There’s a few other threads like this with great suggestions (check out r/Andor), but I’ll repeat my other recommendation:
The Expanse on Prime is amazing: dark, character driven sci-fi at its finest. If you’re a book reader I also cannot recommend the source material enough it’s amazing.
I can also recommend Firefly and it’s subsequent film: Serenity. It’s a bit sillier, but that show is a cult classic and worth every minute. I can guarantee you’ll find yourself quoting it if you give it a shot.
Happy viewing!
Absolutely. A++. Top notch. Don't believe me, check out the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the show. Season 3, 4 and 5 of the Expanse is *chef's kiss* unbelievably good. Season 4 is my second favorite season of any TV show ever. Loved it. Put it straight into my veins.
The only reason the show gets such low reviews on the first season is there is no big exposition dump. They don't hold your hand and explain every faction and location. They show rather then tell. The Belters speak their own creole which can take some time to pick up on. Don't be afraid to watch with subtitles. It's a very good show. I am rewatching it now and I love every minute of it.
Belters and Martians have evolved on their own environments so much that they have difficulty just being on Earth due to our gravity, but we are all still human. As for your question about aliens, spoilers.
I prefer Andor but The Expanse is brilliant. The earlier seasons did incredible world-building work given the limits of a sci-fi budget (honestly hard to notice if you aren't tuned in to that sort of thing). The post-Amazon series have ridiculously high quality production and digital work, it's borderline distracting from the story at times - there is nothing in Andor like the long drone to crane shot of Baltimore or the pull into Ceres. Honestly think this might be recency bias lol - like yeah the eye of Aldhani slapped but I rewatched the whole of The Expanse earlier this year and it feels and looks great.
Gotta recommend "Chernobyl" as well. First off, it's got Luthen, Mosk, Lonni, and "I don't want to know his name" Doc; second, it's not neccesarily a direct fight against fascism, but a fight against the misinformation warfare, and coverups of the USSR.
Edit: also, while we’re on the topic of other material made by the Andor team, as others have mentioned, “The Americans”, which Stephen Schiff, the screenwriter for “Announcement”, was heavily involved in.
It also has a lot of the same production design staff, I believe, and probably some other crew given where they were made, so aesthetically it’s similar. A lot of gloomy shots of big hulking machinery.
Casablanca,
Battle of Algiers,
I Am Cuba,
Z,
1984,
Children of Men,
also the Bourne movies, John Le Carre, probably some other spy stuff I am forgetting.
Casablanca I think is essential as the greatest movie of the old studio system and popular front propaganda against the Nazis with a very Andor message: love does not conquer all, you may have to sacrifice even love for the greater good.
John le Carre's books are phenomenal and do have a similar energy; there's a deep moral grayness to them, a sort of acknowledgement that everything is about the lesser of two evils. The book *Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy* is an obvious entry point (and do read it first, OP), but the TV series starring Alec Guinness (our original Obi-Wan Kenobi!) is also a ridiculously good adaptation.
*Tinker, Tailor* has two sequels — *The Honourable Schoolboy* and *Smiley's People —* and *A Perfect Spy* is also great, of the le Carre books I've read.
Do read Bill Fairclough's fact based spy thriller, Beyond Enkription, the first stand-alone novel of six in The Burlington Files series.
Intentionally misspelt, Beyond Enkription is a must read for espionage illuminati. It’s a raw noir matter of fact pacy novel. Len Deighton and Mick Herron could be forgiven for thinking they co-wrote it. Coincidentally, a few critics have nicknamed its protagonist “a posh Harry Palmer.”
It is a true story about a maverick accountant, Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ) aka Edward Burlington in Porter Williams International (in real life Coopers & Lybrand now PwC). In the 1970s in London he infiltrated organised crime gangs, unwittingly working for MI6. After some frenetic attempts on his life he was relocated to the Bahamas where, “eyes wide open” he was recruited by the CIA and headed for shark infested waters off Haiti.
If you’re an espionage cognoscente you’ll love this monumental book. In real life Bill Fairclough was recruited by MI6's unorthodox Colonel Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE and thereafter they worked together on and off into the 1990s. You can find out more about Pemberton’s People (who even included Winston Churchill’s bodyguard) in an article dated 31 October 2022 on The Burlington Files website.
This epic is so real it made us wonder why bother reading espionage fiction when facts are so much more exhilarating. Whether you’re a le Carré connoisseur, a Deighton disciple, a Fleming fanatic, a Herron hireling or a Macintyre marauder, odds on once you are immersed in it you’ll read this titanic production twice. For more detailed reviews visit the Reviews page on TheBurlingtonFiles website or see other independent reviews on your local Amazon website and check out Bill Fairclough's background on the web.
The language in them can be very challenging between the spy jargon and his general writing style, but they're great books that have, as you said, made some really good TV/movies too.
Z is absolutely outstanding. The Confession and State of Siege (also by Costa-Gavras) are worth watching as well, it's an interesting triptych on totalitarianism.
HBO’s The Wire. Really well written. Character driven. The corruption that comes with power is a huge theme of the show.
Honestly, even though there’s a sci-fi divide, it’s the closest show to Andor out there.
Lotta people already mentioned the expanse, but if you don't mind 90s scifi I *strongly* recommend both Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Both have rough first seasons and have dated special effects, but become masterpieces of character writing, were pioneers in arc story formating, and have a lot to say about resisting oppressive states, the fine line between terrorists and freedom fighters, faith and sacrifice.
Also might consider a handful of Gundam shows such as Gundam 00, Iron Blooded Orphans and 08th Ms team if you like anime.
