Shows Like Unauthorized Living
If you loved Unauthorized Living's Crime and Drama storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks
Memory of a Killer
Angelo Doyle lives two totally separate lives — fearsome NYC hitman and sleepy upstate Cooperstown photocopier salesman and father. Both of them are threatened when he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, a disease he already lost his older brother to.
Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord
Pablo is a man with a natural ability for business. Early in his life, Pablo is introduced to the business of cocaine and the power it yields. A young life of crime lands Pablo in and out of jail as he builds his criminal empire. Pablo expands his power through politics but it is not long before his conflicts as a Congressman and a drug lord collide. Pablo has his enemies executed, but not before the United States activates its own war on the Medellin cartel.
Power Book II: Ghost
Picking up just days after the “Power” finale, this sequel series follows Tariq navigating his new life, in which his desire to shed his father’s legacy comes up against the mounting pressure to save his family.
Power
A successful New York entrepreneur lives a double life as the head of a drug empire that serves only the rich and influential, all while wanting to escape the underworld and keep his family safe.
El Chema
Follow one man's epic journey as he transforms from wily underage drug smuggler to one of the world's most infamous cartel leaders.
Queen of the South
Teresa flees Mexico after her drug-runner boyfriend is murdered. Settling in Dallas, she looks to become the country's reigning drug smuggler and to avenge her lover's murder.
El Chapo
A look at the life of notorious drug kingpin, El Chapo, from his early days in the 1980s working for the Guadalajara Cartel, to his rise to power of during the '90s and his ultimate downfall in 2016.
BMF
The drug trafficking drama is inspired by the true story of two brothers who rose from the decaying streets of southwest Detroit in the late 1980s and gave birth to one of the most influential crime families in the country. It revolves around brothers Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and Terry "Southwest T" Flenory, who together took their vision beyond the drug trade and into the world of hip-hop. The drama, per Starz, will tell a story about love, family and capitalism in the pursuit of the American dream.
More Shows Like Unauthorized Living
Snatch
A group of up-and-coming hustlers stumble upon a truckload of stolen gold bullion and are suddenly thrust into the high-stakes world of organized crime.
This City Is Ours
Notorious gang boss Ronnie (Sean Bean) steps back from his criminal empire, triggering a violent power struggle between his volatile son Jamie (Jack McMullen) and trusted lieutenant Michael (James Nelson Joyce), who sees his chance to seize control. As rivalries ignite and loyalties fracture, the family behind the city’s cocaine trade descends into open war.
Iron Reign
Joaquín Manchado rules his drug empire from Barcelona's seaport with an iron fist — until a new shipment sends business and family spiraling.
Kin
The lives of a Dublin family embroiled in a gangland war and the consequences of their choices.
Power Book IV: Force
Tommy Egan leaves New York behind and plans to take on Chicago, using his outsider status to break all the local rules and rewrite them on his quest to become the biggest drug dealer in the city.
Sons of Anarchy
The Sons of Anarchy (SOA) are an outlaw motorcycle club with many charters in the United States and overseas. The show focused on the original and founding charter, Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, often referred to by the acronym SAMCRO, Sam Crow, or simply Redwood Charter. The charter operates both legal and illegal businesses in the small town of Charming, California. They combine gun-running and a garage, and involvement in porn film industry. Clay, the charter president, likes it old school and violent; while Jax, his stepson and the club's VP, has thoughts about changing the way things are done. Their conflict has effects on both the club and their personal relationship, especially when Jax goes on a personal quest to cleanse the SAMCRO name and image.
The Penguin
With the city in peril following the seawall's collapse, Oswald "Oz" Cobb seeks to fill the power vacuum left by the death of Carmine Falcone and finally give his mother Francis the life he's always promised. But first, Oz must confront his enemies and his own demoralizing reputation as "the Penguin."
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.
Law & Order: Organized Crime
The detectives of the Organized Crime Control Bureau work to dismantle New York City's most vicious and violent illegal enterprises.
Breaking Bad
Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given a prognosis of only two years left to live. He becomes filled with a sense of fearlessness and an unrelenting desire to secure his family's financial future at any cost as he enters the dangerous world of drugs and crime.
Godfather of Harlem
Loosely based on infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson, who in the early 1960s returned from ten years in prison to find the neighborhood he once ruled in shambles. With the streets controlled by the Italian mob, Bumpy attempts to regain his piece of Harlem.
The Snitch Cartel: Origins
Over four decades, two brothers in Cali juggle family duties, multiple romances and illicit businesses, transforming from poor kids to cocaine kingpins.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Unauthorized Living (2018): Crime and Drama themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of Unauthorized Living.
See full details for Unauthorized Living (2018)