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| Best Shows Like The Drop: A Snowfall Saga |
The Drop: A Snowfall Saga has given viewers another gritty Los Angeles story where personal reinvention, music, street politics and the consequences of an earlier life all collide. If the eight-episode FX miniseries left you wanting another show with ambitious characters, crime drama, period settings and communities trying to change their futures, there are plenty of strong follow-ups. Here are 23 shows worth putting next on the list.
Shows Like The Drop: A Snowfall Saga
1. Snowfall (2017)
The obvious starting point is Snowfall, the original series that introduced Leon Simmons and Wanda Bell before The Drop: A Snowfall Saga moved their stories into a new era. Set in 1980s Los Angeles, it follows the rapid transformation of the city's streets as the crack epidemic takes hold, bringing together dealers, law enforcement, CIA operatives and ordinary residents caught in a rapidly changing world.
The connection is more than a familiar name: its exploration of survival, ambition, community damage and the price of trying to escape your past makes it essential viewing for anyone following Leon and Wanda's next chapter.
2. The Wire (2002)
The Wire takes a much broader look at how crime, politics, policing, education and the media affect communities. Like The Drop: A Snowfall Saga, it refuses to pretend that street-level problems exist in isolation, instead showing how different institutions can shape people's choices.
Its Baltimore setting is very different from 1990s Los Angeles, but the focus on people attempting to build better lives while dealing with systems stacked against them makes the comparison particularly strong.
3. Power (2014)
At first glance, Power looks like a classic rise-and-fall crime drama, but its central tension is remarkably close to The Drop: A Snowfall Saga. James "Ghost" St Patrick wants to leave his criminal empire behind and build a legitimate business, only to discover that escaping an old life is considerably harder than announcing your retirement from it. Add music, money, loyalty and complicated relationships, and suddenly those supposedly simple life plans look rather optimistic.
4. Godfather of Harlem (2019)
Godfather of Harlem blends organised crime with American history, following Bumpy Johnson as he returns to Harlem and attempts to rebuild his influence. The series shares The Drop's interest in communities experiencing major cultural and social shifts while powerful figures compete for control. Its period setting also gives the story a strong sense of place, while the struggle between old methods and new ambitions provides plenty of familiar territory.
5. The Get Down (2016)
For viewers particularly interested in the music side of The Drop: A Snowfall Saga, The Get Down is an easy recommendation. Set in 1970s New York, the series follows young people discovering hip-hop while navigating poverty, relationships, neighbourhood pressures and the music business. It has a brighter musical energy than The Drop, but both shows understand that music can become much more than entertainment when an entire community sees it as a way forward.
6. Wu-Tang: An American Saga (2019)
Wu-Tang: An American Saga explores the formation of the Wu-Tang Clan against the backdrop of 1990s New York. Its story is driven by young artists attempting to turn raw talent into something capable of changing their circumstances.
Like The Drop, it places music alongside street life, family ties, ambition and business, making it a particularly good choice for viewers fascinated by Wanda's attempt to navigate the recording industry.
7. Snowfall: The Complete Story (2022)
For fans who want something emotionally close to The Drop, revisiting the wider Snowfall story is practically unavoidable. The original series follows Franklin Saint and several interconnected characters as Los Angeles changes dramatically throughout the 1980s.
Watching the earlier events provides additional context for Leon and Wanda's choices, particularly their desire to find some form of peace after years defined by survival and difficult decisions.
8. Queen Sugar (2016)
Queen Sugar is less focused on crime but shares The Drop's interest in rebuilding a life after difficult circumstances. The story follows the Bordelon siblings as they navigate family responsibilities, property, identity and their hopes for a better future in Louisiana. Its emphasis on community, personal reinvention and generational consequences makes it a quieter but surprisingly fitting companion series.
9. Top Boy (2011)
Top Boy brings the action to London, following dealers, young people and residents whose lives intersect around the housing estates of East London. Like The Drop, it treats neighbourhoods as more than backgrounds, showing how street politics can affect relationships, aspirations and everyday life.
The characters are often caught between making money, protecting people they care about and finding a route towards something better, which rarely goes according to plan.
10. The Chi (2018)
The Chi focuses on interconnected residents of Chicago's South Side and examines friendship, family, ambition and the realities of growing up in a challenging environment. It is more character-driven than The Drop, but both series are interested in how communities respond to pressure and how individuals attempt to create futures beyond the circumstances around them. There is plenty of warmth here too, because apparently television characters are allowed to have lives outside constant crisis.
11. Godfather of Harlem (2019)
Godfather of Harlem deserves another mention for viewers who specifically want period crime drama with strong political and cultural themes. The series places its characters within a changing Harlem during the 1960s, combining organised crime with the civil rights era.
Its mixture of personal ambition, community influence and wider historical events echoes the way The Drop connects individual stories with the cultural transformation of Los Angeles.
12. Hip Hop Uncovered (2021)
If it is the relationship between music and street culture that grabbed your attention, Hip Hop Uncovered offers a different route. This documentary series examines the people and forces behind hip-hop's development, particularly the complicated relationship between the music industry, neighbourhood influence and cultural power. It lacks The Drop's fictional storyline, but its subject matter helps illuminate why the music business in the series can become such a complicated battlefield.