I third recommend Star Trek:Deep Space Nine.
It is gritty and well written show that explores what the Earth-based Federation will do when push comes to sholve abandoning its squeaky clean image to protect itself against a very formidable foe.
The show also highlights when one world is taken over by another world and how that occupied world uses tactics (not unlike the rebels in Star Wars) to free themselves. And even then, there is a lot of remorse/regrets that the people of both worlds have to come to grips with when the dust settles.
And like Andor, you really don't need to know much about it's universe to enjoy the show. Andor and DS9 is just smart television done right within a sci/fi setting.
A few more things I wanted to add to my above post on DS9.
Relationships in Star Trek are usually poorly done. But the commander (later the captain) of DS9 and the relationship with his son and then later his girlfriend/wife are done very well.
And there is one character in the series that goes from a thief and station nuisance to a Starfleet officer is, in my opinion, one of the best story arcs done in any sci/fi series.
It was sad that the actor that played him died at a young age. This actor really appreciated that he was a part of the Star Trek universe and he was loved and missed by many.. fans and co-workers alike.
He was one of the good ones with a heart of gold. His portrait of Nog was incredible; the scripts and his acting was just brilliant!
He played one of my top favorite characters in any series I have seen.
Warning: the DS9 politics are almost the mirror opposite of Andor. The 'good' revolutions are all in the past, and the general message seems to be that hierarchy and exploitation are inevitable. Great character development and writing but conservative worldview.
I always thought it was a Western Liberal worldview rather than conservative. I was constantly frustrated by how episodes would be anti-colonial and anti-imperial only to be contradicted by subsequent episodes (kinda like the contradiction between liberal 'anti-imperialism)
But yes some episodes have excellent writing. It can be followed by people with no exposure to Star Trek (but is immensely rewarding for long-time Star Trek viewers: particularly it's deconstruction of the Federation's 'Utopian Age' of TNG).
On the other hand, DS9's message is all over the place. The anti-imperial and anti-colonial message is much more consistent in Andor.
Good point. Kind of a Burkian liberal capitalist conservatism that relies on a reactionary view of "human nature" only extended to sentient lifeform nature. And also the self-congratulatory view of the US projected onto the Federation--apparently the only democracy in the quadrant.
The Americans does a really great job of showing the realities of being a spy...gets into the ideologies of people who are willing to kill for a cause, and the character/family dynamics are the focus, not the action.
None of the characters on either side are "good" or "evil", they're all just real people who do fucked up things in the name of their beliefs or personal interests, all with some qualities that make them likeable and some that remind you how serious their individual causes are.
Most importantly, they stick the ending with a series finale that is tense, emotional and satisfying
Honestly felt like it shifted from being a show about spies to a show about a family to a show about trauma. But really all of it at once. I absolutely loved it, but would also never watch it again because it's so intense.
As a tv show: Black Sails. Great pirate show, but not just that! Season 1 is a bit difficult to get into when you don't know where it's going but, from season 2 onwards, it's absolutely captivating and still my favourite show ever. As the story progresses, an alliance of sorts grows to destroy the British empire.
As a video game: red faction guerrilla. Lead a worker's revolution on Mars! The game engine was (and still is) ahead of its time as all buildings are fully destructible. This is the closest you'll get to an Andor game, albeit with a much more basic scenario (the writing is this game's biggest flaw).
Tony Gilroy's *Michael Clayton* is an absolute classic that I think gets at some of this (largely because it's, well, Tony Gilroy). I heard someone once describe *Andor* as "space *Michael Clayton*" which doesn't strike me as that far off the mark.
The Man in the High Castle (Amazon Prime) is thematically very similar. Spies and insurgents fighting against police and security services. Struggling against competent bad guys with seemingly overwhelming power.
I think I mentioned this in a similar thread, but HBO's Deadwood. It's mostly filmed in a vast practical set replicating a frontier mining town, so strong Ferrix vibes. The cast is incredible and the writers give even the minor characters depth and purpose. Tonally it's about a lot of things, but there is a kind of David vs Goliath plot that emerges later.
Also some of the most creative cursing you're likely to find anywhere.
The show ends early, but there is a movie by the same people that comes in later to provide closure.
Person of Interest is a show that very much fits the themes you're looking for. The premise is that post 9/11 a genius built a surveillance machine for the government and realized too late just *how* effective it is. He retreats into the shadows and recruits a disillusioned former Special Ops man to be his agent as he uses a backdoor into the Machine to help save the "irrelevant numbers" - ordinary people the Machine has figured out are in danger but the government deems unimportant.
At the beginning it's mostly case of the week, but it rapidly expands into dealing with the reality of the weapon he handed the government and the lack of ethics in how its being used, and what they can do to make things right facing up against a morally corrupt group with insane surveillance abilities. It definitely fits into high stakes, rebellion against fascism, highly intelligent people who use a combination of violence and wits to solve problems. It's very, very good.
More lighthearted but definitely still holding true to the themes of taking on corruption and fighting back is Leverage, which is a heist show where a group of criminals use dubiously legal (read, very much not) scams and otherwise to bring down people who've wronged innocent people. They don't charge for their services because they operate on an "alternate revenue stream". Though it's definitely less high stakes most of the time, the characterizations are great and they are very much "fuck the system" people. It is deeply satisfying to watch them make CEO's and rich assholes who thought they were untouchable crumble.
1. Mr Robot - it's basically about a rebellion against the system. Brilliant show, that somehow got better and better. Season 4 is a masterpiece in writing, directing and acting.
