Shows Like
Shows Like Beef: Ordinary People Spiraling
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
Beef works because the road rage is not the story. The story is two people whose lives were already unbearable, who finally found a socially acceptable place to put it. Netflix released the first season in April 2023 with Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, and it came back in April 2026 as an anthology with a new cast and a new feud, so the format is now officially about ordinary people spiraling rather than those two specifically.
That is the criterion for this list. Not comedy-drama. Not prestige. Shows where a recognizable person makes one bad decision, then defends it with a second worse one, and the show refuses to let them off. Each pick says what it shares with Beef, where it goes somewhere else, and who should pick it. Where a title streams changes, so check its page on BingeNext for current US options.
The spiral, done as comedy
Barry (HBO, 2018 to 2023, four seasons) is a hitman who wanders into an acting class and decides he can just become someone else. Bill Hader stars and co-created it, and he directed most of the back half, which gets steadily less funny and more terrifying on purpose. It shares Beef's central lie, that a new identity will fix an old problem. It is more violent and considerably bleaker by the end.
Fleabag (BBC Three, 2016 and 2019, two seasons of six episodes) is Phoebe Waller-Bridge sabotaging every relationship she has while talking directly to you about it. Same self-awareness that changes nothing, same grief underneath the jokes. Much shorter, much warmer, and the second season is one of the best things television has done. Choose it if you want the spiral to end in something like grace.
You're the Worst (FX and FXX, 2014 to 2019, five seasons) starts as a sitcom about two awful people dating and turns into a serious show about depression without ever announcing that it has. The escalation is romantic rather than vengeful. Good for people who liked Beef's refusal to make anyone likeable as a condition of caring about them.
The spiral, done as horror
The Curse (Showtime, 2023 to 2024, ten episodes) follows a couple making a home-renovation show in New Mexico while their marriage and their good intentions rot in real time. Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone play social embarrassment as physical pain. It is slower and far more uncomfortable than Beef, and the ending is genuinely divisive. Take it if the cringe was your favorite part.
Baby Reindeer (Netflix, 2024, seven episodes) is Richard Gadd's account of a stalker, and then of why he kept answering her. It has Beef's structure exactly: a small kindness, a wildly disproportionate consequence, and a protagonist who keeps choosing the worse option. Heavier subject matter. Watch the content warnings first.
I May Destroy You (BBC One and HBO, 2020, twelve episodes) has Michaela Coel writing, co-directing and starring as a writer piecing together a night she cannot remember. It is funnier than its subject suggests and structurally the most inventive show on this list. Pick it if you want Beef's honesty about how people behave badly while hurting.
The spiral, with something strange in it
Russian Doll (Netflix, 2019 and 2022, two seasons) puts Natasha Lyonne in a time loop on the night of her thirty-sixth birthday and makes the loop a mechanism for looking at everything she has avoided. Same New York abrasiveness, same buried grief. The sci-fi is the delivery system, not the point.
Fargo (FX, 2014 to present, five seasons so far) is an anthology and season one is the closest thing to Beef ever made: a bullied nobody meets a stranger who gives him permission, and then he cannot stop. Every season is standalone, so you can jump in anywhere, though one, two and five are the strongest.
Search Party (2016 to 2022, five seasons, first two on TBS and the rest on HBO Max) begins with four self-absorbed Brooklynites investigating a missing acquaintance and mutates genre roughly once a season. The through line is people who cannot admit what they actually want. It gets very strange, and that is a recommendation.
The spiral, at family scale
Atlanta (FX, 2016 to 2022, four seasons) is loosely about managing a rapper cousin and mostly about being broke, tired and observant. It shares Beef's willingness to abandon plot for an episode to chase an idea. Less anger, more melancholy.
Bad Sisters (Apple TV, 2022 and 2024, two seasons) is five Irish sisters and the brother-in-law they would very much like to be rid of. It is the funniest show here and the plotting is tight in a way Beef deliberately is not. Good if you want the same escalating bad decisions with a lot more warmth.
PEN15 (Hulu, 2019 to 2021, two seasons) has Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle playing thirteen-year-old versions of themselves in the year 2000, surrounded by actual teenagers. It sounds like a gag and it is one of the most painfully accurate shows about humiliation ever made. Watch it when you want the spiral at its origin point.
Where to start
If you want the closest match, Fargo season one or Baby Reindeer. If you want to laugh more than you wince, Bad Sisters or Fleabag. If you want to wince more than you laugh, The Curse. If you want the best-made thing on the list, I May Destroy You.
Or skip the list entirely: give BingeNext's TV recommendations a few shows you have loved and it will come back with picks, the reason each one fits, and where it streams. About a minute.
Topics covered: drama, character-study, psychological, contemporary, intense, netflix
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About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.