauma of the event, a legacy which becomes even more complicated when she finds reality shifting around her, and comes across a woman who was murdered, with wounds nearly identical to those that almost killed Kirby. She becomes determined to find the killer, even as the number of female victims grow. It's significant that she's an archivist and not a cop: Kirby isn't content to see these women as bodies, or as merely victims, but is determined that their stories are told. Best not to give to much more away here, except to say that there's a other significant clue in the title, referring as it does to women who stand out in a culture that doesn't always reward that kind of thing. Stream Shining Girls on Apple TV.

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Sherlock Holmes is only recently in the public domain (at least in full), and hoo boy, are creators going to make the most of it—there are at least three major Doyle-adjacent works streaming in 2026, and I'm probably missing a couple. Not that IP was ever much of a barrier, as evidenced by the hundreds of films, books, porn parodies, etc. released in the near-century since Arthur Conan Doyle's death. Which is all to say that Holmes is pretty resilient as a character, and, while I wouldn't have said that we need a zippy, Guy Ritchie Sherlock prequel—Young Sherlock is unique, and quite a bit of fun. It's stretching the character to nearly his breaking point, for sure, but maintaining at least a reasonable bit of respect for the canon, with a well-cast lead in Hero Fiennes Tiffin alongside Dónal Finn as Moriarty.

Here are some other entertainingly stylish period (mostly) dramas for your post-Young Sherlock viewing enjoyment.

The Artful Dodger (2023)

Artful Dodger serves as a sequel to Oliver Twist, finding Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster of Queen's Gambit and Wolf Hall) having made a life for himself as a surgeon following a prison escape: Turns out those nimble fingers are good for more than just picking pockets. It's all going great until his old mentor Fagin (David Thewlis) shows up on his doorstep, using their history to nudge Jack back into helping out with criminal endeavors. Thewlis and Brodie-Sangster are well-matched in the surprising and funny series that sees Jack torn between his roguish impulses and his desire to go straight. Stream The Artful Dodger on Hulu.

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The Irregulars (2021)

What sounded like a desperately unnecessary Sherlock Holmes pastiche involving the Baker Street Irregulars (led here by Bad Sisters' Thaddea Graham) layered an unexpected exploration of grief into the dark supernatural mystery at its core. Here, Watson (Royce Pierreson) hires the damaged but resourceful urchins to aid in cases involving occult activity, as well as to help track down an aging, and missing, Sherlock. Holmes angle aside, the show works as a darker, Victorian-era Stranger Things. It was canceled before its time, but comes to a reasonably satisfying conclusion. Stream The Irregulars on Netflix.

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Murdoch Mysteries (2008 – )

Kicking off in 1895, the show follows Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) of the Toronto Constabulary as he and his team solve Upper Canada's most baffling crimes. The chemistry between the leads has powered the show through 19 seasons (and counting), as has the show's whimsical attitude toward historical accuracy, throwing in real-life figures and innovations into a mix that just as readily includes technology that borders on steampunk. A bit cozier, perhaps, than Young Sherlock, but sometimes that's the perfect vibe. Stream Murdoch Mysteries on Tubi.

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A Thousand Blows (2025 – )

A spiritual follow-up to Peaky Blinders from that show's creator, this one goes back a bit further, to the 1880s, during which an all-female crime syndicate is running London's East End. True story! Erin Doherty stars as Mary Carr, leader of the Forty Elephants crew, specializing in shoplifting and confidence schemes. In A Thousand Blows, Mary and her gang come up against Stephen Graham's Henry "Sugar" Goodson (another real-world antihero), running an illicit bare-knuckle boxing organization. Coming between them is Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby), a recently arrived Jamaican immigrant who introduces us to this gritty world and its competing factions. Stream A Thousand Blows on Hulu.

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Vienna Blood (2019 – 2024)

Vienna Blood creator and writer Steve Thompson was a screenwriter for the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock series, as well as for the Young Sherlock series in question, so it perhaps makes perfect sense that this Edwardian-era crime procedural has Holmes in its DNA. Matthew Beard plays Doctor Max Liebermann, a student of Sigmund Freud who's recruited, early on, by police detective Oskar Reinhardt (Jürgen Maurer) to offer up some psychological insight to the investigation of several grisly murders. Liebermann makes brilliant deductions about character traits just as Holmes does with physical evidence, just with a bit more action and serial murder. Stream Vienna Blood on PBS Passport or buy it from Prime Video.

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Death Comes to Pemberley (2013)

This isn't a sexy, action-packed update to Pride and Prejudice, but puts a bit of a spin on the source genre much as Young Sherlock does. Adapted from the novel by P. D. James, one of the 20th century's most accomplished crime novelists, Pemberley finds us several years after the events of the Austen novel. Darcy (Matthew Rhys) and Lizzie (Anna Maxwell Martin) remain contentedly, if not always blissfully, married, and have arranged one of those balls for which Pemberley is famous. On the way there, Lizzie's sister and her husband George Wickham are traveling with Captain Denny. Wickham and Denny have a fight, disappear into the woods, and Denny turns up dead. Lizzie doesn't have time to get bored in her giant house—not when there's a murder to solve. Stream Death Comes to Pemberley on PBS Passport or buy it from Prime Video.

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Perry Mason (2020 – 2022)

Speaking of Matthew Rhys, there's this addictive odd duck of a show that takes the Perry Mason of print, film, and television, and places him in a dark and gritty Depression-era prequel. Rhys is fabulous, naturally, as a brilliant but hard-living defense lawyer, going through a divorce while still facing trauma from the Great War. He's hired to investigate the case of a kidnapped and mutilated child, one which ends up having ties to crooked cops, local business leaders, and politicians in 1932 LA. Juliet Rylance co-stars as no-nonsense legal secretary Della Street and Tatiana Maslany as a creepy evangelist. Stream Perry Mason on HBO Max.

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Monsieur Spade (2024)

An original drama from Scott Frank (The Queen's Gambit) and Tom Fontana (Homicide, Oz), Monsieur Spade finds Hammett's Sam Spade, of The Maltese Falcon fame, living a quiet life in retirement in the South of France. It's all going well for the rumpled former detective—until six nuns are brutally murdered at a nearby convent, the same convent that's been home to Sam's ward for some time. Naturally, he finds his past has caught up with him, and is forced to surrender his idyllic life in order to help uncover the complex mystery that endangers his (very few) loved ones. Clive Owen is great as the rumpled, emphysemic detective, and the story feels like a fitting sequel to the original novel. Stream Monsieur Spade on Prime Video and AMC+.

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The Gentlemen (2024 – )

Theo James plays army officer and Eddie Horniman (a name mentioned as often as possible), heir to the Horniman estate (there it is again) who, upon the death of his father, is named the Duke of Halstead. He learns that dad was tied to various criminal enterprises, and that his scouse brother is millions of pounds in debt to a drug dealer. What else is the dapper, military-trained Duke to do but learn to navigate the violent underworld while looking cool? Stream The Gentlemen on Netflix.

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Sherlock & Daughter (2025 – )

Even if the setup is removed from anything in the Doyle canon, this CW production offers up, probably, the most lit-accurate Holmes in the form of David Thewlis. He's broody, persnickety, and emotionally distant, which makes for all the more effective a contrast when Amelia Rojas (Blu Hunt) shows up on his doorstep following the death of her mother and a harrowing journey from California. With the real possibility that Sherlock is her father, she teams up with him to investigate an international criminal cartel and, hopefully, to find out what happened to her mother. The clever Amelia quickly takes the place of the missing Watson, though the show doesn't shy away from the challenges an Indigenous American young woman would face in Victorian London. Stream Sherlock & Daughter on HBO Max.

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Valerie Cherish is back, and not a moment too soon. Twenty years after a modestly rated but absolutely brilliant first season, mega-cringe Hollywood satire The Comeback has returned to HBO for one more painfully embarrassing season (complimentary) Co-created by and starring Lisa Kudrow, it's the hilarious, dark, and occasionally moving story of a C-list celebrity determined to stay in the limelight at whatever cost.

Valerie Cherish—clueless, egotistical, and all-too-human—is one of TV's indelible characters, simultaneously a victim of ageism, misogyny, and celebrity culture, and also a woman who doesn't care about any of that provided she can find a way to scrabble to the top. Likewise, these 10 shows spotlight women (mostly) of a certain age navigating career challenges with...mixed results.

Hacks (2021 – )

On the surface, Valerie Cherish and Deborah Vance don't have all that much in common, but they often feel like two sides of a coin in the ways in which they battle, and concede to, the pressures of being a woman in modern show business. Hacks finds 25-year-old writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) struggling to get her career back one track after getting cancelled over a tweet. She reluctantly takes a job with Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a comedy trailblazer who remains popular with an older Vegas crown, but whose career is largely on autopilot. They're an entirely mismatched pair, but their chemistry is ultimately explosive, with Jean Smart doing some of the best work of her incredible career as the often deeply unlikeable Vance, and Einbinder more than holding her own in return. It's funny, bitchy, and surprisingly moving when it wants to be. Stream Hacks on HBO Max.

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Girls5eva (2021 – 2024)

The premise is very much about a comeback: A very ‘90s group (Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell, and Renée Elise Goldsberry) who made it big very briefly with exactly one hit song gets its own shot at a career resurgence (they’re Girls5eva because they expected to be in the game “longer than 4 ever”—turned out, not so much; also there used to be a fifth member, but she died in a tragic infinity pool accident). After an up-and-coming rapper samples one of their old hits, the band reunites to try to find new relevancy in the 2020s. It doesn't go great! Tina Fey is one of the executive producers, and the (very fun) '90s-inspired original music was composed and written for the show by the creators. Stream Girls5Eva on Peacock and Netflix.

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Veep (2012 – 2019)

There's a sweet vulnerability to Valerie Cherish absent from pretty much anyone in Veep, but the air of cringeworthy desperation hangs heavy over both shows. Veep asks: What if the very worst people imaginable had control of all the levers of power in America? What would that be like? In the highly satirical and in no way politically relevant series, Julia Louis-Dreyfus brilliantly plays Vice President Selina Meyer: part icon, part worst-case-scenario for the feminist dream. The supporting cast consists almost entirely of entitled rich people climbing over each other for infinitesimal extra bits of power while trying to appear as folk heroes to the rubes (us voters). It’s one of the funniest shows ever on TV, with the nastiest put-downs...if you can handle the fact that history has overtaken it in favor of a reality that's even more absurd. Stream Veep on HBO Max.

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The Studio (2025 – )

Industry exec Matt Remick (Comeback vet Seth Rogen) loves movies, and when he signs on for a high-profile role at the fictional Continental Studios, he feels like his time has come. He aims to make a real difference in returning an increasingly IP-driven movie industry to its creative roots.—until about a minute into his new job, when the CEO (Bryan Cranston) reveals his first order of business will be marketing the Kool-Aid Man Movie. Hollywood satires of yore have focused on the industry as one that eats people up and spits them out, but the spin here is that Remick yearns for those good old days, much as Valerie can never quite seem to move forward. The late Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies), and Kathryn Hahn also star, and like The Comeback, the show boasts a long list of celebrity cameos. Stream The Studio on Apple TV+.

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Enlightened (2011 – 2013)

Before The White Lotus, Mike White co-created (with star Laura Dern) this beloved, if short-lived, comedy-drama about a middle-aged woman who has a complete mental breakdown following a demotion at the job to which she's devoted her life. Following a two-month stay in an holistic treatment facility, Dern's Amy Jellicoe becomes determined to approach life with a new perspective, focusing on meditation and positive change at work and at home. The results are mixed, but there's also a rather beautiful sense that change is absurd and difficult, but also entirely possible. Stream Enlightened on HBO Max.

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No Good Deed (2024)

I'm adding this one largely for the Lisa Kudrow of it all, but there's a similar vein of dark comedy here—plus, No Good Deed is a pretty great show that a lot of people missed. The setup sounds like a juicy crime thrillers: Kudrow is retired pianist Lydia; Ray Romano is her husband, Paul. The two are in rather tricky financial straits and need to sell their home without wanting to seem too desperate to prospective buyers—and also hide a secret involving a death a few years prior. For all that, it's very much a comedy, with a great supporting cast that includes Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson, O-T Fagbenle, and Teyonah Parris. Stream No Good Deed on Netflix.