13. Empire (2015)
Empire puts the music industry directly at the centre of its drama, following the Lyon family as they fight over control of a major record company. Like The Drop, it explores what happens when artistic ambition meets corporate interests, personal loyalties and power struggles. The difference is that Empire turns the volume up considerably, because apparently one family arguing over a record label was never going to be dramatic enough.
14. Atlanta (2016)
Atlanta follows Earn Marks and his cousin Alfred, better known as rapper Paper Boi, as they navigate the city's music scene. Its approach is far more experimental and often much funnier than The Drop, but the similarities are clear: emerging artists, complicated relationships, economic pressures and the tension between genuine creativity and commercial success. It also understands that the music industry can be wonderfully strange even before anyone starts making questionable business decisions.
15. The Deuce (2017)
The Deuce moves the story to 1970s and 1980s New York, examining the city's changing entertainment industry alongside crime, business and social transformation. Its characters attempt to make money as an entire industry evolves around them, creating the same tension between opportunity and exploitation found in The Drop. The period detail is another major attraction for anyone who enjoys stories where the setting feels like a character itself.
16. BMF (2021)
BMF follows brothers Meech and Terry Flenory as they build a major organisation in Detroit while trying to expand their ambitions beyond their original surroundings. The series shares The Drop's interest in family, community, ambition and the difficult transition between an old way of life and a more legitimate future. The characters may have different priorities, but the central question remains familiar: how much can someone change without dragging the past along with them?
17. Raising Kanan (2021)
Power Book III: Raising Kanan serves as a prequel to Power, tracing Kanan Stark's younger years in 1990s Queens. Its period setting, family conflicts, street politics and music-industry connections make it particularly relevant to The Drop.
Both shows explore communities during periods of cultural change while their characters try to work out whether ambition is a route to freedom or simply another way of getting trapped.
18. The Last O.G. (2018)
The Last O.G. takes the idea of returning to a changed neighbourhood and gives it a much lighter treatment. Tray Barker returns home after years away and discovers that Brooklyn, his relationships and society have moved on without him.
While it is a comedy rather than a heavy crime drama, the theme of trying to reinvent yourself after leaving an old life behind connects surprisingly well with Leon and Wanda's journeys.
19. We Own This City (2022)
We Own This City examines corruption and institutional problems within Baltimore's police department through a fictionalised crime drama based on real events. Like The Drop, it looks beyond individual wrongdoing to consider the larger structures surrounding communities and those tasked with controlling them. It is considerably more procedural, but viewers interested in the social consequences behind crime stories should find plenty to chew on.
20. The Wire: Revisited (2022)
For viewers who want another deep dive into the ideas that made The Wire so compelling, its broader examination of Baltimore remains an excellent companion to The Drop. Rather than presenting crime as a simple battle between heroes and villains, the series explores how institutions, money, politics and personal ambition overlap. That layered approach makes it a natural recommendation for anyone who enjoyed The Drop's focus on the forces surrounding its characters rather than just the events happening to them.
21. Harlem (2021)
Harlem offers a much lighter take on ambition, friendship and life in a changing neighbourhood. The series follows four women dealing with careers, relationships and adulthood in New York, with the city and its cultural identity playing an important role.
It does not share The Drop's crime-heavy storyline, but viewers interested in stories about communities, cultural shifts and people trying to build something meaningful may appreciate the change of pace.
22. Power Book II: Ghost (2020)
Power Book II: Ghost continues the wider Power universe through Tariq St Patrick, who attempts to balance education, family expectations and a dangerous legacy. Like The Drop, the story is interested in whether the next generation can escape the consequences created by those who came before them. It also keeps the familiar mixture of ambition, relationships, business and street politics firmly in play.
23. The Wire (2002)
If The Drop: A Snowfall Saga appealed because it treats its fictional world as something larger than one character's story, The Wire remains one of the strongest shows to watch next. Its sprawling narrative connects people from different parts of Baltimore and examines how crime, politics, policing, schools and journalism interact. It requires more patience than a straightforward thriller, but the payoff is a series that keeps asking uncomfortable questions about who actually has the power to change a community.
Fans' reactions to The Drop: A Snowfall Saga are naturally going to vary. Some viewers will be drawn to Wanda's attempt to build a new identity through music, while others will be more interested in Leon's decision to devote himself to helping his community.
There is also plenty of room for debate over whether the combination of hip-hop history, crime drama and continuation of Snowfall works as smoothly as intended. That split is part of what makes the series interesting: it gives viewers two very different ideas about what moving forward actually means.
For anyone who enjoyed the series primarily for its 1990s Los Angeles setting, music-industry storyline and characters attempting to leave their past behind, Snowfall, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Empire, Raising Kanan, The Get Down and Top Boy are probably the strongest places to start. They approach the themes from different angles, so there is little danger of simply watching the same story 23 times — because even streaming queues have limits.
If The Drop: A Snowfall Saga made your watchlist longer rather than shorter, which of these 23 shows would you put at the top? Tell us which one deserves the next binge, or share another series that should have made the list.