Television series
Sensitive Skin
Sensitive Skin follows Davina and Al, a couple reinventing themselves after empty-nesting by moving to a trendy downtown condo. It's a sharp, often uncomfortable comedy about aging, irrelevance, and the gulf between who you want to be and who you actually are. Funny without being condescending, it finds genuine pathos in the everyday humiliations of staying relevant.
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Schitt's Creek2015
A wealthy family loses everything and must rebuild in a small town they once owned. Like Sensitive Skin, it's about ego-stripping and finding yourself when the life you constructed falls away. The character work is exquisite.
But It takes a season to find its footing, and the early tone wavers between broad comedy and genuine drama. Some find the opening episodes hard to sit through.
Grace and Frankie2015
Two women navigate life after 70 when their husbands announce they're in love with each other. It has Sensitive Skin's mixture of absurdity and real emotion, and the same refusal to let older characters fade into the background or become jokes.
But The Netflix format means later seasons occasionally lose focus in pursuit of activism messaging. Some episodes feel less like character studies and more like issue-of-the-week.
Fleabag2016
A woman's neurotic inner life in a modern city, told with the same jagged humor and uncomfortable honesty. Both shows understand that being flawed and self-aware doesn't make you better—it just makes you sadder and funnier.
But Phoebe Waller-Bridge's style is distinctive almost to the point of parody. If you find the fourth-wall breaks or the specific brand of shame-humor alienating, you'll bounce off quickly.
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45 Years2015
Both are studies in the brittleness of identity and reinvention. Davina and Al try to become new people; Kate and Geoff discover they were never who they thought they were. The same central terror about the self, just expressed through different speeds.
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling as a couple whose 45-year marriage fractures over a single week when a secret from his past resurfaces. It's a masterclass in how much devastation can fit in small looks and pauses. The emotional precision rivals any prestige drama.
But Almost nothing happens. It's a film about two people in a room discussing the past. If you need plot momentum or external stakes, this will feel unbearably slow.
More like this (7)
The Kominsky Method2018
An aging acting coach navigates ego, mortality, and irrelevance with caustic wit and unexpected tenderness. It shares Sensitive Skin's central insight: that growing older isn't noble or peaceful, it's mostly just inconvenient and funny.
But Michael Douglas can feel like he's coasting on charm, and the show sometimes lets him. The supporting cast doesn't always warrant the screen time they receive.
Transparent2014
A family implodes when the patriarch comes out as a woman. Like Sensitive Skin, it's about identities shifting beneath you when you thought they were settled, and about the chaos that follows self-discovery in middle age.
But It's often painfully heavy, and the tonal shifts between comedy and genuine tragedy can feel jarring. Some episodes are exhausting to watch rather than rewarding.
Curb Your Enthusiasm2000
Larry David fumbles through LA life with the same mortification-comedy as Davina, though turned up to eleven. Both shows find gold in the awkward spaces where you say the wrong thing and can't take it back.
But The cringe is relentless and occasionally borders on mean-spirited. If watching people suffer socially makes you anxious rather than amused, this will exhaust you.
Damages2007
A sharp, propulsive legal drama built around a central partnership between a powerful older woman and a younger protégé. Like Sensitive Skin, it takes women over 50 as the prime movers of their own stories, not supporting players.
But The non-linear narrative structure can feel gimmicky, and some plot twists require you to accept contrived scenarios. It occasionally prioritizes shock over character logic.
Enlightened2011
Laura Dern's Dern plays a woman trying to reinvent herself after a breakdown, forced to reckon with her own capacity for delusion. It has Sensitive Skin's unflinching look at self-deception masked as self-improvement.
But It's deeply uncomfortable to watch, and the show never lets you relax into liking anyone. Some viewers find it punishing rather than cathartic.
Veep2012
Relentlessly clever political satire with an all-female power structure at its heart. The insult comedy is surgical, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus commands the room the way Kim Cattrall does—with authority and bewildered rage.
But The humor is so dense and rapid-fire that it can feel exhausting. If you're not already plugged into political references, you'll miss half the jokes.
The Happiness of the Katakuris2002
A family trying to make a life work in an unlikely circumstance, constantly sabotaged by forces beyond their control. Both treat the absurdity of existence with tenderness rather than cruelty.
Takashi Miike's audacious black comedy about a family running a remote inn who keep discovering corpses on their property. It's hilarious, ghastly, and utterly unclassifiable—musical numbers mix with gore, love blooms between corpses, and somehow it breaks your heart.
But It's genuinely bizarre and grotesque. The tonal whiplash alone will alienate half an audience; the other half will have no idea what they just watched.
