Shows that feel likeOrange Is the New Black (2013–2019)
If you loved Orange Is the New Black, the closest series we have are Weeds (2005), Vice Principals (2016) and The Gentlemen (2024). All three share Orange Is the New Black's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality.
Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Santa Clarita Diet (2017).
If Orange Is the New Black hit the spot, these will too
Jenji Kohan again: a comfortable woman sinking into criminal life
The difference: One family's story, not a whole institution's worth of backstories
Both keep coming back to the same thing: dark comedy
The difference: Trades the stillness of Orange Is the New Black for an angle of its own
Crime played for style and jokes with an outsider dropped in the middle
The difference: Slick and plotty — no interest in what a system does to people
A comfortable person surrounded by chaos they helped cause
The difference: Live-action farce, tightly constructed and much drier
A sharp, self-destructive New Yorker forced to face her own past
The difference: A surreal puzzle box — the trap is metaphysical, not a prison
Crime told with dark comedy and real sympathy for the people in it
The difference: Anthology, snowbound and much more stylised
Deadpan wit riding alongside genuine damage in its young leads
The difference: Tiny and intimate: two people, short episodes, no ensemble
Comedy and real violence sharing a scene until neither one wins
The difference: Tight and focused on one man, and it turns bleak much faster
Ordinary suburbanites cheerfully adjusting to a criminal reality
The difference: A married two-hander, gory and much sillier
Common ground: dark comedy
The difference: Easier on the stillness than Orange Is the New Black
Witty where it counts, playful underneath
Darkly funny comedy, and it commits to that
In the mood for more contemplative?
all contemplative shows →The best-reviewed series that share Orange Is the New Black’s defining feeling.