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Younger (2015 – 2021)

Rather than a young woman seeking to make a name for herself, Younger follows Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), a recently divorced woman in her 40s who finds that age is a barrier to reentering the publishing industry she left years earlier. After a compliment convinces her that she could pass for a younger woman, she lies that she's just 26 (must be nice) in order to land an entry-level job. Misadventures ensue. Think of it as a story of coming-of-age, again. Stream Younger on Netflix.

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Hot in Cleveland (2010 – 2015)

In contrast to The Comeback's reality TV style and structure, this is very much a traditional three-camera sitcom, albeit one with a stacked cast of legends, though it approaches the challenges of being a middle-aged woman in entertainment in many of the same ways. Writer Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli), beautician Joy (Jane Leeves), and soap diva Victoria (Wendie Malick) wind up spending a wild night in Cleveland after a plane to Paris is diverted, discovering in the process that, while they're seen as over-the-hill back in Los Angeles, they're all Ohio 10s—though the sassy caretaker of their house, Elka (Betty White), might not agree. Stream Hot in Cleveland on Paramount+.

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Grace and Frankie (2015 – 2022)

Close female friendships are hard to come by for the driven, slightly clueless Valerie, a woman focused on staying on top. Jane Fonda's Grace, a cosmetics mogul, isn't much different at the start, but she finds a different path when she makes a truce with her arch-nemesis Frankie (Lily Tomlin), a quirky artist with whom she has nothing in common—other than the fact that their husbands left them for one another. (Valerie might take some notes.) Stream Grace and Frankie on Netflix.

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Call My Agent! (2015 – 2020)

International sensation Call My Agent! shifts its focus between four talent agents at a prestigious firm who are forced to take the reins following the sudden death of the agency founder, all of them getting a second chance in mid-career—or beyond. The cast is lead by Camille Cottin as Andréa Martel, while Liliane Rovère's Arlette Azéma is in her '80s. They navigate their messy personal lives while catering to the needs of their real celebrity clients (Juliette Binoche, Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, and Sigourney Weaver are just some of the name guest stars playing faintly exaggerated versions of themselves). It's soapy, addictive showbiz fun, a dishy delight even if you know not a lick of French. Stream Call My Agent! on Netflix.

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In its 15th season, unlikely phenomenon Call the Midwife hasn't slowed down: Season 16 is already confirmed, as are a feature film and a WWII-era prequel series. Plenty of babies still need to be born, it would seem.

Initially set in 1957, with the current plots entering the 1970s, the show takes place in and around Poplar, London, one of the city's most desperately poor districts. As the National Health Service is born, secular trained midwives team up with the nuns of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent that had been in the business of providing medical care to the area's poor for decades. Though occasionally veering into schmaltz, the show's melodrama is generally well-earned, often dealing frankly with issues of women's health that other shows are still too timid to broach. If you've already plowed through all the available episodes, here are 10 more series with similar themes.

The Bletchley Circle (2012 – 2014)

Starting, like Call the Midwife, in the, mid-1950s, this series follows the women (mostly) who worked at the Bletchley Park estate during World War II. The workforce was charged operating cryptographic machinery and translating documents—essential code-breaking work that was largely forgotten by history, buried under heavy classification. This show isn't exactly about those events, though, instead focusing on a group of four women who reunite several years later to use their skills to hunt a serial killer. It's a juicy way to connect with the real story of women who served the war effort with a juicy plot, and the verisimilitude is legit—the show draws contrasts between the women's lives during wartime and their more domestic expectations once it was all over. Stream The Bletchley Circle on Peacock and Prime Video.

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All Creatures Great and Small (2020 – )

An update of a venerable British franchise based on a series of autobiographical novels from writer James Herriot, All Creatures takes us back to the rural Yorkshire Dales of the 1930s and '40s (as the series progresses into World War II and beyond), with a Scottish vet (Nicholas Ralph) moving to the small farming town of Darrowby to take up a job as a veterinary assistant. Animals are in jeopardy on a weekly basis, but the big-hearted show only rarely goes for the gut punch—favoring instead lots of baby cows and cameos from local pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo. Anna Madeley's housekeeper Audrey Hall and Rachel Shenton's farmer Helen keep the often-struggling practice together. It's not quite the human drama of Call the Midwife, though it does deal with some real challenges of the era. Stream All Creatures Great and Small on Prime Video and PBS.

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Land Girls (2009 – 2011)

Stepping back a few years into World War II proper, the subject here is another less-well-remembered bit of history: The Women's Land Army, and the "Land Girls" who signed up to learn about farming and agriculture in order to replace male farmworkers who'd gone off to fight. Here, four very different women, with very different reasons for signing up, arrive at the farm on the Hoxley estate in order to serve their country, but also to figure out what they want out of life. Like the best shows of its kind, Land Girls also deals with issues contemporary to women of the era, as in the very first episode when the women are confronted by segregation among the American soldiers with whom they come into contact. Stream Land Girls on PBS or buy it from Prime Video.

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Grantchester (2014 – )

In 1950s and '60s Cambridgeshire, Robson Green plays overworked, cynical WWII-veteran police detective Geordie Keating, while James Norton, Tom Brittney, and Rishi Nair (in succession) play well-meaning but occasionally straying local priests who help solve the inevitable string of murders. While generally adhering to the cozy mystery-of-the-week format, the show occasionally dives into heavy relationship drama as well as some real-world drama, often involving Al Weaver's curate Leonard Finch, who struggles with the clerical and legal ramifications of being gay. Stream Grantchester on Netflix and PBS.

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Virgin River (2019 – )

It's not late 20th century London, but rather contemporary Northern California, but we still get some of Call the Midwife's life-affirming charm alongside modern midwifery. Virgin River stars Alexandra Breckenridge as Mel, a nurse practitioner and midwife who finds unexpected complications when she moves to the title Northern California town on a one-year contract. That was seven romantic seasons ago, s you have years' worth of high-end comfort viewing to enjoy. Stream Virgin River on Netflix.

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Cable Girls (2017 – 2020)

Whatever the genre, there's a recurring theme across many of these shows, and it as to do with women leaving familiar settings and taking on roles and responsibilities in field that are either altogether new, or new to women. Set in 1928, this Spanish import finds four women from different backgrounds seeking employment at a telecommunications company in Madrid. Ángeles is an experienced switchboard operator with kids to feed, Carlota is a society gal looking to get out from under her controlling family, Marga's looking for an adventure, and Lidia has been forced into a criminal enterprise. The show blends empowering history with enough telenovela-style twists to propel it through five seasons. Stream Cable Girls on Netflix.

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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017 – 2023)

One of Prime’s first and buzziest original series, this comedy-drama from Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls) follows Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), a New York housewife of the late 1950s who discovers a talent for stand-up comedy. Inspired by the real-life careers of comedians like Totie Fields and Joan Rivers, the show is both warm and funny, with great performances and dialogue; it also achieves something rare in being a show about comedy that’s actually funny. A New York housewife striking out to become a stand up might not pair up exactly with London midwifery, but Maisel and Midwife share the exhilarating feeling of women broadening their own horizons in the middle of the last century. Stream The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Prime Video.

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The Crimson Field (2014)

Perhaps inspired by Call the Midwife itself, The Crimson Field goes back a bit further into the 20th century: specifically, a fictional World War I field hospital on the French coast. Oona Chaplin star as Kitty Trevelyan, a somewhat surly (sassy, even) new nurse, joined by several other mostly-upper-class women who are entirely new to both the realities of war, and to being told what to do. It's a particularly glossy period drama, for better and for worse (a WWI medical drama could have done with a bit more grit), but it's a very watchable window into history, with some fabulous performances. Stream The Crimson Field on Prime Video and Tubi.

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The Hour (2011 – 2012)

With a rather brilliant cast and impeccable period style, The Hour charts the rise of a (fictional) BBC current affairs program, led by women and premiering in the middle of the 1956 Suez Crisis—a challenge in itself, as the government isn't particularly keen to have its missteps reported on (luckily, such censorship could never happen today). Producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) chooses war correspondent Lix Storm (the great Anna Chancellor) as foreign correspondent alongside less-accomplished anchor, Hector Madden (Dominic West), while scrappy reporter Freddie Lyon (Ben Whislaw) is desperate to get onboard. There are spies, murder, and plenty of then-current affairs spread across the show's two seasons. Stream The Hour on Tubi.

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London Hospital (2006 – 2009)

Particularly in its early seasons, Call the Midwife highlighted the challenges of practicing medicine in the poorest areas of London in a time before medical standards were what they are today. London Hospital could almost serve as prequel, set among the nurses and in the Receiving Room of the real-life Royal London Hospital during the early years of the 20th century. Each episode is based, however loosely, on real-life cases taken from nurses' logs and diaries, and the episodes present each incident with the pacing of a modern medical drama, eschewing period-show gloss. Broken up into three groups of episodes set in 1906, 1907, and 1909, we're faced with the challenges of early anesthesia, a world before antibiotics, and innovations in X-ray technology without a full understanding of the dangers of radiation. Rent London Hospital from Apple TV+.

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Dark began as a mystery involving a missing child and evolved, over its three seasons, into a wildly complex narrative: a time travel-driven story that explores dark family secrets over the course of several generations. Youth may be a sort of protection in some horror stories, but not here, not even a little tiny bit. No one is safe from the show's emotions threats, nor from literally being killed. Dark gets twistier and more compelling throughout its three seasons and, miracle of miracles, ends on its own terms and on a highly satisfying note. There's nothing quite like it out there, which is a big part of the appeal, but it's certainly not the only show with a smart, mature tone and compellingly twisty mysteries. Stream Dark on Netflix and then check out these other smart and spooky shows.

Wayward Pines (2015 – 2016)

Based on a trilogy of Blake Crouch novels, the show, initially, stars Matt Dillon as a Secret Service agent investigating the disappearances of two fellow agents in the Idaho town of Wayward Pines. Things go awry pretty much immediately, and he wakes up from a car accident to find one of the agents (Carla Gugino), who's also his ex, having settled down in the seemingly idyllic community—and she's 12 years older than when he last saw her a few weeks ago. Even more dramatically, the local sheriff (Terrence Howard) enforces a strict "no one ever leaves" policy, on pain of having one's neck slit. The mysteries pile up from there. Stream Wayward Pines on Hulu.

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From (2022 – )

Here we travel to The Town (we never get a name—definitely a red flag), from which no one can ever leave. The residents and visitors aren't metaphorically trapped, but literally so, and are beset by creatures come from the woods and kill anyone found outside after dark. The Matthews family learn all about this firsthand when they roll into town in their RV and find themselves trapped alongside the local sheriff (Harold Perrineau)—just as the sun's going down. The show's monsters aren't just mindlessly hungry, they're cunning and sadistic, and more than capable of killing residents in impressively gory ways. It's very much a supernatural spin on the "small towns ain't what they seem" vibe. Stream From on MGM+ or buy it from Prime Video.

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12 Monkeys (2015 – 2018)

Though the series at first felt like a pointless retread of the Terry Gilliam film (and of La Jetée, on which that was based), the series eventually began to luxuriate in its extended timeline and use it to ruminate on ideas of free will versus predetermination, even while throwing in plenty of action and mystery. Well before the end of the first season, the show found its sometimes-confusing (but always heady) groove. It’s sort of a pre-apocalypse story, with time travelers from a pretty rotten future sent back into the past to seek out and stop the release of a virus that will ultimately kill seven billion humans, and that’s expected to continue to mutate and eventually wipe out everyone left. Stream 12 Monkeys on Prime Video.

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1899 (2022)

The steamship Kerberos is headed to New York City from Southampton in the UK, full of immigrants ready to start a new life. Sounds inspirational, except for that portentously named ship—and the fact that the series comes from Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar of Dark fame. The passengers soon discover that the boat isn't just a boat, but includes portals to other locations and seemingly even other times. The unplanned ending (the show was cancelled) answers some questions while raising many others. Still: a bit of spooky fun on a boat. Stream 1899 on Netflix.

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Twin Peaks (1990 – 1991, 2017)

With all due respect to every other "small towns are weird" show, including Dark, I'm not sure that there's any finer example of the form than than this addictive bit of weirdness from David Lynch and Mark Frost. Teens and adults in the deceptively quiet Twin Peaks face tragedy accompanied by supernatural threats from outside of our normal space and time. I think? The mysteries here aren't really meant to be solved as much as pondered with an eye toward nebulous existential dread (and if that's not your idea of fun, I'm not sure what you're doing here). Kyle MacLachlan plays FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who arrives in the title town to investigate the murder of teenager homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), precipitating a (very) long night of the soul as Cooper uncovers secrets and mysteries among the town's delightfully, and often disturbingly, weird residents. As good as the original is, the anti-nostalgic followup series is a triumph. Stream Twin Peaks on Paramount+.

