Television series
The Undoing
A glossy, expensive-looking marriage implodes in real time. Nicole Kidman's therapist and Hugh Grant's oncologist have the perfect Manhattan life until a murder rips through it, and the show becomes less whodunit than 'how much did she actually know?' It's soapy prestige television — gorgeous apartments, exquisite coats, a plot that rewards not thinking too hard.
If you liked this
Big Little Lies2017
Same DNA almost exactly: wealthy women, a death, a community closing ranks, and a cast clearly having a wonderful time being awful to each other in beautiful houses.
But The second season sags badly, and the moral messiness can tip into melodrama if you're not in the mood.

Sharp Objects2018
A murkier, angrier cousin — small-town secrets, a broken family, Amy Adams giving one of the great slow-burn performances of the decade.
But Deliberately paced and genuinely bleak; there's no glamour cushioning the darkness here.

Gone Girl2014
The gold standard for 'marriage as crime scene' — a media-saturated whodunit that keeps flipping who you're supposed to trust, with a script as sharp as a blade.
But Its cynicism about marriage and the press is total; if you want anyone to come out looking decent, look elsewhere.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Staircase2022
It's the nonfiction blueprint The Undoing is quietly cosplaying — same premise, same unanswerable question, but this one is real and never resolves.
The true-crime documentary that basically invented this exact story: a wealthy husband, a dead spouse, a staircase, and a decade of ambiguity about what actually happened.
But No score, no gloss, no tidy ending — it's raw courtroom footage and unresolved doubt, stretched over many hours.

More like this (8)
Mare of Easttown2021
Trades Manhattan gloss for Pennsylvania grit, but the same structure applies — a death, a town, a woman who knows more than she's saying.
But Kate Winslet's accent and the deliberately unglamorous setting are a real tonal swerve from anything upscale.

Presumed Innocent1990
Harrison Ford in a courtroom thriller about a prosecutor accused of murdering his mistress — the courtroom half of The Undoing done with real procedural teeth.
But It's an older, less stylised film; don't expect the visual polish or the modern pacing.

The Night Of2016
Strips away the glamour entirely and asks the same question — did he do it? — with a grinding, procedural honesty about what the justice system actually does to people.
But It's slow, unglamorous, and far more interested in systemic rot than in courtroom fireworks.

A Simple Favor2018
Same glossy suburban-secrets engine but cranked into comedy — Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively trading barbs while a disappearance unravels everyone's lies.
But It's knowingly trashy and tonally slippery; if you wanted this played straight, it'll feel like a joke.

Anatomy of a Fall2023
A far more intelligent take on 'did my spouse do it' — a courtroom drama that interrogates a marriage with forensic patience and zero cheap thrills.
But It's subtitled, deliberately ambiguous, and offers none of the pulpy satisfaction of a tidy resolution.

The Fall2013
Gillian Anderson as a detective hunting a killer whose home life looks disturbingly normal — a quieter, colder cousin with real menace under the surface.
But It moves slowly and spends real time inside the killer's perspective, which some viewers find uncomfortable rather than thrilling.

Gaslight1944
Decades before Hugh Grant's charm curdled on screen, this film established the template: a magnetic husband, a wife slowly realising the marriage was never what it looked like.
Ingrid Bergman being psychologically dismantled by her own husband in a marriage built entirely on performance — the original glossy-marriage-hides-a-monster picture.
But Black-and-white, stagey by modern standards, and its pacing assumes a patience today's thrillers don't ask for.

The War of the Roses1989
Same engine — a gorgeous marriage revealed as rot underneath, a house full of secrets — but pushed into black comedy instead of prestige drama, proving how thin the line is.
Danny DeVito directs Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner tearing a beautiful marriage and a beautiful house to literal pieces — the same collapse, played as savage farce.
But It's genuinely mean-spirited and played for laughs, which will feel jarring if you took the marital wreckage in The Undoing seriously.

People
Cast
Writing
- David E. KelleyCreator
Production
- Matthew TinkerCo-Producer
- Richard StylesCo-Producer
- Jonathan ShapiroConsulting Producer
- Molly AllenConsulting Producer
- Bruna PapandreaExecutive Producer
- Celia CostasExecutive Producer
- David E. KelleyExecutive Producer
- Nicole KidmanExecutive Producer
- Per SaariExecutive Producer
- Stephen GarrettExecutive Producer
- Susanne BierExecutive Producer
- Deb DyerProducer
Recommended by
Big Little Lies, A Simple Favor, Little Fires Everywhere, The Affair, Behind Her Eyes, Malice, The Girl on the Train, Anatomy of a Scandal, The Staircase, Apple Tree Yard