Top 250 Tv Shows Like Shakespeare Behind Bars
Murderers, Fugitives, Thieves... Shakespeare would have loved these guys
A list of the best tv shows similar to Shakespeare Behind Bars. If you liked Shakespeare Behind Bars then you may also like: Fire Country, Euphoria, House, 227, All About the Andersons and many more great tv shows featured on this list.
Twenty male inmates in a Kentucky prison form an unlikely Shakespearean acting troupe.
All About the Andersons
As soon as single dad Anthony moves back into his parents' home to provide a stable environment for his 8-year-old son, he immediately remembers why he left in the first place. His mother Flo is always understanding and supportive, but his cantankerous father Joe wants Anthony to abandon his acting hopes and take a "real job" working in the family beauty salon/barber shop. To complicate things, Anthony's old room is being rented out to a medical student, George, leaving Anthony alone in the garage. Torn between teaching his son about determination and providing for him, Anthony is about to put his dreams on hold. It takes his son Tuga to remind him that, aside from each other, their dreams are all they have.
Arrested Development
The story of a wealthy family that lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.
Bad Girls
Bad Girls is a British television drama series that was broadcast on ITV from 1 June 1999 to 20 December 2006 and starred Simone Lahbib, Mandana Jones, Debra Stephenson, Linda Henry, Jack Ellis and many more throughout the eight-year run. The series was broadcast in 17 countries and was produced by Shed Productions, the company which later produced Footballers' Wives and Waterloo Road. It is set in the fictional women's prison of Larkhall, and features a mixture of serious and light storylines focusing on the prisoners and staff of G Wing. From 2010, the UK broadcast rights were bought by CBS Drama, and is repeated regularly – as of September 2012, the channel is re-running the series again in a late-night time slot.
Big Brother Brasil
Brazilian version of the reality game show in which a group of houseguests live together 24 hours a day, isolated from the outside world but under constant surveillance with no privacy. Each week a guest is voted out of the house until only the winner remains.
Big Time Rush
Four teenage friends move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to form a potential chart-topping boy band after Kendall is inadvertently discovered by an eccentric record executive, Gustavo Rocque. As they seize this opportunity of a lifetime, these friends embark on an exciting comedy and music-filled journey to prove to themselves and their record label that they are serious about their new career choice.
The Daltons
Unshackle your laughing gas, put your ball and chain away, take a prison break and get ready to escape with the Daltons! The fab four are back! The Daltons will try every trick in the books to get out and then some: a maze of tunnels, explosives, hot air balloons and rain dances, and a whole cast of zany characters to help them get free ... or not! The only thing they don’t try using are their brains! But what they lack in intelligence, they sure make up for in willpower and imagination! The far west has never been crazier!
Dynasty
Follows two of America’s wealthiest families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, as they feud for control over their fortune and their children focusing on Fallon Carrington, the daughter of billionaire Blake Carrington, and her soon-to-be stepmother, Cristal, a Hispanic woman marrying into this WASP family and America’s most powerful class.
Ellen
Ellen is an American television sitcom that aired on the ABC network from March 29, 1994 to July 22, 1998, consisting of 109 episodes. The title role of Ellen Morgan, played by stand-up comedian Ellen DeGeneres, was a neurotic bookstore owner in her thirties. The series centered on Ellen's dealing with her quirky friends, her family and the problems of daily life. The series is notable for being the first one in which the main character came out as gay, which DeGeneres' character did in the 1997 episode "Puppy Episode". This event received a great deal of media exposure, ignited controversy, and prompted ABC to place a parental advisory at the beginning of each episode. The series' theme song, "So Called Friend" is by Scottish band Texas. A running gag was that each episode had a distinct opening credits sequence, resulting from Ellen's ongoing search for the perfect opening credits.
The Following
Notorious serial killer Joe Carroll, after being found guilty of murdering 14 female students on the Virginia college campus where he taught literature, escapes from death row. The FBI calls former agent Ryan Hardy to consult on the case, as he was the one responsible for Carroll’s capture in 2003. Ryan, working closely with an FBI team, including Mike Weston and FBI Specialist Debra Parker, piece together the ever-growing web of murders orchestrated by the devious Carroll.
