Let’s be honest for a second. Most people looking for shows like The White Lotus aren’t actually looking for a travelogue or a murder mystery. They’re looking for that very specific, skin-crawling feeling of watching rich people ruin their own lives while staying in a place we could never afford. Mike White tapped into something mean and beautiful. It’s a vibe. It’s "prestige discomfort."
The problem is that the "eat the rich" genre has become a bit of a crowded room lately. You’ve got Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion, and a dozen other projects trying to capture that same lightning in a bottle. But most of them miss the point. They’re too busy being a satire to actually be a good story. To find a worthy successor, you have to look for the DNA of the show: the social hierarchy, the biting dialogue, and that constant, low-level anxiety that someone is about to say something they can never take back.
The Succession Connection (And Why It’s Different)
If you haven’t seen Succession, you’ve likely heard the comparison a thousand times. Yes, they’re both on HBO. Yes, they both feature wealthy people being terrible. But the texture is different. While The White Lotus feels like a fever dream in a resort, Succession is a Shakespearean tragedy dressed in a Patagonia vest.
Jesse Armstrong, the creator of Succession, writes with a British cynicism that makes Mike White look like an optimist. You aren’t watching to see who dies—though the stakes feel that high—you’re watching to see who wins a game that doesn’t actually matter. It’s about the Roy family, headed by Logan Roy (Brian Cox), who is basically a human tectonic plate. If he moves, everyone else falls over.
What makes it one of the best shows like The White Lotus is the way it handles power dynamics. Remember how Armond and Shane’s feud in Season 1 started over something as small as a room booking? Succession is built on those petty slights. A missed phone call or a "wrong" joke at a dinner party can cost someone a billion dollars. It’s stressful. It’s funny. It makes you feel very, very poor.
The Tropical Dread of Nine Perfect Strangers
Then there’s the Hulu route. Nine Perfect Strangers is often thrown into this conversation because it has Nicole Kidman and a high-end wellness retreat. It’s based on the Liane Moriarty book, and it leans much harder into the "mystery" side of things than the "social satire" side.
Masha, Kidman’s character, is a total enigma. She runs Tranquillum House, where she basically microdoses her guests into having spiritual breakthroughs. It’s weird. Sometimes it’s a bit too weird. Critics were divided on it; some felt the tonal shifts were jarring. But if you liked the "vacation from hell" aspect of the White Lotus, this hits that mark perfectly. You get that same sense of claustrophobia. Even in the middle of a beautiful forest, there’s nowhere to run from your own head. Or from Masha’s smoothies.
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Why Bad Sisters Is the Sleeper Hit You Need
If your favorite part of the show was the "who is in the box?" mystery, you need to watch Bad Sisters on Apple TV+. It’s set in Ireland, so the weather is significantly worse, but the writing is sharp enough to cut glass.
It follows the Garvey sisters. They’re close. Maybe too close. They’ve decided to kill their brother-in-law, John Paul, because he’s a genuinely monstrous human being. The show jumps between the "past," where they try (and fail) to kill him in increasingly absurd ways, and the "present," where life insurance agents are trying to prove they actually did it.
Sharon Horgan is a genius. She captures that specific sibling energy where you can go from screaming at each other to covering up a crime in ten seconds. It’s got that dark, dark humor that makes you feel a little guilty for laughing. It isn’t just about wealth; it’s about the suffocating nature of family and the lengths people go to for "love." It’s easily one of the most underrated shows like The White Lotus out there.
The Resort (2022) and the Nostalgia Trap
People forgot about The Resort almost as soon as it finished airing on Peacock, which is a shame. It stars William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti as a couple on an anniversary trip to Mexico. They’re bored. Their marriage is "fine," which is a death sentence for romance. Then they find an old flip phone in the jungle and get sucked into a missing persons case from fifteen years ago.
It’s a genre-bender. It starts as a comedy, turns into a noir, and ends up being a sci-fi meditation on time and memory. It’s much more surreal than Mike White’s work. But the setting—a decaying, abandoned resort—is the perfect foil to the pristine luxury of the White Lotus. It shows the aftermath of the party. The ruins. The stuff that gets left behind when the rich people go home.
Examining the "Prestige Mystery" Trend
We have to talk about The Night Manager and Big Little Lies. These are the blueprints. Without Big Little Lies, we probably don't get the specific brand of high-gloss trauma that dominates HBO Max (or Max, whatever they’re calling it this week) today.
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Big Little Lies proved that you could take A-list movie stars, put them in beautiful houses in Monterey, and just let them destroy each other. It was a massive hit because it felt "important" while also being incredibly gossipy. It deals with domestic abuse, social climbing, and the lies we tell to keep our reputations intact. Jean-Marc Vallée’s direction gave it a hazy, dreamlike quality that felt like a permanent sunset.
