15 TV Shows to Watch if You Like Andor

Star Wars: Andor wrapped its second and final season earlier this year. The season earned the same rapturous praise the first season did.  

Created by Tony Gilroy, Andor is a prequel that deepens its source material (the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) was just another Rebel character in that movie. Now he’s had one of the most heartbreaking but inspiring journeys in the Star Wars universe. 

While the title is Andor, the show’s ensemble is excellent too. The series explores the Galaxy Far, Far Away with new POVs and rare maturity and political insight. Andor might be the most consistently good Star Wars story since The Empire Strikes Back. 

If 24 episodes of Andor weren’t enough for you, here are 15 TV shows to watch if you like Andor, ranked!

1. Battlestar Galactica

The original 1978 Battlestar Galactica had the pitch of “Star Wars, but on TV.” The 2003 reimagined Battlestar Galactica gave the original the same makeover that Andor gave Star Wars. 

The “12 colonies of man” are destroyed by humanity’s robotic creation, the Cylons. Man’s last surviving warship, Galactica, leads a fleet of ships (holding about 50,000 survivors) across space to find a new home. Battlestar Galactica takes away the cheesy fun of starships and space adventures for something more real.

Life in the fleet is often miserable due to resource shortages, there’s consistent turmoil between the civilian and military governments, etc. A central question of the show is if old rights, like privacy, labor protections, etc., still apply in the extreme positions our leads are now in.

Like Andor later would, Battlestar Galactica uses a fantastic setting to explore very real political issues.

2. The Expanse

Star Wars is traditionally very soft science fiction. It’s often said, accurately, it’s a fantasy story set in space. Andor, which focuses on the little people’s daily struggles with no Jedi Knights or lightsabers, doesn’t feel as fantastical. 

A show with a similar vibe is The Expanse, set centuries in the future when mankind has colonized the solar system. It ran for three seasons on Syfy, then three more on Prime Video. 

The series is adapted from the long-running book series The Expanse by James A. Corey, the shared pen name of Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. They’re both protégés of Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, with a similar eye for political intrigue and sprawling casts.

The Expanse is a compelling mash-up of hard sci-fi and space opera. Humans raised on Mars and beyond tend to be taller due to lower gravity, communication across light-years isn’t instantaneous, etc. However, main character, Captain James Holden (Steven Strait), is a hero right out of Star Wars.

3. Firefly

Firefly is one of the most famous cult classics in science fiction. It’s a Space Western, one highly indebted to filmmaker John Ford, that puts an interstellar spin on the old American West.

By the 26th century, mankind has resettled in new solar systems. The rich core worlds, the Alliance, led a war to bring the other worlds under their control. Our hero, Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), fought on the losing side against the Alliance. Now, he’s a gun for hire captaining the spaceship Serenity.

Firefly has nine main cast members. What’s impressive is that even with that many, they’re all compelling, all well-cast, and all share unique dynamics. The show only ran 14 episodes, but it became popular enough to get a finale movie in 2005, Serenity.

Like Andor, Firefly is about people in space living under abusive, bureaucratic tyranny. Characters like Dedra (Denise Gough) and Syril (Kyle Soller) on Andor give us a perspective on Firefly we never got, i.e., inside the bureaucracy.

4. Star Wars: The Clone Wars

There’s now a lot of Star Wars TV out there. One that’s still mostly beloved, like Andor, is Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Set between Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the series follows the titular war.

The main POV characters are the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor), Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter), Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), and the Clone Captain Rex (Dee Bradley Baker).  The Clone Wars fills out the world and characters in ways the film never had room for. 

Now, the CGI animated series is a kids’ show; at its best, it’s still not as mature as Andor. But it doesn’t shy away from politics or the brutality of war, either. Issues explored include how spending too much on the military cuts into services for the people that military is protecting or whether soldiers have the right to refuse unethical orders.

Partisan Rebel Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) is a recurring character on Andor. See how his story as a resistance fighter begins on The Clone Wars. 

5. Star Wars: Visions 

The most experimental Star Wars series on Disney+ is Star Wars: Visions. Where Andor brings Star Wars closer to Earth, Visions makes the Galaxy more imaginative than ever.

