Television series

After Life

Name: After Life
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 2019
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Ashley Jensen, Tom Basden, Tony Way, Kerry Godliman

Other titles called After Life: the 1999 film, the 2009 film.

Drama

A local-newspaper hack lets grief turn him feral, and Gervais plays the cruelty for real laughs before yanking the rug out with something tender underneath. It's cringe comedy grafted onto a study of loss, all set in one drizzly English town. Funny, occasionally mean, unexpectedly wet-eyed. Best for people who want their sentiment earned through nastiness rather than handed to them.

TVMaze rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like sour, bruised comedy where grief is the subject and the jokes come from a man too raw to be polite, with small-town kindness doing the heavy lifting.

Skip it if you want a quick, tidy sitcom; the mood stays bleak and the jokes can feel repetitive, and Gervais's cruelty may read as a wall rather than a window.

What it asks of you: Short half-hour episodes, eighteen in all over three seasons, that move slowly through a grieving man's days; the darkness lingers between the laughs.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Detectorists2014

The same gentle English melancholy, community of misfits, and quiet grief sitting under low-key comedy — just with metal detectors instead of a local paper and a lot less shouting.

But It's slow by design, almost nothing 'happens', and if you want Tony's bite you'll find this too soft.

Fleabag2016

Grief weaponised into cruelty and jokes, aimed at everyone including yourself — the same trick After Life plays, done with sharper writing and a fourth wall that breaks on purpose.

But Its humour is drier and more theatrical; if you liked After Life's sentimentality, this is colder and less forgiving.

Kidding2018

Jim Carrey plays a beloved children's-TV host unravelling after tragedy, letting niceness curdle into something strange and sad — the inverse angle on Tony's 'nice guy breaks' premise.

But It's stranger and more surreal than After Life, with less of a laugh track and more dread.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from After Life

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ikiru1952

Same engine as After Life run in reverse: instead of a man deciding to stop caring after loss, it's a man deciding to start caring before his own death. Both ask what a life is worth once the clock is visible.

Kurosawa's black-and-white masterpiece about a bureaucrat who learns he's dying and has to decide, in real time, whether to waste his remaining months or actually live them.

But It's slow, subtitled, and asks patience of you that a Netflix half-hour never does — no jokes to break the silence.

This is Going to Hurt2022

Ben Whishaw is a burnt-out obstetrician cracking under grief and guilt, funny and vicious in the same breath, in a British system that's falling apart around him too.

But Hospital settings and medical trauma make it a rougher watch; it doesn't let you off as easy as After Life does.

Derek2012

Gervais again, but stripped of cruelty entirely — a care-home caretaker whose simple kindness is the whole point, proof he can do warmth without the sting.

But Some find its sincerity syrupy without the barbed comedy to balance it; it's a much softer show.

Rectify2013

A man returns to his small town after decades away, grief and dislocation rendered almost silent — the slow, serious cousin to Tony's noisy unravelling.

But There's barely any comedy here at all; if you came for jokes, this will feel like a different genre entirely.

Ted Lasso2020

Kindness as a stubborn, almost aggressive choice, set in a small English community full of people nursing quiet wounds — the same warmth, opposite starting point.

But It's considerably sunnier and less interested in nastiness; the darkness stays mostly offstage.

Schitt's Creek2015

A found-family comedy about awful people slowly becoming decent again in a small town that won't let them hide — the redemption arc After Life eventually reaches for.

But It's broader, sitcom-shaped, and largely free of grief — a much gentler ride from the start.

Dick Johnson Is Dead2020

It's the nonfiction version of After Life's central bargain — using absurdist humour as armour against a loss that's actually happening, filmed by someone living it rather than acting it.

A documentary filmmaker stages her own father's death over and over, rehearsing for the real thing with dark jokes and real dementia footage in between — grief turned into a genuinely strange comedy.

But It's a documentary, so the laughs sit right next to actual decline and mortality — there's no fictional buffer to hide behind.

Falling Down1993

Same premise stripped of the eventual kindness: a man who decides grief and disappointment have earned him the right to stop caring about anyone else, played for tension instead of tears.

Michael Douglas has a very bad day and decides the social contract no longer applies to him, walking across LA leaving chaos behind — Tony's 'say and do whatever I like' logic taken to its violent extreme.

But There's no warmth waiting at the end of this one — it's a thriller about entitlement curdling into rage, not a healing arc.