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Signal (2016 – )

Blending police procedural, mystery, and science fiction, this K-drama remains one of the most-watched dramas in South Korean TV history—enough that a second season is coming after a wait of nearly 10 years. Police profiler Park Hae-young (Lee Je-hoon) finds a discarded walkie-talkie that connects him with Detective Lee Jae-han (Cho Jin-woong), who disappeared in 2000 but who is able to communicate from an earlier time. The two detectives are able to work together, across time, to solve a very cold case—but soon discover that there are disturbing consequences in the present when they fiddle with time. Stream Signal on Netflix.

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Curon (2020)

Set near the real-life Lago di Resia in northern Italy, the show was inspired by the lake's singular view: the bell tower of a 14th century chapel rising above the water, the only visible remains of a village submerged by a dam in the 1950s. That eerie setting is home to Anna Raina (Valeria Bilello); it was, anyway, until she fled while pregnant with her twin daughters following her mother's tragic and mysterious death. The twins are now teenagers, and the three of them have returned—except nobody seems to want them around. They come to learn that Anna's been having dreams about her mother's death in which she's the killer, and then she herself disappears. It all ties back to that lake and the creepy bell tower. Stream Curon on Netflix.

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Fringe (2008 – 2013)

We don't talk nearly enough about Fringe, a smart sci-fi/crime procedural that served as a true successor to the X-Files (and that wrapped more satisfyingly than that show ever did, even given multiple tries). Starting out as a kind of weird-mystery-of-the-week thing with Anna Torv as FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson as civilian consultant Peter and John Noble as his science-guy dad, Walter, straight out of a mental institution. It soon becomes clear that the odd occurrences they've been investigating are all linked to potentially universe-ending incursions across time and space, and that Walter has dark secrets that are both personal and existentially profound. Stream Fringe on Hulu.

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Archive 81 (2022)

A clever and spooky horror noir that gets a mixed recommendation only because of Netflix's tendency to cancel shows after a single season. Archive 81 stars Mamoudou Athie as archivist Dan, hired to restore some old tapes from the 1990s. What follows involves a demonic cult, Lovecraftian horrors, and a jazz-age demon cult. It builds an impressive horror mythology that it only barely had a chance to develop. And yet! We love a spooky tape moment. Stream Archive 81 on Netflix.

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Channel Zero (2016 – 2018)

A mind-bending and occasionally gruesome expansion of various online creepypastas, Nick Antosca's series takes the form of four season-long storylines. While the tone is far from juvenile, the vibe here is childhood-nightmares-come-to-life: The show's first season anticipates I Saw the TV Glow with a story about a half-remembered TV series linked to the disappearances of several children; another finds a couple of sisters dealing with cannibals and a mysterious staircase in the middle of the woods, while the last has a newlywed couple finding a mysterious door that unlocks childhood anxieties (and a freaky clown). The most Dark-like (perhaps) is the second season, which sees a group of friends trapped in a tourist-attraction haunted house that exits into a disturbing alternate reality. It's all smart and genuinely freaky, existential dread blending with memorable visuals such as a child made entirely of human teeth. Stream Channel Zero on Shudder and AMC+ or buy it from Prime Video.

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Feria: The Darkest Light (2022)

Dark deeds and supernatural forces from the past haunt multiple generations—this time, in 1995 Andalusia. This import finds teenage sisters Sofia and Eva caught in a nightmare when their parents go missing while being implicated in a cult ritual that's left 23 people dead, including a woman who'd been missing for years. Tying back to 1975 and, implicitly, the fall of Francisco Franco, Feria shatters this small town's sense of community and security while calling into question the value of the organizations—including government and church—that everyone holds dear. Kids getting caught up in generational cycles of violence and shame is an extremely recognizable vibe. Stream Feria on Netflix.

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Tales From the Loop (2020)

A gorgeous-looking anthology, Tales From the Loop takes place in the small town of Mercer, Ohio—a town that happens to sit upon the titular Loop, a physics lab exploring mysteries for which science has no answers. Each episode offers the story of a person or family in the town impacted by the work of the Loop, in slow-burning stories about the intersection of technology and human existence. It’s based on a conceptual art book by artist Simon Stålenhag, and successfully ports over that book’s striking look and feel. Stream Tales from the Loop on Prime Video.

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The OA (2016 – 2019)

The unclassifiable sci-fi/mystery series stars Brit Marling as Prairie Johnson (Brit Marling), a woman who returns after a seven-year disappearance, proclaiming herself to be the “original angel”; aiding her case is the fact that she has the ability to see, though she was previously blind. She assembles a group of young people to help her in a mission to save others who've been lost, which she can only do by opening a portal to another dimension. The critically acclaimed show was unceremoniously cancelled after two seasons, which hasn't stopped people talking about the show and its mysteries. Stream The OA on Netflix.

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The Leftovers (2014 – 2017)

The premise of The Leftovers is brilliantly subdued: Around 2% of the world's population disappears without explanation, and it's enough to upend just about everything. Politics have adapted to the new normal, religions have collapsed and reformed, and families have had to make peace with the inexplicable loss of loved ones. The first season revolves around the Garvey family. led by Kevin (Justin Theroux), a sheriff whose wife (Amy Brenneman) left him to join a cult, while subsequent seasons broaden the scope to bring in other characters in other locations. Showrunner Damon Lindelof also co-created Lost, and the two series share some similarities (including a relatively grim tone), but where Lost spun out of control, The Leftovers recognizes that complex plotting and the search for answers is really the point. Stream The Leftovers on HBO Max.

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Gravity Falls (2012 – 2016)

Finally, a little something for the kids, who also deserve a spooky mystery or two. (I say "kids," but this is genuinely pretty fun for all ages.) The much-loved, if relatively short-lived, animated series follows twin siblings Mabel and Dipper Pines (Kristen Schaal and Jason Ritter) sent to spend the summer with their great uncle (aka "Grunkle") Stan (voiced by show creator Alex Hirsch). While helping Stan run his mystery-themed tourist shack, the kids run into a series of supernatural mysteries, many related to the show's ultimate antagonist, dream demon Bill Cipher. The show's finale was similarly a blockbuster—the highest rated telecast in the history of Disney XD, as a matter of fact. Not terrifying, perhaps, but genuinely clever. Stream Gravity Falls on Disney+.

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So successful was the first season of Shōgun, based on the 1975 James Clavell novel, that two further seasons have been commissioned to continue the story, even though the adaptation has run out of material.

Set at the tail-end of Japan's Warring States period, the series sees ambitious English maritime pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) shipwrecked in Japan and in the power of powerful warlord Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada). Each of these two men has something to offer the other, and reluctantly serving as the translator between them is Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), who is loyal to Toranaga but has a complicated past.

With analogues from real history, there's a verisimilitude to everything in this (mostly) Japanese-language drama, alongside the Game of Thrones-esque intrigue and drama. Finding a good streamalike is a little tough: There are plenty of films set during the same rough timeframe, and as many jidaigeki period dramas that are a little harder to stream for audiences outside of Japan. Instead, here are suggestions for other dramas that explore the complicated histories of cultures in transition. Stream Shōgun on Hulu.

Pachinko (2022 – )

Starting in 1915, this multigenerational saga follows one woman (played in different time periods by Youn Yuh-jung and Kim Min-ha) and her family, taking us from the Japanese occupation of Korea through the decades of the Korean diaspora. With her opportunities limited, Sunja leaves her home and family in Busan to pursue a life in Japan, even as racism and anti-immigrant sentiment are rampant amid the war. In a parallel narrative that begins in 1989, we see what has and hasn't changed for Sunja and her family. It’s a journey as personal as it is epic, with better location cinematography than most movies—and an opening credits sequence that puts a smile on my face every single time. Stream Pachinko on Apple TV+.

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Into the Badlands (2015 – 2019)

A rollicking martial arts drama set in a dystopian future, this one is definitely not a historical drama, but the Shögun vibes are there. About 500 years from now, war has eradicated anything resembling civilization and left the planet ravaged, even as some vestiges of technology remain. Firearms are largely taboo, given the devastation they've caused—allowing for an action apocalypse dominated by kick-ass martial arts combat. The Badlands, Rocky Mountains, and Mississippi River are transformed into competing feudal kingdoms, dominated by Marton Csokas's creepy, over-the-top Baron Quinn and, at least initially, his chief lieutenant Sunny (Daniel Wu). Despite the sci-fi trappings, the inspirations here blend wuxia and pre-modern Chinese history, giving the show the feel of history without any strict adherence to it whatsoever. Stream Into the Badlands on Prime Video.

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Deadwood (2004 – 2006, 2019)

There are no major set piece battles here, and the setting is centuries ahead of, and half a world away from, that of Shōgun. Still, the stakes are similar, even if the scale is a bit smaller—both shows deal in the bloody, messy, complicated process of building a community and the inescapable outside pressures that can derail the attempt. Deadwood drops us into the thick of the Wild West era, when many an American fortune would be made. One-time sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) comes into the tiny but fast-growing Black Hills town in hope of a new life, but finds himself quickly dealing with the growing pains of a nascent American community and the machinations of its real leader, local saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane). Grimy gambling parlors are where the power moves happen in Deadwood, and creator David Chase is interested in the small triumphs and huge compromises that gave birth to modern America. Stream Deadwood on HBO Max.

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Samurai Champloo (2004 – 2005)

Set in early Edo Japan (the era birthed by the real-life events that inspired Shōgun), Samurai Champloo references real events, though it’s not a history lesson and is filled with wildly anachronistic elements (including a hip-hop score). It opens with the execution ceremony for two samurai, Mugen and Jin, then quickly flashes back to the events of the day previous: a waitress named Fuu is being harassed by the son of the village prefect. Mugen, the more irreverent and mercenary of the two, helps her for the promise of free dumplings; the more stoic and honor-obsessed Jin helps because he can’t abide the injustice. The two samurai wind up traveling the country with Fuu in search of the mysterious Sunflower Samurai, bound together by fate and circumstance. This was director Shinichirō Watanabe’s follow-up to Cowboy Bebop, and it carries on its predecessor’s style of standalone stories shot through with subtle overarching plot threads. Stream Samurai Champloo on Crunchyroll or buy it from Prime Video.

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Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan (2021)

Despite its composite characters and tweaking of events, Shōgun does a better job at capturing the feel of its era than many a less-fictionalized narrative. Still, it may well leave you with a hunger for more of the real history of late Sengoku period Japan, which is where this documentary series comes in. Age of Samurai uses dramatized recreations (rather than talking heads) to bring the bloody events to life, covering unification of Japan and the decades leading up to the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu (Shōgun's Yoshii Toranaga), and the climactic battle that cemented his dynasty's power for centuries after. Stream Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan on Netflix.

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Chief of War (2025 – )

Jason Momoa co-created and stars in this historical drama set in the late 18th century, when Hawaiʻi, Maui, Oʻahu, and Kauaʻi were locked in their own warring states period, even while navigating relationships with colonial powers. Mamoa plays real-life Kauaʻi Chief Kaʻiana, who joins in the battle for unification under the future Kamehameha the Great, before rebelling. It's a deeply complicated bit of history, and the show doesn't shy away from that, but it's punctuated by bloody battles and impressively mounted action sequences. Benjamin Hoetjes plays John Young, the British subject who becomes a military advisor to Kamehameha, while Luciane Buchanan plays Kaʻahumanu, princess and power broker. Stream Chief of War on Apple TV+.

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Wolf Hall (2015, 2024)

Adapting the Hilary Mantel novel trilogy across two miniseries, Wolf Hall stars Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, who rose from nothing to become the second most powerful person in Henry VIII's England—no small feat under the best of circumstances, but very nearly impossible given the rigid class structure of the time and place. On the surface, it's a quieter drama than many of the others here, but the political machinations are no less intense, and the stakes no less operatic. It's Cromwell's show, but not far in the background is Claire Foy’s Anne Boleyn, first an ally and then a bitter enemy (this is certainly one of the finest portrayals of the much-maligned queen in TV or cinema). Each character quickly comes to realize that they're walking tightropes, with power deriving from a deeply fickle king whose enormous hubris would come to shape centuries of history. Stream Wolf Hall on PBS or buy it from Prime Video.

