Shows Like
The Bear

01

Industry

2020–present Drama Finance

London investment bank where young analysts destroy themselves for a seat at the table. The Bear's kitchen intensity transplanted to a trading floor. Career-defining for anyone who wants to watch people break in slow motion.

📺 Max / HBO

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02

Boiling Point

2021–2023 Drama Food

A BBC limited series filmed in a single continuous take — a head chef spirals during a service disaster. Philip Davis as the villain sous chef is one of TV's great antagonists. Then the TV series continues it with a 6-episode S2.

📺 BBC / HBO Max

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03

The Menu

2022 Dark Comedy Film

A remote island restaurant where every course is a form of revenge on the wealthy diners. Ralph Fiennes as the chef is gleefully terrifying. Black comedy about food as power, art as violence, and the cruelty of gatekeeping.

📺 HBO Max

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04

Chef's Table: BBQ

2022 Documentary Food

David Chang's BBQ anthology — pitmasters who have elevated smoking to art form. The people who wake up at 4am every day for decades. The Bear's reverence for craft, applied to the world's slowest cooking method.

📺 Netflix

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05

Hacks

2021–present Comedy Drama

Deborah Vance, a legendary comedian, and a young comedy writer forced together. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder have a generational chemistry. It's about legacy, craft, and what you do when the industry moves past you.

📺 Max / HBO

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06

Cooked

2016 Documentary Food

Michael Pollan's four-part food documentary on the four elements: fire, water, air, earth. Each one is a meditation on what cooking reveals about civilization, nature, and ourselves. Quiet, meditative, essential viewing.

📺 Netflix

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07

Chef's Table

2015–2020 Documentary Food

Netflix's definitive culinary documentary series — one chef per episode, deep-dive into obsessive devotion. The Massimo Bottura episode alone is worth the subscription. It changed how prestige TV looked at food.

📺 Netflix

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08

Chef's Table: France

2016 Documentary Food

The French leg of Chef's Table — Bernard Loiseau, Alexandre Grelier, and Michel Roux. Deep dives into tradition, pressure, and the French culinary system's relentless demands. The weight of history in every plate.

📺 Netflix

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09

Midnight Diner: Tokyo

2016 Drama Food

A tiny Tokyo diner open midnight to 7am, where strangers become something more. Each episode follows a regular customer — the food is the emotional anchor, not the showpiece. Warm, melancholy, exact.

📺 Netflix

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10

Ugly Delicious

2018–2020 Documentary Food

David Chang's food-travel series that uses cuisine as a lens on culture, immigration, and identity. Pizza, tacos, fried rice — each episode turns comfort food into a conversation about class, authenticity, and belonging.

📺 Netflix

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11

Somebody Feed Phil

2018–present Documentary Travel

Phil Rosenthal travels the world eating everything and being genuinely delighted by all of it. The opposite of anxious food anxiety — pure joy. Cancel at any time but you'll finish the season.

📺 Netflix

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12

Kitchen Confidential

2005–2010 Comedy Food

Bradley Whitford as a chef who relapses and tries to rebuild his kitchen. The original cable show about kitchen chaos. Anchored by a brilliant cast — the original reference point for the genre The Bear now dominates.

📺 Disney+ / ABC

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13

Searching for Italy

2021–present Documentary Travel

Stanley Tucci tours Italy region by region — the food, the people, the history. His warmth and curiosity make every episode feel like a meal. Deeply joyful without being naive about Italy's complexities.

📺 CNN / HBO Max

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14

Sweetbitter

2018–2019 Drama Food

A young woman falls into a NYC restaurant's orbit — the work, the substances, the complicated relationships. Stefanie Semic's directorial debut adapted from her novel. The Bear's intensity in a 2-season limited run.

📺 Starz / Paramount+

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15

The Bear (if you need to re-watch)

2022–present Drama Food

Already watching it — but want to track your progress? Add The Bear to your DYSI list, mark each episode, and share it with anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Season 3 is in progress as of May 2026.

📺 Hulu / Disney+

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16

Mind of a Chef

2012–2018 Documentary Food

PBS's wander through chef culture — from Sichuan to Maine, from street food to Michelin-starred obsessives. Ed Levine and team's quiet curiosity. The Slow Food movement, fermentation nerds, and the people who take it too seriously.

📺 PBS / Amazon

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17

Iron Chef America

2005–2015 Competition Food

The original kitchen competition format — Alton Brown's revival of the Japanese classic. Morimoto vs. Flay is still peak TV. The theatrics, the cooking, the weird committee — it's where high-pressure culinary performance peaked.

📺 Food Network

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18

The Consumed

2019 Food Short Film

A short-form series about the philosophy and obsession behind cooking — interviews with street food vendors, fermentation evangelists, and people who've given their whole lives to single ingredients. Contemplative in a way The Bear sometimes is.

📺 YouTube / Vimeo

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19

W/ Bob & David

2015 Comedy Sketch

Bob Odenkirk and David Cross play health inspectors who discover a restaurant that's accidentally been serving the same human for years. Too absurd to be in The Bear's world — but if you like dark comedy about food service, this is your sketch.

📺 Netflix

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20

Hell's Kitchen

2005–present Competition Food

Gordon Ramsay screaming at chefs in a real kitchen. 20+ seasons and still going. Not subtle, not quiet — but if The Bear left you wanting more raw kitchen chaos energy, this is the furnace. Pure uncut service pressure.

📺 Fox / Tubi

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