We may earn a commission from links on this page.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Hulu.
WeCrashed (2022)
Another true-life story of big business and a big fall, this one stars Jared Leto, Anne Hathaway, and Kyle Marvin as the co-founders of WeWork, the (eventually) billion-dollar company that leases co-working spaces. The focus is on Leto and Hathaway’s Adam and Rebekah Neumann, portrayed as simultaneously delusional and calculating, operating as almost toxically nice cult leaders while firing people for stepping into their eyelines at the wrong time. The title’s crash comes when the company files an now-infamous S-1 form to go public, confidently documenting big losses, extremely precarious financial arrangements, and the weird relationship between the Neumanns and the larger company. Don’t worry, though, this one has a happy ending: WeWork lost billions but the Neumanns remain very, very rich. Stream WeCrashed on Apple TV.
Mad Men (2007 – 2015)
One of the deservedly big names in prestige TV, Mad Men feels, in many ways, like the blueprint for Industry; each creates characters with novelistic depth in wildly cynical and intense environments. The mid-century modern stylings of a New York City ad agency make for a contrast with that of a modern London finance house, but the pressure-cooker environments and excesses feel very much in line. Stream Mad Men on HBO Max.
Boiling Point (2023)
Back to the restaurant industry: BBC One’s Boiling Point serves as a direct sequel to the 2021 film, though it doesn’t really require you to have seen the original—all you really need to know is that the movie’s main character, Andy Jones (Stephen Graham) is recovering from a stress and substance abuse-fueled heart attack, while series lead and Andy’s former sous chef Carly (Vinette Robinson) has poached much of the old staff to start a new operation called Point North. The show navigates between the high-pressure environment of a restaurant start-up and the personal lives of its staff, while Andy’s fall from grace smartly offers a glimpse of a possible future for the driven staff. Stream Boiling Point on Prime Video.
Skins (2007 – 2013)
I’m calling this one a prequel to Industry (it absolutely is not), in that it deals with similar themes in a (largely) high school environment. Skins makes clear that adolescence is an absolute pressure-cooker, and it feels as though any number of these intense, competitive, often hard-partying characters could graduate into Industry—and, in fact, the final season of Skins sees one-time Kaya Scodelario’s Effy Stonem take a job in finance (and dabble in insider trading) as part of an arc that feels very much like Industry in miniature. The popular and controversial British series launched names like Nicholas Hoult, Daniel Kaluuya, and Dev Patel while dealing with hot-button issues like mental illness, substance abuse, and bullying. Look for Freya Mavor (Industry‘s Daria Greenock) in both shows. Stream Skins on Hulu.
Halt and Catch Fire (2014 – 2017)
A show that largely flew under the radar during its four seasons, this one offers up a (heavily) fictionalized portrait of the rise of personal computers in the 1980s, into the early days of broad adoption of the internet in the ’90s. Lee Pace plays Joe MacMillan, the antihero lead who leaves IBM in 1983 to join the fictional Cardiff Electric. He’s charismatic, manipulative, and not terribly tech-proficient, but nonetheless has dreams of building the next big tech innovation—starting by reverse-engineering the IBM PC. It’s a show that comes up on any number of critical best-of lists and has a sick opening sequence. And did I mention Lee Pace? Stream Halt and Catch Fire on Prime Video.