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Kingdom (2019 – 2021)

Kingdom opens a window into the middle of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, an era that ran for over 500 years and nearly to the 20th century—overlapping, for much of that time with Japan's Edo period, the origins of which are fictionalized in Shōgun. History doesn't record an actual zombie plague during the early years of the 17th century, though, so a few liberties have been taken. As the series opens, rumors are swirling that the king has died, and his son, Crown Prince Lee Chang, is trying to find out the truth. Turns out that the king did, in fact, die—of smallpox—but the Queen Consort and her father, a powerful courtier, have a plan: They’ve given the king a little-known plant that will revive him long enough to produce an heir, but there's an unfortunate side-effect (you can see where this is headed). Since Lee Chang is merely the son of a concubine, he’d lose his claim to the throne in such an event. The show deftly combines horror and political intrigue, making it rather more than the sum of its parts. It ran for for two seasons with a spin-off movie, Ashin of the North. Stream Kingdom on Netflix.

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The Last Kingdom (2018 – 2022)

Warring kingdoms. Clashing cultures. Internal and external pressures: These themes echo through history, and we see much of it in The Last Kingdom as in Shōgun. Starting in 866, the show follows Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon), a Saxon taken by Vikings as a child and subsequently raised by a Danish warlord. When his adoptive father is killed by another Dane, he enters the service of Saxon King Alfred, hoping that the alliance will allow him to avenge his loss. Instead, he's forced to choose between the Saxons of his birth and the Danes he has come to identify with. The drama plays out against the backdrop of an England rife with warring kingdoms and facing conquest by outsiders. Stream The Last Kingdom on Netflix.

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Jin (2009 – 2011)

Just a time-traveling romance about a modern-day brain surgeon trapped in late Edo-period Japan. Not as weird as it sounds—Japanese pop culture is full of stories of modern people visiting the pre-war Japan, perhaps with a view toward a seemingly simpler time. Takao Osawa stars as Jin Minakata, who's spent two years grieving his fiancee, who lies in a vegetative state. A head injury sends him back in time, and he uses his medical knowledge to help people on the sly, even as history unfolds around him. Think Outlander East. Stream Jin on Netflix.

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For all the talk about Stranger Things taking nearly a decade to produce just five seasons of television, consider The Night Manager: It took this British spy thriller 10 years just to get to season two. Luckily, audiences seem to have been willing to wait, as they show performed decently in the streaming ratings when it dropped on Prime Video earlier this year.

There's a reason viewers were anxious for more, even after such a long wait: Based on a John le Carré novel and starring Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, the series finds the manager of a luxury Cairo hotel running afoul of an Egyptian crime boss with ties to Dickie Roper (Hugh Laurie), one of the world's wealthiest and best-connected businessmen. Roper is a wildly charismatic, entirely amoral arms dealer and Angela Burr (the flawless Olivia Colman) is a Foreign Office agent on a quixotic quest to bring him to justice. It's crackerjack stuff.

While you're waiting for a rumored third season, which hopefully won't take a decade, here are 15 other spy thrillers to keep you occupied. Stream The Night Manager on Prime Video.

The Ipcress File (2022)

Len Deighton occupies a similar place in the literary spy canon as John le Carré, and here Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders) is cast as Len Deighton's lead anti-hero, unnamed in the novels, but known as "Harry Palmer" in various adaptations going back to the 1960s. Set in 1963, this show sees Tom Hollander's Major Dalby offer scrappy crook Palmer a deal: If he agrees to work as an intelligence officer, he'll get a ticket out of military prison. Naturally, his first case, involving a missing nuclear scientist, expands into a globe-hopping espionage adventure with impeccable period vibes. Stream The Ipcress File on Prime Video.

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A Spy Among Friends (2022)

The best spy dramas have a grounding in truth (or feel like they do), so it doesn't hurt that A Spy Among Friends is based almost entirely on fact In the early 1960s, high-ranking MI6 operative Kim Philby (Guy Pearce) is revealed to have been a double agent, and is doggedly pursued by his former colleague Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis). The miniseries is framed around a particularly tense encounter between the two men, just as Elliott has been tasked with uncovering the details of his friend's decades-long betrayal. Stream A Spy Among Friends on MGM+ and Britbox.

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Black Doves (2024 – )

This genre-bender has been a bit of a hit for Netflix—enough to have earned a second-season renewal. Keira Knightly stars as Helen Webb, wife of the Secretary of State for Defence of the U.K., and a secret spy in the employ of the mercenary spy organization of the title. She learns from her handler (Sarah Lancashire) that her lover has been killed, thus potentially blowing her cover, but luckily she has a hitman bestie (Ben Whislaw) to help her out. It's all deliberately pulpy, with a tongue-in-cheek self-awareness that lightens the tone. Stream Black Doves on Netflix.

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The Day of the Jackal (2024 – )

Cinematic in scope, this new adaptation of the Frederick Forsyth novel is buoyed by brilliant casting: Eddie Redmayne plays the Jackal, a steely international assassin pursued by MI6 operative Bianca Pullman, played by Lashana Lynch (putting her experience as the new 007 in No Time to Die to good use). I'm not sure there's anything here we haven't seen in countless other spy thrillers (including, of course, the 1973 and 1997 film adaptations), but the performances and production values are top-notch, with each episode playing out like a tense mini-movie. Stream The Day of the Jackal on Peacock.

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Slow Horses (2022 – )

With nods to the great spy dramas of John le Carré, Slow Horses updates the setting without losing the thrills or the style of a time-honored genre. The “Slow Horses” of the title is a group of has-been (and never-were) MI5 agents—they’ve all made messes of their jobs, but are still seen as having some use, if only in dull administrative tasks. Naturally, the group (lead by Gary Oldman's brilliantly crude, flatulent Jackson Lamb alongside foil and spymaster Diana Taverner, played by Kristin Scott Thomas) finds themselves in deeper waters than anyone had expected of them. An adaptation of Mick Harron's novel series, the show has a sly sense of humor, balancing a cynical tone with a conviction that redemption is possible, if not easy. Stream Slow Horses on Apple TV+

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The Little Drummer Girl (2018)

South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave, No Other Choice) directs this series, based, like Night Manager, on a John le Carré novel, bringing an undeniably sexy period style into the mix. Florence Pugh is Charlie, a young actress recruited by Mossad spymaster Martin Kurtz (Michael Shannon) to infiltrate a group of Palestinian terrorists, even as she's being manipulated by an Israeli intelligence officer (Alexander Skarsgård). Crucially, like the book, the show offers nuanced characters on multiple sides of the conflict, raising serious questions about who the real villains are. Stream The Little Drummer Girl on AMC+ or buy it from Prime Video.

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The Agency: Central Intelligence (2024 – )

Michael Fassbender stars here as "Martian," the codename for Brandon Colby, a former undercover CIA agent just returned to London after six years in Sudan. He's left behind a lover, Dr. Samia Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith)—a relationship he wasn't terribly forthcoming about with his handlers. When Sami turns up in London as part of a diplomatic delegation, Martian is forced to choose between his job and his personal life, which becomes more complicated when it appears that she's involved in a broader scheme involving the Sudanese government, MI6, and an undercover agent in Belarus. It's all very twisty-turny in the best tradition of spy shows, with a great cast: Jeffrey Wright plays Martian's boss and mentor; Richard Gere, the CIA London Station Chief; and Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville, a shifty senior MI6 operative. Stream The Agency on Paramount+.

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Snowdrop (2021 – 2022)

It's late 1987, and university students Yeong-ro (Jisoo) and Soo-ho (Jung Hae-in) meet-cute in a coffee shop. She's an English Lit student, and he's an Economics grad student—or so he says. The story starts to crumble when he shows up in Yeong-ro's dorm room covered in blood. She thinks he's a pro-democracy protester hiding from the police, but actually, he's a North Korean spy sent to bring a professor back with him. The show earned itself a fair bit of controversy for suggesting that the struggle which lead to South Korean democracy was infiltrated by spies, but history notwithstanding, it's an effectively heart-wrenching spy drama. Stream Snowdrop on Disney+.

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Informer (2018)

Nabhaan Rizwan plays Raza Shar, a young British Pakistani Londoner with a shady past (and present) who's coerced by Paddy Considine's DS Gabe Waters into signing on to become a police informant, part of a large network employed by the show's imagined counter-terrorism organization. A known terrorist was killed just recently, but it soon becomes clear that he might have trained a number of other extremists before he died. It's a tense, fast-moving show that, like The Night Manager, places a reluctant spy in the foreground. Stream Informer on Prime Video and Britbox.

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Billions (2016 – 2023)

This one isn't a spy drama, and generally favors a lighter tone than The Night Manager, but the two shows share a key common thread: each is about a charismatic but otherwise awful rich guy, and a government agent who is determined to stop them. Paul Giamatti plays attorney Chuck Rhoades (based, a bit, on the real-life Preet Bharara), who is working to bring down shady hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). Even without actual espionage, the moves and countermoves make the whole thing feel like a similarly elaborate chess game. Stream Billions on Paramount+.

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The Bureau (2015 – 2020)

In addition to, or instead of, The Agency, try Le Bureau des Légends, the French original on which it's based (they're similarly addictive, though many will prefer the original on principle). Same general premise: Mathieu Kassovitz stars as Guillaume Debailly, a spy just recently returned from a six year undercover mission in Damascus. As he's trying to readjust to his old life, everything is thrown into turmoil when Nadia (Zineb Triki), the woman with whom he'd been in a relationship in Syria, turns up in Paris. Over the course of five seasons, the show excelled at dealing with day-to-day life for its intelligence workers. It's not all thrilling spy escapades, and that's very much an advantage. Stream The Bureau on Paramount+.

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Homeland (2011 – 2020)

Though the focus shifts a bit after the first few seasons, Homeland begins as a tense espionage thriller, as CIA case officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) begins to suspect that that decorated Marine Corps scout sniper Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), recently rescued from an al-Qaeda compound, has been turned by his captors and is planning a terrorist attack on the United States. Given she's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, her superiors don't give Mathison's suspicions much credence, forcing her to go rouge in what turns into a cat-and-mouse/is-he-or-isn't he? game between the two. Both leads won Emmys for their performances, and the series took the Outstanding Drama prize in its first year. If it pulls a few too many punches at the tail end of the first season, it makes for a compelling watch. Stream Homeland on Hulu and Netflix.

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Down Cemetery Road (2025 – )

Blending spy and detective tropes (and based on a series of novels by Mick Herron, of Slow Horses fame), this one stars Emma Thompson as hard-living, hard-drinking private investigator Zoë Boehm. She's hired by Ruth Wilson's Sarah Trafford, a married art restorer who nobody takes very seriously (including her husband), even when she becomes invested in the fate of a young girl whose family is killed in an alleged gas explosion down the street. The girl, whose parents have died, disappears into the foster system, and no one really seems to care—until Sarah hires Zoë and her husband to look into it. Soon, both women are in way over their heads, as the missing girl points to a much broader government conspiracy. Stream Down Cemetery Road on Apple TV+.

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Patriot (2015 – 2018)

A bit lighter in tone than The Night Manager and shot through with a vein of black comedy that wouldn't feel out of place in a Coen brothers movie, Patriot is the story of a beleagured intelligence officer who just cannot catch a break. Michael Dorman is John Tavner, tasked with ensuring that the leading candidate for the presidency of Iran doesn't win. An elaborate plan to support a more moderate rival candidate sees him taking on a non-official cover identity and getting a job at a Milwaukee piping firm. After he blows the interview, he needs to eliminate his hapless competition for the job, then he needs to borrow urine for the drug test, which winds up exposing him to extortion, etc. etc. As the screwups began to stack one on top of the other, John's situation becomes ever more precarious (and darkly hilarious—his musical talent means that a lot of exposition comes in the form of extremely specific folk songs that he performs under yet another assumed name). Stream The Patriot on Prime Video.

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Spy/Master (2023)

The juicy imported political thriller stars Alec Secăreanu (God's Own Country) as Victor Godeanu, a Romanian ministry director and friend to dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu (the show takes place in 1978, and is based on a true story). Godeanu is also working for the Soviets and, with his cover about to be blown, decides to defect to the United States. When Ceaușescu sends agents to kill him, the intelligence agencies of five countries become tied up in the defection drama. Stream Spy/Master on HBO Max.