Hollywood Divas
With stardom come challenges that make celebrities face the reality of Tinsel Town. Five actresses profiled on "Hollywood Divas" experience the dark side of fame, like being blackballed by the industry over a personal relationship or confronting image issues over what others say about them. Golden Brooks thinks reality stars usurp actresses' roles; Countess Vaughn believes her physique limits her roles; Paula Jai Parker feels shunned for marrying a production aide; Lisa Wu strives for respect as an actress; Elise Neal, nearing 50, reignites her dance troupe.
How to Get Away with Murder
A sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor. They become entangled in a murder plot and will shake the entire university and change the course of their lives.
Inside the Actors Studio
James Lipton sits down with some of the world's most accomplished actors and directors for penetrating, fascinating interviews.
The Jamie Foxx Show
Texas native Jamie King is an aspiring actor who heads to Hollywood in hopes to find fame and fortune in the entertainment industry. To support himself, he works at his Aunt Helen and Uncle Junior's Los Angeles hotel, the King's Towers.
Justified
A character drama based on the 2001 Elmore Leonard short story "Fire in the Hole." Leonard's tale centers around U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens of Kentucky, a quiet but strong-willed official of the law. The tale covers his high-stakes job, as well as his strained relationships with his ex-wife and father.
Julie's Greenroom
Ms. Julie teaches performing arts workshops with the help of her assistant Gus at their Wellspring Center for the Performing Arts.
Kenan & Kel
Set in Chicago, the show follows the kid-friendly misadventures of two high-school friends who are always scheming and dreaming. Kenan, who works at a grocery store, constantly devises crazy plans to strike it rich, while orange-soda-loving buddy Kel is always dragged along for the ride despite his track record for messing things up.
Marvel's Luke Cage
Given superstrength and durability by a sabotaged experiment, a wrongly accused man escapes prison to become a superhero for hire.
The Danny Thomas Show
Danny Thomas, an entertainer, tries to balance his home life with the needs of his career, with hilarious results.
Orange Is the New Black
A crime she committed in her youthful past sends Piper Chapman to a women's prison, where she trades her comfortable New York life for one of unexpected camaraderie and conflict in an eccentric group of fellow inmates.
The Other Two
A former professional dancer, Brooke, and her brother Cary, an aspiring actor, try to find their place in the world while wrestling with their feelings about their 13-year-old brother Chase's sudden rise to internet fame.
Prison Break
Due to a political conspiracy, an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother, who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out, from the inside out.
Proven Innocent
Madeline Scott, a fierce and uncompromising lawyer with a hunger for justice, runs an underdog criminal defense firm. There is no one who understands the power of setting an innocent person free more than Madeline. At age 18, she was wrongfully convicted, along with her brother, in a sensational murder case. Madeline defends others as she fights to maintain her innocence and searches for the real killer in her own case.
Scream Queens
The super-charged comedy-horror series is a modern take on the classic whodunit with a killer cast.Â
Six Feet Under
A darkly comic look at members of a dysfunctional L.A. family that run a funeral business. When death is your business, what is your life? For the Fisher family, the world outside of their family-owned funeral home continues to be at least as challenging as--and far less predictable than--the one inside.
Trailer Park Boys
Follow the booze-fueled misadventures of three longtime pals and petty serial criminals who run scams from their Nova Scotia trailer park.
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
PBS SoCal and Variety take you inside the biggest movies and T.V. shows of the past year through candid conversations with today's hottest actors. Hosted by Variety Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis and Variety Chief Correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, each episode brings together pairs of actors engaging in intimate one-on-one discussions about their craft and work.
What We Do in the Shadows
A documentary-style look into the daily (or rather, nightly) lives of a group of vampires in Staten Island who have “lived” together for hundreds and hundreds of years.
When We Rise
The personal and political struggles, setbacks and triumphs of a diverse family of LGBT men and women who helped pioneer one of the last legs of the U.S. Civil Rights movement from its turbulent infancy in the 20th century to the once unfathomable successes of today. The period piece tells the history of the gay rights movement, starting with the Stonewall Riots in 1969.
