Television series

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

Name: The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Released: 2010
Cast: Kyle Richards, Lisa Vanderpump, Lisa Rinna, Erika Jayne, Dorit Kemsley

Social drama

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills follows wealthy women navigating friendship, business, and social hierarchy in Los Angeles. It's unscripted melodrama with high production values, designer everything, and genuine emotional stakes beneath the glamour. For anyone curious about how privilege operates, or simply looking for entertainment that doesn't pretend to be more than it is.

TVMaze rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy watching wealthy people perform their own rivalries for the camera, and find the clash between polished appearances and messy feuds addictive.

Skip it if you want a tightly plotted story with a clear arc, since this is a sprawling reality format where feuds drag on and reunite season after season.

What it asks of you: Fifteen seasons and over three hundred hour-long episodes make it a long haul, best dipped into rather than binged in one sitting.

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

If you liked this

Summer House2017

Bravo ensemble of younger people in close quarters for a season, managing friendships and romantic entanglements. Same network ethos, similar editing rhythm, and the schadenfreude of watching privileged people create their own chaos.

But Less polished and aspirational than RHOBH. Some viewers find it feels derivative rather than definitive.

Married... with Children1987

Irreverent sitcom that inverted the wholesome family show. Like RHOBH at its best, it's funny because it refuses sentimentality and lets its characters be flawed, messy, and self-interested without apology.

But Dated 80s sitcom production and humor. The comparison is structural, not tonal—very different comedy.

Succession2018

Explores wealth, power, and performance among people for whom money is the language of love. Shares RHOBH's fascination with how privilege warps relationships, but with literary precision and dark comedy instead of reality TV energy.

But It's scripted prestige drama, so if you specifically love the unscripted chaos and authenticity claims of reality TV, this won't scratch that itch.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Scenes from a Marriage2021

Both shows are fascinated by how people perform their relationships for an audience, real or imagined. RHOBH does this comedy-first; this does it as tragedy. Same psychological anatomy, opposite emotional register.

Limited series about a marriage dissolving across decades. Like RHOBH, it's deeply concerned with performance versus authenticity, how wealth enables denial, and what happens when people stop pretending. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are mesmerizing.

But It's intimate and painful rather than entertaining. Serious Swedish chamber drama, not spectacle. Watching it feels like work in a way reality TV never does.

Crazy Rich Asians2018

Glamorous comedy about wealth, status, and what it costs to maintain appearances. Captures similar visual excess and social hierarchies, but with a romantic narrative engine and tighter emotional arc.

But It's a film, so no episodic drama or relationship continuity. More plot-driven than character-driven.

Veep2012

Ensemble comedy about people performing competence while actually being petty and self-serving. Same DNA as RHOBH's best moments: sharp observation of how status games corrupt.

But Political satire pitched at a completely different register. If you want lifestyle porn and aspiration, this offers contempt instead.

Insecure2016

Follows a tight friend group managing success, status anxiety, and loyalty tensions. Shares RHOBH's interest in how friendship survives money, ambition, and the gap between public performance and private need.

But Serious tone and narrative structure don't play for laughs the way reality drama does. Very different emotional frequency.

Sex and the City1998

Pioneering show about women with money, taste, and complicated friendships. Established many templates RHOBH would inherit: luxury aesthetics, female-focused interpersonal drama, and the performance of success.

But Now feels dated in specific ways. The fashion and references age it in a way that makes reality TV look timeless by comparison.

The Great Gatsby2013

Both are about the performance of wealth and status for social validation. Gatsby throws parties to win a woman; RHOBH throws drama to stay relevant. Same engine, one century and one medium apart.

Lavish 1920s drama about wealth, aspiration, and the emptiness beneath the spectacle. Every scene is designed and gorgeous, like RHOBH's production aesthetic, but in service of genuine melancholy about what money actually buys.

But Literary adaptation that takes itself seriously. If you want uninvested fun, this film's self-importance can feel ponderous and slow.

Woman of the Hour2024

Both center on women performing versions of themselves for cameras and social stakes. RHOBH plays this as harmless, necessary, even fun. This film asks what happens when that performance masks something dangerous—the same social machinery, much darker implications.

True crime drama about a woman who falls for a serial killer she met on a dating show. Like RHOBH, it's fascinated by how women perform themselves on camera and the gap between persona and reality—but here that gap becomes sinister, not just messy.

But It's a serial killer film that's neither entertaining nor exploitative, just quietly disturbing. Heavier than anything RHOBH attempts, with genuine menace instead of manufactured conflict.