Television series
Please Like Me
Please Like Me follows Josh, a twenty-something who breaks up with his girlfriend, promptly wonders if he's actually gay, and gets handed responsibility for his depressed mother in the same breath. It's a hangout comedy about custard tarts and terrible dates that keeps sliding, without warning, into real grief. Funny, tender, unhurried — for anyone who likes their sitcoms with an ache underneath.
If you liked this
Everything's Gonna Be Okay2020
Josh Thomas's own follow-up series, same rhythm of jokes colliding with grief, this time about a man raising his two younger sisters after their father's death. Warmer, sillier, still gutting.
But If you want distance from Josh Thomas's exact sensibility, this is more of the same voice, not a departure.

Fleabag2016
Same trick — a joke lands, the audience laughs, and then the show quietly breaks your heart with the next line. Sharper, filthier, and just as devastating about grief hiding behind charm.
But More cynical and less warm than Please Like Me; the central relationships are colder and the humour bites harder.

Catastrophe2015
A couple stumbles into a relationship neither planned, and the show finds the exact same seam of comedy and dread that Please Like Me mines in family. Blunt, filthy, tender.
But Focused on a romantic partnership rather than a friend group, so the ensemble warmth is traded for a tighter, more claustrophobic two-hander.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Harold and Maude1971
Both use flip, deadpan comedy to approach depression and death without ever losing tenderness for the people involved.
A death-obsessed young man falls for a septuagenarian in this 1971 cult classic that finds real warmth and comedy inside obsession with mortality and disapproving parents. It got there first.
But Very much of its era — slower pacing, stagier jokes, and a central romance some viewers find more uncomfortable than charming.

More like this (8)
Looking2014no page yet
Same unhurried, low-stakes ensemble energy — gay men in their thirties just living, dating badly, and talking too much. Quiet instead of jokey, but the same generous eye for ordinary mess.
But Slower and more muted than Please Like Me; little of the same joke density, and some found its pace frustratingly gentle.
The End of the F***ing World2017
Deadpan, morbid, and surprisingly tender underneath, this follows two teenagers who don't quite fit anywhere else. Same trick of undercutting sincerity with a joke right before it gets too soft.
But Considerably darker and more violent in places; the comedy is bone-dry rather than warm.

You're the Worst2014
A romantic comedy that keeps detouring into real depression and PTSD without ever losing its jokes. Same commitment to letting mental illness sit in the same room as the laughs.
But More cynical leads who are frequently unlikeable; the show asks you to stay with people behaving badly for a long time.

Chewing Gum2015
A scrappy, horny, big-hearted coming-of-age comedy from a singular voice, all chaotic family and terrible decisions. Shares that same specific, confessional, slightly unhinged sense of humour.
But Broader and more slapstick than Please Like Me; the tonal shifts into sadness are rarer and less central.

Shameless2011
Chaotic, loving, broke family navigating mental illness, addiction, and each other with dark humour and genuine tenderness. A kind of blueprint for using comedy to survive a hard home life.
But Much longer and rowdier than Please Like Me; eleven seasons is a big commitment for a similar feeling.

Master of None2015
A loosely autobiographical comedy about a specific guy's specific friends, family and romantic disasters, unafraid to slow right down and go quiet when the story actually needs it.
But Less serialized and more anthology-like in later seasons, and the family stuff is occasional rather than central.

Stories We Tell2012
Same instinct as Please Like Me — using your actual family as material and discovering your parents are flawed people, not fixed points — except told as fact instead of comedy.
Sarah Polley turns a camera on her own family to dig up a buried secret, mixing home movies, interviews and gentle reenactment into something that questions who gets to tell whose story.
But No jokes to soften it, and its structure — circling the same event from different angles — asks for real patience.

Relic2020
Same fear at its centre — watching a parent's mind slip and knowing you can't fix it — just recast as horror instead of comedy, and set in the same country.
An Australian horror film about a mother's dementia that turns memory loss and family guilt into something genuinely frightening, using a haunted-house frame to reach grief no comedy could touch.
But Bleak and unsettling rather than funny; if you came for warmth, this trades it entirely for dread.

People
Cast
Recommended by
Girls, Fleabag, Heartstopper, Young Royals, Beautiful Thing, My So-Called Life, Transparent, My Mad Fat Diary, This Way Up, Everything's Gonna Be Okay, Atypical, SKAM