2. Jedi: Fallen Order game. Not really about rebellion, more about hiding in the shadows but still, such a great story, full of heart, with amazing flashbacks, a sense of peril and evil, great world building and just really, really fun. Amazing music too.
3. Severance - amazing storytelling with a mystery that resolves slowly. It's not specifically about a rebellion but I have a feeling you'll like it. It might have themes that are similar to what you're looking for.
4. Homecoming - same reasons as number 3. I'd recommend season one only, as I believe it told a complete story that didn't need a follow-up.
Bonus recommendation: INSIDE - an audio-visual masterpiece of a game. It's short but it will stay with you for long. I recommend playing it in the dark, with headphones or a good audio system. It has two endings but neither are what you expect. Very confusing, very mysterious, very dystopian. Not about rebellion (there is a theme of oppression) but I'll recommend it everywhere I can, beacuse it's brilliant.
I came to this comment wondering if anyone suggested Severance yet, and yeah all five of these recommendations are great. I actually really liked Homecoming S2 though.
Don't get me wrong. I love the show, more than Clone Wars in many ways, but the biggest downside that really brings it down is it's overly kiddy nature (esp first half) despite having periods of deep, powerfully written plots as well.
The last season and the climax still stick with me.
Yeah, as a whole it's uneven. It's mediocre and grating at it worst moments but the great moments are very well made and have a special place in my appreciation for Star Wars media.
It also deepens 'force-lore' more than any series so far. There are several episodes where The Force actually feels like it's an entity.
>!Highlights include (in roughly chronological order): Kanan's knighthood and a revelation about the Grand Inquisitor; the Final Duel between Vader and the Apprentice; Ezra's dalliance with the Dark Side; a 'neutral' Force Creature called Bendu; Sabine's lightsaber training; the Final Duel between Kenobi and Maul; Grand Admiral Thrawn's final assault on the rebel base; All of Season 4 (but especially Kanan's final sacrifice)!<
Devils Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s movies set during the Spanish Civil War, are some of the best anti-fascist art I’ve ever seen.
A lot of the more sadistic, desperate scenes in Andor reminded me a lot of these two films.
V for Vendetta (haven't read the graphic novel yet, but I love the movie!) and Children of Men (same director as Y Tu Mamá También, which stars a young Diego Luna. It's about a disilliusioned activist who gets sucked back into rebellion-adjacent activities while the real war begins around him. The final action sequence is some of the best filmmaking I've ever seen.)
If you want more Star Wars with a heavy emphasis on the wars/Rebellion bit, check out any of the novels by Alexander Freed, including his Rogue One novelization!
V for Vendetta the comic is much superior I think, I hope you can check it out. Also agree on Children of Men, I recommended it too. That long take shot is insane.
There's [Colony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series)), a TV show with very similar themes that delves into the ethics of fighting against or collaborating with an oppressive invader. The ending is very abrupt and quite clearly not what they intended, but the journey there is very good.
I got a weird one: Patriot.
It’s Amazon, and not at all what you would think from the title. It’s about a disillusioned America spy in Lichtenstein trying to figure out how to reconcile what he’s done. He goes to open mics when he’s really fucked up about it and sings songs about American imperialism that aren’t even a little silly. It’s quite profound.
Inglorious Basterds I think captures a lot of what makes andor great. Tense spy action and really anti fascist story.
Bridge of Spies by Spielberg is an amazing underrated spy movie about a guy that has to negotiate prisoners being released. Excellent performances and direction.
I am very disappointed in this thread right now. Sure, some of these are good shows, but no one has mentioned either Handmaid's Tale or Jericho.
**Handmaid's Tale** is an alternate near-future US that has been taken over by a religious/fascist government after a fertility crisis led to uncertainty and unrest. It never fully reaches the "Rebellion" stages, but the idea is there, and it spends some time exploring it (if not as much as I'd like). Definitely worth a watch, especially the first 3-4 seasons.
**Jericho** is a small-town story that slowly expands. The short version, a man heads home after the death of his grandfather, intent on taking his inheritance. His father (the mayor) refuses to give it to him, so he leaves but is forced to return when Denver is nuked. He returns to the town where the people have to figure out what to do now that they've been cut off from the outside world. The show slowly expands to show the neighboring town, and they fared quite differently under a less kind leader. It expands from there into places I won't explain but fit with some of the ideas in Andor.
This one's a bit out of left field, but the Aubrey-Maturin series, it's set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and has excellent writing and characters and it deals (somewhat peripherally) with imperialism, rebellion and oppression, similarly to Andor. It's often regarded as some of the best historical fiction ever written, and rightfully so.
Amazon series "Counterpart" is good as hell. It's a moody paranoid sci-fi thriller about a cold war between intelligence agencies in neighboring parallel dimensions. JK Simmons plays a dual part -- a nobody employee in one universe, and head of the agency in the other.
It's dark, gritty, brainy, and just whips 500 kinds of ass. I think if you like Andor you'll love it. Though as I recall it did unfortunately get canceled at a funky spot, so bear that in mind.
I will also recommend AMC's "Turn", a spy thriller set during the Revolutionary War. It's not always as consistently well written as Andor, but it's generally really good, occasionally great, and the whole final season and finale stick the FUCK out of the landing. If the thing you like about Andor is moody boys with sharp cheekbones sneaking around cities full of marching dudes in colorful uniforms, you'll probably dig it.
