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The Pitt is a classic case of taking an old premise and making it feel brand new. Dramas that pivot off the life and death stakes of a hospital or emergency room have been around for decades, but The Pitt—initially conceived as a direct sequel to one of the greatest medical dramas of all time, E/R—has perfected the mix of realism, real-time pacing, and great character work. It’s justifiably been a sensation since its debut in 2025.
If your whole week revolves around new episodes of the series, that leaves you with a lot of time on your hands in-between—and, soon, a long wait until the third season. To fill some of that void, you can peruse this list of other TV shows you should check out. And if you want to expand beyond TV, here are the books, movies, games, and podcasts that can deliver similar themes and vibes.
The best books like The Pitt
With its unusually long season (compared to most other modern series), focus on character, and slow-burn themes, The Pitt is pretty novelistic. Here are some of the best books that will give you the same feel.
This Is Going to Hurt [TV Tie-in]: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor
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Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
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The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER
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The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives
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This Is Going to Hurt, by Adam Kay
Based on Adam Kay’s personal experience working on the obstetrics and gynecology ward for the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS), the adaptation of This is Going to Hurt starring Ben Whislaw is on our list of shows like The Pitt. It’s great, but it’s also different from the source in many ways. Kay’s book is less bitter and more urgent, taken directly from his diary entries and featuring more of his sardonic voice. If you want a more unvarnished, absorbing, and powerful look at the challenges that doctors and nurses face every day of their careers, give it a read.
Five Days at Memorial, by Sheri Fink
If your favorite parts of The Pitt are the big moments like season one’s mass shooting event, you’ll find Five Days at Memorial the perfect read (its adaptation is also on our list of TV shows for Pitt fans). When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in 2005, the hospitals there faced a challenge beyond anything imaginable. Fink’s book dives into the experienced of people working at Memorial Medical Center, who struggled with a deluge of desperate patients, shrinking supplies, and impossible medical decisions made under the worst possible conditions.
The Emergency, by Thomas Fisher
Fisher’s memoir describes his experiences as an attending physician in the University of Chicago Medical Center, beginning in 2006. If you love the individual stories that The Pitt serves up with each episode, this is for you—Fisher details some of the cases he dealt with at, delving into fascinating maladies and how he approached diagnosing and treating them. He also makes it clear what’s wrong with our modern approach to medicine, and how it often fails the people who need it most.
The House of God, by Samuel Shem
A bit dated these days, but Shem’s 1978 semi-autobiographical novel captures the sense of competitive camaraderie among medical interns and residents, as well as the psychological damage the pressures of their training can cause. It’s a sharp and funny indictment of how residents were trained, and may have influenced reforms that have taken place since.
The Shift, by Theresa Brown, RN
The Pitt knows that the most important people in an emergency department are often not the doctors, but the nurses. In The Shift, Brown uses the same conceit as The Pitt, recounting a single 12-hour shift so you can be there at every step of a patient’s care from her perspective. The result is everything you could want in a read-a-like: A fast-paced story of professionals making life-and-death decisions under pressure, and the people whose lives depend on them.
The best movies like The Pitt
If your one complaint about The Pitt is that the episodes aren’t long enough, check out these movies that have similar themes and storylines.
Code Black (2013)
In a lot of ways, Code Black is a real-life The Pitt. Filmed in 2013 at one of the country’s busiest emergency departments (the Los Angeles General Medical Center), this documentary follows a team of young doctors as they deal with a seemingly endless stream of injured and sick people in desperate need of care. The physicians struggle with everything you see on The Pitt, from personal relationships to the scourge of charting and insurance paperwork—but everything you see really happened. Rent Code Black from Prime Video.
M*A*S*H (1970)
It might seem like an odd pairing, since M*A*S*H is set during the Korean War, but what Robert Altman’s classic film captures is the pressure-cooker environment of emergency medicine and the inventiveness of physicians struggling under less-than-ideal conditions. The characters’ disdain for their commanding officers and the bureaucracy that makes their jobs harder is clearly echoed in Dr. Robby’s attitude more than 50 years later. Rent M*A*S*H from Prime Video.
Contagion (2011)
Although Contagion is global in scope and focused on a fictional pandemic and the race to find a treatment before it’s too late, its tone of steady emergency and the capable, broken people who stand up to deal with it will resonate with fans of The Pitt. If the medical mysteries the show offers up are what keep you coming back, this movie’s horror-ish vibe is like a super-sized version of that. Rent Contagion from Prime Video.
