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| Top 16 Shows Like Deli Boys You Need To Watch Next After Hulu’s Chaotic Crime Comedy Hit. (Credits: Hulu) |
Nobody expected Deli Boys to become one of Hulu’s most talked-about comedy surprises, yet here we are watching two deeply unprepared Pakistani-American brothers accidentally inherit a criminal empire and somehow turn panic attacks into a weekly business strategy. The series blends crime, family dysfunction, cultural identity, absurd humour, and emotional chaos so naturally that viewers immediately started asking the same question after finishing all 10 episodes in one sitting: what on earth do you watch next? Fair question.
Lnce you get attached to nervous gangsters, foul-mouthed aunties, and criminals who operate like they forgot to read the employee handbook, normal television suddenly feels painfully boring. Created by Abdullah Saeed, the Hulu series became a breakout favourite thanks to its strange but addictive mix of sharp writing, ridiculous criminal disasters, and genuinely heartfelt family tension. Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh carry the series brilliantly as Mir and Raj, two brothers who realise far too late that their father’s deli business was mostly decorative.
Meanwhile, Poorna Jagannathan nearly steals the entire series as Lucky, a woman terrifying enough to make hardened criminals rethink their life choices. Naturally, audiences are now searching for more shows with the same energy: messy crime operations, dysfunctional families, accidental criminals, and humour so dry it could legally qualify as a drought.
Shows Like Deli Boys
1. Atlanta
If Deli Boys thrives on awkward chaos and characters constantly making terrible decisions under pressure, then Atlanta belongs at the top of the watchlist. Created by Donald Glover, the FX series follows Earn and Paper Boi navigating the music industry while life keeps throwing bizarre situations at them like a personal insult.
Much like Deli Boys, the humour swings between painfully awkward and unexpectedly profound. One moment someone is discussing career survival, the next moment an invisible car somehow exists and nobody questions it enough.
2. Barry
Imagine if anxiety itself became a television series and accidentally learned dark comedy timing. That is basically Barry. Bill Hader stars as a hitman trying to leave organised crime behind through acting classes, which naturally only makes his life worse.
Fans of Deli Boys will appreciate the same balance between danger and stupidity, where criminals somehow remain both terrifying and hilariously incompetent at basic emotional communication.
3. The Gentlemen
Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen feels spiritually related to Deli Boys if somebody increased the British sarcasm levels to medically concerning amounts.
The Netflix series follows aristocrats, gangsters, and drug empires colliding in increasingly ridiculous ways. Much like Mir and Raj, several characters spend most episodes looking exhausted by the criminal world they accidentally inherited.
4. Beef
At first glance, Beef seems different because it starts with road rage instead of drug trafficking. Then suddenly everyone is lying, spiralling emotionally, committing crimes, and making life catastrophically worse for themselves.
So yes, spiritually it absolutely belongs here. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong deliver the same “everything is falling apart but somehow still funny” energy that made Deli Boys work so well.
5. Weeds
Before television became obsessed with dysfunctional suburban criminals, Weeds already mastered the formula. Mary-Louise Parker plays a suburban widow who begins selling drugs to support her family, only for things to spiral wildly beyond control.
Like Deli Boys, the humour comes from ordinary people trying desperately to function inside deeply illegal situations while pretending everything remains perfectly normal.
6. Reservation Dogs
The crime angle is smaller here, but the emotional rhythm feels remarkably similar. Reservation Dogs follows Indigenous teenagers committing petty crimes while navigating grief, friendship, and community life.
Like Deli Boys, it balances absurd humour with genuine emotional depth without becoming preachy or unbearably serious every five minutes.
7. Fargo
The television version of Fargo understands one important truth: criminals are often deeply weird people. Every season throws ordinary individuals into increasingly disastrous crime situations, usually because one bad decision snowballs into complete catastrophe.
Fans of Deli Boys will appreciate the same blend of deadpan humour, violence, panic, and characters who clearly should never be trusted with responsibility.
8. Only Murders in the Building
Swap drug cartels for murder investigations and you still get the same lovable-chaos energy. Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez play amateur detectives whose competence levels fluctuate depending on the episode.
