5 Best TV Shows Like HBO's Half Man

This article contains discussions of mental health and sexual assault.

After breaking onto the scene in a big way with the Netflix original series "Baby Reindeer" in 2024 (and we'll circle back to that series shortly), Richard Gadd returned to television in 2026 with "Half Man," a limited series for HBO Max that stars him and Jamie Bell as two young men bound together for life. Gadd's Ruben Pallister and Bell's Niall Kennedy — played as teenagers in an earlier timeline by Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson, respectively — were raised as brothers despite not sharing any bloodlines, but this simply created a complex and often untenable relationship between the two. Thirty years after their last meeting, Niall is getting married and Ruben comes to the wedding, but they still have issues from their teenage years that need to be addressed, and the way that this manifests ranges from outright violence to devastating sexual assault.

"Half Man" is, to be clear, an incredibly dark and intense watch; we highly recommend that you check trigger warnings before committing to this show's four-episode run. If "Half Man" is extremely your type of engrossing drama, though, you're in luck, because we've compiled five picks to watch once you finish this series. From Gadd's other big streaming series to another dark HBO hit to a gripping dual-timeline Hulu series adapted from a popular book, here are five shows you should check out after watching Richard Gadd's "Half Man."

After initially envisioning "Baby Reindeer" as a one-man show that he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival — which means that it has the same roots as another hit series, "Fleabag" — Richard Gadd brought the series to Netflix in 2024, at which point the show won armloads of Emmys and Golden Globes during the following awards season.

Like in "Half Man," Gadd himself stars in the series, but in this one he plays put-upon bartender and aspiring comedian Donny Dunn, who inadvertently makes a fatal mistake when he takes pity on a bar patron named Martha (Jessica Gunning) after other guests mock her demeanor and appearance. Martha, if you take her word for it, is a powerful attorney and extremely wealthy — even though Donny has to cover her cup of tea when she can't afford the bill — and her story keeps unraveling as she begins stalking and obsessing over Donny through misspelled text messages and emails. In many of them, she refers to Donny as her "baby reindeer." As Martha's stalking intensifies, Donny starts crumbling in every aspect of his life, from his job to his creative passions to his budding relationship with a transgender woman named Teri (a spectacular Nava Mau).

Gadd has said that "Baby Reindeer" is based partially on something he actually experienced, which makes the show particularly shocking ... and like "Half Man," this is something where you'll want to check a lengthy list of triggers before hitting play. When you're ready, though, "Baby Reindeer" is a searing portrait of two lost people who find themselves in one another's orbit — and exactly how everything between them devolves into utter disaster.

England really has the market cornered on super-dark limited series that explore masculinity and vulnerability, and the Netflix original series "Adolescence" is a pretty perfect example of that. Created by "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" scribe Jack Thorne and writer-actor Stephen Graham — the latter of whom also stars in the series — "Adolescence" isn't a "whodunit," but an investigation of precisely why a young boy stabbed one of his classmates to death in clear view of cameras. "Adolescence" opens with the Miller household — made up of son Jamie (Owen Cooper, giving one of the best performances of 2025 without question), daughter Lisa (Amélie Pease), mother Manda (Christine Tremarco), and father Eddie (Graham) — as it's raided by the police, because they're there to arrest Jamie for the murder of his schoolmate Katie Leonard. The police know that Jamie did it, but they don't know why, and the show's four episodes delve into precisely why Jamie committed this horrifying crime.

Every episode of "Adolescence" is shot in a single, unbroken take — showing off the mastery of Thorne, Graham, and director of photography Matthew Lewis — and each episode feels more gutting than the last. (The third installment, which centers entirely around an interrogation of Jamie by Erin Doherty's forensic psychologist Briony Ashton, is particularly hard to watch.) Still, "Adolescence" is a vital series because it makes one thing clear: toxic masculinity being allowed to flourish freely in dark corners of the Internet is incredibly dangerous.

The first handful of episodes of "Industry," a collaboration between the BBC and HBO that was created by former investment bankers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, basically just focus on the goings-on at London financial firm Pierpoint & Co. as American transplant Harper Stern (Myha'la) learns the ropes. As the show continues, though, you start to realize that there's a lot more going on underneath the surface in "Industry," a deliciously nasty and dark show that features astounding performances from Marisa Abela as Yasmin Kara-Hanani, Pierpoint bigwig Eric Tao (Ken Leung), and Miriam Petche as the absurdly named Sweetpea Golightly, just to name a few. 

So just how dark does "Industry" get? The limit does not exist. In the show's first season, Yasmin, Harper, and other new employees do whatever it takes to suceed at Pierpoint, but as "Industry" continues, they evolve past Pierpoint and get involved in increasingly shady business practices to try and succeed. Starting in Season 3 of "Industry," "Game of Thrones" veteran Kit Harington joins the cast as Sir Henry Muck, a flat-out moron who enjoys acquiring businesses and then running them directly into the ground — and when he forges a political marriage with Yasmin, the two find new moral depths together. (Without getting into specifics or spoilers, a major character's journey draws a clear parallel to real-life criminal Ghislaine Maxwell throughout Season 3 and 4.) "Industry" is sharp, funny, gruesome, and absolutely wild, and it's well worth watching after you finish "Half Man."

Love the dysfunctional (to put it lightly) dynamic of "Half Man?" Give the Showtime original series "Shameless" a try, because in many ways it does feel like a blueprint for a show like "Half Man." Based on the British series by Paul Abbott, "Shameless" tells the story of the Gallagher family, "led," such as it is, by patriarch Frank (William H. Macy) as they struggle to make ends meet in Chicago. Frank may be the "head of the family," but his eldest daughter Fiona (Emmy Rossum) takes on basically all of the work, trying to keep her siblings Philip "Lip" (future Emmy winner for "The Bear" Jeremy Allen White), Ian (Cameron Monaghan), Debbie (Emma Kenney), Carl (Ethan Cutkowsky), and baby Liam (portrayed by several actors) in check.

"Shameless," true to its name, never shies away from disturbing or humiliating situations — or, honestly, situations that are both disturbing and humiliating — as it depicts Frank's utter recklessness as a father, Fiona's desperation to keep the Gallaghers together, or societal issues that keep the Gallaghers from rising above their station in life. "Shameless" isn't quite as intense as "Half Man," but the two make a perfect pairing.

"Tell Me Lies," a college drama based on Carola Lovering's best-selling novel of the same name, doesn't seem to have anything in common with "Half Man" at first glance. These two series actually share a decent amount of overlap, though: both of them take place across dual times, and both of them spend one of those timelines at an incredibly fraught and drama-filled wedding. So what do you need to know about "Tell Me Lies?"

This three-season series created by Meaghan Oppenheimer centers around Lucy Albright (Grace van Patten), who begins her tenure at the pastoral and fictional Baird College by meeting Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White), a manipulative upperclassman who immediately drags her into his orbit. As Grace forms a tight bond with her hallmates Pippa and Bree (Sonia Mena and Cat Missal), she finds herself falling for Stephen, even though she knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he's no good for her. "Tell Me Lies," which concluded after its third season, is an underrated portrait of a deeply toxic relationship that features genuinely phenomenal performances, especially from van Patten and White. 

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).