6 Shows to Watch If You Love Ryan Murphy’s ‘Love Story’ About JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
If you’re hooked on Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, a slate of classic and recent series deliver the same 1990s glamour, New York energy and era-defining style.
Love Story traces the romance between Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr., starring Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly. The series covers the couple’s early 1990s meetings, their 1996 wedding and its cultural impact, focusing on their influence on 1990s New York style and culture — a world of understated elegance, downtown cool and high-profile social circles.
“A note that Ryan gave very early on was that he wanted the show to kind of be a showcase for ’90s minimalism,” production designer Alex DiGerlando told Curbed.
The couple married in 1996. They both died on July 16, 1999, from fatal injuries sustained in a plane crash piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr., after crashing into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The crash was caused by pilot spatial disorientation in hazy, dark conditions. Carolyn’s sister, Lauren Bessette, also died in the crash.
That commitment to capturing a specific era — its look, its mood, its relationships — is what makes each of the following recommendations a fitting companion to the series.
‘Friends’
Friends follows six friends living in New York City and aired for 10 seasons, making it one of the defining sitcoms of the decade. The connection to Love Story goes beyond the era: if you’re intrigued by Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s workplace, Calvin Klein, that’s also where Friends character Rachel Green works in later seasons.
While not officially confirmed by Friends creators, Rachel Green’s iconic ’90s fashion transformation is widely considered to be inspired by Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her style.
Friends is available on HBO Max.
‘Sex and the City’
Set in ’90s to 2000s Manhattan, “Sex and the City” centers on Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda navigating dating and fashion. The show captures a slice of New York life where style, relationships and social status intersect in ways that will feel familiar to anyone hooked on “Love Story.”
There’s a real-world connection worth noting. Carrie Bradshaw was inspired by author Candace Bushnell, who wrote the Sex and the City book and column that inspired the HBO series — and also operated in similar high-profile New York City social circles with Carolyn, although it’s unclear if they directly met or were particularly close. That overlap between the fictional world and the real social scene that Bessette-Kennedy inhabited makes this a natural companion to Murphy’s series.
Sex and the City is available on HBO Max.
‘The Nanny’
The Nanny stars Fran Drescher as Fran Fine, who becomes the nanny for a wealthy Manhattan family and develops a relationship with her widowed employer, Maxwell. The six-season show ran from 1993 to 1999 and is peak ’90s fashion — but with a twist.
If you loved the fashion in Love Story for its minimalism, you’ll appreciate The Nanny for the opposite. Fran Fine’s colorful and often animal-printed clothing represents the bold, maximalist side of ’90s style, offering a counterpoint to the sleek, pared-down look that Bessette-Kennedy championed. Together, the two shows paint a fuller picture of how diverse fashion was during that decade.
The Nanny is available on Prime Video.
‘Seinfeld’
The iconic ’90s comedy follows four single friends — Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Elaine Benes and Cosmo Kramer — dealing with daily life in New York City. Like Love Story, Seinfeld is steeped in the rhythms and textures of New York, capturing a version of the city that feels both timeless and distinctly of its era.
For viewers who appreciate the setting and cultural atmosphere of Murphy’s series, Seinfeld delivers that same sense of place from a comedic angle.
Seinfeld is available on Netflix.
‘Pam & Tommy’
For those drawn to Love Story as a dramatized look at a real-life couple navigating fame and public scrutiny, Pam & Tommy explores strikingly similar territory. The Hulu series came out in 2022 and depicts another popular ’90s romance — the tumultuous relationship between Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, portrayed by Lily James and Sebastian Stan, including the scandal involving their stolen honeymoon sex tape and their 1998 divorce.
Both Love Story and Pam & Tommy grapple with questions about celebrity, privacy and the media’s role in shaping public narratives about high-profile relationships, making them thematic companions even though the couples themselves could not have been more different.
Pam & Tommy is available on Hulu.
‘Daisy Jones & The Six’
For another semi-historical period piece with meticulous set design and nostalgia, Daisy Jones & The Six deserves a spot on the list. While it’s set in an earlier era than Love Story, it shares the same attention to capturing a moment in time — from the clothes to the music to the relationships at its center.
The series is based on the novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid and draws inspiration from the band Fleetwood Mac, particularly the relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. For viewers who responded to the production design and period detail of Murphy’s series, Daisy Jones delivers that same immersive, transportive quality.
Daisy Jones & The Six is available on Prime Video.
Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists.
