Television series

Industry

A pressure-cooker drama about graduate traders clawing for a permanent seat at a London bank, where sleep, self-respect and morality are all negotiable currencies. It's fast, jargon-thick and genuinely stressful to watch, less about finance mechanics than about what ambition does to young people who've built no other identity. Bleakly funny, occasionally brutal, never cosy.

TVMaze rating6.5

If you liked this

Succession2018

Same HBO DNA: corrosive ambition, family and workplace as indistinguishable battlegrounds, dialogue that cuts like a blade. If you want the older, richer cousin of Industry's power games, this is it.

But Rich people problems at a much grander scale — some find it harder to care about billionaires than junior analysts.

Succession poster

Billions2016

Wall Street as blood sport, with hedge fund titans and prosecutors locked in an ego war. Slicker and more cartoonish than Industry but scratches the same finance-as-warfare itch.

But Runs longer and gets more baroque with each season — less grounded, more soap opera by the end.

Billions poster

The Bear2022

Different industry, identical adrenaline: young people breaking themselves against an unforgiving profession that rewards obsession over wellbeing. Just as claustrophobic, just as exhausting, just as good.

But Kitchens instead of trading floors — if you specifically wanted finance, this swaps the setting entirely.

The Bear poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Wall Street1987

Same mentor/protégé engine, same seduction-by-money arc, thirty years earlier and in two hours instead of ten.

Gordon Gekko basically invented the mentor-corrupts-protégé template Eric and Harper are still running today. Watching the original is like seeing the blueprint before anyone added irony.

But Eighties fashion, eighties pacing, and a moral clarity Industry deliberately refuses to offer — it's simpler, almost innocent by comparison.

Wall Street poster
More like this (8)

Mad Men2007

The original workplace-as-morality-test show. Slower and more elegant than Industry, but shares its interest in how professional identity eats the personal self alive.

But Glacial pacing compared to Industry's sprint — this is a slow burn, not a rush.

Mad Men poster

Suits2011

Glossier, sunnier, far less morally serious, but if you want the young-professionals-clawing-upward structure without the existential dread, this delivers pure competence-porn fun.

But Toothless by comparison — no real consequences, no real darkness, just charisma and wins.

Suits poster

Margin Call2011

One overnight crisis inside a bank on the brink, told with the same tense, jargon-fluent realism Industry trades in. Tighter and bleaker in just two hours.

But Ensemble of middle-aged executives rather than twentysomethings — the generational energy is completely different.

Margin Call poster

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

Finance as hedonistic circus, drugs and excess turned up to eleven, with the same coke-and-ambition cocktail Industry deals in, just louder and funnier.

But Nearly three hours of unrepentant excess with almost no moral counterweight — exhausting if you want consequences.

The Wolf of Wall Street poster

Boiler Room2000

Scrappy young men selling their souls for commission checks, chasing the same seductive, corrupting energy Industry's trading floor runs on, minus the polish.

But Dated and rougher-edged, with none of Industry's texture around gender or class — a blunter, simpler film.

Boiler Room poster

The White Lotus2021

Different setting, same HBO appetite for watching entitled people behave badly under pressure, laced with sharp class commentary and dark comic timing.

But Resort guests, not strivers — the power dynamics are inverted, so the ambition angle is largely absent.

The White Lotus poster

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005

Nonfiction mirror of Industry's self-deception theme — actual traders performing the same denial Harper and co. perform as characters.

A documentary that shows the real-world version of Industry's central lie: brilliant people convincing themselves that fraud is just aggressive optimism. Genuinely chilling.

But No fictional escape valve here — this happened, people lost pensions, and the film doesn't let you off easy.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room poster

Whiplash2014

Identical structural DNA — a ruthless mentor, a desperate protégé, ambition as self-harm — relocated from banking to art.

Swap the trading floor for a jazz conservatory and you get the same brutal mentor relationship, the same self-erasure in pursuit of status, distilled into unbearable tension.

But Music, not money — if finance jargon was part of the appeal, this offers none of it, just raw psychological cruelty.

Whiplash poster

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Recommended by

Billions, The Assistant, Super Pumped