Shows like Pam & Tommy: What to watch next

Hulu‘s Pam & Tommy is gaining lots of buzz since its premiere. The miniseries offers a glimpse back at the 90s and the highly publicized leak of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape. What should you watch next if you want more movies and shows like Pam & Tommy? We’ve got you covered below.

In 1995, Pamela Anderson was a rising star, featured in the hit TV show Baywatch and then-upcoming feature film Barb Wire. Her new husband Tommy Lee was the drummer for the rock band Mötley Crüe. Their impromptu wedding was a major news story. As was the very public leaking of their private sex tape, an early instance of an online celebrity sex tape leak.

The miniseries is a part of a growing trend of re-examining how we treated celebrities in the 90s and 2000s. Pamela Anderson was a victim of a major violation, and it harmed her career. She stands among stars like Paris Hilton, Megan Fox, Britney Spears, and more who were mistreated, often by virtue of being young women in the public eye.

That means there are many other recent films and shows like Pam & Tommy, along with older titles with a similar sense of humor or focus on petty crime and the celebrity industrial complex. Read on for some of our top picks.

Creator: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, Jeffrey Toobin
Main cast: Beanie Feldstein, Sarah Paulson, Clive Owen

Another 90s-set drama about the very public mistreatment of a young woman, Impeachment revisits the sex scandal that saw President Bill Clinton impeached. The third season of the anthology series American Crime Story, Impeachment, offers a sympathetic look at Monica Lewinsky, whose life and sexual history were put under a national microscope after her brief affair with the president when she was a White House intern.

• Impeachment will be streaming on Netflix later in 2022.

Director: Craig Gillespie
Main cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Paul Walter Hauser

Directed by Craig Gillespie, who executive produced Pam & Tommy and directed several episodes, I, Tonya revisits another 90s story that made headlines. The film chronicles the rise of figure skater Tonya Harding and her involvement in the assault on her rival skater Nancy Kerrigan. I, Tonya is stylistically and thematically very much a movie like Pam & Tommy, and it even stars Sebastian Stan as another deadbeat husband.

One of the most high-profile reappraisals of a popstar’s treatment by the media has been that of Britney Spears. Part of The New York Times Presents series, Framing Britney Spears explores the controversial conservatorship that plagued the singer for over a decade, the documentary takes on the tabloid culture that caught Spears in its crosshairs in the 2000s. It’s not exactly a movie like Pam & Tommy in that it is a talking-head documentary, but it is very much a part of the same cultural reckoning as the Hulu miniseries.

Director: David Hogan
Main cast: Pamela Anderson Lee, Temuera Morrison, Xander Berkeley, Udo Kier

In Pam & Tommy, we see Anderson preparing for the marketing of her upcoming starring role in Barb Wire before the sex tape leaks. Barb Wire is a fascinating 90s action film. It’s a campy remake of Casablanca, set in a dystopian future. Anderson takes on the Humphrey Bogart role as Barb, running a nightclub in a free zone in the fascist United States when she’s not out bounty-hunting. The Book of Boba Fett’s Temuera Morrison takes on the Ingrid Bergman role as Barb’s old flame looking for help.

Creator: Lisa Kudrow, Michael Patrick King
Main cast: Lisa Kudrow, Malin Åkerman, Robert Bagnell, Lance Barber

The TV industry can be hell for women, whose images can be shattered in an instant, as was the case for Pamela Anderson. The Comeback follows a fictional B-list actress trying to relaunch her career by agreeing to star in a reality show. It’s a show like Pam & Tommy in that both explore the grueling demands on female stars and the double standards that punish them while their male counterparts thrive.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Main cast: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi

One of the best things about Pam & Tommy is its absurdist sense of humor. In the first episode, we see Seth Rogen’s Rand Gauthier, disgruntled after being fired and ripped off by Tommy Lee, breaking into his former employer’s home. He does just about everything wrong, blundering through the heist but spectacularly pulling it off anyway. It’s laugh-out-loud funny in the vein of the Coen Brothers, who frequently turn incompetence into an art. The Big Lebowski is one of their finest. The slacker noir follows an unlikely investigator in over his head when all he wants is his stolen rug back.

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Main cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig

Speaking of heists, Logan Lucky is one of the best heist films of all time. Like Pam & Tommy, it features a justifiably disgruntled former employee taking justice into his own hands. Unlike Pam & Tommy’s Rand Gauthier, Jimmy Logan plans a pretty solid heist at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina, and he avoids harming any innocent bystanders (like Pamela Anderson). Logan Lucky is a brilliant and hilarious tale of the have-nots sticking it to the haves.

Creator: Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Main cast: Will Arnett, Aaron Paul, Amy Sedaris, Alison Brie

Another show like Pam & Tommy that looks at the seedier side of entertainment and the ways fame can harm those in its spotlight, BoJack Horseman is a surprisingly heartfelt look at a man (or, er, horse) growing old after a life of hard partying and fame as a sitcom star. The Netflix animated comedy brings the laughs, but it also tackles deeper questions around the abuse that runs rampant in Hollywood.

Director: Jeff Tremaine
Main cast: Douglas Booth, Iwan Rheon, Colson Baker (Machine Gun Kelly), Daniel Webber

Pam & Tommy isn’t the first dramatization of Tommy Lee letting loose. The Dirt is a Netflix original movie that tells the story of the early days of Mötley Crüe. Here, Lee is played by musician Machine Gun Kelly who, similar to Sebastian Stan in Pam & Tommy, brings a chaotic energy to his portrayal of the real-life rocker. Rewind to a decade before the events of Pam & Tommy to meet a young Tommy Lee and his bandmates before their rise to superstardom.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

Director: Kevin Smith
Main cast: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks

Episode three of Pam & Tommy spends a lot of time following Seth Rogen’s character as he tries to find a porn producer willing to distribute the sex tape he’s stolen. For a slightly lighter look at the funnyman’s misadventures in the porn world, try the Kevin Smith romantic comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, in which two best friends try to solve their financial woes by making a porn film together. Soon, they realize that maybe they have feelings for each other.

Creator: Doug Ellin
Main cast: Adrian Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, Jeremy Piven

Entourage is a show like Pam & Tommy in that it gives us a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood dirtbags. Follow the daily lives of an up-and-coming actor and his best friends as they adjust to the LA circus that is showbusiness.