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Prime Video's Fallout, an adaptation of the popular video game series of the same name, is set more than two centuries from now on an Earth still devastated by a long-ago nuclear war between the United States and China. The protagonist, Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), emerges from the underground fallout shelter where she's lived her entire life in search of her father, and a fuller understanding of the world above, a wasteland is dominated by warring factions and freakish mutants.

It's a gutsy, hilarious adaptation of out-there source material, and it's wild to consider that, in the space of a couple of years, we've gone from approximately zero worthwhile video game adaptations to having two series (the other being HBO's The Last of Us) contending for Outstanding series Emmys. Strange days. Yet these two are definitely not the only post-apocalyptic narratives you'll find streaming right now. Here are 15 more to shows, from dramatic, to funny, to everything between, to fuel your end times fantasies. (It's fine, everything's fine, I'm fine lol.)

Twisted Metal (2023 – )

This '90s were a great time for post-apocalyptic video games, and the 2020s seem to be a great time to adapt them for TV. The most brutal show on Peacock is based on the vehicular combat games that parents probably hated way more than they hated Fallout (it’s a lot of wild, demolition-derby style action involving smashing and/or blowing up your opponents). It stars Anthony Mackie as John Doe, an effective anchor for the chaos of this lawless future America in which the roads have become battlegrounds. There's tons of clever humor amid the frenetic car-on-car (and car-on-semi, car-on-hearse, -ice cream truck, etc.) action. Things go boom, mostly, and sometimes that’s exactly what you want—it’s the show for the 15-year-old gamer inside all of us. Stream Twisted Metal on Peacock.

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Silo (2023 – )

Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette Nichols, an engineer who gets wrapped up in an investigation involving the local sheriff (David Oyelowo)—usual procedural stuff, except that the characters all inhabit a massive silo, 144-levels deep, protecting the remaining 10,000 humans from the allegedly poisoned world above. Those running the silo have managed to convince everyone left that only strict adherence to rules and procedures will keep them safe from the dangers outside. This is a more dour, less colorful apocalypse than the one in Fallout—it's a prestige drama that incorporates elements of horror, mystery, and science fiction to tell human stories about fear and control. Two further seasons are coming. Stream Silo on Apple TV+.

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Z Nation (2014 - 2019)

Where The Walking Dead and The Last of Us made prestige television out of the zombie apocalypse, this SyFy channel original is all about treating zombies as a campy, gory good time. Things kick off with a soldier who’s been tasked with transporting a package across country. The package in question is actually a human being, a survivor of a zombie bite who might be able to help create a vaccine (sound familiar?), but the emotional stakes are a lot lower than The Last of Us's tortured trek. It comes from the schlock-masters at The Asylum, purveyors of infamous B-movies like Sharknado, which should tell you all you need to know about the tone. Stream Z Nation on Peacock, Tubi, AMC+, and Shudder.

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The Decameron (2024)

I've never been particularly convinced that an end-of-the-world narrative needs to be set in the future, and this darkly funny but surprisingly humane show offers up a slice of a real-life apocalypse. Loosely adapting Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th century story collection with hints of Bridgerton-esque swagger, we're taken to plague-ravaged Florence, as a bunch of nobles and attendants make their way across a dangerous landscape to hole up in a countryside villa to wait out the end while draining the liquor supplies—as you would. Rules and social mores are turned upside down, particularly by servant Licisca (Tanya Reynolds), who kind of accidentally kills her lady on the way to the villa and then decides to take her place. Despite being primarily a show about how hell is other people, it makes for an entirely addictive binge experience. Stream The Decameron on Netflix.

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Into the Badlands (2015 – 2019)

About 500 years from now, war has eradicated anything resembling civilization and left the planet ravaged, even as some vestiges of technology remain. Still, firearms are largely taboo given the devastation they've caused—allowing for an action apocalypse dominated by kick-ass martial arts combat. The Badlands, Rocky Mountains and Mississippi River are transformed into competing feudal-esque kingdoms, dominated by Marton Csokas's creepy, over-the-top Baron Quinn and, at least initially, his chief lieutenant Sunny (Daniel Wu). Stream Into the Badlands on Prime Video and AMC+.

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Scavengers Reign (2023)

This smart, impressively voice-acted, beautifully animated sci-fi epic follows the fates of the stranded survivors of a crashed interstellar cargo ship. The web of natural life on the world on which they find themselves is unusually complex, and the rules of biology they're used to don't seem to apply. The outer space sci-fi setting doesn't, on the surface, have much to do with the blasted desert of Fallout, but both shows are set in imagined worlds that are intricate, colorful, and devilishly clever. Stream Scavengers Reign on HBO Max.

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Snowpiercer (2020 – 2024)

Though initially feeling like an unnecessary extention of Bong Joon Ho's allegorical post-apocalyptic film, Snowpiercer, the show, ultimately takes on a life of its own as a clever sci-fi melodrama, smartly recognizing that there are no heroes and few true villains at the end of the world—it's mostly just people doing whatever they can to survive. In a frozen future (2026, to be precise), humanity survives on an extremely long train that circumnavigates the globe. If it stops, the power will go out and everyone (literally everyone) will die. Those who came aboard with wealth live near the front in relative luxury, while the poor live on scraps (or worse) in the train's tail. Daveed Diggs stars as former detective Andre Layton, a "Tailie" deputized by Jennifer Connelly's Melanie Cavill, engineer and the train's Head of Hospitality, to solve a series of murders. The inevitable uprising that follows sets the two of them on different sides of a violent conflict, before each eventually realizes they're just pawns of elites—same as it ever was. Stream Snowpiercer on AMC+ or buy episodes from Prime Video.

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Train to the End of the World (2024)

This anime series makes clear that it definitely isn't 5G that we need to be worried about...it's 7G, an experimental cell network that warps reality and leaves Japan as a series of isolated settlements—it's also caused strange mutations, including turning people into animals, and creating mind-controlling mushrooms à la The Last of Us. Discovering evidence that one of her classmates is alive outside of Tokyo, Shizuru Chikura gets some friend together and they commandeer a train to carry them through the strange new wilderness. Stream Train to the End of the World on Crunchyroll or buy episodes from Prime Video.

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The Last of Us (2023 – )

Predating Fallout by just about a year, The Last of Us started what remains an extremely exclusive club of video game adaptations that click, in this case even picking up a bunch of Emmys—Fallout maybe running a bit behind in terms of major awards, but has picked up nominations for Outstanding Drama and Lead Actor Emmys, which ain't too shabby. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey star here, at least initially, as Joel and Ellie, travelers through an apocalyptic wasteland populated by zombified humans infected by a fungus. There's genuine suspense and expertly crafted horror in the show's zombie threat, but it's all built around the dynamic between Joel and Ellie, a beaten-down smuggler and the immune teenager he's being paid to deliver to the other side of the country. Their relationship sells the premise, and makes the stakes feel very real when the zombie mushroom people come out to bite. When the show upends that cart in season two, it's devastating. Stream The Last of Us on HBO Max.

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Murderbot (2025 – )

I suppose it says something about our uniquely fun era that you can turn on the TV and take your pick of future dystopias—here we visit a hyper-capitalist future in which everything's hunky-dory, as long as you mostly only care about money. A dark comedy based on the Hugo-Award winning book series by Martha Wells, the show stars Alexander Skarsgård is the title's hilariously deadpan robot, a private "security construct" who's managed to hack its way through its own programming and gain free will—which it mostly wants to use to watch its favorite streaming shows. It can't just run off for fear of drawing attention, but the self-named Murderbot (it's being ironic, kinda) is content to do the bare minimum when it's assigned to a team of inexperienced and naive hippie researchers who don't see the need for a killer security robot—at least, not until they're enmeshed in a complicated capitalist plot in which they're all just cogs. Stream Murderbot on Apple TV+.

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Station Eleven (2021 – 2022)

The miniseries, based on the Emily St. John Mandel bestseller, was released at either the best time or the worst possible time, the story of a flu pandemic twenty years on hitting HBO square in the middle of COVID—and don't all of our current apocalypse dramas owe just a bit to that waking nightmare? The show follows two tracks, one introducing Kirsten Raymonde, a young stage actor whose performance in a production of King Lear is cut short by the onset of a virus with a 99% fatality rate. We also visit Kirsten twenty years on, still an actor, in a world very much changed. It’s a slow-burn, picking up steam only after a couple of episodes, but ultimately, the series makes a moving case for the power of art, even (or especially) in moments when survival is on the line. Stream Station Eleven on HBO Max.

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The Leftovers (2014 – 2017)

No weird mutations here; instead we get an apocalypse that looks disturbingly normal. As the series begins, around 2% of the world's population disappears without explanation—it's enough to upend just about everything. Politics have adapted to the new normal, religions have collapsed and reformed, and families have had to make peace with the inexplicable loss of loved ones. The first season revolves around the Garvey family led by Kevin (Justin Theroux), a sheriff whose wife (Amy Brenneman) left him to join a cult, while subsequent seasons broaden the scope to bring in other characters in other locations. Showrunner Damon Lindelof also co-created Lost, and Leftovers inherits that show's relatively grim tone while doing it one better in sticking a landing. Stream The Leftovers on HBO Max.

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The Rain (2018 – 2020)

We get a lot of Fallout-esque desert dystopias, but leave it to those melancholy Danes to center an apocalypse around precipitation. In this three-season import, a virus spread by rainfall that wipes out most of the population of Scandinavia. Siblings Simone and Rasmus emerge from their bunker six years later, setting off across Scandinavia with the hope of finding a safe haven, and maybe their father. It turns out that one of them holds the key to wiping out the virus and saving the world. It’s not the most original premise (The Last of Us game came out five years earlier), but the setting gives it a unique feel, and the series comes to a decisive ending. Stream The Rain on Netflix.

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Now Apocalypse (2019)

OK, so maybe the end of days is feeling a little heavy at this point, and you're looking for something a little brighter and a lot more gay. I got you! New Queer Cinema pioneer Greg Araki followed up his neon-tinged apocalypse in Kaboom with Now Apocalypse, a successor in spirit. Avan Jogia plays Ulysses Zane, living in sun-soaked California with his best friend Carly (Kelli Berglund), a struggling actress and sex worker. He keeps having bizarre dreams about an alien invasion that feel increasingly like they might be premonitions...or possibly just anxiety delusions brought on by too much weed. The show only lasted one season, and never quite made it to its own prophesied apocalypse, but it was definitely fun while it lasted, and definitely offers something a bit to the left of the typical dreary end-of-the-world. Stream Now Apocalypse on Tubi.

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The 100 (2014 – 2020)

At seven seasons, the CW’s YA The 100 is, currently, our most deeply explored TV apocalypse, telling the story of the descendants of refugees of nuclear devastation who return to Earth from their habitat in space—to encounter the remnants of humanity who’d survived on Earth. Naturally, the first people sent to scope things out are the juvenile delinquents (better them than me, honestly), and they discover that three civilizations that have risen up in the aftermath of the apocalypse, and they are all pretty darned scary (including the inevitable cannibals). The show builds an impressive mythology over the course of its run, leading to a conclusion that’s borderline metaphysical. Buy episodes of The 100 from Prime Video.

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My Canadian in-laws include a famous (I'm told) ice hockey star, and yet I've still spent more time engaging with hockey via the HBO Max streaming sensation Heated Rivalry than from the stands of any actual court or rink or whatever it is you call the place where people pass around their pucks. Not that I know any more about the game after watching, because frankly, that's not why we're here, nor is that what the buzz is all about.

Heated Rivalry is all about the very horny relationship between Japanese-Canadian team captain Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya (Connor Storrie), a headstrong Russian playing for a different team (not a euphemism). Even as their public relationship remains contentious over a period of years, the two develop a casual (at least at first) sexual relationship that grows increasingly sweaty and romantic, ice notwithstanding. Not to be outdone, the show also traces the complicated relationship between an American team captain and a smoothie barista.

In the increasingly backward-looking world of streamer programming, Heated Rivalry managed to draw eyes and a renewal by being the horniest, gayest show out there. Once you've binged it, you can follow up with one of these steamy streamalikes.

