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The next season of HBO salacious, schadenfreude-rich dramedy The White Lotus doesn’t premiere until October, so you’ll need to wait months yet to witness the antics of an all-new all-star cast (Helena Bonham Carter! Heather Graham! Rosie Perez! Sandra Bernhard!) as they travel to paradise and encounter murder, mystery, and the inevitable consequences of their own greed. In the meantime, here are 10 more shows about wealthy people getting their comeuppances (or not) in lush locales.
The Perfect Couple (2024)
Though the cast includes names like Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, and Dakota Fanning, the real star of The Perfect Couple is Donna Lynne Champlin as Nikki Henry, a police detective who has no idea what she’s getting into when she shows up in a wealthy Massachusetts island community to investigate a dead body on a beach. The beach is attached to a lavish mansion playing host to a society wedding involving some of the most self-satisfied rich people you’ll ever encountered on television. Kidman plays novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, the mother of the groom. She has nothing but icy disdain for her future daughter-in-law, who has committed the cardinal sin of having grown up not-rich. As in The White Lotus, the murder exposes the secrets and the fault lines in a seemingly “perfect” family. Stream The Perfect Couple on Netflix.
The Resort (2022)
Starring Christin Milioti and William Jackson Harper (The Good Place). this one plays a bit like a romantic drama take on White Lotus—the set-up and setting are similar, but it’s much more about relationships than social status. A couple celebrating their tenth anniversary arrives at a luxury Yucatan resort, but things aren’t as happy as they seem on the surface. Their marriage is quietly crumbling, but a young woman who went missing 15 years earlier might be the thing to bring them back together. The mystery has threads that catch on the pair’s own secrets, as well as the shady history of the the resort itself; eventually, things travel into even weirder territory than what we’ve yet encountered on The White Lotus. Stream The Resort on Peacock.
Nine Perfect Strangers (2021 – )
It’s Nicole Kidman again, this time as Masha Dmitrichenko, overseer of up the posh wellness resort Tranquillum House. The nine strangers of the title (each season has a different all-star cast—sound familiar?) show up hoping for a little healing, but get much more than they bargained for from the mostly well-intentioned, but shady and mysterious Masha. She’s secretly drugging them, for one thing, and her therapy regimen includes things like digging your own grave. It’s pretty bonkers, but nobody ever said that personal growth would be easy. Stream Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu.
The Comeback (2005 – )
Though it’s significantly less murder-y and generally much funnier than The White Lotus, this is another show about clueless rich people moving through life amiably enough while only occasionally realizing how fragile their self-worth is when tied solely to money and status. Lisa Kudrow is brilliant as actress-of-a-certain-age Valerie Cherish, who has plotted one comeback after another over the course of three seasons released across two decades. Her utter shamelessness in her quest for greater fame is simultaneously admirable and embarrassing, even as the show makes clear that women face different burdens in the effort to maintain relevance. It’s cringe comedy par excellence. Stream The Comeback on HBO Max.
Big Little Lies (2017 – )
Much as with The White Lotus, part of the thrill of Big Little Lies is in watching some very rich, very attractive, very white (mostly) ladies facing tough times in beautiful locales (in this case, Monterey, California). And as on The White Lotus, any threat to the status quo can lead to big drama, as at least as much as small differences in perceived wealth. In season one, five women (played by Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz) become involved in a murder investigation connected to a school fundraiser that threatens to bring all of their private dirt out into the open—and there are secrets aplenty to uncover. Stream Big Little Lies on HBO Max.
Billions (2016 – 2023)
Billions doesn’t have quite the bite of White Lotus, but it’s still plenty of fun, with Paul Giamatti playing rather ruthless U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (based in part on the real-life Preet Bharara), who is working to bring down shady hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). The tone is that of a darkly comic soap opera, and it stays fresh over seven seasons by playing off the contrast between Axelrod’s willingness to use all the money and power at his disposal to stay on top and out of jail, and Rhoades’ willingness to resort to shady, not-entirely-legal tactics to reel in his big fish. Stream Billions on Paramount+ and Prime Video.
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Enlightened (2011 – 2013)
Before The White Lotus, Mike White co-created (with star Laura Dern) this beloved, if short-lived, comedy-drama about a middle-aged woman who experiences a complete mental breakdown following a demotion at the job to which she’s devoted her life. Following a two-month stay in an holistic treatment facility, Dern’s Amy Jellicoe becomes determined to approach life with a new perspective, focusing on meditation and positive change at work and at home. The results are mixed, but there’s also a rather beautiful sense that while change is absurd and difficult, but also entirely possible (in that, it’s perhaps a lot less cynical than White’s subsequent series). Stream Enlightened on HBO Max.
Mine (2021)
South Korean TV creators have no problem criticizing the ultra-wealthy, particularly the plutocratic chaebol families who control huge portions of the country’s economy. Mine targets the women who are jockeying for control of the massive, fictional Hyowon Group from within their family’s outrageously opulent (and extremely photogenic) residential compound. The plans of two increasingly powerful women who married into the family, Hi-soo and Seo-hyun, are thrown into disarray when the new housemaid begins a romantic relationship with one of the family’s male heirs, while a new tutor seems ready to expose old family secrets. It’s a Dynasty-style soap opera, but one that isn’t particularly besotted by its wealthy characters, and with a self-awareness that leads to moments of dark comedy as various family members crawl over one another in pursuit of power. Stream Mine on Netflix.
The Prisoner (1967 – 1968)
You want a show with a beautiful setting that confronts issues of identity and authoritarianism in a capitalist context? Fifty years on, The Prisoner remains one of television’s most starkly realized dystopias—and it’s set in a candy-colored, pop-art-inspired village that actually looks like a pretty great place to relax. Creator/director Patrick McGoohan plays Number Six, who has resigned from his government job over a matter of conscience. Apparently knowing too much, he’s rendered unconscious and taken to the remote, inescapable “Village,” which is full of others with numbers and no names. The Village has all the comforts and conveniences one could want, and most are perfectly content there—but rebellious Number Six can’t appreciate luxurious surroundings that look to him like a gilded cage. This surreal, psychedelic series builds to a wild conclusion as the mystery of where he really is and why plays out, and makes as good an argument against the soul-crushing impacts of consumer culture and conformity as anything ever on TV. Stream The Prisoner on Prime Video and Tubi.
Your Friends and Neighbors (2025 – )
In Your Friends & Neighbors, Jon Hamm plays Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a recently divorced, recently unemployed New York hedge fund manager. In an effort to keep up an illusion that nothing in his life has changed, he begins breaking into the homes of his wealthy neighbors to steal and sell their stuff, inadvertently catching on to their secrets as well. This dark comedy isn’t exactly about how hard it is to be a once-rich white guy, but neither is it a pointed lesson in the downfalls toxic masculinity—Coop is an insider forced into the role of an outsider (playing an insider), offering him a unique perspective on the artifice at the center of a life based on flaunting wealth. Stream Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV.
