Shows Like
Shows Like East of Eden: Sweeping Family Sagas
By Jordan A. · · 5 min read
Netflix just dropped one of the most stacked limited series of the year. East of Eden arrived October 1, 2026, seven episodes, with Florence Pugh playing Cathy Ames in an adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel. Zoe Kazan wrote it, which carries a strange bit of family history, because her grandfather Elia Kazan directed the 1955 film version.
If those seven episodes go down fast and leave you wanting more sprawling, generational drama, you are in good company. The family saga is one of television's oldest engines, and a handful of shows do it better than almost anything else on streaming. Here is where to go next.
Start with what makes East of Eden tick
Steinbeck built East of Eden around the Trask family in California's Salinas Valley, a story about inheritance, jealousy, and whether we are doomed to repeat our parents' worst mistakes. The Netflix version leans hard into Cathy Ames, one of literature's coldest characters, and Pugh looks built for it. Christopher Abbott plays Adam Trask, Mike Faist is his brother Charles, and Ciaran Hinds turns up as Samuel Hamilton.
The reason the show works as a gateway is simple. It is a story about a family fracturing across time, told with real weight and prestige-level craft. The shows below all pull on that same thread in different ways.
Succession, for the family that eats itself
No modern show captured familial poison better than Succession. The Roy children circle their father like sharks, and every dinner table doubles as a boardroom. If the cruelty and the ache underneath East of Eden is what hooked you, this is the obvious next stop. All four seasons are on HBO Max, and it holds up to a second run once you know how it ends. We broke down the whole thing in our guide to shows like Succession, so start there if you want more corporate knife fights.
The Crown, for dynasty on a grand scale
The Crown trades the Salinas Valley for Buckingham Palace, but the core is identical. It is a story about a family bound by duty, warped by money and power, unable to simply love each other in a normal way. Six seasons on Netflix take you from a young Elizabeth to the modern era, and the production is stunning enough to justify the runtime. Fans of period detail and slow-building resentment will feel right at home. Our roundup of shows like The Crown has more royal and historical picks.
This Is Us, for the emotional gut punch
Where Steinbeck goes dark, This Is Us goes tender, but the machinery is the same. The Pearson family story jumps across decades, tracing how one generation's choices ripple into the next. It is a show engineered to make you cry, and it earns it more often than not. You can stream all six seasons on Hulu. If East of Eden left you thinking about the long shadow parents cast, this is the warmer flip side of that idea.
A few more sagas worth the commitment
The family drama bench runs deep, and these three are worth a spot on the list once the marquee picks are done.
- Bloodline (Netflix): a Florida Keys family buries its secrets until the black sheep comes home. Slow burn, then a slow-motion collapse.
- Big Little Lies (HBO Max): Monterey mothers, a death no one will explain, and Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern doing career-best work.
- The Sinner (Netflix): more crime than pure saga, but every case digs into how family damage gets passed down like an heirloom.
How to pick your next one
If you want the closest match to the moral weight of East of Eden, go Succession. If you loved the scope and the costumes, The Crown is your night. If Pugh's performance made you feel something and you want to keep feeling it, This Is Us will wring you out in the best way. All of them share that one Steinbeck idea, that the people who raise us leave marks we spend a lifetime trying to understand. For a wider spread of heavy hitters, our list of the best drama shows of 2026 is a good map.
The saga that defined the genre
If you finish those and still want more, go to Six Feet Under, the show that arguably perfected the form. Alan Ball's series about a family running a funeral home ran five seasons and remains one of the most honest things ever made about grief and the people we are stuck loving. It streams on HBO Max. Where East of Eden asks whether we can escape our family's patterns, Six Feet Under just watches a family try, fail, and keep going anyway, right down to a finale people still call the best ending in television.
That thread runs through every pick here. The family saga endures because it is the one story everybody lives. We all come from somewhere, we all inherit things we never asked for, and we all spend years deciding what to keep and what to break. Steinbeck knew it in 1952, and Netflix is betting you still feel it in 2026. So pick the version that matches your mood tonight, the cold ambition of the Roys, the pageantry of the Windsors, or the warm ache of the Pearsons, and give it a full season to pull you under. Every one of them rewards the time you put in, and none of them will leave you feeling like you wasted an evening.
Not sure which saga fits your mood tonight? BingeNext reads across every service you already pay for and points you straight at the family drama worth your evening, no endless scrolling required. Get show recommendations and find your next one in seconds.
Topics covered: east of eden, family drama shows, florence pugh, succession, the crown
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.