Yuri on Ice (2016)

It's a short flight from horny gay ice hockey in Canada to horny gay figure skating in Japan and, yet, Yuri on Ice has just been sitting there waiting to be rediscovered. One of the best-reviewed anime of the last decade or so, the show finds defeated 23-year-old skater Yuri Katsuki returning to his hometown in Kyushu before an impromptu routine goes viral and draws the attention of Victor, a former champ who hopes to coach Yuki to revive his own career. The developing relationship is complex and compellingly twisty, and the animation is gorgeous; the show also gets a lot of credit for accuracy from both figure skaters...and pole dancers. Stream Yuri on Ice on Hulu and Crunchyroll.

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A League of Their Own (2022)

A standout of its year that, of course, got cancelled, the show expands on the 1992 film of the same name, diving further into the real-life story of the Rockford Peaches, women's professional baseball team in 1943. Abbi Jacobson, Chanté Adams, and D'Arcy Carden star as Carson, Max, and Greta, all three characters queer, either comfortably or in a process of exploration. Lest that sounds like some kind of ultra-woke revisionism, the show, while highly fictionalized, approaches the LGBTQ+ makeup of the Peaches far more accurately than did the earlier movie (despite including both Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna among its cast). Stream A League of Their Own on Prime Video.

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Olympo (2025)

Sex, desire, and queer longing in the high-pressure world of competitive sports? Sounds like a theme. This Spanish-language show involves young athletes at the Pirineos Center of High Performance (better them than me), battling to be the best in their respective sports and, with a bit of luck, earning sponsorship deals with the global fashion brand of the title. The central, steamy, but secretive relationship is between Roque Pérez (Agustín Della Corte) and Sebas Senghor (Juan Perale)—think Heated Rivalry, but in Spanish and with rugby. Stream Olympo on Netflix.

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Twenties (2020 – 2021)

Lena Waithe created this comedy following Hattie, an aspiring screenwriter and queer Black woman navigating life and work in LA with her straight besties, Marie (Christina Elmore) and Nia (Gabrielle Graham). The tone is loose and funny, involving friends who spend as much time trash-talking as they do working, but there's still a sense of young people in a hyper-competitive industry fighting to make it. Stream Twenties on Paramount+ and BET+.

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Yellowjackets (2021 – )

Tonally, this time-jumping survival drama is a total mismatch, but I'm throwing it in the mix for its blend of sports and queer characters, especially leads Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Van (Liv Hewson). The show is about a group of teenage girls becoming stranded in the wilderness on the way to a soccer match in 1996 and doing terrible things to survive—the extent of which we only learn about via flashbacks from the present, where the events of those 19 months continue to have an impact. There are ambiguous teases of the supernatural, and plenty of horror unfolds in a past that we're still seeing fleshed out going into the fourth and final season. The show rather cynically posits that there's a huge difference between the version of the past we talk about and the one that really happened. Stream Yellowjackets on Paramount+ and Netflix (for the first two seasons).

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Young Royals (2021 – 2024)

Steamy soap Young Royals follows Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding), the fictional prince of Sweden, as he embarks on a romance with another student, Simon Eriksson (Omar Rudberg), at their elite boarding school—it's not hockey, but there's no shortage of intense competition among these attractive young queers and their classmates. While possessed of all the addictive qualities of the teen drama genre, Young Royals takes itself a bit more seriously than some, and feels remarkably fresh in its commitment to casting age-appropriate actors in all the key roles. Stream Young Royals on Netflix.

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GLOW (2017 – 2019)

A fun comedy-drama set during the 1980s, GLOW’s ensemble is lead by Alison Brie as Ruth Wilder, a serious yet very out-of-work actor who signs on with Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a fictionalized version of the real sports organization of the same name. The show’s heightened drama, period detail, and willingness to be a little silly were highlights, as were the multiple queer characters: the growing relationship between Yolanda (Shakira Barrera) and Arthie (Sunita Mani) is a prominent focus; menwhile, Bash, the wrestling producer, explores his own sexuality amid the Reagan-era AIDS crisis. Stream GLOW on Netflix.

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Shoresy (2022 – )

Let's say that you're into Heated Rivalry for the hockey. Which: sure. To each their own. If so, you could do a lot worse than this (largely standalone) Letterkenny spin-off, starring and created by Jared Keeso, who also plays the title character. The veteran player moves to the small-ish city of Sudbury, Ontario after making a bet that he can save the struggling Sudbury Bulldogs. The comedy is simultaneously raunchy and sweet (think Ted Lasso), with some solid queer rep among some of the secondary characters. More to the point, perhaps, is the involvement of executive producer and frequent director Jacob Tierney, who just happens to have also created Heated Rivalry. Stream Shoresy on Hulu.

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Overcompensating (2025 – )

Comedian Benito Skinner plays himself, kinda, in this buzzy comedy that sees a former high school jock facing his freshman year in college while desperately trying to convince himself and everyone else that he's as straight as they come (relatable, except for the jock part). Much of the appeal is in its deft blending of tones: It's a frequently raunchy college comedy, and simultaneously a sweet coming-of-age story about accepting yourself without worrying about what everyone else thinks. The cast includes Adam DiMarco (The White Lotus) and Rish Shah (Ms. Marvel) and, just like Heated Rivalry, it's a streaming show with queer leads that's actually been renewed. Stream Overcompensating on Prime Video.

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Given (2019)

Another BL anime (as in "Boy's Love," a significant sub-genre), Given follows four adults who come together to form the titular rock band, with music connecting the characters while also helping them to navigate past trauma. The manga on which the show is based interweaves several gay storylines, but the anime puts a focus on the growing relationship between Ritsuka and Mafuyu, whose guitarist boyfriend died by suicide. In common with Heated Rivalry, it's about navigating a complicated relationship in a high-pressure environment. Stream Given on Crunchyroll or buy it from Prime Video.

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Boots (2025)

There were a few impressive LGBTQ+ shows this past season, with Boots generating buzz and predating both Pluribus and Heated Rivalry by just about a month. Alas, while those two survived the (more than) annual streaming purge, Boots didn't make it out of camp. Based on a memoir from Greg Cope White, the Netflix series stars Miles Heizer as Cameron Cope, a closeted gay teen who follows his bestie into the Army in the era before "Don't ask, don't tell," and well before serving in the open was a possibility. Stream Boots on Netflix.

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Heartstopper (2022 – )

The affirming coming-of-age/queer teen love story that we all kinda need right about now, Heartstopper is more about kisses and significant glances than it is about the hot, illicit sex of Heated Rivalry—and do with that what you will. While it never soft-peddles the dangers of homophobia, it likewise doesn’t wallow in tragedy. Kit Connor and Joe Locke deliver sensitive (and often very funny) performances in a show that’s nearly all smiles without feeling treacly. Stream Heartstopper on Netflix.

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The 2000s, in some ways, culturally feel neither here nor there: They don’t have the neon vibe we associate with the 1980s, and lack the grunge appeal of the ‘90s. There’s plenty to appreciate, however, in movies over the decade that was bookended by blockbusters: Lord of the Rings in the early years, and Iron Man, Dark Knight, and Avatar at the end. None of those feel particularly cookie-cutter in the way that their successors would often be, and, in the middle years, there were many successful movies of the kind they don’t really make anymore: mid-budget movies with personal, rather than galactic, stakes, that still managed to do brisk business at the box office. It was a decade on the cusp of our mega-blockbuster era, and that tension between the indie-loving ‘90s and the present kept things interesting.

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

George Clooney directed and stars here alongside David Strathairn as veteran journalist Edward R. Murrow, flawed but fearless in his investigation of powerful anti-communist Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s. Powerful and inspiring, even if its vision of CBS News as an organization even remotely capable of dissent renders it hopelessly outdated. Rent Good Night, and Good Luck from Prime Video.

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Inside Man (2006)

This crowd-pleasing thriller might not be Spike Lee's best, but it's still a very satisfying cat-and-mouse game between Clive Owen's criminal mastermind and Denzel Washington's LAPD detective, with Jodie Foster's Manhattan power broker in the middle. It remains Lee's highest-grossing film, with a stellar supporting cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Christopher Plummer. Rent Inside Man from Prime Video.

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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

A wonderfully retro period naval drama of the kind they don't make anymore (and didn't back in 2003), the awkwardly titled film stars Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany as Captain Jack Aubrey and science-minded surgeon Stephen Maturin, mismatched besties during the Napoleonic wars. Fans of the beloved Patrick O'Brian novel series on which it's based took issue with the liberties taken with the source material, but the film stands very well on its own. Rent Master and Commander from Prime Video.

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The Score (2001)

There's nothing particularly original in the plot of this heist film: Master safe-cracker Nick Wells just wants to get out of the game and settle into retirement with his girlfriend when he's pressured into taking on one last job by his mentor, to be joined by a young hotshot; the kind of score that will set everyone involved up for life. So it all comes down to execution and acting: Director Frank Oz keeps things brisk and even occasionally surprising, and it's hard to beat a cast led by Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Angela Bassett and Marlon Brando, in his final film role. Stream The Score on Paramount+.

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Scooby-Doo (2002)

Critically savaged on its initial release, Scooby-Doo lives on as a cult classic, a bit of genial goofiness buoyed by some truly inspired casting: Matthew Lillard is as great a Shaggy as one could hope for, while Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Linda Cardellini fill out the Scooby gang admirably. James Gunn wrote the screenplay, his first for a major motion picture. Stream Scooby-Doo on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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National Treasure (2004)

Historian Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) sets out to find a missing Freemason treasure, its location pointed to via a map on the back of the Declaration of Independence—a treasure he must now steal to keep it from the greedy clutches of Sean Bean’s crime boss Ian Howe. Cage is at his silly best here. Stream National Treasure on Disney+.

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The Ring (2002)

This remake of the Japanese original changes the setting and adds a bit of scope without losing any chilling atmosphere. Naomi Watts is a single mom desperate to save her son from the curse of a very spooky VHS tape. Stream The Ring on Paramount+.

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The Family Stone (2005)

Holiday gatherings always offer great potential for comedy and drama, with The Family Stone landing a bit of each. The setup involves Dermot Mulroney bringing home his new girlfriend, played by a fearlessly brittle Sarah Jessica Parker, for Christmas. That doesn’t go great, with the visitor constantly feeling out of place and embarrassed amid the insular, tight-knit, standoffish clan, even as strong-willed matriarch Sybil Stone (Diane Keaton) is also looking for an opportunity, amidst the holiday chaos, to reveal a terminal medical diagnosis. Stream The Family Stone on Disney+, Prime Video, and Hulu.

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Pan's Labyrinth (2000)

The true breakout movie for director Guillermo del Toro stunned with a beautiful vision of a dark fairy tale world set just to the side of a story about an army captain hunting down fascist resisters in Franco's Spain of the 1940s. Rent Pan's Labyrinth from Prime Video.

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Casino Royale (2006)

Following the lighter, looser Pierce Brosnan era, Daniel Craig brought a bit of rough-and-tumble to the world of James Bond, kicking off a 15-year run. Judi Dench takes over as M in this first straight-up adaptation of Ian Fleming's first-ever Bond novel. Rent Casino Royale from Prime Video.

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Triangle (2009)

A bit of a cult classic, this sci-fi/horror film finds Melissa George as Jess, leaving behind her son to go on a boat trip that goes awry. When she and her friends find themselves seeking help aboard a seemingly abandoned cruise ship, they find that events keep repeating themselves in a series of increasingly horrific loops. Stream Triangle on Peacock, Prime Video, The Criterion Channel, and Tubi.

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Charlie's Angels (2000)

A sly, frequently goofy action comedy that sees Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu as the latest generation of Angels working for the mysterious millionaire Charlie Townsend (John Forsythe, reprising his role from the 1970s TV series). The chemistry is great, the action is fast and fun, and Crispin Glover's Thin Man makes for one helluva creepy villain. Tom Green has a supporting role and Blink-182 pops up on the soundtrack, among the many things that lend the movie extra 2000s cred. Stream Charlie's Angels on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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Dreamgirls (2006)

The cast here is incredible: Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Beyoncé, just for starters. Even more incredible are the absolutely electric musical numbers, including, and especially, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” Stream Dreamgirls on Paramount+ and Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Mist (2007)

Frank Darabont, known for earlier, generally feel-good Stephen King adaptations The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, goes quite a bit darker with this take that sees a bunch of locals at each other's throats in a grocery store at the end of the world. The fear, ignorance, and religious extremism on display here are all potent reminders that hell isn't outside—it's within. Stream The Mist on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Romance and tragedy done in extravagant Baz Luhrmann style against a jukebox of pop songs. The movie is almost overwhelming in its incomparable boldness, always seeming like it's about to run off the track—yet, somehow, we're still in tears by the end. Stream Moulin Rouge! on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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No Country for Old Men (2007)

The Coen Brothers' magnum opus won four Oscars, including one for Best Picture and for Javier Bardem's performance as merciless killer Anton Chigurh. The noir western finds Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss stumbling upon, and making off with, the cash left behind when a drug deal goes wrong. He's pursued by not only Chigurh, but Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff Bell. Stream No Country for Old Men on Paramount+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Meryl Street is one of cinema's all-time great villains as boss from hell Miranda Priestly, facing down (and tearing down) Anne Hathaway's put-upon personal assistant, Andy Sachs. Stream The Devil Wears Prada on Disney+ and Hulu or rent it from Prime Video.

