40 Best TV Shows Similar to Black Mirror
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
NetworkPeacock,
SimilarAnna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Bodies, Christopher Columbus, Dexter, Fallen, Fearless, G.B.H., Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl,
Scully Spies of Warsaw, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Sun Also Rises, Tira, Troubles, Ultraviolet,
The Tattooist of Auschwitz opens on Lale Sokolov (Harvey Keitel in the 2000s “present-day” sequences) living in Australia. He's decided the time has come to commit his life story to paper. A nurse with writing aspirations Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey), (the real-life writer behind the inspired by actual events but labeled historical fiction source material) is referred by someone in the community to help. With little prologue, he dives in, describing how he "volunteered" for a program about defending Jewish communities. Unfortunately, it was a trap. The train ride takes him to Auschwitz instead.
While imprisoned there, he (Jonah Hauer-King in flashbacks) became one of the tattooists. The position leads him to meet the love of his life, fellow prisoner Gita Furman (Anna Próchniak). Additionally, the position gave him a certain level of consideration not accorded to others, including access to medications. On the other hand, he faces resentment among the prisoners and decades of survivor’s guilt.
The book—and its two subsequent spinoffs/sequels—has a certain amount of controversy surrounding it. While I’m not an expert on the Holocaust, I feel it is at least important to acknowledge that fact. Wanda Witek-Malicka from the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center publicly worried that the book engaged in excessive “exaggerations, misinterpretations and understatements” that could render its text “dangerous and disrespectful to history.” Continue Reading →
Palm Royale
SimilarA Respectable Trade, Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Blackeyes, Bodies, Brides of Christ, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Fallen, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Hero Return, Jewels, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Monarch of the Glen, Oh, Doctor Beeching!,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Spies of Warsaw, The Chestnut Man, The Far Pavilions, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, Tira, Troubles, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Witchcraft,
StudioApple Studios,
There’s something undeniably inspired about casting Kristin Wiig as Maxine Simmons in Palm Royale. A social climber attempting to ingratiate herself into late 60s Palm Beach high society, Simmons shares with Wiig a certain constant desire to change herself. The actor's years at Saturday Night Live and subsequent film roles have established her as a chameleonic performer. She has enough versatility to play everyone from the painfully grounded to live-action cartoon characters. In this case, Wiig pours that talent into a woman trying desperately to be a different version of herself.
As a kind of middle-aged conservative version of Tom Ripley, Wiig does indeed excel. The actor invests a mix of brute force cunning and barely hidden desperation in Simmons. That makes the would-be social maven compelling and repulsive in equal measure. Her machinations are too intriguing to ignore, but her very presence can be almost unendurable, especially for viewers with an overactive sense of vicarious embarrassment.
Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney try to hash it out. (AppleTV+)
The show also adds an interesting layer to her performance of wealth and class. Simmons’ claims often sound outlandish, the scrambling lies of someone trying to stay one step ahead of being exposed. However, Palm Royale slowly confirms a great many of them. Unlike Ripley or Saltburn’s Oliver Quick, she’s not a total fabrication. She has the credentials for the inner circle, but can’t stomach the time it takes. Continue Reading →
True Detective
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Amazing Stories, American Horror Story, Angel, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Babel, Bates Motel, Brimstone, Broadchurch, Brotherhood, Cruel Summer, CSI: Miami, Deadly Class, Dexter, Erased,
HIStory Jack the Ripper, La Mante, Life on Mars, Luther, Millennium, Murder in the Heartland, Murder Most Horrid, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, Renegade,
Sherlock Holmes Tarzan, The Chestnut Man, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Twilight Zone, Viso d'angelo, Wycliffe,
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis shine as a pair of detectives investigating an increasingly surreal crime.
In Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt mysteries, the title character is a brilliant, eccentric detective haunted by the unsolved disappearance of one of her closest friends. Her cases are vitally recognizable and beautifully surreal. When The Infinite Blacktop, the most recent entry in the series, was released in paperback, Gran held a giveaway, including a copy of the book and some fun feelies. On one of those, a pen, the following was printed: “Open your eyes and learn to see that truth lives in the ether.” In the course of thinking about Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid)’s excellent True Detective: Night Country, it’s a line that’s been on my mind.
It's the end of 2023. In Ennis, Alaska, the eccentric scientists of the Tsalal research station vanish just as the long polar night sets in. Ennis police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and detective-turned-trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) know that something is not right. Though bitterly estranged, the former partners share a drive to discover what happened at Tsalal and why. Their need to get to the truth only intensifies after the scientists are discovered in a ghastly, bizarre state—a collective corpsicle, all of them nude and visibly terrified. Continue Reading →
Fargo
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Amazing Stories, Angel, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Bates Motel, Baywatch Nights, Black Scorpion, Broadchurch, Cruel Summer, CSI: Miami, Dexter, From, Jack the Ripper, La Femme Nikita, La Mante, Luther, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, More than Blue: The Series, Murder Most Horrid,
Planet of the Apes Sentimental Journey,
Sherlock Holmes Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, Tales from the Crypt, The Dead Zone, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Twilight Zone, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Wycliffe,
StudioFX Productions,
The crime drama returns to the Land of 10,000 Lakes and rediscovers its best storytelling self.
