Television series
Boss
Kelsey Grammer plays Tom Kane, the ruthless mayor of Chicago, hiding a terminal neurological diagnosis while he fights to keep his empire from crumbling. It's Shakespearean tragedy dressed as a Starz political thriller — operatic, cold-blooded, gorgeously shot in shadow. Watch it for Grammer's towering, against-type performance and for a portrait of power as a disease in itself.
If you liked this
House of Cards2013
Same appetite for a leader whose private rot is hidden behind public command, told with the same cold, theatrical relish for backroom cruelty and calculated betrayal.
But Spacey's performance and the show's later collapse in quality now sit awkwardly against its real-life aftermath.
The Wire2002
The same city-as-organism ambition — institutions, machines, and the people crushed inside them — but widened out from one man's psyche to an entire metropolis.
But Slower-burning and less operatic; it rewards patience rather than delivering Boss's immediate, theatrical punch.
Boardwalk Empire2010
Another city built and corrupted by one man's will, with the same lush period-adjacent atmosphere and tragic sense that power always demands a body.
But More gangster than politician, and its pacing sprawls where Boss stays tight and merciless.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
King Lear1970no page yet
Kane is Lear in a suit — a powerful old man whose mind is failing while his kingdom's vultures circle. This is the source code, told straight.
Peter Brook's brutal, black-and-white adaptation strips Shakespeare's play down to freezing wind and human cruelty — the exact story Boss is quietly retelling in a mayor's office.
But Deliberately harsh and joyless filmmaking, closer to an endurance test than entertainment; no modern gloss at all.
More like this (8)
Damages2007
Glenn Close's predatory lawyer is Kane's spiritual sibling — a mentor figure whose brilliance and monstrousness are inseparable, filmed with the same nervy tension.
But Its fractured timeline and legal-thriller plotting are a different puzzle box than Boss's straight dramatic drive.
Billions2016
Swap city hall for Wall Street and you get the same chess-match pleasure of watching powerful people destroy each other with words instead of guns.
But Glossier and more fun than Boss — it enjoys its villains rather than mourning them.
The Good Wife2009
Chicago politics again, seen from the periphery of a scandal, with the same appetite for compromised institutions and characters who keep choosing power over conscience.
But Warmer and more procedural, with none of Boss's near-Shakespearean darkness.
Show Me a Hero2015
A quieter, sadder cousin — a mayor destroyed not by disease but by an impossible political fight, with the same unglamorous honesty about what governing actually costs.
But Based on true events and deliberately unshowy; don't expect Boss's stylised menace.
Veep2012
The same Washington machinery, the same appetite for humiliation and ambition, but turned savagely, gloriously comic instead of tragic.
But If you loved Boss for its dead-serious weight, Veep's laugh-a-minute cruelty is a tonal 180.
The West Wing1999
Worth watching precisely as Boss's opposite — the idealistic version of the same world, a reminder of what Kane's Chicago has traded away.
But Its warmth and faith in institutions will feel almost naive after Boss's cynicism.
The War Room1993
Strip away Boss's fiction and this is what the machine really looks like: the same tactics, the same appetite for control, minus the theatrical stakes.
A documentary following Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign strategists in real time — the same backroom scheming and blood-sport instincts Boss dramatizes, except this actually happened.
But No plot twists, no violence, no Kane-style menace — just exhausted, brilliant people making phone calls under fluorescent lights.
Amour2012
Both are about a proud mind losing itself in real time. Boss buries that terror under power plays; Amour makes you sit inside it with nowhere to look away.
Michael Haneke's devastating, near-silent film about an elderly couple facing a partner's physical and mental collapse — the human cost Boss keeps at arm's length, shown here without armor.
But Almost unbearably intimate and slow; there's no political spectacle here, just two people and a disease.
People
Cast
Writing
- Farhad SafiniaCreator
Production
- Kelsey GrammerExecutive Producer