What to read, watch, and listen to if you lovedSouthtown
Rick Riordan · Book · 2004
If you loved Southtown, start with S-Town (Serial Productions, 2024) — a podcast on the same thread. Below: 4 films, 4 series and 1 podcast, each matched to Southtown across media.
If you loved Southtown, you will appreciate how these stories use gritty, local mysteries to expose the rot beneath suburban surfaces.
Films on the same thread
Knives Out
Rian Johnson · Film · 2019
Explores: Family Secrets, Wealth and Privilege, Inheritance.
Much like the private investigator work in Southtown, this mystery relies on uncovering the dark, hidden secrets of an insular family to dismantle their facade of wealth and privilege.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson · Film · 2025
Explores: Class Conflict, Deception, Moral Ambiguity.
This story mirrors the small-town corruption found in Southtown, challenging you to navigate a web of deception where the local setting hides impossible truths and deep moral ambiguity.
Brick
Rian Johnson · Film · 2006
Explores: Teenage angst, Underworld, Femme Fatale.
You will recognize the same hard-boiled intensity from Southtown in this neo-noir, which forces an outsider to infiltrate a dangerous criminal underworld to solve a personal disappearance.
Mystic River
Clint Eastwood · Film · 2003
Explores: Childhood Trauma, Vigilante Justice, Guilt and Redemption.
If the weight of past trauma in Southtown resonated with you, this film offers a similarly haunting exploration of how childhood history inevitably shatters the lives of men.
Series on the same thread
South Park
Trey Parker · Series · 1997
Explores: Social Commentary, Political Satire, Child Protagonists.
While more satirical, this show captures the same claustrophobic feeling of small-town life found in Southtown, where the local environment is just as dysfunctional as the characters within it.
Mare of Easttown
Brad Ingelsby · Series · 2021
Explores: Grief, Trauma, Family Dysfunction.
This procedural echoes the gritty realism of Southtown by focusing on a detective who struggles with personal grief while trying to solve a murder in a decaying town.
Dexter: Resurrection
Clyde Phillips · Series · 2025
Explores: Father-Son Relationship, Redemption, Past Sins.
The focus on past sins and the desperate search for redemption will feel familiar to readers of Southtown, as this story tracks a man haunted by his own history.
R.J. Decker
Carl Hiaasen · Series · 2026
Explores: eccentric underworld, redemption arc, unconventional investigation.
This series mirrors the hard-boiled detective spirit of Southtown, placing an unconventional protagonist into an eccentric underworld where past secrets are the key to every strange investigation.
Podcasts on the same thread
S-Town
Serial Productions · Podcast · 2024
Explores: small-town isolation, eccentricity, social decay.
Just as Southtown explores the corruption of a community, this investigation pulls you into the social decay and isolation of a small town through a deeply personal lens.
Keep exploring
Common questions
What is the profession of the main character in Southtown?
The protagonist in Southtown is Tres Navarre. He is an English professor who has transitioned into working as a private investigator, taking on various cases such as tracking down bail jumpers and investigating adulterous spouses.
Who is the author of Southtown?
Southtown was written by Rick Riordan. He is the author who later became famous for writing the number one New York Times bestselling Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.
When was Southtown published?
Southtown was published in 2004. It features the character Tres Navarre, who balances his time between his academic career as an English professor and his professional work as a private investigator.
Is Southtown part of a series by Rick Riordan?
The source material identifies Southtown as a book written by Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It focuses on the experiences of Tres Navarre as he navigates the challenges of working as a private investigator.