Throughout the six episodes of Fargo Season 5 screened for critics, the series isn’t exactly subtle. From opening the season with an on-screen graphic defining “Minnesota Nice” as neighbor attacks neighbor during a school board meeting to Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) staring up at a campaign billboard of himself, the show loudly states its theses at the viewer over and over.
However, it never feels like creator Noah Hawley has lost control of the storytelling. It’s methodically over-the-top. The audience is on a roller coaster, but they can feel the quality of the engineering keeping them on the tracks. In other hands, this approach can feel alienating or blunting. Fargo Season 5 benefits from meeting Hawley’s signature energy with a game cast and impressively insightful art direction. As a result, the series turns in its best offering since Season 2’s near-perfect effort. Continue Reading →
Goosebumps
Similar2Moons: The Series, A Dance to the Music of Time,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Amazing Stories, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Babel,
Black Books Brimstone, Cruel Summer, Cybersix, Dark, Dark Winds, Dexter, Fate/Apocrypha, From, Further Tales of the City, Game of Thrones, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Gossip Girl, Hero Return,
HIStory M*A*S*H, Metal Hurlant Chronicles, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Monarch of the Glen, More Tales of the City, Mr. Mercedes, Murder Most Horrid,
Planet of the Apes Sherlock Holmes Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan, Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Neverending Story, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, The 100, The 4400, The Alienist, The Family Game, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Shining, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Strain, The Twilight Zone, The Wimbledon Poisoner, ThunderCats, Tientsin Mystic, Troubles, Wedding Impossible, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Witchcraft,
Do we need another live-action Goosebumps adaptation? After a ’90s Fox Kids series and a pair of 2010s films, one would assume that the ground of turning Slappy the dummy and other frightening beings into flesh-and-blood creations has been well-trodden. Continue Reading →
Frasier
NetworkNBC,
Similar'Allo 'Allo!, Catterick, Fawlty Towers, Here and Now,
HIStory I Dream of Jeannie, LA to Vegas, Lost in Space, My Hero, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Off Centre, Red Dwarf, Sons of Tucson, Taxi, That '70s Show, The Bride of Habaek, The Fire Next Time, The War at Home,
StudioParamount Television Studios,
When Frasier premiered in the fall of 1993 it had massive shoes to fill. That's probably an understatement. Its parent show, Cheers, was a critical and commercial monster in a way that can only happen when there are only three shows for two hundred million people to choose from. It was nominated for almost two hundred Emmys over the course of its eleven-year run, and its series finale aired to 90 million people (40% of the country’s then population) three months before Frasier’s start. So yeah, expectations were pretty high, and Frasier ended up pretty much meeting them all. While never as popular as Cheers (nothing has been as popular as Cheers since Cheers), it was nevertheless a solid commercial hit that carved out its own identity and won more Emmys than its parent show over the course of its own eleven-year run. A lot of that success was rooted in Frasier’s ability as its own, independent show with its own characters and rhythms instead of being Cheers 2.0. Continue Reading →
The Fall of the House of Usher
SimilarA Little Princess, Alias Grace, American Horror Story, Angel, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Birds of Prey, Brides of Christ, Brimstone, Christopher Columbus, Dancing on the Edge, Elizabeth R, From, Further Tales of the City, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Golden Years, Heidi, House of Cards, Kamen Rider, Love You Just as You Are, Millennium, Miss Marple: Nemesis, More Tales of the City, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, Peter and Paul, Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Queen Cleopatra, Rescue Me,
Scully Spies of Warsaw, Tales from the Crypt, The Buccaneers, The Dead Zone, The Far Pavilions, The Gangster Chronicles, The Gold Robbers, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wallflower, Three Days of Christmas, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Ultraviolet, Unorthodox, White House Plumbers, World War II: When Lions Roared,
The most gripping moment in 2022’s Academy Award-winning documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is when members of the now disgraced Sackler Family, whose pharmaceutical company manufactured and marketed the highly addictive painkiller Oxy-Contin, are ordered to attend a virtual hearing in which they're confronted by families who had been impacted by the drug. Listening to tragic stories of accidental overdoses, birth defects, and young men cut down in their prime due to a prescription medication that had been promoted as safe and non-addicting, the Sacklers could not look more bored, even slightly annoyed. It’s a chilling reminder that extreme wealth often results in a loss of empathy, if not one’s entire soul. Continue Reading →
Strange Planet
SimilarA Returner's Magic Should Be Special, Chicken Nugget, Family Guy, Flower Boy Next Door, Go Back Couple, Invincible, The Bride of Habaek, The Sound of Your Heart, Wedding Impossible,
StudioApple Studios,
Continue Reading →
Survival of the Thickest
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Fallen, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless,
Hilda Furacão In the Land of Leadale,
Little Women M*A*S*H, Monarch of the Glen, Mr. Mercedes, No Escape,
