Television series

The Hills

Name: The Hills
Released: 2006
Cast: Audrina Patridge, Heidi Montag, Lauren Conrad, Whitney Port, Kristin Cavallari

The Hills is MTV's reality soap opera about young, beautiful people navigating love, friendship and career in Los Angeles. It's addictively watchable melodrama—relationship drama played absolutely straight, with genuine stakes and devastating betrayals. For anyone who loves watching people's lives unfold in real time, or who's ever been fascinated by how friendships fracture under pressure.

TVMaze rating

2.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are happiest with a long, gossipy soap where friendships tangle and loyalties wobble, and you enjoy watching a group of people you half-know slowly reveal themselves over a whole run.

Skip it if you want tightly plotted storytelling with real stakes, since the drama often hinges on who said what to whom, and each half-hour can feel like treading water.

What it asks of you: Half an hour an episode across six seasons and about a hundred episodes, so it rewards steady, unhurried viewing with plenty of light chatter between the bigger moments.

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

If you liked this

Vanderpump Rules2013

Modern spiritual successor that captures the same addictive melodrama—attractive people in a high-stakes social scene where every relationship and friendship implodes spectacularly. It has The Hills' gift for making you genuinely invested in whether these people like each other.

But It's longer and more bloated than The Hills, with more filler. The restaurant setting can feel repetitive, and the cast size makes it harder to care about everyone.

Made in Chelsea2011

British answer to The Hills—wealthy young people, elaborate social hierarchies, relationship drama that somehow matters despite being completely trivial. It has the same addictive quality and the same gift for making you pick sides in arguments you don't care about.

But The British accents and cultural references might create distance if you're not familiar with London society. The pacing is slower than American reality TV.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills2010

Takes the Hills formula and ages it up—same focus on relationships, betrayal, and social warfare, but with higher stakes, better restaurants, and characters with actual power. The drama is more orchestrated but infinitely messier and more entertaining.

But It's much longer and requires commitment to follow the intricate alliances. It can feel performative in a way The Hills never did—these people are aware of the cameras in a different way.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Skins2007

Both are ensemble shows about young people where the real drama is the slow collapse of friendships under pressure, told with soap-opera pacing and genuine emotional investment in whether these specific people like each other.

British ensemble about teenagers' lives—friendship, sexuality, addiction, and crushing disappointment—with the same commitment to following relationships unfold in real time. But where The Hills is about surface drama, Skins goes to genuine darkness and pain. Both are addictive character studies, just with completely different moral registers.

But It's much harder to watch—featuring drug addiction, sexual assault, and real psychological damage. The UK version's first two seasons are brilliant but the show collapses badly in later years, and it's visibly a young person's show made by young people trying to be edgy.

The Bling Ring2013

Sofia Coppola's film about LA fame-obsessed teenagers who rob celebrities captures the same shallow, sun-soaked world of The Hills—the aesthetics, the moral emptiness, the way materialism becomes its own kind of religion among beautiful young people.

But It's much darker and more critical of its subjects than The Hills ever is. It's a satire, not a celebration, which fundamentally changes the emotional temperature.

Younger2015

A different angle on the same emotional core—female friendship tested by ambition, romance, and social climbing in an attractive setting. It's lighter than The Hills but has genuine warmth and captures that specific pleasure of watching smart people make terrible relationship decisions.

But It's a scripted comedy, not reality, so the stakes feel invented. The humor won't land if you're not into the particular brand of millennial workplace comedy.

Summer House2017

Bravo's stripped-down version of The Hills template—a group house, summer romances, friendship drama, and the specific agony of watching people you like hurt each other. Rawer and less polished than Vanderpump Rules, closer to The Hills' energy.

But It's a newer show with a less iconic cast, so it lacks the narrative weight of The Hills. The production feels cheaper and the drama sometimes feels forced.

Entourage2004

Male fantasy version of The Hills' universe—Hollywood, ambition, friendship tested by success and ego. If you enjoyed watching attractive people navigate social hierarchies in aspirational settings, this hits many of the same notes with better dialogue.

But The gender dynamics are completely different and feel dated now. It's centered on male wish-fulfillment in ways that can feel hollow, and the writing occasionally punches down at women.

Jem and the Holograms2015

A musical about young women building a music career in LA with complicated friendships and romantic entanglements. It has The Hills' focus on female ambition and relationships, just with more music and sparkle, and genuine sincerity about female friendship.

But It's a live-action adaptation of a cartoon that most people don't care about, with a teen-movie sensibility that might feel too earnest. The reviews were brutal for legitimate reasons.

Pretend It's a City2021

Both are entirely dependent on charisma—The Hills works only because you're fascinated by these specific people and want to know what they'll do next. Pretend It's a City works the same way. Take away the people and there's nothing left, and both shows know it.

Fran Lebowitz walking around New York City for four hours, thinking out loud about culture, mortality, and why most people are terrible. Zero plot, complete tonal opposite of The Hills, but equally hypnotic—you watch because you want to know what this specific person thinks about everything.

But There is no narrative arc, no resolution, and no dramatic structure whatsoever. It's just a cranky old woman complaining, and if you need plot or character development or anything to actually happen, you will hate it.

Bombshell2019

Both are fundamentally about how attractive women navigate spaces where their attractiveness is their leverage, and both implicitly ask whether that's a victory or a trap. The Hills treats it as soap opera; Bombshell treats it as tragedy. Same setup, opposite conclusions.

The story of Fox News and sexual harassment, told through the lives of specific women whose ambition, complicity, and survival are complicated and real. Like The Hills, it's about women in a high-status world where appearance is currency and male approval is the economy. But it asks what that actually costs.

But It's a prestige drama about serious trauma, not entertainment. The parallel between The Hills' superficiality and the real damage of the world it reflects might make the earlier show harder to enjoy afterward.