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10 Shows Like 'Industry' You Should Watch Next

Source: LifehackerView Original
lifestyleApril 16, 2026

As HBO's Industry begins, the recent grads working at prestigious investment bank Pierpoint & Co. are given their marching orders: There are a lot of them and only a few full-time job openings, so they'll need to prove themselves if they hope to stick around. They respond to this challenge by doing whatever it takes—whatever it takes.

Renewed for a fifth and final season, Industry has been the streaming era's most cogent take on the world of finance bros (of any gender), and modern white collar workers in a more upscale Glengarry Glen Ross mode. While you wait for this story of disaster capitalism to return, dive into these 10 other shows that make work look even more stressful than it is.

Sweetbitter (2018 – 2019)

Taking on restaurant culture in place of finance, Sweetbitter finds much of the same stress, intensity, and competitiveness non display—probably no surprise if you watch The Bear. The show is adapted from the Stephanie Danler novel of the same name; she based it on her experiences as an NYC waitress (she also created the series and wrote the pilot), so we can assume a certain level of verisimilitude. Yellowjackets' Ella Purnell plays Tess, 21 at the series' opening and arriving in the city with big dreams. She gets a job at a prestigious restaurant where, as we (and she) quickly learn, there's at least as much drama (including drugs, booze, and sex) on the service side of the industry as there is in the kitchen. Stream Sweetbitter on Prime Video.

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Sweetbitter (2018 – 2019)

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at Prime Video

Misaeng: Incomplete Life (2014)

A critically-acclaimed sensation on its initial release, there's a really impressive, stressful, universal sense of realism in this show about white-collar work in South Korea. Im Si-wan is Jang Geu-rae, a young man who has done nothing but work toward his goal of becoming a professional Baduk (a game which you might know better as Go) player since childhood. By his 20s, though, it's clear that it's not to be, and all he can do is take an office job as a provisional contractor with a shipping company. A complete outsider, he's even less prepared than the other interns for a high-stress world in which a work-life balance is all but impossible. Its intensity is very much in the mode of Industry, but there's hopefulness in Geu-rae's determination not to lose himself. Stream Misaeng: Incomplete Life on Netflix and Tubi.

Misaeng: Incomplete Life (2014)

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at Netflix

Billions (2016 – 2023)

Less young-Brit oriented and more of a cat-and-mouse game, this one is a (darkly) satirical dive into the shady world of high finance. Paul Giamatti is rather ruthless as U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (based in part on the real-life Preet Bharara), who is working to bring down shady hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). The tone is that of a darkly comic soap opera, and it stays fresh over seven seasons by playing off the contrast between Axelrod's willingness to use all the money and power at his disposal to stay on top and out of jail, and Rhoades' willingness to resort to shady, not-entirely-legal tactics to reel in his big fish. Stream Billions on Paramount+ and Prime Video.

Billions (2016 – 2023)

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at Paramount+

How to Make It in America (2010 – 2011)

A bit of counter-programming, perhaps, in this dramedy about a couple of scrappy New York City outsiders who would never fit in with the Industry crew. And yet! There's a sense here that getting ahead requires tremendous hustle, and that drive for big success carries with it the potential for an even bigger fall. Bryan Greenberg is Ben Epstein, a quiet guy with any number of big ideas, while Victor Rasuk is outgoing, often shameless, Cam Calderon—together they manage a startup clothing business with the benefits of neither money nor experience, amiably hustling their ways to success, maybe. It's like Industry if that show were about nicer, goofier guys who are at their best when talking themselves out of trouble. Stream How to Make It in America on HBO Max and Netflix.

How to Make It in America (2010 – 2011)

at HBO Max

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at HBO Max

The Dropout (2022)

The passage of time has made the story of Theranos founder and fraudster Elizabeth Holmes feel positively quaint, not least because a few of her high-profile backers are serving in the current White House. Amanda Seyfried plays the "entrepreneur" whose rise and precipitous fall has already been the subject of a handful of documentaries. It starts at age 18, when she dropped out of Stanford to build a startup around an at-home blood testing machine that didn't work even a little bit. Years of charming big-name investors with big promises, lies agreed upon, and cleverly faked results lead to big money for Theranos and a lot of bad diagnoses for patients. Stream The Dropout on H