Pride and Prejudice Sherlock Holmes Tales from the Neverending Story, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Lost World, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, Word of Honor, Wycliffe,
StudioA24,
In 1995, way back last century, I went shopping for a dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding. Accompanied by my mother, it soon became apparent to us both that I, both a big and tall girl, wouldn’t be able to buy a dress in the Juniors section. My options eventually whittled down to one adult black velvet dress that, while the saleswoman assured us was totally chic for weddings, nevertheless showcased to the world that I could not fit into a fun or stylish dress for someone my age and that’s rough. It’s very rough. Continue Reading →
Mulligan
SimilarFamily Guy,
StarringSam Richardson,
Mulligan may be an animated comedy about a ragtag group of survivors of an alien attack on Earth. However, Hardcore 30 Rock fans will quickly discover Netflix’s new animated series feels pretty familiar to the early-aughts sitcom. First, there’s the fast-paced comedic timing, a signature of producers Robert Carlock, Tina Fey, and Sam Means. Next, both series feature the infectious, bouncy music of Jeff Richmond. Finally, both got off to a bit of a rough start. Still, just like hang gliding over an apocalyptic alien attack, Mulligan’s an amusing, wild journey that rewards viewers who hang on for the ride. Continue Reading →
High Desert
Studio3 Arts Entertainment,
Television has entered a new era of the citizen detective. If the boys of Only Murders In the Building are Jessica Fletcher for the 2020s and Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie of Poker Face is today’s Columbo, High Desert’s Peggy (Patricia Arquette) is the inheritor of the con artist crime fighter mantel. Think those “Characters Welcome” staples Psych or White Collar. Then trade the charismatic 30-something man running a scam for a charismatic middle-aged woman looking for an angle and maybe some pills. Continue Reading →
Barry
SimilarBrazil Avenue, Catterick, Hunter x Hunter, Murder Most Horrid,
The theme music is gone. Continue Reading →
BEEF
It takes a little while to find Beef’s groove. This critic assures you that this is not the classic of the streaming age, “give it a few episodes” warning. By the end of the first episode, you will know if the series is for you. However, everything about the show feels overwhelming in the first eight to ten minutes. Continue Reading →
Tiny Beautiful Things
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Around the World in 80 Days, Helltown, No Escape, Santa Evita, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Wycliffe,
StudioABC Signature,
If you belonged to a certain group of very online Millennials around 2011, then the chances that a Dear Sugar letter changed your life or permanently lodged itself in your brain are high. I know it’s certainly true for me. That means I’m carrying a certain degree of baggage to Hulu’s newest series, Tiny Beautiful Things, based on the book of the same name--a collection of Dear Sugar’s best advice columns)--and Sugar herself, Cheryl Strayed, who stepped forward as the columnist in 2012. Continue Reading →
Transatlantic
GenreDrama War & Politics,
While Anna Winger’s new series Transatlantic is visually and textually lush, it opens a stark portrayal of the refugee experience. It’s painful, watching as they struggle with the terrain, carrying everything they have in their arms. You hear every labored breath, see every sweat stain. This long opening sequence sets the tone for the rest of the seven-part series–it isn’t glamorous or glossy, just beautifully filtered misery, fear, and hope. Continue Reading →
Unstable
Unstable appears to be a deeply personal show for lead actor and co-creator Rob Lowe. After all, it revolves around a father/son duo played by Lowe and his real-life son, John Owen Lowe. Rob Lowe’s headlined worse stuff than this, for sure. Nonetheless, you’d think a series that seems rooted in something this personal would be more engaging to watch. At least, it might take some bold swings. Tragically, Unstable is a mostly just average comedy that leaves little in the way of an impression for good or ill. Continue Reading →
Swarm
Every episode of Amazon’s Swarm begins with a title card that reads, “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is intentional.” Continue Reading →
Salvage Hunters: The Restaurators
In Season 2, Hunters remains dedicated to exploring whether vengeance and justice can ever be one and the same. Continue Reading →
Monarch
Whether it’s the cutthroat business world of Succession to the fantasy universe of House of the Dragon, television audiences are here to see the chaos and drama of families living and working with each other. Looking to add to the mix is Fox’s newest drama Monarch, from writer Melissa Hilfers. Continue Reading →
Chad and JT Go Deep
There’s been a recent boom in the television sphere of hybrid comedy/documentary series, ranging from altered talk shows (The Eric Andre Show) to pranks with the pals (Jackass) and cringe “reality” series (The Rehearsal). Looking to join the ranks is Netflix’s new show Chad and JT Go Deep, a comedic mockumentary series that flirts with cringe comedy, advocates for important causes, and aims to make us all members of “stokenation.” Continue Reading →
Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers
SimilarWinning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,
No one mistakes HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers for a 30 For 30 documentary. So why does that series feel more authentic to the Golden Era of professional basketball, and the team that helped elevate the NBA into an American pastime, than a ten-hour documentary about the Lakers? Continue Reading →