Television series

Lioness

Name: Lioness
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Espionage
Released: 2023
Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Dave Annable, Nicole Kidman, James Jordan, LaMonica Garrett

Lioness is a slow-burn CIA thriller built around Zoe Saldaña's Joe, a Marine handler running deep-cover operatives into the world of state-sponsored terrorism. It trades shootouts for surveillance dread and marriage-strained realism, pairing spycraft procedure with domestic fallout. Nicole Kidman's icy program chief adds bureaucratic menace. It's for viewers who want espionage grounded in exhaustion and moral compromise rather than gadgets — more Homeland than Bond.

TVMaze rating

7.6

If you liked this

Sicario2015

Same writer, same unflinching moral rot: a woman recruited into a violent covert operation she can't fully see, told with unbearable tension. If you liked the show's grim tradecraft, this is where it started.

But It's bleaker and offers almost no catharsis; the ending punishes hope rather than rewarding it.

Homeland2011

The definitive prestige terrorism drama: a CIA analyst's paranoia and a soldier's hidden allegiance collide across eight taut seasons of institutional distrust and personal wreckage.

But Eight seasons is a real commitment, and the later ones lean further into soap-opera plotting than the sharp first three.

Zero Dark Thirty2012

A procedural hunt for bin Laden told with the same cold, competent dread Lioness aims for — patience, paperwork, and violence treated as bureaucratic fact rather than spectacle.

But It's methodical almost to a fault; if you want emotional throughlines over process, it can feel clinical.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Three Days of the Condor1975

Lioness's whole engine — an ordinary person swallowed by an agency that treats them as disposable — is this film's invention; Redford's analyst is Joe's ancestor by nearly fifty years.

A CIA analyst discovers his own agency wants him dead, in a paranoid, elegant 1970s thriller that invented half the genre's grammar — the safe houses, the institutional betrayal, the creeping dread.

But It moves at a deliberate, talky pace with none of the modern show's visceral tension — this is spycraft as conversation, not action.

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan2018

A more traditional, glossier CIA-officer-in-the-field thriller with big action set pieces, for when you want the genre's pleasures without quite so much despair.

But It's slicker and less morally troubled — closer to a good airport thriller than a character study.

The Night Agent2023

Pure pacey, plot-hungry thriller energy: conspiracies, betrayals, and a low-level operative in way over his head, built for bingeing in a weekend.

But It's much pulpier and less interested in psychological realism than Lioness — comfort food, not cuisine.

Yellowstone2018

Taylor Sheridan's other flagship: the same interest in institutions, loyalty, and people who do violence for people they love, just swapped Langley for a Montana ranch.

But No spycraft at all — it's a family power struggle, so go in expecting horses and land disputes, not tradecraft.

242001

The granddaddy of ticking-clock terrorism thrillers — relentless, occasionally ridiculous, and still weirdly influential on how every show since stages a race against catastrophe.

But It's dated in its politics and pacing tricks, and the real-time gimmick wears thin by season three or four.

Body of Lies2008

A CIA operative embedded deep in the Middle East, torn between his agency's cynicism and his own conscience — a similar handler-and-asset tension played out with real movie-star heat.

But It's more conventional action-thriller than character study, and its politics feel a little dated now.

The Bourne Identity2002

If you just want the adrenaline half of the equation — a covert operative, a hostile agency, and relentless momentum — this is still the gold standard.

But Almost no institutional nuance; it's amnesia and action, not the bureaucratic dread Lioness specialises in.

Fauda2015no page yet

Same structural nerve as Lioness — an operative living inside the enemy's skin — but shot from the other side of the ideological line, which recontextualises everything the American version takes for granted.

An Israeli series about undercover operatives embedded among their targets, told with a moral messiness and physical grime American shows rarely allow themselves — subtitled, unglamorous, and genuinely tense.

But Subtitles and a political minefield you'll need to sit with; it doesn't offer the comfort of a clear side to root for.

Killing Eve2018

Both shows centre women running, or hunted by, intelligence machinery and let professional obsession curdle into something intimate; Killing Eve just plays that tension for style and dark comedy instead of dread.

A darkly funny cat-and-mouse spy thriller built around two women's dangerous fascination with each other — fashion, wit, and gore standing in for Lioness's grim realism.

But It's stylised and often comic where Lioness is deadly serious — if you want grounded plausibility, this will feel like a genre lark.