Television series

Underground

Name: Underground
Genre: Drama, History
Released: 2016
Cast: Christopher Meloni, Jessica De Gouw, Jurnee Smollett, Alano Miller, Aldis Hodge

Other titles called Underground: the 1995 film.

Underground is a tense, urgent drama about enslaved people planning and executing an escape from a Georgia plantation. It's grounded, visceral storytelling that treats the courage and strategy of its characters with complete seriousness. For anyone who wants American history told from the perspectives that mattered most—the ones usually erased.

TVMaze rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a tense, character-driven historical drama where the suspense comes from people making fragile plans under constant threat, much like the slow-burn craft of The Knick.

Skip it if you need the story to move briskly or want a lighter viewing night, since its hour-long episodes linger on cruelty, hunger and the long dread of being caught.

What it asks of you: Each episode runs about an hour and asks you to sit with heavy material and slow, deliberate scenes across two seasons of twenty episodes total.

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

If you liked this

The Good Fight2017

A sharp legal drama with genuine moral weight and complex characters facing impossible choices. It has the same intelligent ensemble dynamic and willingness to sit with real stakes.

But Courtroom procedural rhythms may feel safer than Underground's raw intensity. Lighter in tone overall, which some viewers find less compelling.

Lovecraft Country2020

Blends historical horror with Black American experience, mixing genre thrills with the weight of systemic violence. Visually stunning and emotionally fearless about what it's examining.

But Darker and more surreal than Underground. Some plots veer into horror territory that might overwhelm if you're seeking historical grounding.

The Last of the Mohicans1992

A frontier survival story with similar stakes: hunted people moving through dangerous landscape, fighting against impossible odds. Kinetic, intelligent, genuinely gripping.

But Period action film pacing is different from prestige drama. Some will find it more conventional, though no less effective.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Moon in the Gutter1983

Both refuse the comfort of a traditional historical narrative. They're structured as acts of witness rather than entertainment, and both center the strategies and intelligence of people resisting rather than their suffering.

A guerrilla-style film about resistance—informal, fast, shot like documentary. No big names, no softening: just people fighting back against systems that want them dead. It has Underground's moral clarity and urgency.

But Very low budget, deliberately rough aesthetic. If you want polished prestige television, this will feel deliberately anti-cinematic. Runtime is punishing and pacing is fractured by design.

Watchmen2019

A limited series wrestling with American racism, violence, and systemic injustice. Uses genre confidently to examine what we refuse to see. Structured like Underground: urgent, purposeful, furious.

But Superhero premise and genre elements might feel like distancing if you want pure historical drama. Denser and more formally experimental.

12 Years a Slave2013

Unblinking documentation of slavery and one man's fight for freedom. Steve McQueen's direction is unflinching without being exploitative. Unforgettable cinema.

But Extremely difficult to watch. The brutality is not softened; some find the visual approach punishing rather than illuminating.

Amistad1997

A courtroom drama built on an uprising, with themes of resistance and legal strategy. Spielberg directing with unusual restraint. Ensemble cast shines across its running time.

But Courtroom sequences can feel stiff. The pacing shifts away from action into argument, which loses some viewers who prefer Underground's momentum.

The Underground Railroad2021

A limited series adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel, blending realism with magical-realist elements. Each episode is a distinct story of escape and survival, varying in tone and setting.

But The genre elements—magical realism, surrealism—might feel at odds with Underground's historical specificity. Slower burn in places.

Clemency2019

A quietly devastating look at execution and mercy, starring Alfre Woodard. It's about the machinery of injustice and the people caught inside it. Morally urgent without being showy.

But Not a narrative of escape or action. Contemplative and claustrophobic, which some find depressing rather than cathartic.

When They See Us2019

A limited series about the Central Park Five, dramatizing injustice and wrongful conviction. Ava DuVernay's direction is powerful and the ensemble is superb. Angry in a way that feels necessary.

But The early episodes are brutal depictions of false arrest and police abuse. Can feel more focused on victimhood than agency, depending on your expectations.

Salt of the Earth1954

Both are period dramas about organized resistance that were made when their own moment made them necessary. Both treat planning and collective action as heroic, not rebellion as individual tragedy.

A blacklisted film about a New Mexico mineworkers' strike, shot by and about Mexican-American workers. Uses the grammar of a thriller to depict labor organizing. Radical cinema made when it could barely be made.

But Shot in grainy black-and-white with an amateur cast and a documentary feel. Some sequences are didactic; it's propaganda in the best sense, which isn't everyone's definition of entertainment.

Queen Sugar2016

Both understand that freedom and survival are ongoing, not one moment. Underground shows the escape; Queen Sugar shows what comes after—the fight to keep what you've claimed, against systems designed to take it back.

A family drama set in Louisiana following Black landowners, their choices, and their conflicts. Contemporary but rooted in what came before. Over its seasons, it quietly becomes a show about power, inheritance, and survival.

But Soap opera structure and domestic focus. If you're seeking the forward momentum of Underground's escape narrative, this moves sideways into relationship complexity and generational conflict.