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| Best Shows Like BROTHERS. |
If Brothers (2026) has you hooked on the strange combination of lifelong friendship, family chaos, Texas ranch life and two fictionalised Hollywood stars questioning just about everything, there is plenty to watch next. Apple TV’s eight-episode comedy turns Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson’s real-world friendship into a ridiculous family mystery, with Ma Mac’s revelation that the pair might be biological brothers sending Woody into full detective mode while Matthew simultaneously considers a run for governor.
Naturally, putting two families together on one ranch was never going to end quietly. These 21 shows share some of Brothers’ ingredients, from messy family relationships and unlikely friendships to workplace ambition, identity crises, celebrity satire and comedy that knows when to get surprisingly heartfelt.
Best Shows Like Brothers
1. The Ranch (2016)
The Ranch is an obvious companion for anyone who enjoyed the Texas setting and family complications in Brothers. Starring Ashton Kutcher, Sam Elliott and Debra Winger, the sitcom follows a former semi-professional football player who returns home to help run his family’s Colorado ranch. The location is different, but the ingredients are remarkably familiar: generations under one roof, stubborn relatives, old grudges and enough family arguments to make a peaceful dinner practically impossible. Like Brothers, it mixes broad comedy with more serious questions about family, responsibility and belonging.
2. Schitt’s Creek (2015)
Schitt’s Creek swaps a Texas ranch for a small Canadian town, but its central appeal is similarly rooted in a family suddenly forced to rethink how it lives. The wealthy Rose family loses almost everything and ends up rebuilding their lives together. Brothers also drops established characters into an unfamiliar family arrangement, creating comedy from personalities that absolutely should not be sharing the same house. Both shows gradually turn ridiculous situations into surprisingly warm stories about family and identity.
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000)
Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is a natural choice if Woody Harrelson’s eccentric behaviour is what made Brothers work for you. The comedy thrives on awkward social situations, stubborn personalities and people making perfectly avoidable problems much, much worse. Woody’s determination to uncover whether he and Matthew are actually related has exactly that chaotic energy. Nobody in Curb would probably advise him to calm down either, which is precisely why this pairing makes sense.
4. Platonic (2023)
Platonic focuses on two longtime friends whose reunion causes their lives to become increasingly chaotic. That makes it particularly relevant to Brothers, where the friendship between Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson sits at the centre of everything. The shows approach friendship differently, but both explore what happens when people who know each other extremely well suddenly disrupt one another’s carefully arranged adult lives. There is affection underneath the nonsense, which is where the comedy becomes considerably more interesting.
5. Yellowstone (2018)
Yellowstone is considerably more dramatic, but the ranch setting and complicated family dynamics make it an easy recommendation for viewers who enjoyed that side of Brothers. The Dutton family fights to protect its enormous Montana ranch while dealing with political ambitions, personal rivalries and endless family complications. Brothers replaces most of the gun-slinging tension with jokes, but both shows understand that owning a ranch apparently comes with a contractual obligation to experience family drama.
6. The Kominsky Method (2018)
The Kominsky Method follows an ageing acting teacher and his longtime friend as they navigate friendship, careers, family and the inconvenient business of getting older. Like Brothers, it gets plenty of mileage from the relationship between two distinctive men whose personalities constantly collide. It also shares the comedy-drama balance, allowing ridiculous conversations to sit comfortably beside more thoughtful material about identity, relationships and changing circumstances.
7. Entourage (2004)
For viewers particularly interested in the Hollywood side of Brothers, Entourage is worth revisiting. The HBO comedy follows actor Vincent Chase and his close group of friends as they navigate Los Angeles, fame and an entertainment industry that seems determined to create new problems every week. Like Brothers, it plays with the gap between public celebrity images and fictionalised versions of real-world personalities, although Entourage takes that idea considerably further.
8. The Comeback (2005)
The Comeback takes the idea of playing a heightened version of yourself and pushes it into painfully funny territory. Lisa Kudrow stars as Valerie Cherish, a former sitcom star attempting to revive her career while cameras follow her increasingly chaotic professional life. Brothers similarly turns celebrity identity into part of its comedy, particularly through its fictionalised versions of McConaughey and Harrelson. Both shows understand that fame can be considerably funnier when the person experiencing it has no idea how ridiculous they look.
9. Modern Family (2009)
Modern Family is another strong match for viewers who enjoyed the family collision at the heart of Brothers. Its story revolves around several interconnected households whose personalities, parenting styles and expectations frequently clash. The comedy comes from people who love each other deeply while also finding one another spectacularly irritating. That balance between affectionate family chaos and sharper jokes is very much in the same neighbourhood as Brothers.
10. Succession (2018)
Succession may sound like an odd recommendation beside an Apple TV buddy comedy, but its family politics make the connection surprisingly clear. The Roy family is constantly battling over power, identity and control of their business empire.
Brothers introduces a much lighter version of the same basic problem: family relationships become tangled with enormous personal ambitions. Matthew’s potential Texas gubernatorial campaign adds a political dimension that makes Succession particularly relevant, even if Brothers is considerably less interested in destroying everyone emotionally before breakfast.