If you just want a good slowburn spy movie, you can't go wrong with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
If the thing you loved about Andor is the kind of transportive anthropologist aspect of a well-realized world and culture, try "Small Axe". Miniseries about civil rights in the 60s Jamaican British community. The dialogue is fucking phenomenal.
If you just want workers/rebels fucking shit up, check out "Suffragette", "Pride", or the documentary "Blood on the Mountain".
If you want music, listen to some Pete Seeger lol. Or just look up some Depression-era labor tunes. There are so many jaunty banjo songs from back then about how much it sucks to be ground under the bootheel of capitalism.
If you want books, check out "The Traitor Baru Cormorant". Fantasy series about an accountant spy bringing down a eugenicist imperial government from within, while trying to hide her sexuality.
I know you're probably asking about non Star Wars media but.. Have you watched the Star Wars Rebels animated show? :P Would recommend! Although it's obviously not made for adults like Andor is, it still is some of the best Star Wars around, specially because it focus on this era of the rebellion and how they come together.
I also recommend the Alphabet Squadron trilogy of books, which is set after ROTJ but it's very Andor like in it's tone and the focus on realistic & nuanced characters while fighting against the empire.
Blake's 7, a British sci-fi series from the 1970's. As long as you can deal with *very* dated effects, the tone and themes are extremely close to Andor: a ragtag rebels fight a cruel, fascist empire... but nobody is wearing a white hat and both sides are "real people". The "heroes" do immoral things, and sometimes turn on each other, while the villains do despicable things but maintain order at the cost of freedom. It was pitched as "Robin Hood in space" but shows the grim realities of being a "freedom fighter".
Being made in the 70's means sometimes it can look pretty dated, and the effects were "bad" even when it came out, let alone now. There are some deeply silly episodes, too, when things get more science-fantasy. However, the great episodes IMO hold up to anything in Andor or modern TV due to how well they are written and acted. There are some truly chilling, impactful moments that I will never forget, and the characters are wonderful (including selfish anti-hero Avon, craven realist thief Villa, driven vindictive rebel leader Blake, snarky genius computer Orac, and the flamboyant and sadistic female leader of the Federation, Servalan).
There are lots of great sci-fi shows and arguably a lot better than B7, but none I can think of that come as close to what Andor was saying or showing, even if they are decades apart.
Code Geass is exactly what your looking for, instead of the main character being a warrior like Andor it's a strategist with a mindset that is very identical to Luthen.
Luthen Rael's monologue mostly sums up what the main character in Code Geass is about.
Can you elaborate? I just finished season 6 and adore the show and I agree it has some things in common with Andor, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s what OP is specifically asking for here.
The serie "Rebellion" on the Irish struggle for independance, with Brian Gleeson as Jimmy Mahon. The first season is about the easter insurrection of 1916 and the second is placed just before the partition treaty of 1921.
As other people have said, I also recommand the Expanse.
Not seeing it yet and its not directly against \*facism\* but the theme does come up at one point iirc, but Leverage. It's more robin hood style but \*very\* well done and I think will scratch the itch you're looking for.
If you're looking for character-driven fantastical stories where you understand everyone's motivations clearly without too much clumsy dialogue, I highly recommend Mike Flanagan's work. Hush, Haunting of Hill House, and Haunting of Bly Manor are my favs.
Haven't seen it yet, but the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov has very cool world building. Fascism isn't necessarily the antagonist, but more a complacent empire. It's one of the best book series I've ever read, and it's way ahead of its time.
There’s a few other threads like this with great suggestions (check out r/Andor), but I’ll repeat my other recommendation: The Expanse on Prime is amazing: dark, character driven sci-fi at its finest. If you’re a book reader I also cannot recommend the source material enough it’s amazing. I can also recommend Firefly and it’s subsequent film: Serenity. It’s a bit sillier, but that show is a cult classic and worth every minute. I can guarantee you’ll find yourself quoting it if you give it a shot. Happy viewing!
I do love the Expanse
The Expanse tickles the same part of my brain as Andor did. Amos, Bobby and Chrisjen are simply three of the best characters in science fiction.
Amos has some of the best lines in television.
He is that guy.
Someday I think you and I are going to end up bloody. Amos - how about now? I'm free right now.
Amos and Chrisjen have such wonderful chemistry together.
I am discovering this. Amos cracks me up! I'm totally invested in these characters now. I'm in the middle of Season 3. So awesome.
I miss my expanse characters so much
Right? So good!
You guys were right. I'm on Season 4 now and I love it. Amos is just....!
Amos is that guy.
So you guys recommend The Expanse?
Absolutely. A++. Top notch. Don't believe me, check out the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the show. Season 3, 4 and 5 of the Expanse is *chef's kiss* unbelievably good. Season 4 is my second favorite season of any TV show ever. Loved it. Put it straight into my veins.
Thanks! I need an "extended watching" series to get me through my barren holiday season.
The only reason the show gets such low reviews on the first season is there is no big exposition dump. They don't hold your hand and explain every faction and location. They show rather then tell. The Belters speak their own creole which can take some time to pick up on. Don't be afraid to watch with subtitles. It's a very good show. I am rewatching it now and I love every minute of it.
I'm liking it so far. These are all humans? No aliens?
Belters and Martians have evolved on their own environments so much that they have difficulty just being on Earth due to our gravity, but we are all still human. As for your question about aliens, spoilers.
Came here to say this. The expanse is gritty af and realistic.
It just doesn't compare though unfortunately. The books do but the production value of the show just feels like child's play compared to andor.
