Breaking Bad

Series Similar to Breaking Bad

If you enjoyed Breaking Bad, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. The Sopranos

   1999 · Drama, Crime · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime profile, highly rated (8.9).

   The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: Like 1999's other screen touchstone, American Beauty, the HBO series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood.

2. Ozark

   2017 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.1).

   In this dark, dangerous series, a family struggles after moving to an Ozarks resort community when they're thrust into a world of dirty money.

3. The Killing

   2011 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.2), also on AMC.

   The Killing follows Seattle homicide detectives Stephen Holder and Sarah Linden and their work as detectives investigating murders. Sarah Linden takes cases very seriously and has issues keeping her work and family separate, as she pairs up with recovering addict Stephen Holder to solve dark murders.

4. MINDHUNTER

   2017 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.4).

   MINDHUNTER is based on the 1996 book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, by former special agent John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. For years, Douglas pursued some of the most notorious serial killers and rapists, developing profiling techniques to catch them. The book goes behind the scenes of some of his highest-profile cases, including the man who hunted prostitutes in Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer. To hone in his profiling methods Douglas interviewed and studied a skew of serial killers. Several book and TV characters have been based in part on him, including Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs, Will Graham on Hannibal and Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds.

5. Bodyguard

   2018 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.2).

   Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch (RaSP) of London's Metropolitan Police Service.When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague, whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?

6. The Fall

   2013 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8).

   This gripping psychological thriller forensically examines the lives of two hunters; one a serial killer that stalks his victims at random, and the other a high-powered detective superintendent brought in to catch him.

7. Line of Duty

   2012 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · returning

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.5).

   A drama about the investigations of AC-12, a controversial Police Anti-Corruption Unit.

8. Luther

   2010 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · returning

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.4).

   A dark psychological crime drama starring Idris Elba as Luther, a man struggling with his own terrible demons, who might be as dangerous as the depraved murderers he hunts.

9. Killing Eve

   2018 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8).

   Based on the novellas by Luke Jennings, Killing Eve centers on two women; Eve is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn't fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Villanelle is an elegant, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her. Killing Eve topples the typical spy-action thriller as these two fiercely intelligent women, equally obsessed with each other, go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse.

10. The Shield

    2002 · Drama, Crime · ended

    Recommended for similar Crime profile, highly rated (8.6).

    Detective Vic Mackey is the leader of an elite Strike Team unit, a group of cops effective at eliminating crime but also operating under Vic's own set of rules. But his rules sometimes cross the fine line between legal and illegal. Now the precinct has a new captain who doesn't like Vic's tactics and wants to bust him off the force - even as the captain finds himself going to Vic for help whenever the going gets rough.