Americans seem to like shows about drug runners almost as much as they like the drugs themselves. And while many of the greatest narco stories are mostly police procedurals like “The Wire,” there are a handful of standout shows that focus at least as much on the criminals and cartels as they do on the cops or agents trying to catch them. But beware: These violent delights definitely have violent ends.
‘Weeds’ (2005-2012)
The only comedy on the list, Showtime’s “Weeds” memorably repurposed Malvina Reynolds’ folk classic “Little Boxes” as the theme song in this story of suburban housewife Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker). Botwin becomes a marijuana kingpin when her husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her with a pile of debt and no way to support their children, teenage Silas (Hunter Parrish) and younger brother Shane (Alexander Gould) as well as her shiftless brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk).
Parker’s Golden Globe-winning performance was the heart and soul of the series as Nancy falls deeper and deeper into the violent drug trade. The hit show not only “played a role in shifting public attitudes about marijuana,” said Joshua Alston at The AV Club, it contributed to prestige TV-era audiences expecting “high-speed narratives full of twists and shocking rug-pulls.” (Prime, Apple TV+)
‘Breaking Bad’ (2008-2013)
Now considered one of the greatest TV series ever produced, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” stars Bryan Cranston — up til then best known for his work as a goofy Dad on the sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle” as middle-aged high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who responds to a terminal cancer diagnosis by stumbling into the meth business so he can leave resources to his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and his son Walt, Jr. (RJ Mitte).
White enlists his former student Jesse (Aaron Paul) and eventually becomes involved in an international cartel fronted by Los Pollos Hermanos, a fast-food restaurant led by Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), all while trying to prevent his brother-in-law Hank (Dean Norris), a DEA agent, from figuring it all out. The show “felt like the crucial linking ring in a decade of cable meditations on masculine pathology,” said Emily Nussbaum at New York magazine. And watching it “ended up being one of the best experiences of my life.” (Apple TV+, Netflix, Prime)
‘Narcos’ (2015-2017)
An “irresistable drama” whose success is built on “sharp acting and equally sharp writing,” this story of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is anchored by a “prize-worthy performance by the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura,” said Neil Genzlinger at The New York Times. The Netflix show follows a pair of U.S. DEA agents, Stephen Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) and Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal) as they pursue Escobar and his Medellín Cartel. Its first two seasons trace Escobar’s rise and eventual fall, as his criminal exploits destabilize Colombia and lead to a wave of cartel-driven violence that compromises the judicial and criminal justice systems. A third season, starring Pascal, was set in Mexico in the 1980s and tackles the Cali Cartel. (Netflix)
‘Ozark’ (2017-2022)
Like several other prominent cartel stories, Netflix’s Ozark begins with something going terribly wrong for an otherwise normal person, drawing them into the netherworld of drug violence. Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a finance whiz laundering money for a Mexican cartel, escapes execution in the premiere by making up a preposterous plan to instead launder money on the Lake of the Ozarks.
“This place right here has more shoreline than the whole coast of California!” he proclaims hilariously as he then moves his broken family, including his estranged wife, Wendy (Laura Linney), and kids, Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), sight unseen to Missouri. Julia Garner is a standout as Ruth Langmore, a local who gets caught up in Marty’s criminal enterprises. By the end of the show’s four seasons, the Byrdes have set aside their qualms, destroyed countless lives and become power players in the region’s politics and economy. Both a “tightly wound thriller and a compelling family drama,” the show succeeds as a plot-driven thriller whose bleak, beautiful rural setting “is hypnotic,” said Michael Haigis at Slant Magazine. (Netflix)
‘Snowfall’ (2017-2023)
Still mysteriously underappreciated, FX’s “Snowfall” is the story of the crack cocaine epidemic in 1980s Los Angeles, as seen through the eyes of young street dealer Franklin Saint (Damson Idris), who is trying to break into the more lucrative cocaine trade and pioneers a newer, cheaper form of the drug. His operation is a subsidiary of a Mexican cartel led by Lucia Villanueva (Emily Rios) and her enforcer, a wrestler named Gustavo Zapata (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). A seemingly separate narrative follows CIA operative Teddy McDonald (Carter Hudson), who helms a trafficking operation to fund the Reagan administration’s support for right-wing guerrillas fighting the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua. A show that is “rich with details,” it demonstrates the ugly “cycle of the American government financially supporting the drug trade,” said Ben Travers at IndieWire. (Disney+, Hulu)
‘ZeroZeroZero’ (2020)
Based on a book by the Italian journalist Robert Saviano, who also wrote the book that the 2008 film “Gomorrah” was drawn from, Prime’s limited series follows a shipment of cocaine from Mexico to Italy via American shipping magnates Emma Lynnwood (Andrea Riseborough) and her brother Chris (Dane DeHaan).The Mexican cartel led by Enrique and Jacinto Leyra (Victor Hugo Martin and Flavio Medina) shipping the product out, as well as the Italian crime family led by Don Minu (Adriano Chiaramida) receiving it, are riven by violence, rivalries and jockeying for power. A kaleidoscopic look at the international drug trade, the show’s intricately plotted eight episodes are “primed for attentive viewing even more than binge-viewing” and create an “expansive and bleak epic,” said Nick Allen at Roger Ebert. (Prime)
‘Griselda’ (2024)
Based on the true story of Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, Netflix’s limited series stars Sofia Vergara as the title character. In the series, which takes considerable creative license to alter Blanco’s horrifying life story, she initially flees Colombia with her children after killing her abusive cartel husband and falls back into drug dealing.
Alberto Guerra also turns in a strong performance as Blanco’s lover and henchman in her burgeoning drug operation. The series ultimately does not stray too far from the well-worn rise-and-fall narco narrative, but it somehow hits differently to see a woman as the cold-blooded anti-hero. The six-episode series is executed as “stylized pulp semi-fiction played fast and loose, whose direction falls just the right side of flashy,” said Lucy Mangan at The Guardian, but is also “hugely enjoyable, well-paced and gorgeous to look at.” (Netflix)
From Colombia to the California suburbs, every drug kingpin has a familiar and tragic trajectory
