Missing Succession? Watch these dramas about awful rich people instead

Succession is over, and much like Kendall Roy just before the final credits, fans of the show are staring into space, wondering how they will cope. Kendall will be alright: he still has his billions in the bank and his start-up, The Hundred, with the “ethos of a non-profit, but the path to crazy margins”.

For devotees of Succession, there is an upside too: Jesse Armstrong’s blacker-than-black dramedy isn’t the first show to feature unpleasant characters exchanging zinging dialogue. In honour of the imploding Roy siblings, here are 13 Succession-esque series to watch next.

1. Billions

(Sky/Now/Showtime)

Anyone for a bonus serving of horrible people stabbing each other in the back with the Manhattan skyline twinkling balefully in the background? If the board-room skulduggery drew you to Succession, we’re banking on you getting a kick out of Billions. It stars Damian Lewis as a Logan Roy-esque hedge fund manager, Bobby Axelrod, locked in an eternal struggle for supremacy with grumpy US Justice Department lawyer Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti). Lewis left after five seasons, but a seventh season is en route – along with no less than four spin-offs, Billions: Miami, Billions: London, Millions (about young go-getters) and Trillions.

2. The White Lotus

(Sky/Now/Max)

Mike White’s The White Lotus ticks the boxes for those who enjoy seeing privileged prats get their comeuppance. Series one followed a group of spoiled-holiday makers in Hawaii, while season two was set around a luxury resort in Sicily. In both cases, the opulent settings were in stark relief to the selfish, self-absorbed cast of vacationers – headed by cult actress Jennifer Coolidge.

3. Veep

(Sky/Now/Max)

Succession is a spiritual heir to Veep – the HBO dark comedy from British writer/producer Armando Iannucci. The similarities run deep: Veep’s portrayal of the bickering staff of a preening American Vice President (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) features contributions from writers who would go on to work on Succession – including Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, who toiled both on Veep and Iannucci’s BBC hit The Thick Of It.

4. Bloodline

(Netflix)

Familial strife featuring dysfunctional siblings and an aloof patriarch didn’t originate with Succession. Early Netflix hit Bloodline stars Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn, and Linda Cardellini as the feuding children of hotel-owning grandees Robert and Sally Rayburn (Sam Shepard, Sissy Spacek).

5. Kings

(Unavailable to stream – legally, at least) 

Tricky to track down nowadays, this fantastically bonkers 2009 series retells the story of King David – as in Goliath’s pal from the Bible – in an approximation of the modern-day USA. Ian McShane charges through the action of Silas, who believes he is the rightful ruler of the Kingdom of “Gilboa” because a “crown” of butterflies landed on his head once. Christopher Egan is the young David, Allison Miller is Silas’s Shiv Roy-style daughter, Michelle, while future Marvel hero Sebastian Stan is Jack, Silas’s resentful son. Backstabbing action and bonkers dialogue blend memorably – what a shame Kings was cancelled after just one season.

6. Arrested Development

(Netflix/Disney+)

Before the Roys were the Bluths – a wealthy family populated with horrible people and led by a brutish father. Arrested Development was funnier than Succession, and featured the unsurpassable cast of Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Will Arnett, David Cross and Jessica Walter. But it made the same point about privileged people being unpleasant and able to get away with anything (though the Bluths’s construction business was nowhere near as glittering as the Roys’s media empire). Walters’s subsequent accusation that she had been bullied on set by Tambor has tainted Arrested Development somewhat – but has not tarnished its cringe-comedy genius.

7. Empire

(Disney+/Hulu)

The backstabbing intrigue within a music industry dynasty is the subject matter of this New York set comedy-drama. The setting is Empire Entertainment, a hip-hop conglomerate headed by Jay-Z-esque mogul Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) and his three sons, each vying to inherit his throne (including Jussie Smollett, who was subsequently jailed after staging a fake hate crime against himself). It is all very Succession, though with better tunes.

8. Yellowstone

(Paramount+)

In many ways, Taylor Sheridan’s epic tale of a squabbling rancher dynasty in Montana is the reverse image of Succession. Where Succession bags all the Emmys, Yellowstone has to settle for being one of the most-watched shows in the US (where its ratings dwarf those of Succession). Kevin Costner is the Logan Roy-esque John Dutton III, while Kelly Reilly, Luke Grimes and Wes Bentley play his grasping children. Like Succession, Yellowstone has reached the end of the line: amid reports of tension between Sheridan and Costner, the next season will be the last. Unlike Succession, it has spawned a myriad of spin-offs, including 1883 (set during the Old West) and 1923 (a Depression-era vehicle for Helen Mirren).

9. The Righteous Gemstones

(Sky/Now/Max)

What is it about wealthy families not getting along that we find so irresistible? Whatever the answer, here is another. The Gemstones are a clan of megachurch televangelists led by John Goodman’s Dr Eli Gemstone, with Danny McBride, Edi Patterson and Adam DeVine as his less-than-pleasant children.

10. Industry

(iPlayer/Max)

Written by two former investment bankers, the HBO/BBC co-creation is set in a fictional London investment bank, where a scrum of young graduates spend all their time working themselves to the bone, having sex, stabbing everyone in the back and taking lots of drugs – often at the same time.

11. Soulmates

(Prime Video)

This Black Mirror-esque anthology series about love in a dystopian future doesn’t have much in common with Succession. But it does star Shiv Roy, herself, Sarah Snook, as Nikki, a woman whose marriage unravels after she takes a test to reveal her true “soulmate”.

12. War & Peace

(iPlayer/Prime Video)

The BBC’s Tolstoy adaptation from 2016 features the standard ripped bodices and starchy dialogue. But look out for Logan Roy, aka Brian Cox, in a silly hat as Russian field marshall Mikhail Kutuzov.

13. Peep Show

(All4/Netflix/Prime Video)

The series where it started for Jesse Armstrong. The original of the cringe comedy species starred David Mitchell and Robert Webb as dysfunctional pals in London, plus Olivia Colman as the girlfriend of Mitchell’s character. The milieu of grotty 20-something flatland is very different to Succession – but the humour cuts to the bone with the same cruelty.