If you can’t get enough of romantic comedies that are set in big magical cities, Netflix’s Emily in Paris is maybe already your favourite show. The series, which debuted its first season in 2020, follows the titular character Emily (Lily Collins) as she moves from Chicago to Paris for her dream job. Seeing that the series is created by Darren Star, aka the mastermind behind Sex and the City and Younger, you can bet that there are plenty of fun adventures, intricate love stories, and chic fashion. In its two seasons, the show has definitely made some waves among viewers – it’s one of those shows that you either love to hate or hate to love.
After binge-watching the series, you’ll probably find yourself craving more. Alas, we still have no word on a season three yet. In the meantime, we’ve gathered plenty of shows for you to watch that will give you many of the same vibes as Emily in Paris to tide you over until we (hopefully) head back to France and the City of Light. There’s drama, there’s romance, there’s laughter, and most of all, there are a lot of leading ladies. Because even though Emily’s storyline in moving to Paris and basically taking social media by storm felt a bit hard to believe, we do still love to see a woman succeed. So there’s plenty more of that and other shows in this selection of 20 shows like Emily in Paris.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: The Bold Type
If one of your favourite parts about Emily in Paris is all of Emily’s work drama, you’ll definitely get a kick out of The Bold Type. The Freeform series follows three best friends – Jane (Katie Stevens), Kat (Aisha Dee), and Sutton (Meghann Fahy) – living out their career dreams in NYC. The three meet while working together at “Scarlet” magazine and over the course of a handful of seasons, they grow, they learn, they become closer, they get their hearts broken, and they flourish as strong, capable women. This show also doesn’t hesitate to tackle tough topics, like women’s health and equality.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Sex and the City
This one is really a no-brainer. If you love Emily in Paris, you’ll definitely want to check out Darren Star’s most notable series, Sex and the City. Just like the Netflix show, it has plenty of fashion, romance, and friendship moments. Writer Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is at the centre of it all, with her close friends – Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) – by her side. Over the course of the show, these women date, fall in love, break up, date some more, and make us envious of their fabulous lives in New York City.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: The Carrie Diaries
Similarly, The Carrie Diaries is another lighthearted comedy fans of Emily in Paris will enjoy. After all, it is a prequel of Sex and the City. The series stars Anna Sophia Robb as a young Carrie Bradshaw before she became the fashion icon we all know and love today. Before Carrie took New York, she was a small town girl with big dreams of the big city. It isn’t easy to get herself there, though, until she lands a job that gets her foot in the door. But Carrie’s dreams of New York aren’t all that’s on her mind – there’s also a guy named Sebastian (Austin Butler), who she can’t stop thinking about.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Grown-ish
Just as Emily finds that life in Paris isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Freeform’s Black-ish spinoff follows the Johnsons’ eldest daughter Zoey (Yara Shahidi) as she goes off to college, makes friends, develops new relationships, and finds herself in the process. She quickly learns, though, that growing up is really hard and that awkward time after high school might be hardest of all. Zoey has her ups and downs as she navigates her early adult life, finding her group of friends and dipping a toe into the dating world, but she’s strong and smart enough to figure it all out. Eventually.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Gossip Girl
Let’s be real: if Gossip Girl was set in Paris, it would look a lot like Emily in Paris. Even Emily herself is a huge fan of the series, which explains why her outfits look like they were straight out of Blair Waldorf’s closet. Set in the Big Apple, Gossip Girl also has the same feel of Emily in Paris by showcasing beautiful shots of the city. But while Emily in Paris finds an adult Emily making waves in her career, Gossip Girl features a younger cast of characters entrenched in drama as part of Manhattan’s elite – featuring romance, heartache, backstabbing, and everything else teenagers deal with.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Insecure
If you’re looking for a show with lots of laughs, great fashion, fun female friendship moments, and plenty of eye candy, look no further than Insecure. Issa (Issa Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji) experience all the everyday life occurrences in this charming comedy, including all those awkward and insecure moments that are all too relatable. Centred on this pair of friends, the show not only shows a real look at what their life is like but calls out the racial issues Black people, and especially Black women, encounter on a daily basis. It’s a show that will reel you in with the comedy and hook you with the smart storytelling.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral will give you all the feel-good and fluffy feelings Emily in Paris does. Set in London, the Hulu miniseries reimagines the hit 1994 film by taking us on a ride filled with scandal, heartbreak, and romance. Four old friends come together for the wedding in London, but what should be a bright time spirals out into anything but. Over the course of the next months, the friends experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. Seeing that the series is created by Mindy Kaling, you know it’s going to include everything you love about classic romantic comedies.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Good Trouble
Just like Emily in Paris follows Emily picking up her life and moving across the world to chase her dreams, Freeform’s The Fosters spinoff follows sisters Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Mariana Adams Foster (Cierra Ramirez) as they embark on the next chapter of their lives in LA. It won’t be easy for either one of them, though. Mariana’s taking on a job in the tech world, while Callie’s sweeping through the legal system, but both hit snags while trying to figure out their lives. Though LA was their big dream before they arrived, they soon realize that being out on their own isn’t easy.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Katy Keene
If Emily was a New Yorker, we have a feeling she’d be best friends with fashionista Katy Keene. Based on the Archie Comics character of the same name, the Riverdale spinoff is filled with lots of glitz, glamour, and drama. Katy, a budding fashion designer, and her friends are all just out to make it big in New York – just like how Emily is on a path to greatness in Paris. Katy’s friend Josie (Ashleigh Murray) is a star on the rise and their roommate Jorge (Jonny Beauchamp) has dreams of Broadway and making a name for himself as a drag artist.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: The Mindy Project
