Television series

Revenge

Name: Revenge
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Released: 2011
Cast: Emily VanCamp, Gabriel Mann, Nick Wechsler, Madeleine Stowe, Josh Bowman

Revenge is soap opera with a knife behind its back: a woman infiltrates the Hamptons under a false name to systematically destroy the people who ruined her father. It's glossy, absurdly plotted, and completely serious about its own melodrama — flashbacks, betrayals, a literal red folder of enemies. Watch it for the pleasure of a plan executing itself, not for subtlety.

TVMaze rating

7.8

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A woman given a false identity turns it into a weapon against the people who used her — same engine of disguise and payback, but with spycraft and fight choreography instead of cocktail parties.

But More gadgets and gunfights, less social scheming — if you came for the Hamptons manners, this skips them entirely.

Scandal2012

Same ABC pulse: powerful people doing terrible things in beautiful rooms, twists arriving faster than the plot can justify them, everyone a little bit ruined.

But Even more unhinged and self-serious about its own melodrama — a big ask if Revenge already tested your patience for that.

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Old money, new money, and everyone plotting behind a smile — this rebooted soap has the same appetite for lavish backstabbing among people who should know better.

But Campier and less interested in a single driving mission — it sprawls where Revenge stays laser-focused.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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Same architecture as Emily's plan — years of patience spent building a takedown — but Park Chan-wook plays it as tragedy, not soap, with real blood where Revenge has champagne.

A woman wrongly imprisoned spends years constructing an elaborate, patient revenge against the man who framed her — methodical, exacting, and shot with unbearable control.

But Korean-language, formally daring, and far more brutal and morally serious than anything Revenge is willing to show.

Gossip Girl2007

A hidden identity narrating other people's downfall from the shadows, wealthy teens doing adult-sized damage — the DNA is close enough to feel like a cousin show.

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Big Little Lies2017

A gorgeous coastal enclave, secrets everyone is desperate to keep buried, and women who are far more dangerous than their tasteful wardrobes suggest.

But Prestige pacing and genuine grief under the surface — it's after something sadder and slower than Revenge ever wants to be.

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A family empire, siblings circling each other for power, and betrayal treated as a full-contact sport — the same operatic scale of consequence.

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A mystery run by someone controlling events from the shadows, secrets from the past detonating in the present — the long-game structure will feel familiar.

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A true story of manipulation and payback among people who thought they were untouchable — grittier, but the same fascination with masks slipping.

But Based on real events and correspondingly grimmer — the fun, escapist gloss of Revenge is deliberately absent.

The O.C.2003

The template this whole genre borrows from — an outsider dropped into a wealthy beach community, watching its cracks show under the tans.

But Warmer and more earnest than vengeful — it wants you to like these people, not watch them get destroyed.

Kill Bill: Vol. 12003

Strip away the cocktail parties and Revenge's core structure — the list, the disguise, the one-by-one dismantling of enemies — is exactly Kill Bill's, just filmed as martial-arts cinema instead of primetime soap.

A wronged woman works methodically down a list of names, each one a separate, satisfying reckoning — Tarantino turns the revenge checklist into pure genre pleasure.

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The Count of Monte Cristo1934no page yet

Emily Thorne is, almost beat for beat, a gender-swapped Edmond Dantès — new name, new fortune, old grudge — and seeing the 1934 version shows how old and durable this particular revenge machine really is.

The original template: a man framed and imprisoned reinvents himself under a false identity to dismantle everyone who wronged him, one carefully engineered ruin at a time.

But Black-and-white, stagey by modern standards, and slower — you'll feel the decades between this and its glossy descendants.