If you want the international intrigue, The Night Manager is the play. It’s John le Carré, so it’s smart. Tom Hiddleston is a hotel manager who gets recruited to infiltrate the inner circle of an arms dealer (Hugh Laurie). The locations are stunning—Majorca, Cairo, the Swiss Alps. It captures the "luxury as a mask for evil" theme better than almost anything else.
What Actually Makes a Show "Like" The White Lotus?
Is it just the beach? No. It’s the "cringe."
The psychological term for this is vicarious embarrassment. We watch Tanya McQuoid (the legendary Jennifer Coolidge) make a fool of herself because it’s a release valve for our own social anxieties. We see these characters who have everything—money, looks, status—yet they are fundamentally miserable.
Key Elements to Look For:
- The Enclosed Space: A boat, a resort, a gated community. The characters cannot leave. This forces the conflict.
- The Class Divide: There is always a "downstairs" staff watching the "upstairs" guests. The friction between the two is where the best dialogue happens.
- The Delayed Payoff: We usually know someone dies in the first five minutes. We spend the rest of the season guessing who.
- The Score: Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s music for The White Lotus is iconic. It sounds like a panic attack in a jungle. Look for shows with distinct, jarring soundtracks.
Beef and the Modern Rage
Beef on Netflix isn't at a resort. It’s in the suburbs of LA. But it belongs in this conversation. It’s a story about two people (Steven Yeun and Ali Wong) who get into a road rage incident and let it consume their entire lives.
It’s about the emptiness of the "hustle" and the hollowness of the "perfect life." Amy (Wong) has the beautiful house and the artistic husband, but she’s dying inside. Danny (Yeun) is struggling to keep his head above water. Their obsession with destroying each other is the most honest thing in their lives. It’s visceral. It’s messy. It’s the same "prestige discomfort" but turned up to eleven.
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A Quick Word on "A Murder at the End of the World"
Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (the creators of The OA) made this limited series for FX/Hulu. It stars Emma Corrin as a Gen Z detective invited to a remote retreat by a reclusive billionaire (Clive Owen).
It’s very cold. Very tech-heavy. It’s the "anti-White Lotus" in terms of aesthetic. But the core is the same: a group of elite individuals gathered in a beautiful place where things go horribly wrong. It critiques the "Silicon Valley" savior complex. It’s a bit slower than the others, but the atmosphere is thick enough to choke on.
Don’t Skip The Bear (Yes, Seriously)
You might think The Bear is just a show about a sandwich shop. It’s not. It’s a show about trauma, anxiety, and the desperate need for validation. While it lacks the "luxury" setting, it has the same high-pressure-cooker environment. The "Fishes" episode in Season 2 is probably the best hour of television in the last five years. It captures the chaotic, overlapping dialogue of a dysfunctional family better than The White Lotus ever could. It’s exhausting to watch in the best way possible.
The European Influence: The Fall
If you want to go darker, look at European dramas. They’ve been doing "moody people in beautiful places" forever. The Fall (BBC/Netflix) with Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson is a masterpiece of tension. Or Broadchurch. These shows understand that the location—the cliffs of Dorset or the streets of Belfast—is a character itself. They aren't as "funny" as Mike White’s stuff, but they satisfy that itch for a mystery that actually has something to say about the human condition.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Watchlist
Finding your next binge shouldn't feel like a chore. If you’re paralyzed by choice, use this quick guide to narrow it down based on what you actually liked about the guests at the Maui or Sicily resorts:
- If you loved the satirical biting dialogue: Start Succession. Don’t worry if the first three episodes feel slow; it picks up speed and never stops.
- If you liked the "vacation gone wrong" mystery: Queue up Bad Sisters. It’s funnier than you think and the mystery is actually satisfying.
- If you want more "rich people behaving badly" in a domestic setting: Big Little Lies is the gold standard.
- If you want something surreal and trippy: Go with The Resort. It’s a fast watch and very creative.
- If you just want to feel stressed out: Watch Beef. It’s a masterclass in how small choices lead to total ruin.
The reality is that shows like The White Lotus are rare because they require a very specific balance of cruelty and empathy. You have to hate the characters, but you also have to see yourself in them just enough to feel uncomfortable. It’s a mirror. A very expensive, gold-plated mirror.
Most of these are available on Max, Hulu, or Netflix. Start with Bad Sisters if you haven't seen it. It’s the closest you’ll get to that feeling of watching a car crash in slow motion while sipping a cocktail.