TV Shows Like Animal Kingdom
If you like Animal Kingdom, here are 11 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
TNT · Crime · Animal Kingdom is ended
Animal Kingdom works because it keeps two stories running at once: the criminal operation and the family. J arriving as an outsider gives the audience a way in, but the show is never really about him learning the ropes. It is about the Codys as a unit, specifically about what holds a dangerous, self-serving family together and what starts pulling it apart. Smurf is the center of gravity, and the show understands that the most frightening power in a crime family is not the one throwing punches. The beach-town setting gives the whole thing a sun-bleached, almost casual menace that contrasts nicely with how brutal things get.
The best shows like Animal Kingdom
1. Sons of Anarchy
Sons of Anarchy is the most direct match here: a tight criminal family in California, a younger man trying to find his footing inside a hierarchy built by someone older and more ruthless, and a constant tension between loyalty to the group and the desire to change it. The club functions much like the Cody family, with unspoken rules, dangerous secrets, and leadership that demands absolute submission. If Smurf and Pope kept you watching, Clay and the SAMCRO inner circle will do the same.
Stream on Hulu
Ended0%
2. Tulsa King
Tulsa King shares Animal Kingdom's interest in what happens when the institution you gave everything to turns its back on you. Dwight Manfredi is, in a way, an older, wearier version of J, someone dropped into a new environment and forced to rebuild from scratch while figuring out who he can actually trust. It is a bit lighter in tone than Animal Kingdom, but the core question, what do you owe people who may not deserve it, is the same.
Stream on Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel
Likely Renewed95%
3. Mayans M.C.
A direct spinoff of Sons of Anarchy set on the California-Mexico border, Mayans M.C. follows EZ Reyes through a story that rhymes closely with J's in Animal Kingdom: a young man re-entering a criminal world that has its own codes, its own violence, and its own complicated loyalties pulling him in multiple directions. The border setting adds a layer of political and cartel tension that the show uses well, and the family dynamics inside the club feel lived-in and real.
Stream on Hulu
Ended0%
4. Good Girls
Good Girls approaches crime from the opposite starting point of Animal Kingdom, not a family born into it but three women who stumble in and find they cannot get back out. The show is sharper on the comedy than Animal Kingdom, but it has the same understanding that once you are in business with dangerous people, ordinary domestic life and criminal life start contaminating each other in ways that are hard to undo. Fans who liked watching J navigate between two worlds will find a similar tension here.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Cancelled0%
5. The Penguin
Strip away the Gotham City backdrop and The Penguin is a story Animal Kingdom viewers will recognize: a man from the bottom of a criminal hierarchy making a ruthless push to the top, with a domineering mother whose love and manipulation are essentially indistinguishable. The relationship between Oz and Francis echoes the Smurf dynamic closely enough that it almost feels like a deliberate parallel. The show is dense and fast-moving, and it takes its crime-family politics seriously.
Stream on HBO Max, HBO Max Amazon Channel, Spectrum On Demand
Ended0%
More on shows like Animal Kingdom
Fans of Animal Kingdom tend to be drawn to a particular combination: tight family or crew dynamics, criminal enterprise used as a pressure cooker for personal loyalties, and a sense that no character is fully safe or fully good. They want stories where the line between love and control is genuinely blurry, and where the institution, whether a family, a club, or a mob outfit, has its own logic that the characters have to fight against or surrender to.
The recommendations here cover that territory from several angles. Sons of Anarchy and Mayans M.C. both put a found-family criminal organization at the center and let internal loyalty conflicts do most of the dramatic work. Tulsa King takes the mob-family dynamic and stretches it by dropping a single character into unfamiliar territory, which gives it a different rhythm but the same core tension between institutional loyalty and personal survival. Good Girls approaches the crime-family idea from a fresh direction, following ordinary people discovering they are more capable of ruthlessness than they thought. The Penguin is the most stylized of the bunch, but underneath the comic-book trappings it is a straight-up story about a man clawing his way up a criminal hierarchy while managing a complicated, controlling relationship with his mother, which any Animal Kingdom viewer will recognize immediately.
More shows like Animal Kingdom
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Animal Kingdom?
- Sons of Anarchy is the most popular show similar to Animal Kingdom in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Animal Kingdom still on the air?
- Of the 11 shows similar to Animal Kingdom listed here, 1 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Animal Kingdom?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.