Television series

How to Get Away with Murder

Name: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Legal
Released: 2014
Cast: Viola Davis, Billy Brown, Jack Falahee, Aja Naomi King, Charlie Weber

A prestige-adjacent soap that treats law school like a crime scene: Annalise Keating recruits five students into a labyrinth of cover-ups, courtroom theatrics and increasingly deranged flashbacks. It's twisty to the point of vertigo, gleefully trashy under a glossy legal-drama veneer, and anchored by Viola Davis giving a performance far better than the show around her strictly requires. Bingeable, occasionally ridiculous, never boring.

TVMaze rating

7.6

If you liked this

Scandal2012

Same network, same producing DNA, same appetite for a righteous villain — Olivia Pope's D.C. fixer world is HTGAWM's political cousin, all secrets and betrayal delivered at maximum speed.

But The politics feel dated now, and its plotting somehow gets even more baroque than Keating's crew's.

Big Little Lies2017

Trades the courtroom for Monterey mansions but keeps the format: a death at the start, a circle of people who all had reason, told with real craft and a killer cast.

But It's slower and far more restrained — this is prestige drama, not pulp, and takes its time getting there.

Damages2007

The original blueprint for HTGAWM's trick of a flashback that keeps rearranging what you thought you knew. Glenn Close is terrifying as a lawyer who makes Keating look warm.

But Colder and more cynical, with less of the campy fun that makes Murder so watchable.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Double Indemnity1944

HTGAWM's entire engine — a crime confessed in flashback by someone who knows exactly how doomed they are — is noir's oldest trick, and this is the film that perfected it decades before Keating's students ever picked up a law book.

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray plotting murder in shadowy black-and-white, narrated by a man already dead to the world — the blueprint for every seductive-collaborator thriller since.

But The pace and slang are pure 1944 — if you need modern gloss and a large ensemble, this will feel spare by comparison.

Pretty Little Liars2010

A group of young people bound by a body and a secret, unravelling over increasingly implausible seasons — the teen version of the same engine, and just as addictive.

But Aimed squarely at a younger audience, and the mythology gets exhausting long before it resolves.

The Good Wife2009

Sharper, smarter legal drama with case-of-the-week rigour and a slow-burn moral corrosion underneath. If you liked the law-school scenes more than the murder, start here.

But Far less pulpy — no severed heads, no affairs with cops, just excellent lawyering and quiet devastation.

Suits2011

Glossy law-firm soap with mentor-and-protege energy and a will-they-get-caught hum under every episode — pure comfort binge for anyone who liked Keating's chosen family.

But No murder, no real stakes beyond careers — if you came for the body count, this won't scratch that itch.

You2018

Swap the ensemble for a single charming sociopath narrating his own crimes directly to camera — the same pulpy pleasure of rooting for people you shouldn't.

But The voiceover conceit wears thin, and its view of women can feel more leering than the show intends.

Killing Eve2018

A slicker, funnier cat-and-mouse thriller with the same delight in style over plausibility, and two magnetic women driving every scene.

But Less legal drama than spy thriller — the connection is mood and glamour, not courtroom mechanics.

Revenge2011

ABC's other soap about pretty people destroying each other in expensive rooms — if you want the trashiest possible double of Murder's energy, this is it.

But Genuinely silly by its later seasons, and lacks any actor doing what Davis does here.

The Staircase2022

Same question HTGAWM keeps asking — did he do it, and how far would the people around him go to make it disappear — except this time it's a real trial, a real family, and no writers pulling the strings.

A documentary miniseries that gets inside an actual murder trial with real courtroom tension and moral murk, following defense strategy in forensic, occasionally excruciating detail.

But It's slow, unglamorous and genuinely upsetting in ways fiction can dodge — there's no satisfying twist waiting at the end.

Search Party2016

Take the 'attractive twentysomethings cover up a death and slowly come apart' plot and play it as pitch-black comedy instead of glossy melodrama — same moral rot, entirely different tone.

A group of self-absorbed friends stumble into a cover-up and unravel in increasingly absurd, cringe-inducing ways — it's what Murder's plot would look like played for satire.

But The comedy is dry and mean-spirited rather than fun, and its tonal shifts across seasons might frustrate anyone wanting straight thriller.