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13 Shows Like Ozark to Watch If You Miss Ozark

Take a trip back to the seedy underbelly with these crime dramas

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Tim Surette
Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, Ozark

Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, Ozark

Netflix

Ozark was one of Netflix's best dramas. The crime thriller series won some of the streaming service's most prized Emmys, including two Best Supporting Actress trophies for Julia Garner's starmaking performance as criminal wunderkind Ruth Langmore (she's the favorite to win again this year). It probably won't win Outstanding Drama Series for its final season, but it's nominated. 

The always-stressful (in a good way) show ended in April with as thematically fitting a conclusion as it could have had. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have any new shows to take its place as a pulpy but well-made crime thriller that could have aired on FX or HBO (though showrunner Chris Mundy won't rule out a potential spin-off). But there are still plenty of other shows like Ozark you can watch if you're looking for more tense thrillers about cartel crime. We've compiled a list that features twisty plots that climax in shocking bursts of violence, great criminal characters you can't help but root for, and/or Julia Garner committing hard to an accent. 


ZeroZeroZero

Gabriel Byrne and Dane DeHaan, ZeroZeroZero

Gabriel Byrne and Dane DeHaan, ZeroZeroZero

Amazon Studios

Amazon's underrated limited series ZeroZeroZero takes Ozark's "family drug trafficking business" conceit and opens the aperture to a global picture. Gabriel Byrne, Andrea Riseborough, and Dane DeHaan lead the cast as the Lynwoods, who own a New Orleans-based shipping company whose primary cargo is cocaine. They're the middlemen in a deal transporting coke from cartel sellers in Mexico to mafia buyers in Italy. The shipment goes awry, of course, and gets rerouted to Morocco, and all the players involved have to figure out how to get it back on track. Like Ozark, ZeroZeroZero is interested in the logistics of crime and how various criminal organizations have to work together to make things happen. It was filmed all over the world and has a large international cast, which makes it feel more cinematic than Ozark, which very much felt like a TV show. And with only eight tense episodes, it flies by. -Liam Mathews


Damages

Rose Byrne, Damages

Rose Byrne, Damages

FX

If you enjoy watching Marty think on his feet and craft plans under the pressure of life and death, then you're going to love the extremes that Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) go to in Damages, a high-wire cat-and-mouse legal thriller that aired for five seasons on FX and DirecTV starting in 2007. The drama follows a ruthless high-powered attorney (Close) who takes on a protégée (Byrne), forming an extremely complicated relationship between two strong women who become more and more suspicious of each other. And lest ye think it's all about objections and depositions and other boring lawyerly stuff, the first scene features Ellen running through New York City covered in blood. People die brutally. 


Queen of the South

Alice Braga, Queen of the South

Alice Braga, Queen of the South

Benedicte Desrus/USA Network

Ozark falls squarely in the category of "normal person gets caught up in crime, gets a taste for it, and then wants to be kingpin of the world," and that's the same deal with USA Network's Queen of the South. The series, adapted from Telemundo's Spanish-language telenovela La Reina del Sur, follows a poor Mexican woman who falls for a cartel member, but is forced to flee to America after he is murdered and she becomes a target of the cartel. In the U.S., she teams up with another to help take down the cartel and begins her own drug distribution ring. So, it's like Ozark, except she isn't a nerdy finance guy like Marty.


More recommendations:


The Mosquito Coast

Justin Theroux, Melissa George, The Mosquito Coast

Justin Theroux, Melissa George, The Mosquito Coast

Apple TV+

If it's families on the run from authorities and cartels that you just absolutely have to have in your life, then Apple TV+'s The Mosquito Coast should be your next watch. The series, an adaptation of the 1981 novel that was turned into a 1986 movie starring Harrison Ford, stars Justin Theroux as Allie Fox, an anti-consumerist, anti-waste inventor whose life is upended when federal authorities come looking for him for things he's done in the past, forcing him to uproot his wife and two children and book it for Central America. There, he has run-ins with baddies that will remind you a lot of Ozark, as Allie must wiggle his way out of sticky situation after sticky situation. It may not be as good as Ozark, but it's definitely got the same vibe.


Breaking Bad

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad

AMC

Watching Ozark without having seen Breaking Bad is like playing with GoBots instead of Transformers. Ozark wouldn't exist without AMC's classic crime drama, which is considered by many to be a top 10 series of all time (it's squarely at No. 1 in my book). The similarities are not coincidental; Bryan Cranston plays a man thrust into the crime game (making and selling meth) under dire circumstances (he has terminal cancer and wants to provide for his family), forming the blueprint on which Ozark was based. But the writing, directing, and acting on Breaking Bad is superior to Ozark, perfecting the high-wire intensity that many shows have since tried to emulate. Cartels, money laundering, a family on the edge, it's all here in Breaking Bad, and it's even better. 


Bloodline

Kyle Chandler and Linda Cardellini, Bloodline

Kyle Chandler and Linda Cardellini, Bloodline

Netflix

You know how you watch Ozark, and someone will get grotesquely blown up in an explosion, and then all of a sudden there will be this gorgeous drone shot of the Ozarks, and you think to yourself, maybe I should take the wife and kids down to Missour-uh for a vacation? The series' stunning scenery is just as engrossing as the crime, and that feeling is also all over Netflix's Bloodline. In this case, the Florida Keys serve as the picturesque setting that provides cover for corruption and criminality, which only further exposes its characters to the series' questions of the extents of morality. Like Ozark and Jason Bateman, Bloodline is fronted by one of TV's great leading men in Kyle Chandler, who plays local detective John Rayburn, a member of a supremely messed-up and powerful family buried in secrets. What begins with family disputes ends up devolving into crime and murder, but it's the creeping sense of doom in a beautiful place that will most remind you of Ozark.