Superjail!
An eccentric warden and his staff run a bizarre maximum security prison full of dangerous prisoners.
Paradise Falls
Paradise Falls was a weekly soap opera shown nationally on the Showcase channel in Canada, starting in 2001. It is set in a summer cottage community in Central Ontario.
Viva Variety
Viva Variety is an American sketch comedy series that aired on Comedy Central from April 1997 to December 1999. The series satirizes European variety shows.
Judge Mathis
Judge Mathis is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by retired Superior Court Judge of Michigan's 36th District Court, Greg Mathis. The syndicated series features Mathis adjudicating small claims disputes.
The It Factor
The It Factor is a reality television show which aired for two seasons on the Bravo network. It followed actors as they attempted to lead successful careers. The first season profiled actors in New York City, and the second season did the same in Los Angeles. Notable actors who appeared on the show include Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner, model/actress LisaRaye, Michaela Conlin, and Godfrey.
Undercovers
Five years after leaving the CIA to open a catering company, Steven and Samantha Bloom are recruited back into the agency by Carlton Shaw. They take on special missions the average agent cannot handle. Having made a pact to never discuss their pasts with each other, the Blooms find surprising new things about their spouse in the course of each mission.
Beyond Scared Straight
Observing programs for troubled teens in which inmates reveal the realities of prison life in the hope of deterring them from a life of crime.
The DL Chronicles
The DL Chronicles is a series of short stories about men of color who lead double sex lives. Episode; Wes introduces us to Wes Thomas, an upwardly mobile real estate banker who is overwhelmed by the demands of his marriage, career, and closeted attraction to men. When Wes' sexy but ambivalent brother- in-law stops in for an unexpected stay, he is directly faced with temptation and ultimately falls for the forbidden fruit.
Black Sails
The pirate adventures of Captain Flint and his men twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver. Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day – a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality.
Scene by Scene
Mark Cousins invites film actors and directors to watch major scenes in their career to date, and to talk us through them.
Inside the World's Toughest Prisons
Crime journalist Raphael Rowe goes behind the bars of some of the world’s most notorious and toughest prisons. Immersing himself in maximum security facilities around the world to live as a prisoner, he encounters the inmates locked up for their crimes and meets the men and women on the right side of law tasked with keeping the criminals behind bars.
60 Days In
An unprecedented look at life behind bars at Indiana's Clark County Jail as seven innocent volunteers are sent to live among its general population for 60 days without officers, fellow inmates, or staff knowing their secret.
She's Gotta Have It
Nola Darling struggles to define herself and divide her time among her friends, job and three lovers. A new take on Spike Lee's film, in 10 episodes.
The Eleven
Follow investigators as they reexamine the murders of eleven teenage girls in and around Galveston County, Texas after discovering a confession letter from current inmate and convicted murderer Edward Harold Bell.
Louis Theroux: Miami Mega-Jail
Louis takes an in-depth look at Miami's jail system, a vast holding pen for the unconvicted where most inmates are awaiting trial.
Love After Lockup
Couples finally meet their fiancé upon prison release. Once the bars are gone, will their love survive after lockup on the rocky road to the altar? Will the inmates ditch their mate as they face shocking "firsts", fights & family drama! Is it true love or just a con?
After Forever
After Forever is the story of Brian and Jason, a 50-ish New York City gay couple, who have it all until they don't.
Escape at Dannemora
The stranger-than-fiction account of a prison break in upstate New York in the summer of 2015, which spawned a massive manhunt for two convicted murderers who were aided in their escape by a married female prison employee with whom they both became sexually entangled.
I Am a Killer
Death row inmates convicted of capital murder give a firsthand account of their crimes in this documentary series.
The Kominsky Method
An aging actor, who long ago enjoyed a brush with fame, makes his living as an acting coach.
The Bisexual
Leila takes a break from her decade long relationship with partner Sadie, and begins to explore her own bisexuality.
