Shows Like
What to Watch After Breaking Bad
By Jordan A. · · 3 min read
Breaking Bad ruined a lot of other shows for a lot of people. Once you've watched a series where every episode is built like a short story and every season ends like a bomb going off, it's hard to be patient with a show that's just okay. The good news is that there really are shows that get close. The better news is that most of them aren't the ones you'll see on the top of every list.
I'll skip the obvious. You already know about Better Call Saul (watch it, it's better than Breaking Bad in places) and The Wire (you have either already watched it or you aren't going to). Here's what actually holds up after a Breaking Bad rewatch.
The closest thing to Walter White energy
Ozark is the show people mean when they say "Breaking Bad lite" and they're being unfair. It's its own thing. Jason Bateman plays a money launderer going deeper and deeper and the show knows exactly when to let the tension break. Four seasons. No filler.
Fargo is the one. Every season is a new story with new characters, and every season is worth your time. Start with season two if you want the best of it.
Animal Kingdom is the family-crime show you haven't watched yet. Six seasons, and the first three are genuinely great.
For the character study
Mindhunter is David Fincher's FBI show about the guys who invented criminal profiling. Slow, talky, perfect. Two seasons and that's all we're getting, but the two we got are excellent.
The Americans is about two Russian spies pretending to be an American couple in the 1980s. It's a marriage drama wrapped in a spy thriller and it earns every twist.
Rectify is the quietest show on this list and it might be the best one. A man is released from death row after twenty years. That's the whole show.
For the mechanics
The Shield is the show Breaking Bad learned from. It's older, it's messier, and the finale is one of the best in TV history.
Justified is a modern western built on Elmore Leonard short stories. Every episode has at least one great conversation.
Sneaky Pete is the con-man show Giovanni Ribisi made with Bryan Cranston producing. It flew under the radar and it absolutely works.
If you want something international
Gomorrah is the Italian mob show and it's brutal in a way American TV almost never is.
Narcos (seasons one and two, the Escobar ones) is the closest thing to a South American Breaking Bad we've got.
ZeroZeroZero is about the cocaine trade across three continents and it's gorgeous.
If you want the opposite mood but the same craft
Halt and Catch Fire is a show about people building computers in the 1980s. It sounds boring. It is not boring. Watch all four seasons. The finale will wreck you.
Mad Men is obvious, but people skip it because they think it's slow. Push through the first three episodes and it clicks.
Picking one of these is its own small problem. If you want a real shortcut, try BingeNext. Drop in Breaking Bad and whatever you've watched most recently and it will rank the list above against what you can actually stream tonight. It takes about thirty seconds and it's free.
Breaking Bad is a hard act to follow. These shows don't follow it. They stand next to it.
Topics covered: breaking-bad, crime, drama, antihero
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and writes every guide on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu, and he still tests every pick the hard way: by watching it.