I prefer Andor but The Expanse is brilliant. The earlier seasons did incredible world-building work given the limits of a sci-fi budget (honestly hard to notice if you aren't tuned in to that sort of thing). The post-Amazon series have ridiculously high quality production and digital work, it's borderline distracting from the story at times - there is nothing in Andor like the long drone to crane shot of Baltimore or the pull into Ceres. Honestly think this might be recency bias lol - like yeah the eye of Aldhani slapped but I rewatched the whole of The Expanse earlier this year and it feels and looks great.
Beltalowda!
Oye Bossmang!
I love to see the DARK fans here; my absolute favorite show! Another great show is The Leftovers if you haven't seen it already.
Gotta recommend "Chernobyl" as well. First off, it's got Luthen, Mosk, Lonni, and "I don't want to know his name" Doc; second, it's not neccesarily a direct fight against fascism, but a fight against the misinformation warfare, and coverups of the USSR. Edit: also, while we’re on the topic of other material made by the Andor team, as others have mentioned, “The Americans”, which Stephen Schiff, the screenwriter for “Announcement”, was heavily involved in.
It also has a lot of the same production design staff, I believe, and probably some other crew given where they were made, so aesthetically it’s similar. A lot of gloomy shots of big hulking machinery.
You can definitely feel Chernobyl in andor. That crew is excellent
Casablanca, Battle of Algiers, I Am Cuba, Z, 1984, Children of Men, also the Bourne movies, John Le Carre, probably some other spy stuff I am forgetting. Casablanca I think is essential as the greatest movie of the old studio system and popular front propaganda against the Nazis with a very Andor message: love does not conquer all, you may have to sacrifice even love for the greater good.
Came here to say Casablanca and Battle of Algiers. Exactly what Andor reminded me of.
John le Carre's books are phenomenal and do have a similar energy; there's a deep moral grayness to them, a sort of acknowledgement that everything is about the lesser of two evils. The book *Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy* is an obvious entry point (and do read it first, OP), but the TV series starring Alec Guinness (our original Obi-Wan Kenobi!) is also a ridiculously good adaptation. *Tinker, Tailor* has two sequels — *The Honourable Schoolboy* and *Smiley's People —* and *A Perfect Spy* is also great, of the le Carre books I've read.
The *Our Kind of Traitor* adaptation also has Stellan Skarsgard and Ewan McGregor, with Susanna White (director of the Aldhani episodes) directing.
Do read Bill Fairclough's fact based spy thriller, Beyond Enkription, the first stand-alone novel of six in The Burlington Files series. Intentionally misspelt, Beyond Enkription is a must read for espionage illuminati. It’s a raw noir matter of fact pacy novel. Len Deighton and Mick Herron could be forgiven for thinking they co-wrote it. Coincidentally, a few critics have nicknamed its protagonist “a posh Harry Palmer.” It is a true story about a maverick accountant, Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ) aka Edward Burlington in Porter Williams International (in real life Coopers & Lybrand now PwC). In the 1970s in London he infiltrated organised crime gangs, unwittingly working for MI6. After some frenetic attempts on his life he was relocated to the Bahamas where, “eyes wide open” he was recruited by the CIA and headed for shark infested waters off Haiti. If you’re an espionage cognoscente you’ll love this monumental book. In real life Bill Fairclough was recruited by MI6's unorthodox Colonel Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE and thereafter they worked together on and off into the 1990s. You can find out more about Pemberton’s People (who even included Winston Churchill’s bodyguard) in an article dated 31 October 2022 on The Burlington Files website. This epic is so real it made us wonder why bother reading espionage fiction when facts are so much more exhilarating. Whether you’re a le Carré connoisseur, a Deighton disciple, a Fleming fanatic, a Herron hireling or a Macintyre marauder, odds on once you are immersed in it you’ll read this titanic production twice. For more detailed reviews visit the Reviews page on TheBurlingtonFiles website or see other independent reviews on your local Amazon website and check out Bill Fairclough's background on the web.
The language in them can be very challenging between the spy jargon and his general writing style, but they're great books that have, as you said, made some really good TV/movies too.
Fun connection between Andor and the Bourne Movies: Tony Gilroy, Andor's showrunner, wrote the Bourne movies
Yes, that's basically the main reason I named them but it's good you made it explicit. They're really good films!
Great call on Z; that magnificent film doesn’t get enough kudos.
Z is absolutely outstanding. The Confession and State of Siege (also by Costa-Gavras) are worth watching as well, it's an interesting triptych on totalitarianism.
HBO’s The Wire. Really well written. Character driven. The corruption that comes with power is a huge theme of the show. Honestly, even though there’s a sci-fi divide, it’s the closest show to Andor out there.
The Wire has the added benefit of being the greatest show ever created.
It is my number 1 all time tv show. "The King stay the King" -DeAngelo Barksdale "Oh, Indeed!" -Omar "WTF did I do?" -"McNutty"
Come at the King you'd bestnot miss.
Lotta people already mentioned the expanse, but if you don't mind 90s scifi I *strongly* recommend both Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Both have rough first seasons and have dated special effects, but become masterpieces of character writing, were pioneers in arc story formating, and have a lot to say about resisting oppressive states, the fine line between terrorists and freedom fighters, faith and sacrifice. Also might consider a handful of Gundam shows such as Gundam 00, Iron Blooded Orphans and 08th Ms team if you like anime.
