What to watch next if you loved HBO’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’
The HBO adaptation wrapped its four-season run up this week, but there’s plenty of other shows to watch next.
Six years, four seasons, and four novels later, HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend,” its adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, has come to its bittersweet end. The sprawling story follows lifelong friends Elena and Lila (played by eight actors collectively across the four-season run) throughout their 60-plus-year friendship as the elderly Elena recounts their lives together when Lila disappears.
Tackling female friendship and intimacy, class, gender, work, love, motherhood, and political clashes, “My Brilliant Friend” has been in a league of its own since its 2018 debut. While you can return to the epic at any time on Max, if you’re looking for similar stories in tone and scope, check out The Streamable’s recommendations for what to watch next!
My Brilliant Friend
When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.
Loved ‘My Brilliant Friend’? Watch: ‘The Lying Life of Adults’ (2023) | Netflix
For the past three decades, fans of the illusive Ferrante have gotten a glut of great adaptations beyond the brilliant “My Brilliant Friend,” from the 1995 thriller “Nasty Love” to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s three-time Oscar nominee “The Lost Daughter” a few years ago. Only one other of her works has been adapted for the small screen, though: her most recent novel, 2019’s “The Lying Life of Adults,” which got a Netflix limited series early last year.
The Italian/Neapolitan coming-of-age drama set in 1990s Naples follows the young and restless Giovanna, a teen girl with bad grades and a love for reading who doesn’t quite fit in amongst her well-to-do parents. After she overhears her father’s growing concerns that Giovanna is starting to resemble his estranged sister Vittoria, she seeks out her aunt on the other side of Naples on a journey of familial and self-discovery.
Giordana Marengo shines in her debut as Giovanna, carrying both the trepidations and I-want-it-alls that come with being a teenager. Balancing her out is Valeria Golino (“Rain Man,” “The Morning Show”) as the vivacious Vittoria.
“The Lying Life of Adults” isn’t as much of a deep dive as “My Brilliant Friend”—not much is, other than “The Sopranos”—but still does what Ferrante does best: a sprawling narrative, multi-faceted female characters, and strong social/class commentary.
All six episodes of “The Lying Life of Adults” can be streamed now with a subscription to Netflix.
The Lying Life of Adults
Young Giovanna navigates her passage from childhood into adolescence as she experiences the different sides of Naples during the 1990s. A girl in search of her true reflection in a divided Naples: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity.
Other Shows to Stream After ‘My Brilliant Friend’:
Olive Kitteridge (2014) | Max
Olive Kitteridge
A look at a seemingly placid New England town that is actually wrought with illicit affairs, crime and tragedy, all told through the lens of Olive, whose wicked wit and harsh demeanor mask a warm but troubled heart and staunch moral center. The story spans 25 years and focuses on Olive’s relationships with her husband, Henry, the good-hearted and kindly town pharmacist; their son, Christopher, who resents his mother’s approach to parenting; and other members of their community.
Normal People (2020) | Hulu
Normal People
Marianne and Connell weave in and out of each other’s lives in this exploration of sex, power and the desire to love and be loved.
Pachinko (2022– ) | Apple TV+
Pachinko
Follow the hopes and dreams of four generations of a Korean immigrant family beginning with a forbidden love and crescendos into a sweeping saga that journeys between Korea, Japan and America to tell the unforgettable story of war and peace, love and loss, triumph and reckoning.