We love watching Emily being a fierce boss lady, and the same goes for Mindy Lahiri on The Mindy Project. The series stars Mindy Kaling as pop culture-obsessed and savvy doctor who tries to find the perfect balance between her professional and personal lives. It’s not easy for Mindy, though, who just wants to have a well-rounded life that shows her knowledge and expertise in all the things that make sense for her – medicine, the arts, logic, etc. Basically she’s on a path of self-improvement that’s not always easy to stick to, but she’s not afraid to keep trying.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: 90210
Darren Star gained critical acclaim for Beverly Hills, 90210, but the show’s CW reboot is just as entertaining. With so many intriguing storylines and romances, you’ll find yourself binge-watching the series just as fast as you did with Emily in Paris. This show takes place in prestigious West Beverly, where the coolest, richest, hottest teens experience all the things that any other teen does – it’s just perhaps heightened thanks to the influx of cash and the most intense drama. Watch as these kids grow up, fall in love, get in fights, and move on with their lives after high school.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: The Perfectionists
Though the Pretty Little Liars spinoff is a little darker than Emily in Paris, it’s equally dramatic. Plus, the incredible fashion is nothing to sneeze at. This show, which takes place a few years after the events in Pretty Little Liars, finds Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse) and Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish) moving on with their lives in a new place. However, as to be expected, trouble follows them to their new sleepy college town. A murder takes place in a town known for its idyllic reputation, which throws everyone for a loop. Perhaps Alison and Mona haven’t escaped trouble after all.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Younger
If you love Emily in Paris, Younger is yet another Darren Star show you need to add to your list. The series stars Sutton Foster as a divorced mom who pretends to be a young millennial in order to get a job in publishing. After a bold tattoo artist tells her she could pass for a younger age, she decides to take her chance. She settles into her new job and no one catches on that she’s not quite who she says she is. If the plot isn’t enough to draw you in, the stellar cast (hello, Hilary Duff) and fun romances certainly will.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Ugly Betty
Though Emily initially feels like a fish out of water in Paris, she eventually takes on the City of Lights with full force. The same can be said for America Ferrera’s character on Ugly Betty as she scores a job at a prestigious fashion magazine. She leaves her small town behind for the big city of New York, ready to have the life she always dreamed for herself. It’s not easy to prove to her colleagues that she can do it, and at times she wants to give up, but Betty is determined to have the life and career she always dreamed of.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Love Life
If one of your favourite parts of Emily in Paris is watching all of her relationships unfold, you should definitely add Love Life to your list. The first season of the HBO Max anthology series follows a young woman named Darby (Anna Kendrick) and documents the great loves of her life. Throughout her 20s and 30s, people come in and out of Darby’s life, all leaving their own unique stamp on her history. She learns something from each relationship, even the ones that are definitely not meant to last. It’s an interesting take on how you view the different loves you have in life.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Sweetbitter
Tess (Ella Purnell) moves to New York City to start fresh. Sound familiar? The young woman has no job, no friends, and no real big goals – she just wants to find a place to work and make something of herself. She finds herself working at a restaurant, and though she starts the job thinking it’s a stepping stone to something big, she soon learns that maybe this was the place she was always meant to be. It’s here that she finds her people, her purpose, and the things she loves. It is nothing she expected and everything she needed.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Dash & Lily
If you love the romance – especially the secrecy of it – in Emily in Paris, Dash & Lily will give you some of those same vibes. Lily (Midori Francis) finds herself firmly in the middle of a beautiful Christmas fairy tale with Dash (Austin Abrams). The two trade notes to each other through a journal, not yet ready to meet the other and see where this goes from here. It’s a beautiful trip around New York City in wintertime as these two young adults – one a bit cynical and one a bit hopeful – take themselves on a journey to find something more in life.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Jane the Virgin
Jane (Gina Rodriguez) is at a bit of a crossroads in her life. She finds herself mysteriously pregnant and caught between two men who want to take care of her: Michael (Brett Dier) and Rafael (Justin Baldoni). Like Emily, who also finds herself at a turning point when she ends her longtime relationship after moving to Paris and ready to start anew, Jane must decide where her life goes from here, because it’s already completely derailed from what she’d planned. Like Emily in Paris, Jane the Virgin is a light and funny show that’ll pull at your heartstrings a little and make you root for the characters.
Shows Like Emily in Paris: The Great
Like Emily, Catherine (Elle Fanning) is a bit of an outsider for awhile. It takes Emily some time after arriving in Paris to find friends and her place in the world, and that’s exactly the case for Catherine on her road to becoming Catherine The Great. The fictionalised retelling of the real Catherine The Great – one of Russia’s most well-known rulers – is a tongue-in-cheek look at what maybe, probably, definitely didn’t happen but could have. It’s a subtly funny look at what really took Catherine from nothing to something, and maybe involves murder for hire, who really knows?
Shows Like Emily in Paris: Ted Lasso
Emily, to say the least, is a fish out of water when she moves to Paris. Though she likes to act like it was a mostly seamless transition into the French city, her lack of language skills and adjustment to the culture tell a different story. It’s much the same for Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) when he moves to England to coach a ragtag football team. But the happy-go-lucky coach from the Midwestern United States is unflappable in his positivity, determined to make something of this team that has a devoted fanbase of believers. Even though the team seems determined to fail, Ted won’t allow it.