Television series
You're the Worst
You're the Worst follows Jimmy, a failed novelist, and Gretchen, a self-sabotaging PR flack, as they build something neither of them expected to want. It's caustic, filthy-funny television that keeps swerving into real depression, grief and codependency without losing its wit. Watch it for rom-com bones with the sentiment surgically removed and replaced with something truer.
If you liked this
Catastrophe2015
Rob and Sharon are just as blunt, foul-mouthed and unsentimental as Jimmy and Gretchen, but the six-episode seasons never waste a scene and the marriage they stumble into feels just as precarious and funny.
But Its warmth arrives faster than You're the Worst's, so if you want maximum toxicity for longer, this softens sooner.

Fleabag2016
Same appetite for characters who sabotage every good thing offered to them, same instinct to undercut a devastating moment with a joke, and a lead as electrically unlikeable-yet-magnetic as Gretchen.
But Only two seasons, and it trades slow-burn relationship messiness for tighter, more theatrical set-pieces.

BoJack Horseman2014
An animated horse-man wallowing in the same addiction, depression and self-sabotage territory Gretchen inhabits, proving cartoon animals can carry heavier emotional freight than most prestige dramas.
But The talking-animal sitcom wrapping takes a season or two to reveal how serious it's willing to get.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?1966
Same idea at its most extreme: a couple whose fighting is their intimacy, and whose cruelty is the clearest evidence they can't live without each other.
Two married academics spend one drunken night dismantling each other and everyone in the room, and somehow it plays as blistering comedy as often as horror — the template for love-as-warfare, decades before sarcasm became a weapon of choice.
But Black-and-white, stage-bound and unrelentingly verbal — nothing here softens the cruelty with a modern soundtrack or pacing.

More like this (8)
Love2016
Judd Apatow's Netflix series pairs a shambolic addict and a controlling mess and asks the same question the show does: can two badly-wired people actually be good for each other?
But Slower pace and less punchline density; it earns its insight through discomfort rather than jokes.

Casual2015no page yet
A brother and sister sharing a house while dating disastrously, with the same half-hour rhythm of jokes landing right before something quietly sad. FX's less-loved cousin to Jimmy and Gretchen's world.
But Lower energy overall, and the ensemble is smaller so it never builds the same rowdy friend-group chemistry.
Enlightened2011
Laura Dern plays a woman who has just had a breakdown and decided she's going to fix everyone around her, whether they like it or not. Cringe comedy that turns achingly sincere.
But Much quieter and sadder than You're the Worst; the laughs are rarer and the tone stays melancholy.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia2005
The gold standard for watching irredeemable people be irredeemable and still make you howl. If you want the awful-people-no-lessons-learned gene taken to its purest extreme, start here.
But No romance arc to root for, and the cruelty is broader and cartoonish rather than emotionally grounded.

Search Party2016
A group of self-absorbed millennials stumble into a mystery plot that keeps escalating their worst instincts. Same generational bite, same willingness to let its characters be genuinely bad.
But The mystery-comedy engine pulls focus from romance, so it's a different kind of show wearing similar clothes.

Togetherness2015no page yet
A marriage and a friendship fraying at the same time, examined with the Duplass brothers' patient, low-key humanism instead of You're the Worst's sharper elbows.
But Gentler and slower; if you came for savage one-liners, this trades them for quiet ache.
The Boys2019
The same actress, the same gift for making unlikeable people magnetic, pushed past redemption entirely — what happens when a show refuses to let you root for her.
Aya Cash trades Gretchen's chaotic-but-loveable mess for Stormfront, a superhero with a genuinely monstrous secret hiding behind influencer charm. Watching her turn charisma into menace recontextualises everything endearing about her earlier role.
But It's a violent, gory superhero satire with none of the intimate two-hander structure — a completely different show in a completely different genre.

Crazy Love2007no page yet
The show's central dare — can toxic people actually love each other, or are they just telling themselves a story — answered by real people, with none of the jokes to soften it.
A documentary about a real courtship so possessive and disturbing it makes Jimmy and Gretchen look like amateurs — and yet, decades later, the couple at its centre insist they're happy. Stranger than any fiction.
But This is a true story about real, serious harm, not a comedy; it will unsettle you in ways the show never intends to.
People
Cast
Writing
- Stephen FalkCreator
- Marquita J. RobinsonExecutive Story Editor
- April ShihStaff Writer
Production
- Shane KellerAssociate Producer
- Todd CoppsAssociate Producer
- Franklin HardyCo-Executive Producer
- Shane KosakowskiCo-Executive Producer
- Wendey StanzlerCo-Executive Producer
- Alison BennettCo-Producer
- Corbin LarsonCo-Producer
- Eva AndersonCo-Producer
- Philippe IujvidinCo-Producer
- Stephen FalkExecutive Producer
- Franklyn M. GottbetterLine Producer
- Erica RosbeProducer
- Melissa WylieProducer
- Sarah CarbienerProducer
- Alison BennettSupervising Producer
- Eva AndersonSupervising Producer
- Evan MannSupervising Producer
- Franklin HardySupervising Producer
- Gareth ReynoldsSupervising Producer
- Shane KosakowskiSupervising Producer
Recommended by
Barry, Master of None, Catastrophe, Please Like Me, BoJack Horseman, Search Party, Love, Easy