Television series

This Is Us

Name: This Is Us
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: 2016
Cast: Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz

A network family drama that turns tissue-clutching sentimentality into a puzzle box, jumping between three generations of the Pearson family and doling out its emotional gut-punches via carefully engineered reveals. It's unabashedly manipulative and knows it, wringing real tenderness out of grief, addiction, weight, race and fatherhood. Best watched by people who don't mind crying on a schedule.

TVMaze rating

8.0

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Parenthood2010

The closest sibling this show has: a big, messy multigenerational family, played completely straight for warmth rather than irony. Same appetite for tears, same faith that ordinary life is dramatic enough on its own.

But No structural gimmick, no mystery to solve — it's just earnest, and some weeks that earnestness runs thin.

Six Feet Under2001

A family drama that starts every episode with a death and asks what that does to the people left behind — sharper, funnier and far more willing to sit in discomfort than This Is Us ever does.

But Genuinely bleak in places, and its patience with unlikeable characters can feel punishing rather than cathartic.

Friday Night Lights2006

From the same creative stable, an ensemble show that turns a small Texas town into a whole emotional universe. Just as devoted to marriage, parenting and quiet decency, minus the timeline tricks.

But You have to care at least a little about high school football, even if the show is never really about football.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Dark2017

Same structural engine as This Is Us — timelines that fold back on each other to reveal hidden family relationships — reassembled as genre puzzle-box instead of tearjerker.

A German sci-fi series about missing children in a small town that turns out to be, underneath the fog and time-travel, exactly this kind of family puzzle: a tangle of parents, children and grandparents whose connections you're not meant to see coming.

But Dense, subtitled, and genuinely hard to follow without a family tree pinned to the wall — commitment, not comfort viewing.

Brothers & Sisters2006

A sprawling family ensemble built on secrets, sibling rivalry and a beloved dead patriarch whose absence shapes everyone left behind — the same DNA, delivered with more soap and less restraint.

But Broader and more melodramatic, with plotting that occasionally forgets subtlety exists.

Everwood2002

A grieving father starts over in a small town with his two kids, and the show finds enormous tenderness in ordinary parenting mistakes — quieter and less starry, but just as sincere.

But Early-2000s pacing and production values feel modest next to the glossier This Is Us.

Grey's Anatomy2005

If you want the tearjerker mechanics scaled up to industrial size — sudden deaths, long-simmering romances, a cast you'll spend a decade with — this is the reigning champion.

But Two hundred-plus episodes is a real commitment, and quality swings wildly across the run.

The Wonder Years1988

An adult narrator looking back on his own childhood — the same nostalgic voiceover trick This Is Us leans on, done first and done with real economy, no melodrama required.

But Gentler and slighter; it's a half-hour comedy at heart, not built for the same emotional wallop.

Little Fires Everywhere2020

Two families, one shared secret, and a structure that keeps circling back to reveal what really happened — same taste for withheld information as a source of feeling, sharpened with real social bite.

But Only eight episodes and considerably angrier and more pointed about race and class than This Is Us ever gets.

A Million Little Things2018no page yet

The most direct heir to this show's whole formula — a friend group reshaped by a sudden death, secrets doled out in flashback, tears practically scheduled by the writers' room.

But It knows exactly what it's copying and doesn't disguise it much; diminishing returns if you've already had the original.

Make Way for Tomorrow1937

The direct ancestor of the modern family tearjerker — same subject (what adult children owe aging parents) minus any music cue telling you when to cry.

An elderly couple is quietly split up by their grown children who can't quite manage to house them together — the original version of this show's aching questions about duty, aging parents and what children owe them, told with almost no sentimentality at all.

But Black and white, nearly ninety years old, and devastating in a way that offers no catharsis or resolution.

Jane the Virgin2014

Same reveal-driven, narrator-guided family-secret structure, pushed into full comedic telenovela register instead of prestige-drama restraint.

A soapy telenovela with a warm narrator, secret parentage, generational flashbacks and love triangles played for maximum feeling — the same sentimental machinery as This Is Us cranked up into gleeful, self-aware melodrama.

But Deliberately, cheerfully absurd — telenovela plotting and narration that some viewers find too winking to take seriously.