Television series

Derry Girls

Derry Girls is a joyous, whip-smart sitcom about four teenage girls (and one hapless English cousin) navigating homework, crushes and disastrous school trips while the Troubles hum away in the background of 1990s Derry. It's fast, foul-mouthed, deeply affectionate and unexpectedly moving — a coming-of-age comedy that treats a divided city with more warmth and honesty than most dramas manage. Big laughs, real heart underneath.

TVMaze rating7.8

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PEN152019

Two best friends relive the humiliations of thirteen with an unhinged commitment to embarrassment, and the friendship at its center has the same fierce, funny loyalty as Erin and Orla's.

But The two leads playing much younger versions of themselves is a joke that some viewers find distracting rather than delightful.

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The Inbetweeners2008

The gold standard of British teen cringe comedy — four hopeless lads bumbling through school with a similar gift for turning small humiliations into unforgettable set pieces.

But Cruder and more male-gaze than Derry Girls, with a meaner streak some will find exhausting rather than affectionate.

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Sex Education2019

A big, warm ensemble of British teenagers navigating sex, friendship and family chaos with the same generous, everybody-gets-a-storyline spirit that makes Derry Girls' gang so loveable.

But Glossier and more American-influenced in tone, without the specific political texture that gives Derry Girls its bite.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Commitments1991

Same lineage of Irish comedy that finds joy and music inside hardship — Roddy Doyle's Dublin doing, a generation earlier, exactly what Derry Girls does for Derry.

Alan Parker's film about a scrappy Dublin soul band captures the same working-class Irish wit, music and camaraderie — funny, foul-mouthed, and secretly about resilience against grinding circumstance.

But It's a film, not a sitcom, and the band's rise-and-fall arc gives it a more wistful, elegiac ending than Derry Girls ever allows.

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More like this (7)

My Mad Fat Diary2013

Same decade, same UK teen chaos, but filtered through mental illness and body image — a rawer, sadder cousin that still finds real joy in friendship and bad haircuts.

But Heavier and more emotionally bruising than Derry Girls; the laughs come with a genuine ache attached.

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Moone Boy2012no page yet

Chris O'Dowd's gentle, whimsical memoir of growing up in 1980s Boyle shares the same fondness for small-town Irish absurdity and a loving, chaotic family at its centre.

But Softer and more sentimental, aimed at a gentler register than Derry Girls' sharper, filthier edges.

This Country2017

A mockumentary about two bored, broke cousins in rural England — different accent, same genius for mining comedy gold from a town where nothing ever happens.

But No political backdrop and a much bleaker, quieter kind of funny; some will miss Derry Girls' warmth and momentum.

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Catastrophe2015

Sharon Horgan's foul-mouthed, brilliantly written Irish-British comedy about adults making a mess of love and family, with the same rapid-fire, filthy wit as Derry Girls.

But It's about grown-ups navigating marriage and parenthood, not teenagers — a very different kind of chaos entirely.

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Schitt's Creek2015

A fish-out-of-water family sitcom with the same small-town ensemble warmth, oddball supporting characters and a slow-burn tenderness that sneaks up on you episode by episode.

But North American, glossy and gentler — none of the political stakes or grit that anchor Derry Girls.

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Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland2023no page yet

This is the true version of the world Derry Girls fictionalises — the same generation, the same streets, telling you what actually happened.

A remarkable oral-history documentary series where real people who lived through the Troubles as children and teenagers tell their own stories — funny, devastating, and unforgettable.

But It's not a comedy, and some of what Derry Girls plays for laughs is here delivered as genuine, unresolved grief.

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Same setting, same decade of checkpoints and armoured cars, but shown as the terrifying reality that Derry Girls' jokes are quietly defusing.

A young British soldier is stranded alone in Belfast during a riot, and the film turns the same streets Derry Girls plays for laughs into a nerve-shredding thriller.

But It's tense, violent and grim where Derry Girls is warm and silly — a hard tonal swing if you came for comedy.

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Recommended by

Reservation Dogs, Sex Education, The Inbetweeners, PEN15, Heartstopper, Chewing Gum, Freaks and Geeks, Dickinson, Ghosts, This Country, Skins, My Mad Fat Diary, This Way Up, Motherland, Everything Sucks!, Gavin & Stacey, SKAM, Belfast