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Almost Famous (2000)

Cameron Crowe’s ‘70s-era comedy/drama about a young music journalist going on the road with a major band is a funny, touching crowd pleaser that’s not afraid to veer off in some unexpected and idiosyncratic directions. Hold me closer, tiny dancer. Stream Almost Famous on Paramount+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Incredibles (2004)

This Pixar triumph hit before the superhero movie wave really crested, and is all the better for it. If only they were all this good. Stream The Incredibles on Disney+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Love & Basketball (2000)

Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps play next-door neighbors who, over the course of several years, struggle with their growing attraction to each other, even while their basketball ambitions pull them apart. Off-the-charts chemistry here. Stream Love & Basketball on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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In the Mood for Love (2000)

Wong Kar-wai's lush, extravagant story of sex and yearning finds Chow (Tony Leung) and Su (Maggie Cheung) developing feelings for each other after their spouses have affairs. The '60s-set movie is much more than just style, but that style is impeccable. Stream In the Mood for Love on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.

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Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Only the real ones knew what to do with Jennifer’s Body in 2009, and the film took a long time to become the cult classic it was probably always destined to be. Here, popular teenager Jennifer (Megan Fox) is turned into a succubus by abusive men, gleefully killing boys around school to the general horror of her friend, Needy (Amanda Seyfried). Rent Jennifer's Body from Prime Video.

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Mean Girls (2004)

Given the movie’s impressive longevity, it’s tempting to call Mean Girls a cult classic—except that it made boatloads of money back in the day, as well. When Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) gets accepted into the cool clique at her public school, she quickly realizes that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Stream Mean Girls on Paramount+ and Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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Barbershop (2002)

Everything from sex, to relationships, to O.J. and civil rights is on the agenda in this comedy/drama, and the cast of lively and entertaining characters make it a fun place to spend time. Stream Barbershop on HBO Max or rent it from Prime Video.

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Requiem for a Dream (2000)

A symphonic ode to the misery of addiction, Darren Aronofsky’s second feature plays like an X-rated version of the anti-drug films you watched in high school. Over the course of two punishing, stylishly filmed, and artfully edited hours, we watch as four characters’ lives fall apart as they try to use drugs—from heroin to diet pills—to fill the empty places inside. It doesn’t work out. A hypnotic, traumatizing, feel-bad classic. Stream Requiem for a Dream on Peacock and Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Departed (2006)

Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs finds Leonardo DiCaprio going undercover in a crime organization, while Matt Damon infiltrates the police. It’s all very twisty-turny, and provides a last, great performance from Jack Nicholson (barring a surprise un-retirement). Rent The Departed from Prime Video.

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Infernal Affairs (2002)

Or you could watch the Hong Kong original from directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak—a smart, emotional crime thriller in its own right. Stream Infernal Affairs on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Proving there’s still a place for traditional animation at Disney, the gorgeously animated film set in New Orleans of the 1920s introduced Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) to the pantheon of Disney princesses. Stream The Princess and the Frog on Disney+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Two teenage boys set out on an impromptu road trip with the slightly older (and married) woman on whom they both have a crush. Alfonso Cuarón’s film is a sweet, funny, and sad coming-of-age movie. Stream Y Tu Mamá También on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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House of Sand and Fog (2003)

A battle of wills between two indefatigable adversaries that ends well for neither of them—nor for their families. Recovering drug addict Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly) is mistakenly evicted from her home, which is then bought for a pittance by a former Iranian Army colonel (Ben Kingsley) whose fortunes have fallen since coming to America. Shohreh Aghdashloo, who was nominated for an Oscar, steals every scene in her supporting role. Rent House of Sand and Fog from Prime Video.

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

There are a couple of love stories in the margins of Ang Lee's martial arts masterpiece (and international blockbuster), but the most poignant is in the central story of retiring swordsman Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) and his confidante and associate, Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh). Despite a mutual attraction, honor and loyalty keep the two apart until a lovely, tear-soaked final act. Rent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon from Prime Video.

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Before Sunset (2004)

Sequels very often fall short of the original, so it’s a tribute to all involved here that Before Sunset is able to top 1995's swoonily romantic two-hander Before Sunrise. Brisk, smart, and with an all-time great cinematic ending. Rent Before Sunset from Prime Video.

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Shrek (2001)

The filmmakers behind Shrek turned the Disney formula on its ear by blending some slightly crass but very funny humor with a genuinely heartfelt story about self-acceptance. In the process, they won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and the movie picked up an Adapted Screenplay nomination—the first ever for an animated film. Not bad for a gassy ogre. Plus: The movie opens with a montage set to Smash Mouth, and it doesn't get more 2000s than that. Stream Shrek on Peacock or rent it from Prime Video.

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Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

In plenty of other stoner-type comedies, Indian- and Korean-Americans are most likely to show up as secondary characters and broad stereotypes—here they’re in the lead. It doesn’t hurt that the movie is pretty damn funny. Rent Harold & Kumar from Prime Video.

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Chicken Run (2000)

The sharp Aardman Brothers comedy has some incredibly fun stop-motion animation and an awful lot of chickens. Cute without ever being cloying, it remains the top-grossing stop-motion animated movie of all time. Stream Chicken Run on Netflix from Prime Video.

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Up (2009)

Ed Asner plays cantankerous widower Carl Fredricksen, who finds an unlikely ally in a 13-year-old wilderness explorer in his plan to relocate his entire house to Paradise Falls in South America to honor his late wife. Stream Up on Disney+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Oldboy (2003)

Park Chan-wook's revenge classic is not for the faint of heart on any level—it's a disturbing action spectacle leading to an all-time shocker of a last-act reveal. Rent Oldboy from Prime Video.

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Spy Kids (2001)

A smart, family-friendly action classic in which a couple of kids learn the spy ropes when they're forced to save their parents—themselves former spies. The best of a franchise that's still going. Stream Spy Kids on HBO Max or rent it from Prime Video.

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Beauty Shop (2005)

This Barbershop spin-off follows widowed hairstylist Gina Norris starting over in Atlanta with her daughter, and opening her own shop when a job doesn't pan out. Queen Latifah is as delightful as ever, and is joined by a great cast including Alfre Woodard, Della Reese, Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Kevin Bacon, and Djimon Hounsou. Rent Beauty Shop from Prime Video.

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Training Day (2001)

Director Antoine Fuqua and company crafted a tense, brutal crime drama that won Denzel Washington his single Best Actor Oscar. Is it his best performance? Probably not, but he's memorably over-the-top as thoroughly corrupt cop Alonzo Harris. Stream Training Day on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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Mulholland Drive (2001)

This love/hate letter to Hollywood has come to be (justly) regarded as one of director David Lynch’s best, and most oddly crowd-pleasing, works: an L.A. noir about murder and obsession and a blue box that’s very significant of, well, something or other. Rent Mulholland Drive from Apple TV+.

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Lost in Translation (2003)

A declining American movie star in the midst of a midlife crisis and a young grad student facing a similarly uncertain future meet while staying at an upscale hotel in Tokyo. The movie that cemented director Sofia Coppola’s spot in the filmmaker pantheon. Rent Lost in Translation from Prime Video.

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Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

A movie musical about a gender-queer punk rocker with a title referring to the results of a botched gender-affirmation procedure, the movie has a huge heart and a score that genuinely rocks. Rent Hedwig and the Angry Inch from Prime Video.

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Whale Rider (2002)

Pai is a 12-year-old Māori girl and the direct descendant of their tribe’s traditional notable ancestor, the Whale Rider—except that, traditionally, women can’t lead. Star Keisha Castle-Hughes became the youngest nominee for a Best Actress Oscar for her open, genuine performance. Stream Whale Rider on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Dark Knight (2008)

While it often feels as though modern superhero films need to be some version of dark and "mature" if we're to take them seriously, Christopher Nolan's sequel squares that circle rather elegantly, telling a story that feels both grounded in its action (looking to films like Michael Mann's Heat for inspiration) and over the top in its comic book flourishes—including its villains. Heath Ledger, of course, earned a posthumous Best Actor Oscar for his performance as the Joker. Stream The Dark Knight on HBO Max and Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Josie and the Pussycats (2001)

Josie gained an audience over time because of its goofy charm, but also because it came to feel increasingly more relevant in its satirizing of the crass commercialization of mass entertainment. Rent Josie and the Pussycats from Prime Video.

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Bring It On (2000)

An endlessly repeatable teen comedy, Bring It On is also a secret sports movie and a stealth musical (if you consider elaborate dance sequences set to music in the same light as characters bursting into song), two genres with comforting formulas that stand up to repeated viewings. As much fun as it is to witness the literal gymnastics on display, it's also a kick to watch young Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union snipe at one another. Rent Bring It On from Prime Video.

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District 9 (2009)

With parallels to South African apartheid, writer/director Neill Blomkamp crafted the kind of smart, pointed sci-fi film that studios think audiences don’t care for—except that District 9 was a blockbuster, earning many times its budget at the box office. Rent District 9 from Prime Video.

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Spirited Away (2001)

After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, 10-year-old Chihiro takes a job working in her bathhouse with the hope of finding a way to free them. This might be my favorite Hayao Miyazaki movie, but I say that a lot. Stream Spirited Away on HBO Max or rent it from Prime Video.

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Scary Movie (2000)

The lunacy of Scary Movie (directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans) feels inspired—with jokes coming at you so fast that there's no time to notice any that don't land. Think Spaceballs, but even goofier and with a laser focus on then-recent horror movies (Scream, especially). It's still pretty funny, even with all of its period references, with Regina Hall and Anna Faris proving to be comedy MVPs. Rent Scary Movie from Prime Video.

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For many of us, New Year's Eve represents not just the climax of a long holiday season, but also a time to simultaneously reflect, and to look forward to what's ahead—sometimes with optimism, sometimes with sheer dread. (Lately, mostly dread.)

Movies have frequently recognized the simultaneously hopeful and perilous nature of the time. It can be a period of reassessment, or renewal, or massive change. This selection of choice New Year's Eve movies reflects that range of possibilities, including everything from romance and murder, to comedy and tragedy, to wild sex and heartbreaking loneliness.

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Taking on an added poignance following the death of director Rob Reiner, his classic collaboration with Nora Ephron follows Billy Crystal's Harry and Meg Ryan's Sally over the course of 11 tempestuous years, with two major scenes set at New Year's Eve parties: The first involves a midnight kiss that signals the beginning of a potential romantic relationship between the two; the second comes at the climax of the film, when a decade's worth of growth, apart and together, sees the two in the same place at the same time, both literally and metaphorically. Rent When Harry Met Sally from Prime Video.

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Waiting to Exhale (1995)

This Terry McMillan adaptation about the power of female friendships (which is, impossibly, celebrating its 30th anniversary) has an all-time great cast led by Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon. Bassett's character, Bernadine, has a singularly powerful revelation, leading to a memorable revenge sequence, on New Year's Eve. Stream Waiting to Exhale on Hulu and Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Substance (2024)

New Year's resolutions, for better or worse, frequently include promises to take better care of our bodies in the months to come—though we often just mean we want to find ways to look younger, skinnier, and prettier. In this lurid arthouse horror flick, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a middle-aged celebrity fired from her aerobics show solely because of her age. She's soon introduced to the titular Substance, which allows her to generate a younger version of herself with her own consciousness. It's a dire warning about the potential costs of our endless hunger for youth, and the climax appropriately comes during a New Year's Eve telecast that goes horrifically askew. Stream The Substance on HBO Max or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Gold Rush (1925)

You might be forgiven for forgetting that one of early American cinema's most memorable moments was centered around New Year's Eve: In Charlie Chaplin'e early classic, his Prospector character meets Georgia (Georgia Hale), a dance hall girl who dances with him to irritate an obnoxious suitor. She accepts his invitation to a NYE dinner, but mostly forgets about it. While she's having a blast at a big party, he's alone in his cabin, dreaming of company—and entertaining his make-believe guests with a pair of dancing potatoes. (Not to worry: Georgia soon comes to see what a catch the Prospector is.) Stream The Gold Rush on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel, and Prime Video.

