Whether you love Sex and the City or have never watched a single episode of the show about the adventures of Carrie and co. there’s no doubting the series about four friends living in New York has had a huge impact on television, film, and beyond — so much so that a scene from the spin-off series And Just Like That… with a character dying on a Peleton bike caused shares in the company to plummet. If you want to find a new favorite that has a similar vibe to the famous series, then check out our list of the 10 best shows like Sex and the City!
10. Girls
Looking back, it’s easy to cast the HBO series Girls as derivative, with many feeling it does the artistic equivalent of smelling its own farts. However, when Girls first came out it received critical acclaim, and there are many elements of it that make it a great watch, even if the characters eventually Flanderize into the truly insufferable, instead of expertly toeing the line between charming and infuriating like Carrie and the others in SATC. Like the nineties series, Girls focuses on female friendship and making it in New York, and the first few seasons do have some whipsmart writing as well as great performances, and some good cameos to boot. The audacity of some of the character storylines will please those who loved the more raw and innovative aspects of SATC.
9. High Fidelity
This gender-swapped retelling of the famous movie (in turn an adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel of the same name) shares plenty with SATC, but most notably its New York setting and its focus on the romantic entanglements of its main characters. Zoë Kravitz plays Rob, a nerdy and unlucky in love record store owner who has a top-five list for anything and everything. She spends the series trying to figure out just what went wrong in her previous relationships, all while engaging in some great banter with her fellow characters (as well as the audience, thanks to some fourth wall breaks). Funny and fresh, High Fidelity might surprise you with just how quickly you get hooked.
8. Friends
The wildly successful nineties sitcom Friends might not quite hold up in a lot of ways today, but there’s no doubt it was a pop culture phenomenon, with its series finale being an international event, and its stars earning over a million dollars an episode by the end of its run. Ross, Rachel, Monica, Joey, Chandler, and Phoebe were an iconic group, and over their ten seasons we saw them do everything from pee on each other to get hitched to one another. Like SATC, it’s a New York-focused show based on a strong group of very different friends, and there’s no doubting that Jennifer Aniston‘s Rachel would have slipped seamlessly into Carrie’s world.
7. Emily in Paris
When this Netflix romcom burst onto the scene it wasn’t exactly a critical hit, but audiences loved its familiarity to shows like SATC, even though the setting was outside of the U.S. Charming performances save a mawkish plotline, and even manage to somewhat detract from a representation of Paris that’s so hackneyed even the most booming American in the Louvre would be embarrassed by its clichéd nature. Lily Collins stars as the titular Emily, who suffers from extreme culture clash after moving from Chicago to France for work. Emily isn’t quite as incisively drawn as the four in SATC, but the most important themes in both shows are similar enough that fans of one will enjoy the other.
6. Gossip Girl
Although the characters in Gossip Girl were teens and not adults like we see in SATC, this brilliant series has similarly acerbic and complicated characters as part of its cast, and its world shares a kind of glamor as the one in the nineties series too. The show follows the lives of a number of wealthy and privileged students who live in the Upper East side of Manhattan, and is narrated by the eponymous and unseen Gossip Girl (Kristen Bell), who acts as an online hub of, well, gossip. Like Sex and the City, Gossip Girl has had a huge influence on popular culture — especially in the fashion world — that extends well beyond its dedicated fanbase, and also treats New York as more than just a setting, letting the city and its culture seep into other aspects of the show.
5. Girlfriends
There are actually a few people who argue this CW show is just a Sex and the City rip-off, but that is really unfair to a series that’s genuinely good on its own merits. However, there’s no denying there are plenty of similarities between the two shows, like the fact both center on a group of four women who help each other through the ups and downs of their lives while living in the big city. In this case, though, the women are Black and the city is L.A, which in itself means plenty of variation. The characters are all different archetypes too, so while the premises aren’t a million miles away, the outcomes are definitely different. With that said, fans of one are sure to find lots to like about the other.
4. Broad City
While the two characters who from the heart of Broad City (Ilana and Abbi — Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson in real life) might be in very different financial positions to the women of Sex and the City, in many ways the former could be seen as a millennial version of the latter. While Carrie and her friends were women living in the booming nineties, Ilana and Abbi are trying to make it in a very different New York city, where it’s even harder to struggle a career and a lovelife. Both shows are incredibly funny and have female relationships at their heart, but also aren’t trying to sanitize too much for their audiences.
3. Dead to Me
This darkly comic series is led by Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, and with that talent behind it the show was always bound to be a good one. Dead to Me follows Jen (Applegate), a recently widowed woman who meets Judy (Linda) at a support group, and although they’re vastly different in terms of their personalities, they soon become friends. However, as the pair get closer, Jen realizes Judy’s entry into her life might not have been an accident. From there, the series unspools into a bit of madness, but it’s all held together by great performances and plenty of laughs. Like SATC the female leads are complex and compelling, and the humor is top-notch.
2. Will and Grace
The eponymous pair that led this television show had the sort of on-screen platonic chemistry that makes Sex and the City so much fun. In the show, gay lawyer Will and his best friend the interior designer Grace help each other through heartbreak and some seriously bad potential wardrobe choices over eight glorious seasons (and a later revival). Set in New York (where else), we also see the brilliantly funny Megan Mullally as Karen, Grace’s lazy assistant who only works to escape boredom and her old, wealthy husband, and Sean Hayes as Jack, Will’s ultra-camp childhood friend who’s a struggling actor. Funny, smart, and noted for being one of the most successful shows to have a gay character in a principal role, fans of Sex and the City will find the plot beats and humor of Will and Grace fills a certain gap the show about Carrie and her friends has left.
1. The Bold Type
A women’s magazine at its heart, long storylines that cover issues like sexuality and feminitity, and a healthy dose of NYC: no, we’re not talking about Sex and the City, but The Bold Type. We know we said earlier that in some ways, Broad City could be seen as a millennial version of SATC, but really that generation’s spiritual successor to the show about Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte is this Freefor series. It follows Jane, Kat, and Sutton, three best friends who work at the fictional women’s magazine Scarlet, as they tackle life and love in the big city (sound familiar?). Smart, funny, and able to capture elements of the zeitgeist in the way SATC did, this series is perfect for fans of the HBO romcom drama.