Star Wars: Visions is an anthology series of short animated films. Each one focuses on different characters and tells its story with a distinct animation style. The series employs animation studios from all over the world, bringing an international perspective to Star Wars. Some episodes resemble anime, others are told with stop-motion, and more.

Particular highlights of Visions thus far include Season 1 Episode 4 “The Village Bride” (animated by Japanese studio Kinema Citrus), Season 2 Episode 2 “Screecher’s Reach” (the work of Irish studio Cartoon Saloon), and Season 2 Episode 6 “The Spy Dancer” (done by French studio Studio La Cachette, and the episode most akin to Andor).

6. Silo

Another great sci-fi series is Silo, currently streaming on Apple TV+ (with a third season in the works). Unlike Andor, Silo doesn’t reach for the stars but stays under the Earth.

Based on novels by author Hugh Howey, Silo is set in the far future after an apocalypse. One community of people has survived the toxic world by living in an enclosed silo compound. 144 stories deep, the Silo is a top-down society, literally and figuratively.

The main character is Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), an engineer turned police detective who learns that those at the top of Silo are hiding something.

The world of Silo is as tactile as science fiction can get, from the set design to the narrative worldbuilding. There’s a nitty-gritty feeling to the organization and culture of the Silo. As Andor does, Silo mines suspense out of exploring the bureaucracy of this fictional world.

7. Say Nothing

Andor is a story about revolution. Sometimes it gets away with being so politically daring because it’s set in a fictional world. That said, Gilroy and his writers looked to real history for inspiration.

A must-see recent series about a real-life revolution is Say Nothing, based on the nonfiction book by Patrick Radden Keefe. Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, the story follows IRA soldiers—mostly sisters Dolours (Lola Petticrew) and Marian Price (Hazel Doupe)—as they fight their guerilla war. 

The nine episodes of Say Nothing follow its characters up to the 2010s. The conflict is now over, leaving many disillusioned; the series’ framing device is an aged Dolours (Maxine Peake) recounting her time in the IRA.

The early episodes of Say Nothing, following the IRA’s bank robberies and such exploits, are thrilling. Between that and the unjust discrimination against Catholics in 1970s Northern Ireland, you understand the Price sisters. As they and we learn, though, even just revolutions spill blood.

8. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Andor takes an adventurous fantasy setting and wraps it together with sophisticated political allegory. A show that walks a similar line, exploring the inner workings of an empire and resistance against it, is the anime Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. 

Based on the manga by Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood follows the alchemist Elric brothers on a search for the Philosopher’s Stone. But their home country, Amestris, is a military dictatorship. Over the course of the series, the Elrics discover a conspiracy that will turn Amestris into an even more dangerous force for death.

Several supporting characters on the series are members of the Amestrian military, trying to do good or work against it from the inside. By the series’ final arc, that’s no longer an option, and a rebellion from all walks of life unites to overthrow Amestris.

9. Cowboy Bebop

As far as space-set anime (or even television in general) goes, it’s hard to get better than Cowboy Bebop. Set during 2071, the series follows a crew of bounty hunters who get into misadventures while traveling the solar system. They’re cowboys, and their ship is the Bebop.

Indeed, music is core to the identity of Cowboy Bebop. The series is especially remembered for its eclectic jazz score, composed by Yoko Kanno. Cowboy Bebop throws genres together like a music mixtape or playlist. Westerns, film noir, martial arts movies, and plenty more. That’s all done in a tight 26-episode package. 

The series was remade as a short-lived live-action show on Netflix in 2021. Accepted advice, though, is to skip the live-action version and watch the anime even if that’s not typically your bag. You won’t regret it.

10. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Yes, we’re recommending that Star Wars fans watch a Star Trek show. Put aside the fandom rivalry, though, and Andor fans will enjoy the type of storytelling that the seven-season-long Star Trek: Deep Space Nine offers.

Like how Andor broke from its franchise’s formula, Deep Space Nine did so for its own. Set on a space station orbiting the frontier world Bajor, Deep Space Nine evolved into the most character-driven and subversive Star Trek show there is.

What sets this Star Trek series apart from past ones is how its characters often fall short of being utopian ideals. 
“It’s easy to be a saint in paradise,” Captain Ben Sisko (Avery Brooks) once observes. Deep Space Nine takes them out of paradise, culminating in a full-scale war that stretches across the final two seasons. 