Hospital (1970)
Without narration or any talking head interviews, Frederick Wieman’s 1970 documentary remains highly-regarded for its immersion and powerful portrayal of a broken healthcare system. In fact, you’ll be amazed at how much hasn’t changed in the 56 years since this film was produced. Sure, the technology and protocols are different, but the doctors, nurses, and patients observed here are dealing with many of the same fears and frustrations as Dr. Robby and his staff. Stream Hospital on Kanopy.
Code 3 (2025)
If you want a lighter Pitt-adjacent viewing experience, this dark comedy starring Rainn Wilson, Lil Rel Howery, and Aimee Carrero is just the ticket. Following a burned-out paramedic on what he thinks is his last shift, the film follows a similar structure to The Pitt, sticking with its characters over a single shift as they deal with a range of cases and characters. It’s funny, but there’s a deep vein of pathos in there, too. Stream Code 3 on Hulu.
The best video games like ‘The Pitt’
No, there’s no first-person walking simulator where you play as Dr. Robby, but there are some games that offer similar vibes to The Pitt if you want a more active alternative.
Emergency Room: Real Life Rescues
If you want to know the stress and pressure of trying to diagnose, treat, and comfort patients quickly and efficiently, Emergency Room: Real Life Rescues will get you there. You play as a paramedic in training, and the gameplay involves successfully treating the patients you’re called to see. Since you’re not playing as a doctor in the ER, there’s a limited number of procedures you can use, but the game does a good job of goosing your adrenaline in ways we think the Pitt doctors would understand.
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Project Hospital
Project Hospital is a management sim that tries to replicate the serious business of running a hospital—treating patients and managing resources. It’s got a cartoony look, but don’t let that fool you: It can be as complex as The Pitt when it comes to figuring out how to keep people alive. In fact, one of the “gamefied” aspects of Project Hospital involves finding ways to overbill people’s insurance to maximize profits—which might be a bit too real for some folks.
Platforms: macOS, Linux, GeForce Now, PC, Steam
War Hospital
Set during World War I, War Hospital sees you playing as an administrator trying to keep a field hospital behind the front lines operational under the worst possible conditions. You not only have to manage supplies, construction, and staff morale, you also have to triage the soldiers who pour in, badly wounded and in desperate need. If you miss that hit of stress that watching The Pitt offers, this is a fine way to experience it. A lot of it.
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X/S
911 Operator
If you watch The Pitt and think that charge nurse Dana Evans makes managing the chaos of an emergency department look easy, try your hand at 911 Operator. While not set in an ER, you get the same vibe of trying to put out medical fires with limited resources as you play the role of an Emergency Services Operator, deciding where to send police, firefighters, and/or paramedics as various disasters and emergencies pop up. It’s a surprisingly complex and delightfully stressful challenge that will give you fresh appreciation for what folks like Evans do on The Pitt.
Platforms: PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
The best podcasts like ‘The Pitt’
Just because your eyes are tired doesn’t mean you can’t get more of The Pitt. Whether it’s a deep-dive into the series or a narrative with a similar feel, we got you covered.
The Pitt Podcast
The official companion podcast is hosted by Dr. Alok Patel and Hunter Harris, perfectly blending real medical analysis and experience with episode recapping, interviews with actors, crew, and creators, and other insider tidbits. If you’re a Pitt obsessive, this is a must-have in your earbuds.
The Pitt Crew
If you want a less corporate, more fan-oriented podcast analyzing The Pitt, here you go. The hosts of The Pitt Crew (Camille, Mal, and Robert) bring terrific regular person energy to their discussions, so it’s the next best thing if you lack real people who share your love of The Pitt and resist your desire to talk endlessly about why Joy’s sarcasm and misanthropy is okay but Ogilvie has got to go.
The Nocturnists
One reason The Pitt resonates is the deep research behind its stories—the cases and their resolutions are based on actual medical emergencies treated by real doctors. The Nocturnists is the real version of that: Actual doctors and other healthcare professionals telling stories drawn from their real-life experiences. It’s just as dramatic and fascinating as the show, with the added weight of knowing that it all really happened.
The Mind Doctor
If you really love when the doctors on The Pitt have to figure out a medical mystery, check out The Mind Doctor. The podcast offers up compelling, twisty medical mystery stories that are based on actual experiences and cases. Basically, if you wish The Pitt would bring Dr. Gregory House on staff, this is the podcast for you (also, Noah Wyle, get on that idea, it’s genius).
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