Shows Like
Shows Like The Diplomat: Political Thrillers Worth It
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
The Diplomat is Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, a career foreign service officer parachuted into the ambassadorship in London while a crisis she did not create keeps getting worse. Netflix launched it in April 2023 and it has run three seasons so far, with a fourth on the way. What makes it work is not the geopolitics. It is a competent woman in a bad marriage doing a job where every sentence is a negotiation and nobody can say what they mean.
That combination, procedural competence plus a marriage that will not resolve plus real institutional detail, is rarer than it sounds. Below are twelve shows that get at least two of the three, sorted by which part you want most. Streaming rights shift, so the title page on BingeNext shows current US options rather than a platform I would have to guess at.
If you want the workplace, not the guns
Borgen (DR1, Denmark, 2010 to 2013, three seasons, with a Netflix-produced fourth in 2022) is the best show on this list and the closest match. Sidse Babett Knudsen plays a politician who becomes prime minister by accident and then discovers what the job costs at home. Same coalition maths, same corridor conversations, same marriage grinding down in the background. Subtitles are the only obstacle.
The West Wing (NBC, 1999 to 2006, seven seasons) is the original argument that process is thrilling. It is warmer and much more idealistic than The Diplomat, and its walk-and-talk rhythm is where Kate Wyler's dialogue ultimately comes from. Choose it if you want to feel better rather than worse about government.
Madam Secretary (CBS, 2014 to 2019, six seasons) is the network version of exactly this premise: a former analyst becomes Secretary of State and handles an international incident a week alongside her family. It is lighter, tidier and more sentimental than The Diplomat. Take it if you want a hundred and twenty episodes of comfort viewing in the same world.
If you want the spycraft
Slow Horses (Apple TV, 2022 to present, five seasons aired) dumps MI5's failures into a shabby annex run by Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb, who is disgusting and almost always right. Six episodes a season, no filler, and it is very funny in a way The Diplomat only occasionally allows itself. The best-paced show here.
The Americans (FX, 2013 to 2018, six seasons) is two KGB officers posing as a suburban married couple in 1980s Washington, and it is fundamentally a marriage drama with tradecraft attached. If the Kate and Hal dynamic is why you watch The Diplomat, this is the deepest version of that idea anyone has filmed.
The Night Manager (BBC One, 2016, six episodes, with a second season in January 2026) puts Tom Hiddleston inside an arms dealer's inner circle in an adaptation of le Carre. Glossier and more romantic than The Diplomat, and the first season is a self-contained six hours. Good if you want the international glamour turned up.
Tehran (Kan 11, Israel, 2020 to present, three seasons) follows a Mossad agent stuck in a city where every contact might be a trap. It is tenser and much less talkative than The Diplomat, and it is excellent on how ordinary logistics can kill an operation.
If you want the crisis and the politics of it
Homeland (Showtime, 2011 to 2020, eight seasons) is the big one, and it is genuinely uneven, but seasons one, four and five are as good as this genre gets. Claire Danes plays a CIA officer whose instincts are usually right and whose judgment is not. More thriller, less office.
Bodyguard (BBC One, 2018, six episodes) sets a traumatised veteran as protection officer to an ambitious Home Secretary, and then makes the politics and the personal collapse into each other. It is six hours, it moves like a rocket, and its first ten minutes are a masterclass. The single best entry point if you have one night.
Okkupert (2015 to 2020, three seasons), released internationally as Occupied, imagines Russia taking soft control of Norwegian energy production while everyone pretends it is a partnership. It is the most cerebral show here and the most interested in how a country talks itself into surrender. Norwegian, with subtitles.
House of Cards (Netflix, 2013 to 2018, six seasons) is the cynical opposite of The West Wing and the show that taught Netflix it could do prestige. It is about appetite rather than competence, and the later seasons sag badly. Include it if you want villainy rather than problem solving.
The Good Fight (2017 to 2022, six seasons) is not a political thriller and it belongs here anyway. Christine Baranski's Diane Lockhart spends six seasons in a law firm processing the actual politics of the era, and by the later seasons the show is doing formally strange things nothing else on network-adjacent television was attempting. Take it if what you like about The Diplomat is a competent woman being handed impossible situations by people with worse judgment.
What none of these will give you
Worth being honest about the thing that makes The Diplomat unusual. Most political thrillers are about a threat, and the workplace is set dressing. The Diplomat is about a job, and the threat is what generates the meetings. Only Borgen and The West Wing really share that priority. If you pick up Homeland or Tehran expecting long scenes of people arguing about wording in a statement, you will be watching a different kind of show, and a good one, but not that one.
Where to start
Borgen if you want The Diplomat's brain. Slow Horses if you want its pace. The Americans if you want the marriage. Bodyguard if you have one free evening and want to be wrecked by midnight.
For a shortlist built from your own history instead of a general list, put three or four favorites into BingeNext's TV recommendations. You get picks, a reason for each, and where they stream, in about a minute.
Topics covered: political-thriller, drama, international-intrigue, mystery, netflix
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.