11. Shrinking (2023)
Shrinking combines comedy with grief, friendship, family complications and characters who are very clearly making questionable decisions. Its central characters repeatedly collide as their personal and professional lives overlap. That mixture of humour and emotional storytelling makes it a good fit for Brothers viewers who enjoyed the more heartfelt side of the ranch comedy rather than simply the celebrity jokes.
12. Ted Lasso (2020)
Ted Lasso is built around an outsider entering an unfamiliar environment and forming unexpectedly complicated relationships. The tone is warmer than Brothers, but both shows balance comedy with questions about identity, friendship and personal reinvention. Matthew’s fictionalised struggle with his public ambitions also fits neatly beside Ted’s attempts to figure out who he is beyond the role everyone expects him to play.
13. The White Lotus (2021)
The White Lotus takes wealthy families, complicated relationships and an apparently relaxing setting and asks how quickly everything can go wrong. The answer is usually: very quickly.
Like Brothers, it places very different personalities together in an environment where nobody can simply escape the people irritating them. The difference is that The White Lotus is considerably darker, while Brothers would rather turn the awkwardness into a family argument and a punchline.
14. The Righteous Gemstones (2019)
The Righteous Gemstones is perhaps one of the strongest choices for viewers who enjoy comedy built around eccentric families and oversized personalities.
The series follows a dysfunctional family running a successful megachurch, with ambition, inheritance and family loyalty constantly getting in the way. Like Brothers, it understands that putting several intensely confident people together is basically a comedy machine.
15. Arrested Development (2003)
Arrested Development follows the wealthy Bluth family after financial trouble forces them to reconsider their privileged lifestyle. The similarities with Brothers come from the family ensemble, clashing personalities and the sheer number of secrets waiting to make everything worse. If the idea of one revelation completely destabilising an already complicated family sounds familiar, the Bluths have several seasons of evidence.
16. The Office (2005)
The Office is less focused on family and more interested in a group of colleagues who have somehow become each other’s daily problems. Still, its emphasis on long-running relationships, awkward personalities and escalating misunderstandings makes it a good follow-up. Like Brothers, the comedy often comes from characters behaving as though their latest ridiculous problem is the most important matter in the world.
17. Ted (2024)
Ted takes the familiar idea of a childhood companion and turns it into a chaotic family comedy. Set before the events of the Ted films, the series follows the foul-mouthed teddy bear living with a teenage boy and his family. The setup is obviously very different from Brothers, but the same basic appeal is there: an unusual friendship disrupts ordinary family life, forcing everyone to deal with a situation that nobody particularly asked for.
18. Trying (2020)
Trying centres on a couple attempting to build a family while dealing with the emotional and practical complications that come with it. Like Brothers, it balances comedy with genuine affection and treats family as something messy rather than perfectly organised. Its characters make mistakes, misunderstand each other and occasionally create problems that could have been avoided with one sensible conversation. Unfortunately, sensible conversations are terrible television.
19. Loot (2022)
Loot follows a wealthy woman rebuilding her life after a major personal upheaval, while her charitable work forces her to reconsider what she actually wants from her life. Its themes of reinvention, wealth, relationships and identity overlap with Brothers, particularly Matthew’s attempt to reconcile his personal ambitions with the unexpected family situation developing around him. Both shows also enjoy placing privileged characters in situations that expose how little control they actually have.
20. The Mick (2017)
The Mick throws an irresponsible woman into the role of guardian for three wealthy children after their parents disappear. The resulting household is predictably chaotic. It shares Brothers’ fascination with an unconventional group of people suddenly being forced to function as a family. The characters are wildly different, the domestic arrangements are unstable and almost every attempt at maintaining order creates a fresh disaster.
21. Silicon Valley (2014)
Silicon Valley might replace the Texas ranch with a technology start-up, but its comedy is similarly driven by ambitious people whose plans repeatedly collide with reality. Matthew’s potential political campaign and Woody’s increasingly intense family investigation give Brothers a comparable interest in ambition spiralling out of control. If you liked watching confident characters discover that their big plans are considerably harder than expected, this one should fit nicely.
Brothers works because it does not need an elaborate mystery to keep things moving. The central joke is already sitting in the room: two famous friends are suddenly told they might actually be brothers, and one of them decides this information deserves the investigative intensity of a national emergency.
That setup gives the series plenty of room for family comedy, celebrity self-parody and awkward emotional moments. The ranch setting also helps because throwing two very different families into one space guarantees trouble without needing to manufacture it every five minutes.
The political storyline adds another layer, particularly as Matthew has to consider public ambition while his private life becomes increasingly ridiculous. If that combination is what made Brothers click, these shows offer plenty of similarly messy friendships, complicated families, ambitious characters and identity crises. Some are warmer, some sharper and some considerably more chaotic, but all understand that dysfunctional people make excellent television.
So, if Brothers has left you wondering what to watch next, this list gives you plenty of directions to take. You might want more ranch drama, celebrity comedy, family chaos or simply another show where grown adults make increasingly questionable decisions. Which one would you put at the top of your watchlist, and which series do you think belongs on this list? Let us know what you would add.