15 Shows to Watch After The Bear

On June 27, FX on Hulu will drop the entire third season of The Bear, fresh off its 10 Emmy Award wins. For fans of the series, it’s a real relief to have the acclaimed comedy-drama back; few other recent shows in the last few years have captured as much attention and started as much conversation. But what happens after you binge all 10 episodes in the first few days?

Here are 15 other TV series to check out after watching The Bear, broken down by what void you’re hoping to fill.

Restaurant shows

Sweetbitter

You may be surprised at how few TV shows are set in restaurants, but this half-hour Starz drama features many of the same elements as The Bear, especially when it comes to the overwhelming stress (and the strangely addictive thrill) of working in a highly rated establishment. Based on the novel of the same name by Stephanie Danler—who waitressed at an acclaimed NYC restaurant herself—Sweetbitter isn’t a great show, but it gets the job done—and it stars Ella Purnell, who has since broken out with big roles in Yellowjackets and Fallout.

Midnight Diner

This Japanese anthology series on Netflix centers on a late-night diner in Tokyo owned by an unnamed chef known as “the Master.” Each mostly self-contained episode follows a particular customer going through some personal drama as the Master prepares their favorite meal, with the dish often playing an important role in the customer’s story. Midnight Diner is both a great food show and a great show about humanity.

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

The late Anthony Bourdain was the widely beloved Celebrity chef behind food and Travel shows such as No Reservations (2005–2012) and his follow-up, Parts Unknown (2013–2018). And while the nonfiction nature of No Reservations distinguishes it from a scripted series like The Bear, it’s worth checking out for its infectious passion for food and culture. And you can always binge Parts Unknown when you run out of episodes. Both are currently streaming on Max.

FX and Hulu dramedies

Reservation Dogs

The Bear is part of a lineage of half-hour dramedies, many of which also found a home at FX. And it doesn’t get much better than Reservation Dogs, which aired its final season last year. Set in rural Oklahoma, the series follows four Indigenous teenagers and their extended families in the small reservation community. Beyond what the show did with representation—featuring all Indigenous writers and directors, a first—it’s one of the most funny, heartbreaking, and profoundly hopeful series of the last decade.

Atlanta

Want more of The Bear’s occasional trips into surrealism and short-story structuring? Check out Atlanta, Donald Glover’s dreamlike comedy-drama about up-and-coming rapper Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry) and his manager Earn (Glover). The series offers countless strange and funny new angles on race and the Black experience, even dipping into the horror genre from time to time. Many shows have tried to replicate Atlanta’ssuccess to varying degrees—Dave is a decent one—but nothing feels quite like the original.

Ramy

Like The Bear’s Carmy, the title character of Ramy is a very, very flawed young man. A first-generation American Muslim, Ramy (played by Ramy Youssef) lives in New Jersey with his parents and sister, and you want to root for him to figure out his career, his love life, and his faith. But it’s sometimes hard to love someone so dedicated to self-sabotage—especially when you can’t tell if he’s ever really learning from his mistakes. Still, as frustrating as that viewing experience can be, it’s a rewarding one for all the moments of insight and humor that each season brings.

Better Things

Looking for something alternately stressful and soothing? Pamela Adlon’s Better Things is a tough yet empathetic comedy-drama about aging and motherhood. Adlon stars as Sam, a working actress in L.A. juggling her career with existential crises, failing relationships, and the comPeting attentions of her three daughters. One of the most moving depictions of single parenthood on TV.

Shows about creative or professional soulmates

Mythic Quest

The writers of The Bear have steadfastly refused to turn Carmy and Sydney’s intense professional relationship into a romantic one, despite the hopes of certain shippers. The Apple TV+ series Mythic Quest, a workplace comedy about a video Game studio, features a similar duo: creative director and ideas man Ian (creator Rob McElhenney) and brilliant engineer Poppy (breakout Charlotte Nicdao), two best friends who repeatedly come to blows over ego, jealousy, and control issues. And the show is even more adamant in its stance on the impossibility of them hooking up—in season two, Poppy has a sex dream about Ian, but it’s more about seeking approval than attraction, and she’s utterly horrified by it.

Halt and Catch Fire

The first season of this underrated AMC drama, centered primarily on mysterious entrepreneur Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) and computer engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), made for a solid period drama about the dawn of the personal computer revolution. But the show only truly takes off in the second season, reconfigured with programmer Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis) and Gordon’s brilliant engineer wife Donna as the true leads. Cameron and Donna’s complex, life-changing friendship and partnership is one of my favorite dynamics in all of television.

For All Mankind

There’s plenty of family drama on Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, but this is ultimately a show about tight workplace friendships, especially among the astronauts, engineers, and administrators working at NASA. Take stubborn traditionalist Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) and gentle pragmatist Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall), two astronauts who butt heads as often as they get along, especially as the show goes on. Or eventual NASA director Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) and her undocumented protegee Aleida Rosales (Coral Peña). In this show, the relationships matter as much as the race to the new frontier.

Hacks

This HBO comedy-drama created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky takes place in the world of stand-up comedy, centering on the partnership between the legendary Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her new head writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder). Three seasons in, the two still can’t quite openly acknowledge how much they need each other, but the value of their symbiosis is clear: Deborah needs Ava’s help to stay relevant, and Ava needs Deborah’s wisdom (and pushback) to understand her own place in the world.

Other shows featuring the cast of The Bear

Shameless

Jeremy Allen White deserves all the acclaim he gets for his lead role as Carmy in The Bear. But he also gave a revelatory breakout performance in the Showtime comedy-drama Shameless, where he played Lip, the academically gifted but unmotivated second-eldest sibling in the Gallagher family. The later seasons might be spotty, but season four—the show’s peak—might still contain the best acting of White’s career.

Girls

Before Ebon Moss-Bachrach played the most loathsome (and then strangely lovable) major character on The Bear, he played the most loathsome (and not lovable at all) character on HBO’s Girls: Desi Harperin, the long-term creative and romantic partner of Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams). Girls is worth checking out if you’re eager to see more of Moss-Bachrach at his best/worst (he first appears in season three), but it’s also one of this century’s funniest, most astute dissections of privileged youth and arrested development.

Clone High

This hilarious animated sitcom about a high school full of cloned historical figures has a long, tortured History: after airing one season on MTV back in 2003 and attracting controversy in India for its depiction of Gandhi, the series was canceled. It wasn’t until 2023 that the show’s substantial cult following got their wishes: a full revival on Max, with new clone characters including Frida Kahlo (voiced by Vicci Martinez) and Harriet Tubman (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri).

Loiter Squad

In his role as the sweet, sensitive pastry chef Marcus on The Bear, Lionel Boyce has recently become known to a much wider viewership. But before his breakout role, Boyce was L-Boy, a member of the hip-hop collective Odd Future. That means he also had a regular spot in Loiter Squad, Odd Future’s sketch comedy series for Adult Swim. With its breezy, very funny 10-minute episodes, it’s worth checking out on Max—especially if you’re interested in seeing Boyce in a different mode.