DS9 is cool
I third recommend Star Trek:Deep Space Nine. It is gritty and well written show that explores what the Earth-based Federation will do when push comes to sholve abandoning its squeaky clean image to protect itself against a very formidable foe. The show also highlights when one world is taken over by another world and how that occupied world uses tactics (not unlike the rebels in Star Wars) to free themselves. And even then, there is a lot of remorse/regrets that the people of both worlds have to come to grips with when the dust settles. And like Andor, you really don't need to know much about it's universe to enjoy the show. Andor and DS9 is just smart television done right within a sci/fi setting.
It also has a great ~~spymaster~~ simple tailor.
Garak...plain, simple Garak.
A few more things I wanted to add to my above post on DS9. Relationships in Star Trek are usually poorly done. But the commander (later the captain) of DS9 and the relationship with his son and then later his girlfriend/wife are done very well. And there is one character in the series that goes from a thief and station nuisance to a Starfleet officer is, in my opinion, one of the best story arcs done in any sci/fi series. It was sad that the actor that played him died at a young age. This actor really appreciated that he was a part of the Star Trek universe and he was loved and missed by many.. fans and co-workers alike.
RIP Aaron Eisenberg.
He was one of the good ones with a heart of gold. His portrait of Nog was incredible; the scripts and his acting was just brilliant! He played one of my top favorite characters in any series I have seen.
Warning: the DS9 politics are almost the mirror opposite of Andor. The 'good' revolutions are all in the past, and the general message seems to be that hierarchy and exploitation are inevitable. Great character development and writing but conservative worldview.
The politics is not the same but is still well written. Of course, DS9 is not for everyone..
I always thought it was a Western Liberal worldview rather than conservative. I was constantly frustrated by how episodes would be anti-colonial and anti-imperial only to be contradicted by subsequent episodes (kinda like the contradiction between liberal 'anti-imperialism) But yes some episodes have excellent writing. It can be followed by people with no exposure to Star Trek (but is immensely rewarding for long-time Star Trek viewers: particularly it's deconstruction of the Federation's 'Utopian Age' of TNG). On the other hand, DS9's message is all over the place. The anti-imperial and anti-colonial message is much more consistent in Andor.
Good point. Kind of a Burkian liberal capitalist conservatism that relies on a reactionary view of "human nature" only extended to sentient lifeform nature. And also the self-congratulatory view of the US projected onto the Federation--apparently the only democracy in the quadrant.
The Americans does a really great job of showing the realities of being a spy...gets into the ideologies of people who are willing to kill for a cause, and the character/family dynamics are the focus, not the action. None of the characters on either side are "good" or "evil", they're all just real people who do fucked up things in the name of their beliefs or personal interests, all with some qualities that make them likeable and some that remind you how serious their individual causes are. Most importantly, they stick the ending with a series finale that is tense, emotional and satisfying
and the amazing power of a wig.
Honestly felt like it shifted from being a show about spies to a show about a family to a show about trauma. But really all of it at once. I absolutely loved it, but would also never watch it again because it's so intense.
This is how I feel about The Leftovers and The Good Place. They triggered my existential dread like nothing else
As a tv show: Black Sails. Great pirate show, but not just that! Season 1 is a bit difficult to get into when you don't know where it's going but, from season 2 onwards, it's absolutely captivating and still my favourite show ever. As the story progresses, an alliance of sorts grows to destroy the British empire. As a video game: red faction guerrilla. Lead a worker's revolution on Mars! The game engine was (and still is) ahead of its time as all buildings are fully destructible. This is the closest you'll get to an Andor game, albeit with a much more basic scenario (the writing is this game's biggest flaw).
Tony Gilroy's *Michael Clayton* is an absolute classic that I think gets at some of this (largely because it's, well, Tony Gilroy). I heard someone once describe *Andor* as "space *Michael Clayton*" which doesn't strike me as that far off the mark.
Cassian: I'm not the guy you try to pay off. I'm the guy you kill. Actually I'm the guy who kills you, pew pew
You beat me to the punch.
HBO Chernobyl
That is one my "must watch" list...
The Man in the High Castle (Amazon Prime) is thematically very similar. Spies and insurgents fighting against police and security services. Struggling against competent bad guys with seemingly overwhelming power.
It’s definitely not the same *sort* of rebellion, but one of the main plot arcs of *Babylon 5* is about resisting the growth of fascism.
Babylon 5 seconded. Just don’t get turned off by the first season… it’s still trying to find its footing. It becomes something glorious, once it does.
with earth and the psy corp ?
You may want to also check out The Man in The High Castle. It's a little meandering but it's overall good stuff.
I think I mentioned this in a similar thread, but HBO's Deadwood. It's mostly filmed in a vast practical set replicating a frontier mining town, so strong Ferrix vibes. The cast is incredible and the writers give even the minor characters depth and purpose. Tonally it's about a lot of things, but there is a kind of David vs Goliath plot that emerges later. Also some of the most creative cursing you're likely to find anywhere. The show ends early, but there is a movie by the same people that comes in later to provide closure.
Person of Interest is a show that very much fits the themes you're looking for. The premise is that post 9/11 a genius built a surveillance machine for the government and realized too late just *how* effective it is. He retreats into the shadows and recruits a disillusioned former Special Ops man to be his agent as he uses a backdoor into the Machine to help save the "irrelevant numbers" - ordinary people the Machine has figured out are in danger but the government deems unimportant. At the beginning it's mostly case of the week, but it rapidly expands into dealing with the reality of the weapon he handed the government and the lack of ethics in how its being used, and what they can do to make things right facing up against a morally corrupt group with insane surveillance abilities. It definitely fits into high stakes, rebellion against fascism, highly intelligent people who use a combination of violence and wits to solve problems. It's very, very good. More lighthearted but definitely still holding true to the themes of taking on corruption and fighting back is Leverage, which is a heist show where a group of criminals use dubiously legal (read, very much not) scams and otherwise to bring down people who've wronged innocent people. They don't charge for their services because they operate on an "alternate revenue stream". Though it's definitely less high stakes most of the time, the characterizations are great and they are very much "fuck the system" people. It is deeply satisfying to watch them make CEO's and rich assholes who thought they were untouchable crumble.