Similar to Deli Boys, the series thrives on character chemistry, ridiculous misunderstandings, and people somehow surviving situations they are wildly unqualified to handle.
9. Succession
Yes, it is technically a corporate drama, but emotionally these people behave exactly like a criminal organisation wearing expensive suits.
If your favourite part of Deli Boys was watching emotionally damaged siblings fight over power while pretending they are functional adults, then Succession absolutely deserves attention. Nobody insults family members quite as professionally as the Roy family.
10. Good Girls
Three suburban mothers laundering money for criminals sounds ridiculous already, which is exactly why Good Girls works.
Similar to Deli Boys, the series constantly places ordinary people into criminal situations far beyond their skill level. Every episode feels like somebody saying, “Surely things cannot get worse,” immediately before everything gets dramatically worse.
11. The Afterparty
The Apple TV+ mystery comedy captures the same playful unpredictability as Deli Boys. Every episode retells events through different perspectives and genres, creating complete madness in the best possible way. It is stylish, chaotic, and filled with characters who should probably stop lying to everyone around them.
12. Shameless
If the emotional core of Deli Boys worked for you more than the crime elements, then Shameless delivers that same dysfunctional-family energy at maximum volume.
The Gallaghers survive through scams, bad decisions, and sheer stubbornness. Much like Mir and Raj, they constantly look one minor inconvenience away from complete collapse.
13. Ozark
Now imagine Deli Boys with fewer jokes and significantly more emotional damage. Ozark follows a family laundering money for dangerous criminals after life goes catastrophically sideways. While darker in tone, it shares the same “normal family trapped in criminal enterprise” DNA that made Hulu’s series so compelling.
14. Mr Inbetween
Australian crime comedy Mr Inbetween deserves far more attention globally. The series follows a hitman balancing criminal work with ordinary suburban responsibilities, often within the same afternoon.
Like Deli Boys, it finds humour in uncomfortable situations without sacrificing emotional sincerity underneath the chaos.
15. Kim’s Convenience
This one is less criminal and more cultural-family chaos, but viewers who loved the South Asian family dynamics in Deli Boys will probably enjoy Kim’s Convenience too.
The humour comes from generational clashes, awkward misunderstandings, and family members constantly testing each other’s patience. Also, the sarcasm levels remain impressively high.
16. Sneaky Pete
Identity fraud, criminal manipulation, fake family bonding, and people desperately improvising every second of their lives — yes, Sneaky Pete fits perfectly here.
The series follows a conman pretending to be someone else while getting trapped deeper inside organised crime. Like Deli Boys, it understands that panic can be incredibly entertaining television when written properly.
Part of why viewers connected so strongly with Deli Boys is because it never treated its characters like stereotypes or disposable comedy props. Beneath the ridiculous situations, there is genuine grief, family confusion, and identity conflict. Mir and Raj are not glamorous gangsters.
They are two men constantly realising their father left them emotional trauma disguised as a business opportunity. That honesty gave the comedy sharper edges and made audiences unexpectedly invested in whether these idiots would survive another week.
Online reactions remain wildly entertaining too. Some viewers called the show “Succession but with convenience stores and panic attacks,” while others praised how naturally it handled South Asian representation without turning every cultural reference into a lecture.
Fans particularly obsessed over Poorna Jagannathan’s Lucky, with many arguing she deserves her own spin-off immediately. Others admitted they started the series expecting background noise and somehow finished the entire season overnight.
Of course, not everyone agreed. A few viewers thought the pacing occasionally rushed emotional moments in favour of jokes, while others wanted darker crime stakes. Still, most audiences seemed united on one point: Hulu accidentally found one of its funniest ensemble casts in years.
With Season 2 officially arriving on May 28, 2026, the appetite for crime-comedy chaos clearly is not disappearing anytime soon. Until then, these 16 shows should help fill the void left by Mir, Raj, and the world’s most stressful deli operation.
The real question now is which series actually comes closest to matching Deli Boys’ strange magic. Was it the family chaos, the accidental criminals, the dry humour, or simply watching deeply unprepared people try not to ruin everything? Honestly, audiences seem divided already, so the debate is wide open.