First and Last
Take an intimate look at the emotionally charged first and last days of new and soon-to-be released inmates at Georgia's Gwinnett County Jail.
Now Apocalypse
This surreal, coming-of-age comedy series follows Ulysses and his friends Carly, Ford, and Severine, who are on various quests pursuing love, sex and fame. Between sexual and romantic dating-app adventures, Ulysses grows increasingly troubled as foreboding premonitory dreams make him wonder if some kind of dark and monstrous conspiracy is going on, or if he is just smoking too much weed.
The Goes Wrong Show
What’s the worst that could happen? A troupe of am dram actors take on some prestige productions. If you wouldn't mind ignoring the pratfalls, crumbling sets and tortured thespians ...
Why Women Kill
Three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the '60s, a socialite in the '80s and a lawyer in 2018, deal with infidelity in their marriages.
Twelve Forever
Reggie's dream is to be a kid forever. Her dream is so powerful that it creates its own fantasy world of perpetual youth.
The I-Land
Wiped clean of memories and thrown together, a group of strangers fight to survive harsh realities -- and the island that traps them.
College Behind Bars
Explore the transformative power of education through the eyes of a dozen incarcerated men and women trying to earn college degrees – and a chance at new beginnings – from one of the country’s most rigorous prison education programs.
America Beyond the Color Line
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's chair of Afro-American Studies, travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.
Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez
Via interviews with friends, players and insiders, this docuseries examines how Aaron Hernandez went from an NFL star to a convicted killer.
Little Fires Everywhere
The intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and an enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. Explore the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
Mayor of Kingstown
In a small Michigan town where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry, the McClusky family are the power brokers between the police, criminals, inmates, prison guards and politicians in a city completely dependent on prisons and the prisoners they contain.
Terror Lake Drive
A single mother tries to dodge her troubled past by relocating to another city with her defiant teenager, only to discover there are forces that cannot be outrun.
The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself
Caught between two warring clans, the son of a notorious witch responsible for a deadly massacre tries to find his place in the world — and his powers.
The Program: Prison Detox
In Sevier County, Arkansas, an unprecedented drug rehabilitation program gives qualified inmates a second chance at life. If they complete the three-month program, they will be released from jail. If they mess up, they will do time in state prison.
Inside Man
A prisoner on death row in the US, a vicar in a quiet English town, and a maths teacher trapped in a cellar cross paths in the most unexpected way.
Tom Swift
Tom Swift is thrust into a world of sci-fi conspiracy and unexplained phenomena after the shocking disappearance of his father. Tom takes to the road on a quest to unravel the truth, leaving behind the comforts of his usual moneyed lifestyle, all while fighting to stay one step ahead of an Illuminati-scale group hell-bent on stopping him.
Hungry For Answers
Caroline Randall Williams, an award-winning writer, cookbook author and restaurateur, travels the United States uncovering the fascinating, essential and often untold black stories behind American food.
Sprung
A convicted criminal is determined to turn his life around after serving more than two decades in prison. When he is released unexpectedly from prison due to the pandemic with no place to live and the world on lockdown, Jack shelters-in-place with an unlikely group of former inmates, who band together and use their criminal expertise for good.
BET Awards
An annual event concert celebrating African Americans and other American minorities in music, acting, sports, and other fields of entertainment over the past year.
Black Omnibus
James Earl Jones hosts an interview and performance series exclusively for African-American musicians, comedians, and performers.
Good Times
In this edgy, irreverent reimagining of the TV classic, a new generation of the Evans family keeps their heads above water in a Chicago housing project.
Collar Confessions
Living authentically was the message that Pastor Eddie preached to his flock, but his truth went no further than the pulpit. Although openly bisexual on social media, the cleric was often sidetracked by being closeted within his church.
Alexander: The Making of a God
Expert interviews and gripping reenactments combine to reveal the extraordinary life of Alexander the Great and his burning desire to conquer the world.
Fire Country
Seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence, young convict Bode Donovan joins a firefighting program that returns him to his small Northern California hometown, where he and other inmates work alongside elite firefighters to extinguish massive blazes across the region.