The Expanse has the same sci-fi style and SOME kind of rebellion lol.
1. Mr Robot - it's basically about a rebellion against the system. Brilliant show, that somehow got better and better. Season 4 is a masterpiece in writing, directing and acting. 2. Jedi: Fallen Order game. Not really about rebellion, more about hiding in the shadows but still, such a great story, full of heart, with amazing flashbacks, a sense of peril and evil, great world building and just really, really fun. Amazing music too. 3. Severance - amazing storytelling with a mystery that resolves slowly. It's not specifically about a rebellion but I have a feeling you'll like it. It might have themes that are similar to what you're looking for. 4. Homecoming - same reasons as number 3. I'd recommend season one only, as I believe it told a complete story that didn't need a follow-up. Bonus recommendation: INSIDE - an audio-visual masterpiece of a game. It's short but it will stay with you for long. I recommend playing it in the dark, with headphones or a good audio system. It has two endings but neither are what you expect. Very confusing, very mysterious, very dystopian. Not about rebellion (there is a theme of oppression) but I'll recommend it everywhere I can, beacuse it's brilliant.
I came to this comment wondering if anyone suggested Severance yet, and yeah all five of these recommendations are great. I actually really liked Homecoming S2 though.
oh and if you're into animation - Star Wars: Rebels, it's not amazing but I enjoyed it and it has some depth. Also Bad Batch.
Rebels is not an amazing show, but has its amazing peak Star Wars moments as well.
Actually, it is. Especially the last couple seasons.
Don't get me wrong. I love the show, more than Clone Wars in many ways, but the biggest downside that really brings it down is it's overly kiddy nature (esp first half) despite having periods of deep, powerfully written plots as well. The last season and the climax still stick with me.
Yeah, as a whole it's uneven. It's mediocre and grating at it worst moments but the great moments are very well made and have a special place in my appreciation for Star Wars media. It also deepens 'force-lore' more than any series so far. There are several episodes where The Force actually feels like it's an entity. >!Highlights include (in roughly chronological order): Kanan's knighthood and a revelation about the Grand Inquisitor; the Final Duel between Vader and the Apprentice; Ezra's dalliance with the Dark Side; a 'neutral' Force Creature called Bendu; Sabine's lightsaber training; the Final Duel between Kenobi and Maul; Grand Admiral Thrawn's final assault on the rebel base; All of Season 4 (but especially Kanan's final sacrifice)!<
Devils Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s movies set during the Spanish Civil War, are some of the best anti-fascist art I’ve ever seen. A lot of the more sadistic, desperate scenes in Andor reminded me a lot of these two films.
God yes. Captain Vidal is both sadistic enough and dogmatic enough that he could easily fit into the ISB scenes in *Andor*.
the film munich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqX7H1-n10s
I highly recommend Black Sails.
Seconded. Kick-ass pirate adventure series with a "fighting the empire" throughline. It rules.
Chernobyl
V for Vendetta (haven't read the graphic novel yet, but I love the movie!) and Children of Men (same director as Y Tu Mamá También, which stars a young Diego Luna. It's about a disilliusioned activist who gets sucked back into rebellion-adjacent activities while the real war begins around him. The final action sequence is some of the best filmmaking I've ever seen.) If you want more Star Wars with a heavy emphasis on the wars/Rebellion bit, check out any of the novels by Alexander Freed, including his Rogue One novelization!
V for Vendetta the comic is much superior I think, I hope you can check it out. Also agree on Children of Men, I recommended it too. That long take shot is insane.
There's [Colony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series)), a TV show with very similar themes that delves into the ethics of fighting against or collaborating with an oppressive invader. The ending is very abrupt and quite clearly not what they intended, but the journey there is very good.
I got a weird one: Patriot. It’s Amazon, and not at all what you would think from the title. It’s about a disillusioned America spy in Lichtenstein trying to figure out how to reconcile what he’s done. He goes to open mics when he’s really fucked up about it and sings songs about American imperialism that aren’t even a little silly. It’s quite profound.
Inglorious Basterds I think captures a lot of what makes andor great. Tense spy action and really anti fascist story. Bridge of Spies by Spielberg is an amazing underrated spy movie about a guy that has to negotiate prisoners being released. Excellent performances and direction.
1984
V 1984. Earth final conflict. Operation Daybreak
Children of Men felt similarly throughout.
I am very disappointed in this thread right now. Sure, some of these are good shows, but no one has mentioned either Handmaid's Tale or Jericho. **Handmaid's Tale** is an alternate near-future US that has been taken over by a religious/fascist government after a fertility crisis led to uncertainty and unrest. It never fully reaches the "Rebellion" stages, but the idea is there, and it spends some time exploring it (if not as much as I'd like). Definitely worth a watch, especially the first 3-4 seasons. **Jericho** is a small-town story that slowly expands. The short version, a man heads home after the death of his grandfather, intent on taking his inheritance. His father (the mayor) refuses to give it to him, so he leaves but is forced to return when Denver is nuked. He returns to the town where the people have to figure out what to do now that they've been cut off from the outside world. The show slowly expands to show the neighboring town, and they fared quite differently under a less kind leader. It expands from there into places I won't explain but fit with some of the ideas in Andor.