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Phantom Thread (2017)

There's a relatively brief (but crucial) scene in Paul Thomas Anderson's film set on New Year's Eve. Its climax is arguably the moment on which the entire film turns: Renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) has been in a relationship with waitress Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps), one that seems poised to break through his carefully constructed routine. He refuses her request to go to a NYE party, though, and, when she goes on her own, he follows her and very nearly drags her away. The moment makes clear that, if this relationship has any chance of succeeding, drastic changes will need to happen. The contemplation of such coming change is, in a roundabout way, what New Year's Eve is all about. Stream Phantom Thread on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Godfather Part II (1974)

The climax of the film, and the single most pivotal moment in Michael Corleone's life, comes during a New Year's Eve party in Cuba. It's the night that Michael (Al Pacino) learns of his betrayal by his brother, Fredo (John Cazale). The fateful kiss that ensues is a deliberate inversion of the traditional midnight kiss—one that ensures that neither Michael nor Fredo will be having a particularly happy year. Stream The Godfather Part II on Paramount+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Rocky (1976)

A little New Year's inspiration, perhaps, offered up by a film with multiple seasonal themes. Journeyman boxer Rocky Balboa is given a chance at the big time when heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (the late, great Carl Weathers) finds himself in need of an opponent for a planned fight. Unwilling to blow his big chance, Rocky finds a scrappy trainer and a scrappier love interest while working toward the big fight on New Year's Day. While the outcome isn't fully in Rocky's favor, he reminds us that sometimes we can win by losing, dusting ourselves off to fight again (in approximately 80 sequels and spin-offs). Stream Rocky on Peacock or rent it from Prime Video.

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Ghostbusters II (1989)

It might be a lesser film in the Ghostbusters canon, but there's still plenty of fun to be had with this sequel. The entire film builds towards a New Year's Eve climax, with the machinations of Vigo the Carpathian and company moving toward the turning of the year. New York City is saved, ultimately, by some emotionally charged slime and a moving rendition of "Auld Lang Syne." Rent Ghostbusters II from Prime Video.

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The Apartment (1960)

Set almost entirely between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Billy Wilder’s Best Picture winner was groundbreaking in its approach to sexuality (aside from being among the finest American movies, pretty much ever). Jack Lemmon plays Bud Baxter, an insurance clerk who’s climbed the corporate ladder by loaning out his apartment to the higher-ups to use for their extramarital affairs. In the midst of that, a fraught affection develops between Bud and Shirley MacLaine’s Fran, the office building’s elevator operator, a woman who’s been in a joyless affair with Bud’s boss (Fred MacMurray). A fairly miserable New Year's Eve party gives way to something a bit more hopeful when Fran realizes that love might just be worth taking a chance on. Stream The Apartment on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Il Posto (1961)

Along similarly wistful lines, the Italian classic satire Il Posto follows Domenico (Sandro Panseri), a young man pressured by his family to jump right into a career, which he does by signing on with a soul-sucking corporation. At work, he meets Antonietta (Loredana Detto), a young woman in a similar boat, with whom he steals a few moments at an office New Year's party. The film offers no tangible hope of an escape from the endless grind of modern-day capitalism, but it does serve as a timely reminder that the work is meaningless, and time spent with kindred spirits is far more valuable. Stream Il Posto on The Criterion Channel.

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Snowpiercer (2013)

Bong Joon-ho's post-apocalypse is coming up quick, what with Snowpiercer being set in 2031. Here, the survivors of climate catastrophe live together on one giant train that travels the frozen, lifeless globe. The annual celebration here comes once a year, when the train has completed a full circle of the world. It's one such celebration of the train's new year that the oppressed, maltreated residents of the train's tail end use as an opportunity to stage a revolt against the entitled and pampered passengers at the front. Not the worst New Year's resolution to make, honestly. Stream Snowpiercer on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

An all-star triumph from the golden age of disaster cinema, the original Poseidon Adventure finds Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Albertson, Shelley Winters, and Red Buttons (among others) trapped on a cruise liner that's been capsized by an undersea earthquake, one that happens within moments of the ball drop and big party. They'll all have to spend New Year's Day clawing and scraping their way back to the surface—which is as good a hangover metaphor as you're likely to find in an upside-down boat movie. Stream The Poseidon Adventure on Prime Video.

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Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

New Year's Eve represents the past in Nora Ephron's romantic comedy-drama, as architect Sam (Tom Hanks) has a sweet but imagined conversation with his late wife set during holiday festivities. The future? Valentine's Day, as Sam and Annie (Meg Ryan) are drawn toward a meeting at the top of the Empire State Building. Stream Sleepless in Seattle on Starz or rent it from Prime Video.

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After the Thin Man (1936)

The breezy, boozy chemistry between William Powell and Myrna Loy is a highlight of the entire Thin Man series, and it's still running strong in this first sequel, when married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles are expecting a dull New Year's Eve, only to find themselves in the middle of a kidnapping and murder (involving Jimmy Stewart in his first major film role). The previous movie is set at Christmas, so you might as well watch that one, too. Rent After the Thin Man from Prime Video.

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Holiday (1938)

Would you rather spend New Year's Eve with William Powell and Myrna Loy or with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant? Why choose—Holiday and After the Thin Man are short enough that you can watch both in less time than a single Avatar movie. Here Grant plays Johnny Case, a self-made thousandaire (hey, it was the Depression) who wants to take some time off and enjoy the bit of money he's made while also planning to marry Julia, who's fine and fun and all, but ultimately can't compare to her vivacious older sister Linda (Hepburn). A series of memorable New Year's Eve somersaults set them both on the road to discovering each other, but George Cukor's film doesn't make it nearly that easy. Each needs to decide what they want out of life, and what they're willing to do to get it, before they can really see one another. It's just the tiniest bit under-appreciated for being one of the very best films from either lead. Rent Holiday from Prime Video.

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New Year's Evil (1980)

Is it among the best of the slasher genre? It is not. It's pretty charmingly goofy, though, with a killer calling into a NYE radio show promising to kill people across the United States as midnight arrives in each time zone. In the harsh light of day, it probably won't fit the bill—but it might be perfect in that boozy post-midnight haze. It's also got a very solid title track. Stream New Year's Evil on MGM+.

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Midnight Kiss (2019)

Technically an episode of Hulu's Into the Dark anthology series, the feature-length Midnight Kiss finds a bunch of gay friends (and their straight female friend) heading out to a gorgeous place in the desert for an annual tradition: They'll each pick someone at random to kiss at midnight. Old resentments bubble to the surface, egged on (unbeknownst to most of them) by a serial killer. It's no spoiler to suggest that they won't all make it to New Year's Day. Stream Midnight Kiss on Hulu.

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Sunset Boulevard (1950)

One-time movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) is a mess, frankly, and it's never more clear than during her elaborate, catered New Year's party for two: her, and Joe (William Holden)—who we already know will wind up dead in Norma's pool. This might be the moment when we realize just how delusional the diva had become. On the other hand, NYE is a time for a little bit of sloppiness, and, though treated as an ancient relic, Swanson was only 50 when this was filmed, so maybe we can cut her some slack. Stream Sunset Boulevard on Paramount+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Repeat Performance (1947)

What if we consider, for just one moment, that the changing of years might not be a time of blessed renewal, but instead an opportunity to travel back in time and try to undo some of the stuff you royally fucked up in the prior year. Given that we're solidly in noir territory here, don't expect overwhelming success. On New Year's Eve 1946, Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) stands over the dead body of her husband, wishing that she could do things differently. Et voila! She's back at the beginning of the year and trying to stop the disintegration of her marriage with some help from her gay bestie (Richard Basehart). Stream Repeat Performance on Kanopy.

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Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Kicking off a (perhaps) unlikely franchise, this beloved rom-com is bookended by New Year's Eve gatherings: Bridget (Renée Zellweger) is 32, dorky, and worried about her weight (about which: Girl, you look great). Meeting old acquaintance Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) at a party, she overhears his comments about how she drinks too much, smokes too much, and dresses like her mother. Finding him rude but not entirely off the mark, she begins a year-long quest to change her life for the better. Stream Bridget Jones' Diary on Peacock and Paramount+.

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About Time (2013)

Another time-travel movie with a key New Year's Eve sequence, this one's significantly less murder-y. Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson star as Mary and Tim, a couple whose story is constantly in flux thanks to Tim's ability to move through time—an ability that comes in particularly handy when he wants to keep trying a New Year's kiss until it's just right. Rent About Time from Prime Video.

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An American in Paris (1951)

We do love a New Year's party theme, and they don't come much better (nor more thoroughly designed) than the black-and-white party at the center of Gene Kelly's An American in Paris, the film that won the Best Picture Oscar in its year. Stream An American in Paris on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Ocean's 11 (1960)

It's less a meticulously crafted piece of cinema than an excuse for the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop) to hang—but that cool, boozy chemistry goes a surprisingly long way. Sinatra plays Danny Ocean, who brings together his old Army buddies with an elaborate New Year's Eve plan to simultaneously rob five Las Vegas casinos: the Sahara, the Riviera, the Desert Inn, the Sands, and the Flamingo. Stream Ocean's 11 on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Happy New Year (2014)

With a bit of inspiration from Ocean's Eleven (the 2001 version), this Hindi-language action comedy stars Shah Rukh Khan as a gritty street fighter who plans a heist as a means of getting back at the man who had his father wrongfully imprisoned. His target? The real-life Hotel Atlantis in Dubai. The catch? He and his team will need to infiltrate a dance competition, though none of them can dance. The result is, unsurprisingly, glorious. Stream Happy New Year on Netflix.

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High School Musical (2006)

Try not to be alarmed that the feel-good Disney Channel movie is, itself, old enough to start sending off college applications. Just enjoy the 2000s vibes and, particularly, the opening sequence. Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez (Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens) meet up at a ski lodge on New Year's Eve for a seasonally appropriate duet called "Start of Something New." Stream High School Musical on Disney+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Rent (2005)

The adaptation of the stage musical (starring much of the original cast) kicks off on a chilly New York New Year's Eve, and asks the question that's on all of our minds around this time: How do you measure a year? Rent Rent from Prime Video.

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Are We There Yet? (2005)

Ice Cube stars here alongside Nia Long, Jay Mohr and Tracy Morgan in a charmingly goofy (and family-friendly) movie about a New Year's Eve trip to the airport. Sounds simple, sure, but Nick (Ice Cube) is determined to impress the woman he likes by picking up her kids and bringing them to meet her for a flight to Vancouver. Suffice it to say, the kids do not make it easy. If you have even more time to kill on New Year's Eve, there's a sequel (Are We Done Yet?) and a spin-off TV series, all currently streaming. Stream Are We There Yet on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.

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Diner (1982)

In 1959, a group of close, college-age friends reunite in time for the New Year's Eve wedding of Eddie (Steve Guttenberg), the circumstances prompting a fair bit of introspection on the prospect of fully transitioning to adulthood. NYE is a time for reflection, so why not? Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Daniel Stern, and Tim Daly make up the rest of the group. Rent Diner from Prime Video.

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Rosemary's Baby (1968)

It's not just any old new year being celebrated in Rosemary's Baby, but the new year: the first year of a new satanic age about to be (literally) birthed by Mia Farrow's Rosemary Woodhouse. As of the New Year's Eve gathering in the film, Rosemary isn't in on the extent to which she, her body, and her pregnancy are being manipulated by people to whom she's merely a vessel, but her sense of isolation among supposed friends—and a critic toast to "The Year One!"—spurs her justified paranoia. Stream Rosemary's Baby on Paramount+ or rent it from Prime Video.

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Trading Places (1983)

Trading Places starts off at Christmas and peaks with a New Year's Eve train ride involving a heist, two gorillas (one real, one fake), and multiple disguises. The comedy is often very silly here, but Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd have tremendous chemistry and, unusual for the 1980s, the movie has some very pointed commentary about corporate greed. Stream Trading Places on Paramount+, Peacock, and Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.