Television series
Andor
A slow-burn espionage thriller wearing a lightsaber's clothing, Andor treats the Empire as bureaucracy and the Rebellion as logistics. There's little mysticism here — just surveillance, informants, prison labour, and people deciding, gradually and at cost, what they're willing to become. It rewards patience with one of the smartest, most adult things Star Wars has ever produced.
If you liked this
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story2016
The direct continuation of Cassian's story, and knowing where he ends up makes every scene of Andor hit harder. Same grubby, lived-in Empire, same fatalism about what rebellion costs.
But You already know the ending, which drains some suspense, and it can't match Andor's patience or depth of character.

The Americans2013
Cold War spies living double lives, wearing down under the weight of ideology and deception. Same interest in what constant lying does to a person, just in Reagan's America instead of a galaxy far away.
But Six seasons of marital and political dread is a big ask, and the pace is even more deliberate than Andor's.

Chernobyl2019
A miniseries about what a rotten, self-protecting state apparatus looks like from the inside — the meetings, the cover-ups, the small compromises that add up to catastrophe. Dedra Meero would feel right at home.
But It's bleaker and more claustrophobic than Andor, with no rebellion to root for — just consequences.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Battle of Algiers1966
Andor borrows its entire structural logic — cells, informants, the cost of turning ordinary people into fighters — from this film's clinical portrait of insurgency, made nearly sixty years earlier.
Shot like a documentary, this dissects an anti-colonial insurgency cell by cell — recruitment, betrayal, the terrible arithmetic of violence against an occupier. It's the film Andor is quietly in conversation with.
But Black and white, unsentimental, and refuses to let you feel good about either side's tactics.

More like this (7)
Slow Horses2022
Disgraced MI5 agents doing unglamorous, morally murky intelligence work, shot through with dry wit. Scratches the same itch for competence and consequence, with a much lighter touch and shorter episodes.
But It's funnier and pulpier than Andor, and the stakes rarely feel as existential.

Line of Duty2012
Interrogation-room tension and institutional rot, British procedural style. Andor's ISB scenes — the interviews, the careful lies, the paperwork of oppression — share DNA with this show's best hours.
But No sci-fi, no rebellion, just police politics — a very different world despite the tonal overlap.

Army of Shadows1969
Jean-Pierre Melville's near-silent, unglamorous portrait of the French Resistance, full of betrayal, fear, and grim necessity. Andor's cell structures and moral compromises owe it a real debt.
But It's cold, formal, and deliberately withholds catharsis — a tough, austere watch by design.

Bodyguard2018
A tightly wound political thriller about surveillance, loyalty, and people caught between institutions that don't deserve their trust. Efficient, tense, and easy to binge in a weekend.
But Twistier and more melodramatic than Andor, with less interest in ideas and more in plot mechanics.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy2011
Le Carré's mole hunt distilled into two hours of grey coats, quiet rooms, and men destroying each other with paperwork. The unglamorous ancestor of everything Andor does with its Empire scenes.
But Dense, talky, and easy to lose the thread of if you look away for a minute.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex2002no page yet
Swap the Empire for a near-future surveillance state and Cassian for a cyborg cop, and you get the same genre engine — procedural espionage, institutional paranoia — running in an entirely different costume.
An episodic anime about a state security unit tracking hackers and terrorists through a surveillance society, with the same appetite for bureaucratic detail and slow-building political conspiracy as Andor's best stretches.
But It's anime, it's philosophical to a fault, and the cyberpunk trappings will feel alien if you came purely for Star Wars.
Severance2022
Where Andor externalises institutional evil as an Empire, Severance internalises it as a workplace — same interest in how ordinary bureaucratic complicity curdles into something monstrous, just filtered through surrealist dread instead of sci-fi action.
A corporation that turns compliance into an identity, told through eerie, controlled visuals and a slow dread that never tips into action. It's the ISB's office culture, imagined as workplace horror.
But There's no rebellion payoff here, no rousing speeches — just unease that builds and builds with deliberately withheld answers.

People
Cast
Writing
- Tony GilroyCreator
Production
- Ally O'LearyAssociate Producer
- John GIlroyCo-Producer
- John HampianCo-Producer
- Michael A. GarciaCo-Producer
- Stephen SchiffConsulting Producer
- Diego LunaExecutive Producer
- Kathleen KennedyExecutive Producer
- Michelle RejwanExecutive Producer
- Sanne WohlenbergExecutive Producer
- Toby HaynesExecutive Producer
- Tony GilroyExecutive Producer
- David MeantiProducer
- Kate HazellProducer
Recommended by
The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Foundation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, The Mandalorian and Grogu, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Star Wars: Rebels