Television series

Sweetbitter

Name: Sweetbitter
Genre: Drama
Released: 2018
Cast: Ella Purnell, Tom Sturridge, Paul Sparks, Evan Jonigkeit, Daniyar

Coming-of-age

Sweetbitter is a jewel-toned coming-of-age drama about a young woman finding her footing in New York's fine-dining underworld. It's sensual and melancholic, steeped in the textures of wine service and late-night excess. A show about the intoxicating allure of belonging to something beautiful and broken. For anyone who loved the moral complexity of prestige television but wanted it smaller, stranger, and less interested in solving itself.

TVMaze rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to slow, sensory character studies of ambition and appetite, where the mood of a restaurant kitchen and a bar at 2am matters more than plot.

Skip it if you want a story that moves briskly toward something, since this drifts, lingers on indulgence and wants you to sit with a young woman's unfocused hunger.

What it asks of you: Half-hour episodes, fourteen of them across two seasons, so it passes quickly, but it rewards patience with quiet scenes and mood over momentum.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Bear2022

A kitchen-set drama with the same fever-dream intensity and sensory richness as Sweetbitter. It captures the beautiful cruelty of food service, the bonds forged under pressure, and the way work becomes identity for people with nowhere else to go.

But Much grimmer and faster-paced, with less time for lingering melancholy. If you wanted Sweetbitter's dreamy atmosphere, this will feel relentless.

Godless2017

Another Purnell showcase about a young woman arriving in an unfamiliar world and learning its unwritten rules. It's visually sumptuous, morally complicated, and genuinely strange. The pacing mirrors Sweetbitter's refusal to rush.

But A western, which may feel like the wrong genre. Some find the mythology heavy-handed compared to the show's quieter moments.

Fleabag2016

Both are half-hour character studies about young women negotiating desire, shame, and belonging in cities that don't care about them. Fleabag is sharper and funnier, but shares Sweetbitter's willingness to let scenes breathe and characters contradict themselves.

But Tonally the opposite—Fleabag is comedic and self-aware, while Sweetbitter is earnest. If you want to feel the sadness, this might lighten the mood too much.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Sweetbitter

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

In the Mood for Love2000

Both are sensory experiences about young people in cities learning to want things, rendered through color, texture, and the intimate choreography of bodies in space. Neither explains feeling—they show it.

Wong Kar-wai's film is pure atmosphere and longing—two people discovering each other through glances and proximity in cramped urban spaces. It's a visual poem about desire and the intoxication of being seen. Like Sweetbitter, it trusts you to feel rather than think.

But Dialogue is minimal and the plot is nearly nonexistent. Some find it unbearably slow; others find that's the entire point. It's in Cantonese with subtitles.

High Maintenance2016

An HBO series equally interested in the texture of New York life, the seduction of excess, and the loneliness underneath surface glamour. Episodes are short, self-contained, and gorgeously shot. It has Sweetbitter's dreamy, observational eye.

But Entirely episodic with no narrative throughline. If you're invested in Tess's specific journey, this anthology structure won't scratch that itch.

Girls2012

The godparent of prestige television about young people in New York being beautiful and self-destructive. Girls has sharper edges and darker comedy, but the DNA is identical—the city as character, relationships as education, status anxiety as plot.

But It's a decade old and some of the millennial anxiety hasn't aged gracefully. Also deliberately cruel in ways Sweetbitter is too tender to be.

Halt and Catch Fire2014

A workplace drama about ambitious people building something impossible. Like Sweetbitter, it's genuinely interested in craft, mentorship, and the way competition becomes intimacy. It's also achingly beautiful and never condescends to its characters.

But Set in the 80s tech world, so none of Sweetbitter's downtown Manhattan texture. Also runs five seasons and requires real commitment.

You're the Worst2014

A romantic dramedy about two deeply flawed people who don't deserve each other but somehow do. It has Sweetbitter's instinct for the sad comedy of being young and adrift, and its willingness to make you uncomfortable about who you're rooting for.

But Much broader and funnier. The tone swings wildly between earnest drama and crude humor, which works but isn't subtle.

Master of None2015

Aziz Ansari's love letter to New York feels like a spiritual cousin to Sweetbitter—both luxuriate in the sensory details of the city, both curious about how people connect across difference, both shot with genuine tenderness.

But Episodic and essayistic rather than novelistic. There's no ongoing drama if you need plot momentum to stay engaged.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina2018

Shares Sweetbitter's gothic sensibility and interest in female rites of passage. It's more overtly supernatural but equally committed to mood and the corrupting allure of power. Both treat their young female leads with real seriousness.

But Horror-adjacent with occult plotting. If you want Sweetbitter's grounded realism, this swings hard into the supernatural, which isn't for everyone.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both follow young women arriving in glamorous cities and becoming entangled in systems (restaurants, Hollywood) that promise transcendence but deliver mostly heartbreak and moral compromise. Both are interested in the texture of that disillusionment.

Lynch's three-hour fever dream about ambition and identity in Los Angeles. Like Sweetbitter, it's hypnotic and structurally strange, built on the seduction of an impossible city and the people who get lost in it. Visually stunning and emotionally devastating.

But Deliberately obscure and nonlinear. It doesn't resolve. If you need narrative clarity, this will frustrate you thoroughly.

Wadjda2012

Both are slow, observational films about the specific education of being a young woman in a world with its own logic. Both find dignity and strange beauty in that constraint. Both trust the audience to care about small moments.

A deceptively simple film about a girl in Saudi Arabia navigating constraints and small rebellions. Like Sweetbitter, it's deeply interested in how young people learn the unwritten rules of worlds not made for them, and in the kindnesses that make survival possible.

But It's a coming-of-age film about a child in a repressive culture. If you want metropolitan glamour and adult excess, the registers are completely different.