Television series

Six Feet Under

Name: Six Feet Under
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 2001
Cast: Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Rachel Griffiths

A funeral home run by one endlessly complicated family, and the corpses that arrive each week like fate's punchline. It's a dramedy that opens with a death and closes on grief, sex, ambition, and the ordinary chaos of siblings who love and wound each other in equal measure. Funny, sad, occasionally surreal — for anyone who wants prestige drama that isn't afraid to be tender.

TVMaze rating

8.1

If you liked this

The Sopranos1999

HBO's other family drama about people who deal in death, just with more guns and fewer eulogies. Same era, same appetite for long silences and moral rot dressed as domestic comedy.

But Tony's world is colder and more violent — less warmth, less catharsis, more dread.

The Leftovers2014

Grief as the actual subject rather than the backdrop, told with the same willingness to get strange and spiritual. Devastating, beautiful, deeply weird in the best way.

But Bleaker and more oblique — mystery-box grief with fewer laughs and no tidy answers.

This Is Us2016

A family saga that treats death as a structuring wound across generations, with the same nonlinear timeline tricks and unapologetic tear-jerking.

But Broadcast-network sentiment where Six Feet Under has HBO's teeth — softer, more manipulative.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Loved One1965

Same subject, same industry, wildly different tone — this is the joke Six Feet Under later turned into tragedy.

A vicious, gleeful satire of the American funeral industry, decades before Six Feet Under made it prestige television. Waugh's source novel and a cast having tremendous fun skewering embalming, grief-as-commerce, and Hollywood death.

But Broad, arch satire rather than character drama — cartoonish where the show is intimate.

Rectify2013

Slow, aching, beautifully shot Southern drama about a family reassembling itself around loss and guilt. Shares that unhurried attention to interior life.

But Even slower paced, with long stretches of near-silence that will test patient viewers.

Brothers & Sisters2006

A big, messy ensemble family drama built around a patriarch's death and the fallout among wildly different siblings.

But Glossier and more soap-opera in structure — comfort food where Six Feet Under is a gut-punch.

Big Love2006no page yet

Another HBO family under one unconventional roof, quietly interrogating faith, identity, and appearances with the same dark comic undertow.

But Polygamy as premise takes some acclimating, and the pacing meanders in the middle seasons.

Transparent2014

Family secrets, sibling rivalry, a parent's transformation reshaping everyone — sharp, funny, and unafraid of discomfort.

But More contained and less plot-driven; some will find the characters harder to love.

Bloodline2015

A close-knit family business, a death that unravels old wounds, and siblings who can't stop circling each other.

But Slower burn with a thriller edge that pulls it away from Six Feet Under's emotional register.

Parenthood2010

Warmer and gentler, but the same commitment to a sprawling family navigating loss, love, and each other's mess with real tenderness.

But Considerably softer — expect fewer dead bodies and much less existential dread.

The Undertaking2007no page yet

The Fishers are invented, but this is the actual job, the actual grief, filmed rather than written.

A quiet, unflinching Frontline documentary following a real family-run funeral home in Michigan, sitting with actual grief instead of scripted versions of it.

But No plot, no fiction's comfort — just real families in real pain, which is a heavier watch than it sounds.

Dead Like Me2003

Same existential comedy about death interrupting ordinary family life, just wearing a supernatural costume instead of a funeral suit.

A twentysomething becomes a grim reaper and has to keep living a normal, messy life alongside her new job collecting souls — same dark comic engine, filtered through fantasy instead of realism.

But Cheaper production, sillier premise, and a tonal lightness that never goes as deep as the show it echoes.