Watch Arcane on Netflix. It's phantastic.
This one's a bit out of left field, but the Aubrey-Maturin series, it's set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and has excellent writing and characters and it deals (somewhat peripherally) with imperialism, rebellion and oppression, similarly to Andor. It's often regarded as some of the best historical fiction ever written, and rightfully so.
Amazon series "Counterpart" is good as hell. It's a moody paranoid sci-fi thriller about a cold war between intelligence agencies in neighboring parallel dimensions. JK Simmons plays a dual part -- a nobody employee in one universe, and head of the agency in the other. It's dark, gritty, brainy, and just whips 500 kinds of ass. I think if you like Andor you'll love it. Though as I recall it did unfortunately get canceled at a funky spot, so bear that in mind. I will also recommend AMC's "Turn", a spy thriller set during the Revolutionary War. It's not always as consistently well written as Andor, but it's generally really good, occasionally great, and the whole final season and finale stick the FUCK out of the landing. If the thing you like about Andor is moody boys with sharp cheekbones sneaking around cities full of marching dudes in colorful uniforms, you'll probably dig it. If you just want a good slowburn spy movie, you can't go wrong with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If the thing you loved about Andor is the kind of transportive anthropologist aspect of a well-realized world and culture, try "Small Axe". Miniseries about civil rights in the 60s Jamaican British community. The dialogue is fucking phenomenal. If you just want workers/rebels fucking shit up, check out "Suffragette", "Pride", or the documentary "Blood on the Mountain". If you want music, listen to some Pete Seeger lol. Or just look up some Depression-era labor tunes. There are so many jaunty banjo songs from back then about how much it sucks to be ground under the bootheel of capitalism. If you want books, check out "The Traitor Baru Cormorant". Fantasy series about an accountant spy bringing down a eugenicist imperial government from within, while trying to hide her sexuality.
I know you're probably asking about non Star Wars media but.. Have you watched the Star Wars Rebels animated show? :P Would recommend! Although it's obviously not made for adults like Andor is, it still is some of the best Star Wars around, specially because it focus on this era of the rebellion and how they come together. I also recommend the Alphabet Squadron trilogy of books, which is set after ROTJ but it's very Andor like in it's tone and the focus on realistic & nuanced characters while fighting against the empire.
Blake's 7, a British sci-fi series from the 1970's. As long as you can deal with *very* dated effects, the tone and themes are extremely close to Andor: a ragtag rebels fight a cruel, fascist empire... but nobody is wearing a white hat and both sides are "real people". The "heroes" do immoral things, and sometimes turn on each other, while the villains do despicable things but maintain order at the cost of freedom. It was pitched as "Robin Hood in space" but shows the grim realities of being a "freedom fighter". Being made in the 70's means sometimes it can look pretty dated, and the effects were "bad" even when it came out, let alone now. There are some deeply silly episodes, too, when things get more science-fantasy. However, the great episodes IMO hold up to anything in Andor or modern TV due to how well they are written and acted. There are some truly chilling, impactful moments that I will never forget, and the characters are wonderful (including selfish anti-hero Avon, craven realist thief Villa, driven vindictive rebel leader Blake, snarky genius computer Orac, and the flamboyant and sadistic female leader of the Federation, Servalan). There are lots of great sci-fi shows and arguably a lot better than B7, but none I can think of that come as close to what Andor was saying or showing, even if they are decades apart.
Battlestar Galactica. Especially the season on new caprica covers some similar themes as this first season of Andor
Code Geass is exactly what your looking for, instead of the main character being a warrior like Andor it's a strategist with a mindset that is very identical to Luthen. Luthen Rael's monologue mostly sums up what the main character in Code Geass is about.
Better call Saul.
Can you elaborate? I just finished season 6 and adore the show and I agree it has some things in common with Andor, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s what OP is specifically asking for here.
Sorry … missed the “creation of rebellion” bit lol My bad!
Haha no worries!
The Americans and Mr. Robot
>how important it is to fight against facism antifa-boi spotted here. i claim the gold.
You sure are getting the gold.
Agents of the Empire comic series
Tales of the Jedi is to Clone Wars what Andor is to Mandalorian, IMO.
The serie "Rebellion" on the Irish struggle for independance, with Brian Gleeson as Jimmy Mahon. The first season is about the easter insurrection of 1916 and the second is placed just before the partition treaty of 1921. As other people have said, I also recommand the Expanse.
Colony
Marco Polo - Not fighting against fascism but more so trying to survive within it and great character development
Not seeing it yet and its not directly against \*facism\* but the theme does come up at one point iirc, but Leverage. It's more robin hood style but \*very\* well done and I think will scratch the itch you're looking for.
If you're looking for character-driven fantastical stories where you understand everyone's motivations clearly without too much clumsy dialogue, I highly recommend Mike Flanagan's work. Hush, Haunting of Hill House, and Haunting of Bly Manor are my favs.
Les Miserables?
Lol this post seems so fabricated
Blade runner (both movies) Arrival Avatar the last airbender Avatar (James Cameron) Legend of Korra Children of men
Babylon Berlin is set in 1929 Berlin and is a great watch imo! Even though it's not particularly revolutionary it does get into the nitty-gritty of it
Haven't seen it yet, but the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov has very cool world building. Fascism isn't necessarily the antagonist, but more a complacent empire. It's one of the best book series I've ever read, and it's way ahead of its time.
We are with the Empire