Deep Space Nine Season 6, Episode 19, “In The Pale Moonlight,” sees Sisko make severe moral compromises to win that war. He is, without question, the Star Trek captain most like Cassian Andor.

11. The Americans 

Andor isn’t just a science-fiction show and political thriller; it’s a spy show. The series’ final arc is about retrieving Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) and vital intel from Coruscant; the most present villains are Imperial intelligence officers like Dedra, etc.

The best spy show of the past decade is FX’s The Americans, which ran for six seasons between 2013 and 2018. In the 1980s, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) are a couple with two kids in the Washington D.C. suburbs. But they’re not American at all; they’re Soviet sleeper agents planted behind enemy lines.

The most subversive part of the series is how it takes Soviet Russians, stock Hollywood villains, and makes them the heroes.

The Americans is about the Jennings hiding in plain sight, maintaining their double lives as spies and assassins. Along the way, its story becomes an allegory for the immigrant experience, maintaining a marriage, and more. Complementing the setting, too, is a kick-ass 1970s-80s soundtrack, from Fleetwood Mac to David Bowie. 

12. The Little Drummer Girl

Another spy thriller period piece that may have slipped under your radar is the BBC/AMC’s 2018 mini-series, The Little Drummer Girl. Adapted from a novel by John le Carré, all six episodes were helmed by famed South Korean director Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy, The Sympathizer) with an all-star cast.

Set during 1979, aspiring actress Charlie (Florence Pugh) gets the role of a lifetime—an undercover Mossad asset, overseen by Gadi (Alexander Skarsgård) and Martin (Michael Shannon). Andor is about members of a revolutionary cell; The Little Drummer Girl is about counterintelligence infiltrating such a cell; the show never lets the moral complexity of that out of sight.

Under Park’s characteristically careful direction, The Little Drummer Girl makes Europe as beautiful as his films do Korea.

13. Slow Horses

The spymaster of Andor is Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), who recruits Cassian during the series’ first arc. Luthen pretends to be a jovial antiques dealer, running a Rebel operation out of his shop in the Empire’s heart.

Skarsgård is the greatest actor on a show filled with great ones; Andor trusts him to deliver the most important lines, such as Luthen saying, “I burn my life to make a sunrise I know I’ll never see.”

A rare actor who can rival Skarsgård is Gary Oldman, who is currently leading the show on the Apple TV+ spy thriller Slow Horses. Having run four seasons with a fifth on the way, Slow Horses (based on novels by Mick Herron) follows an MI5 section of spies who’ve disgraced themselves.

Oldman plays the section chief and lead screw-up,  Jackson Lamb, the total opposite of the prim spy George Smiley he played during the film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Like Luthen Rael, Lamb’s demeanor means you’d never suspect what a dangerous spy he can be.

14. Babylon 5

The most comprehensive space opera TV series outside of Star Trek or Star Wars is Babylon 5. Running from 1994 to 1998, the series was created by comic and cartoon writer J. Michael Straczynski. Set during the 22nd century, the series is set on the titular space station.

Babylon 5 is a diplomatic station where the major galactic powers can meet and resolve disputes before they become conflicts. While the low-budget cheesiness of the costumes and alien make-up hasn’t aged the best, the writing more than holds up. The political intrigue and characters who can’t be viewed in shades of black and white presage Andor.

“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand,” proclaims Ambassador G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas) on Babylon 5 Season 2 Episode 20, The Long Twilight Struggle.”

It’s a message that still resonates today.

15. The Stolen Girl

Denise Gough delivers one of the most excellent performances on Andor. She’s icy, chilling, and downright scary as Dedra, but Gough always makes it clear how fragile Dedra’s exterior always is.

Andor is one of the best showcases for Gough’s talent yet, but the Irish actress has been working consistently on TV and in the theater for a long time. Her most recent starring role, Dedra aside, was on the Disney+/Hulu mini-series Stolen Girl, adapted from the novel Playdate by Alex Dahl.

Gough plays the lead role of Elisa Bix, a woman whose daughter has been abducted. The role couldn’t be more different from a ruthless bureaucrat like Dedra, but Gough excels at it all the same.

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What other TV shows would you recommend to fans of Andor? Let us know in the comments!

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