Narcos/Narcos: Mexico

Narcos

Pedro Pascal and Boyd Holbrook, Narcos

Netflix

If it's more of the ruthless cartel killing in Ozark that you're after -- and who doesn't love ruthless cartel killing? -- then buckle up, because the Narcos franchise on Netflix is loaded with it. The first season of the original Narcos, which debuted in 2015, follows the DEA's takedown of Pablo Escobar, the infamous Medellín cartel leader and the world's biggest coke dealer. The series ran three seasons before turning into Narcos: Mexico, which may even be better than the original Narcos and follows the drug trade in Mexico and the Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s. There aren't any white guys getting over their head in the crime world, unless you count the feds, but all the action, violence, and devious backstabbing you want from Ozark is here. 


Spotless

Denis Ménochet and Marc-André Grondin, Spotless

Denis Ménochet and Marc-André Grondin, Spotless

Ozark is all about keeping things clean and staying ahead of the bad guys. That's also the gist of Spotless, a hidden gem on Netflix that never got the fanfare it deserved, largely because it debuted in the United States as an Esquire Network -- yes, Esquire Network was a thing back in 2015 -- original series. The British-French co-production (don't worry, it's mostly in English) features a lot of the gory messiness of Ozark thanks to the main character running a crime scene cleaning business in London, and Spotless has no qualms about going into the dirty details of death, including beautifully shot crime scenes. But when his brother comes to town with a dead body in his trunk and a mob boss on his heels, he gets pulled into a world of crime he never expected to be part of. Thankfully his unique talent gets him out of many sticky situations. Spotless is dark and harrowing like Ozark, but adds black comedy to lighten the mood ever-so-slightly. "You brought weed across the border?" "Well, I thought if they found the dead body they'd let the weed slide." Spotless was renewed years ago for a second season, which has unfortunately yet to materialize. 


Sneaky Pete

Giovanni Ribisi, Sneaky Pete

Giovanni Ribisi, Sneaky Pete

Amazon Studios

Amazon's underrated crime series Sneaky Pete follows a man on the run from a crime boss who also has to act normal to pretend like everything is OK. Sound familiar? Giovanni Ribisi plays an ex-con just released from prison who assumes his cellmate's identity in order to escape his own troubled past. Further complicating things, he reunites with his cellmate's long lost family and must pretend to be him all while saving his ass from thugs. That puts Ribisi's character in a constantly tightening vice that he somehow manages to wiggle out of, much like Marty Byrde does about 10 times in every episode of Ozark. Bryan Cranston also appears in and produces Sneaky Pete, as does Margo Martindale, in case you need further endorsement. 


Pure

Ryan Robbins, Pure

Ryan Robbins, Pure

WGN America

Mennonite cocaine dealers! What more reason do you need to watch this Canadian crime thriller? Another series heavily influenced by Breaking Bad, Pure premiered on WGN America in 2017 before moving over to Hulu and follows a Mennonite pastor in Canada who goes undercover to stop the cocaine trade within his community. Now before you say how ridiculous this is, keep this in mind: It's based on true events. Like Ozark, it features a man forced into crime who learns on the job and is tempted by the dark side, and Ryan Robbins gives a strong performance as the conflicted pastor. But seriously: Mennonite cocaine dealers! The show aired two six-episode seasons, but it's unclear if there will be a third.


The Outsider

Jason Bateman, The Outsider

Jason Bateman, The Outsider

HBO

Thanks to Ozark, we learned that Jason Bateman wasn't just a funny guy saying things like, "Has anyone in this family even seen a chicken?" He showed some serious dramatic chops in Ozark, both in front of the camera as an actor and behind it as a director. Between seasons of Ozark, Bateman starred in and directed this one-season series for HBO, in which he plays a Little League coach accused of murdering a young boy. Given that this is based on a Stephen King book, The Outsider quickly adds supernatural elements to its story, but the moodiness, occasional blue tint, and Bateman's solid performance are purely Ozarkian. 


Inventing Anna

Julia Garner, Inventing Anna

Julia Garner, Inventing Anna

Netflix

Netflix's hit based-on-a-true-story limited series doesn't feel much like Ozark, but Ozark fans should watch it for Julia Garner. Ozark's Emmy-winning breakout star got her most prominent lead role to date playing Anna Delvey, a Russian-born hustler who grifted her way through New York City high society by convincing people she was a German heiress worth tens of millions of dollars, only to have her house of cards come crashing down when the bills came due. Garner and her character, wunderkind crook Ruth Langmore, have always been the most impressive part of Ozark, and Inventing Anna allows her to show off her range and Meryl Streep-like facility for accents. And honestly? Anna Delvey is kind of like Ruth Langmore. They're both ambitious, intelligent young women whose outsider status prevents them from accessing money, power, and respect through traditional means, so they do it on their own, illegal terms. -Liam Mathews