Television series

Dallas

Name: Dallas
Genre: Drama, Family
Released: 1978
Cast: Larry Hagman, Ken Kercheval, Patrick Duffy, Barbara Bel Geddes, Donna Reed

Dallas is the granddaddy of primetime soap opera: oil money, family warfare, and a villain so deliciously rotten he became a folk hero. Cliffhangers, affairs, boardroom coups and Stetsons collide weekly in the Ewing family's fight for the family fortune. It's melodrama played dead straight, addictive rather than campy, and best enjoyed as pure appointment television for anyone who likes their drama big, glossy and merciless.

TVMaze rating

7.0

If you liked this

Dynasty1981

The genre's other titan—bigger shoulder pads, bitchier catfights, and the same blood sport of boardrooms and bedrooms, made purely to outdo Dallas week to week.

But It's even more cartoonish, and the plots occasionally abandon logic entirely for spectacle's own sake.

Knots Landing1979no page yet

Spun off from the same fictional world, it swaps Ewing oil money for suburban cul-de-sac scheming, proving the soap engine works just as well without a mansion.

But Slower pace and lower stakes than the mothership; some find it soap opera's comedown rather than its equal.

Falcon Crest1981no page yet

Trade oil derricks for vineyards and you get the same family war over inheritance, with Jane Wyman ruling her wine empire like a velvet-gloved J.R.

But The wine business setting is less visually thrilling than Dallas's oil fields, and pacing can drag in later seasons.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

I, Claudius1976

Same engine of family power struggles and betrayal for inheritance, just moved from Texan oil fields to Ancient Rome, decades before Dallas, and played with Shakespearean gravity rather than shoulder-pad camp.

Derek Jacobi's Emperor Claudius survives a nest of poisoners and schemers in one of British TV's finest historical dramas—proof that the family-empire soap format is at least two thousand years old.

But Studio-bound sets and theatrical performances feel stagier and slower than anything American TV was doing by the 80s.

Succession2018

The modern, prestige-drama descendant—same fight over who inherits the empire, but with cutting dialogue, TV's finest boardroom, and zero moral high ground for anyone.

But Its cynicism is total; nobody here has Dallas's occasional soapy warmth, or its camp relief.

Yellowstone2018

Another patriarch, another sprawling land empire, another set of children circling like sharks—Yellowstone just trades Dallas's boardrooms for cattle, oil money for open horizon.

But Politics lean more overtly conservative and the pacing is slower, more contemplative than Dallas's breathless plotting.

Empire2015

A hip-hop dynasty standing in for the oil one, with the same throne-fighting siblings, a ruthless patriarch, and delicious excess turned all the way up to eleven.

But The music-industry backdrop and R&B melodrama might feel like a genre swap too far if you came purely for oil-baron intrigue.

Revenge2011

Hamptons old money, secret identities, and a slow-burn vendetta plot that channels Dallas's love of scheming rich people finally getting their well-earned comeuppance, one glossy episode at a time.

But More thriller than family saga—less character texture, more plot mechanics, twists, and constant reveals.

Nashville2012no page yet

Swaps oil wells for country music, but keeps the family rivalries, empire-building ambition, and the constant sense that everyone's fortune could collapse by the next episode.

But Musical numbers take up real screen time; if you want pure boardroom/bedroom scheming without songs, it's a detour.

Peyton Place1957

The original primetime soap, and the show that paved the way for Dallas—small-town secrets, adultery, and moral scandal that scandalized America first, back in black and white.

But Black-and-white, slower, and its shock value has aged into quaintness; patience required for period pacing.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005

The real Texan oil-and-gas culture that Dallas fictionalized curdled, for real, into one of the biggest corporate frauds in American history—same greed, same charisma, same collapse, minus the fiction.

A gripping, genuinely enraging documentary about ambition curdling into fraud—the true story lurking behind every fictional oil baron's confident, camera-ready smile, minus the fiction.

But No cliffhangers or catharsis here, just the slow, sickening reveal of real people's lives ruined by real greed.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room poster

The Real Housewives of Dallas2016no page yet

Same city, same obsession with oil money, status and backstabbing, but unscripted—actual Texan wives feuding over money and reputation in the town J.R. Ewing made famous.

Set in the actual city, this reality series proves Dallas's appetite for wealth-fuelled catfights wasn't fiction at all—just real women doing it over brunch instead of boardrooms.

But It's reality TV with all the editing tricks and manufactured drama that implies—no writers, no plot, just vibes and wine.