8 Best Shows Like Slow Horses for Spycraft, Dysfunction, and Dark Humor

If Slow Horses hooked you with failed agents, sharp insults, messy tradecraft, and conspiracies inside British intelligence, these eight shows should be next. Some match the workplace dysfunction; others lean harder into surveillance, deep cover, or damaged operatives.

1. Patriot (2015)

Created by: Steven Conrad

Closest match for darkly comic espionage, a damaged operative, absurd assignments, bureaucratic interference, and colleagues who make every problem worse.

Taste Match: Closest match for darkly comic espionage, a damaged operative, absurd assignments, bureaucratic interference, and colleagues who make every problem worse.

Meaningful Difference: More surreal and melancholy than Slow Horses, with deadpan musical interludes and an American intelligence mission spanning Europe.

Best For: Viewers who value workplace dysfunction, gallows humor, and a spy protagonist barely holding himself together.

Expectation: An eccentric slow burn in which emotional exhaustion and administrative chaos matter as much as tradecraft.

2. The Bureau (2015)

Created by: Éric Rochant

A character-first intelligence drama built around compromised officers, institutional pressure, painstaking tradecraft, and secrets that corrode working relationships.

Taste Match: A character-first intelligence drama built around compromised officers, institutional pressure, painstaking tradecraft, and secrets that corrode working relationships.

Meaningful Difference: French, more rigorously procedural, and largely devoid of Slow Horses' comic release; its focus is deep-cover identity and the DGSE rather than disgraced MI5 staff.

Best For: Viewers who want the strongest tradecraft and workplace-intelligence match, with patient plotting and morally difficult decisions.

Expectation: Dense, subtitled espionage that rewards close attention and lets consequences accumulate gradually.

3. The Ipcress File (2022)

Created by: John Hodge — Screenwriter and television adaptor of Len Deighton's novel.

British intelligence, an undervalued working-class recruit, interdepartmental maneuvering, dry wit, surveillance, and Cold War conspiracy.

Taste Match: British intelligence, an undervalued working-class recruit, interdepartmental maneuvering, dry wit, surveillance, and Cold War conspiracy.

Meaningful Difference: A polished 1960s period miniseries with a tightly bounded case, rather than a contemporary recurring ensemble of failed operatives.

Best For: Viewers who enjoy British spy-office friction, class tension, analogue tradecraft, and sardonic dialogue.

Expectation: Stylish, measured Cold War intrigue with more elegance and less grime than Slough House.

4. The Night Manager (2016)

Created by: David Farr — Television adaptor of John le Carré's novel.

British intelligence handlers, a psychologically pressured field asset, competing agendas, covert infiltration, and an operation threatened from inside the establishment.

Taste Match: British intelligence handlers, a psychologically pressured field asset, competing agendas, covert infiltration, and an operation threatened from inside the establishment.

Meaningful Difference: More glamorous and internationally expansive, centering on deep-cover access to an arms dealer rather than a dysfunctional office ensemble.

Best For: Viewers who want character-driven British espionage with conspiracy, infiltration, and polished suspense.

Expectation: A sleek, high-stakes slow burn with less comedy and considerably more luxury and danger.

5. Black Doves (2024)

Created by: Joe Barton

London-based spies, compromised personal lives, an unconventional intelligence organization, sharp banter, damaged professionals, and a conspiracy reaching into government.

Taste Match: London-based spies, compromised personal lives, an unconventional intelligence organization, sharp banter, damaged professionals, and a conspiracy reaching into government.

Meaningful Difference: Its operatives sell intelligence rather than serve MI5, and the storytelling mixes espionage with more overt action and assassin-thriller energy.

Best For: Viewers seeking the London setting, dark humor, messy loyalties, and character chemistry at a faster pace.

Expectation: A stylish, violent conspiracy thriller that is warmer and more action-forward than Slow Horses.

6. Bodyguard (2018)

Created by: Jed Mercurio

A damaged British security professional, government infighting, surveillance policy, divided loyalties, and suspicion that official institutions are concealing the real conspiracy.

Taste Match: A damaged British security professional, government infighting, surveillance policy, divided loyalties, and suspicion that official institutions are concealing the real conspiracy.

Meaningful Difference: It follows a protection officer rather than intelligence caseworkers and favors compressed, nerve-racking suspense over ensemble comedy.

Best For: Viewers most interested in British state intrigue, compromised institutions, and a protagonist under relentless psychological pressure.

Expectation: A tense political thriller with explosive set pieces, little humor, and frequent uncertainty about whom to trust.

7. Tehran (2020)

Created by: Moshe Zonder

A fallible field operative, technically grounded intelligence work, handlers scrambling when plans fail, divided identities, and missions distorted by institutional agendas.

Taste Match: A fallible field operative, technically grounded intelligence work, handlers scrambling when plans fail, divided identities, and missions distorted by institutional agendas.

Meaningful Difference: An Israeli-Iranian field thriller centered on an undercover Mossad operation, with multilingual storytelling and far less workplace comedy.

Best For: Viewers who favor operational detail, compromised missions, surveillance, cyber tradecraft, and sustained moral tension.

Expectation: A serious, claustrophobic espionage thriller in which small mistakes rapidly become strategic disasters.

8. Kleo (2022)

Created by: Hanno Hackfort, Richard Kropf, Bob Konrad

A discarded intelligence operative, institutional betrayal, buried conspiracies, eccentric colleagues and enemies, deadpan humor, and espionage bureaucracy behaving absurdly.

Taste Match: A discarded intelligence operative, institutional betrayal, buried conspiracies, eccentric colleagues and enemies, deadpan humor, and espionage bureaucracy behaving absurdly.

Meaningful Difference: A colorful German revenge story about a former Stasi assassin, using heightened violence and playful historical surrealism rather than Slow Horses' grounded MI5 realism.

Best For: Viewers who want disgraced-spy themes and dark comedy but are open to a wilder, more stylized approach.

Expectation: An energetic conspiracy caper with Cold War fallout, unpredictable tonal shifts, and deliberately exaggerated action.

Which Slow Horses-Style Spy Show Should You Watch First?

Start with Patriot for the closest blend of damaged spies and deadpan workplace misery. Choose The Bureau for rigorous tradecraft, The Ipcress File for dry British intrigue, or Kleo when you want betrayal and black comedy in a more stylized form.