Taboo

TV Shows Like Taboo

If you like Taboo, here are 10 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.

BBC One · Drama · Taboo is ended

Taboo grabs you immediately because it understands that setting, costume, and historical detail are not decoration but the substance of the story itself. The show is built on atmosphere: London in 1814 feels cold, treacherous, and absolutely specific. James Delaney's return brings with it not just a plot about revenge and diamonds, but a genuine sense of arrival into a world of sharp-dressed villains, competing factions, and the kind of personal obsession that drives men to ruin. The show works because Delaney himself is almost unknowable, his motivations layered beneath performances and secrets, making every scene a puzzle you have to solve alongside the characters trying to understand him.

The best shows like Taboo

  1. Peaky Blinders poster

    1. Peaky Blinders

    Like Delaney, Tommy Shelby is a man willing to burn the world to gain power, and Peaky Blinders brings the same sense of a protagonist reshaping his world through pure force of will. The show shares Taboo's love of period detail and of making a specific historical moment feel like the only place where the story could happen.

    Stream on Netflix

    Ended0%
  2. MobLand poster

    2. MobLand

    MobLand operates in the same world of competing power structures and family empires that Taboo understands so well, with characters whose ambitions are matched only by their willingness to destroy anyone in their way. The show shares Taboo's sense that loyalty, betrayal, and personal honor are the real stakes in a world of crime and power.

    Stream on fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel

    Renewed100%
  3. Killing Eve poster

    3. Killing Eve

    Both shows are built on the idea of two people locked in obsessive pursuit of each other, where the game matters as much as the goal. Killing Eve shares Taboo's intelligence and its refusal to make anything simple, treating the cat-and-mouse dynamic as genuinely complex and psychologically rich.

    Stream on Netflix, fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential

    Ended0%
  4. Black Sails poster

    4. Black Sails

    Captain Flint is every bit as mysterious and driven as James Delaney, and Black Sails matches Taboo's ability to make a historical setting feel like a genuine place where survival, power, and personal obsession are the only currencies that matter. The show has the same scope and visual ambition, building an entire world around charismatic characters with unknowable depths.

    Stream on Starz Apple TV Channel, Starz Roku Premium Channel, Starz, Philo

    Ended0%
  5. Strike poster

    5. Strike

    Strike brings Taboo's love of London and of intelligence-driven mystery-solving to a more intimate scale, focusing on a man whose past makes him uniquely suited to uncover hidden truths. Like Taboo, the show trusts its audience to follow complex cases and appreciates the slow reveal of character.

    Stream on HBO Max, HBO Max Amazon Channel

    Likely Renewed72%

More on shows like Taboo

What draws viewers to Taboo is partly the historical setting and partly the sense of being thrown into a complex game without all the rules. The show assumes its audience can keep up with intrigue, with characters who lie for strategic advantage, with plots that involve governments and crime families and personal vengeance all tangled together. Fans of Taboo tend to want stories where intelligence matters, where a single character's will can reshape the board around them, and where the past has real weight and consequence. They like knowing that a show respects their attention span and their ability to follow something genuinely complex.

The recommendations here are united by a common DNA: each one features a protagonist or protagonists operating in a world of crime, money, and power, where personal drive matters as much as circumstance. Peaky Blinders shares Taboo's sense of a man (Tommy Shelby) willing to do anything to advance, set in a specific historical moment with its own visual and social architecture. Black Sails takes that drive for survival and power but puts it on the open ocean, with a captain as charismatic and unknowable as Delaney himself. Killing Eve and Strike both hinge on obsession and pursuit, on characters who cannot let go of their targets or their cases. MobLand carries the weight of family and empire, competing powers grinding against each other with no guarantee of survival.

What makes these shows feel like natural companions to Taboo is not genre alone but a shared belief that character, intelligence, and the collision of powerful wills make for better television than plot mechanics. Each show trusts you to follow complexity, rewards close attention, and lets ambition and obsession drive the narrative forward.

More shows like Taboo

Frequently asked

What is the most popular show like Taboo?
Peaky Blinders is the most popular show similar to Taboo in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
Are shows like Taboo still on the air?
Of the 10 shows similar to Taboo listed here, 2 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Taboo?
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.