Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, Bridgerton… these are just a handful of the series that Shonda Rhimes has brought to television and streaming services. Where would we be today without her? (Not obsessing over whether Dr. Owen Hunt will ever walk again, that’s for sure!)
Since Grey’s Anatomy premiered in 2005, Shonda Rhimes and her production company Shondaland have created some of the most popular television of the past two decades. Until recently, Rhimes was the queen of network television. With Bridgerton and Inventing Anna on Netflix, she can add streaming queen to her resume.
Updated July 2022: At MovieWeb, we always strive for consistency and excellence in quality. Therefore, please enjoy this update and authoritative list of Shonda Rhimes’ television programs.
TED
Born in Chicago in 1970, Rhimes attended Dartmouth for her undergraduate degree and USC for her MFA at the School of Cinematic Arts. After grad school, Rhimes interned at Denzel Washington’s production company, worked as an office manager, and as a counselor at a job center, where she taught mentally ill and homeless people important job skills. While she was working these odd jobs, she wrote. She sold a script to New Line Cinema, which enabled her to get hired to co-write the 1999 HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. That critically acclaimed movie put Rhimes on the Hollywood map. She wrote a number of screenplays, most notably the Britney Spears movie Crossroads and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
Then, in 2003, Rhimesreflected on her days as a hospital volunteer in high school to write a project she called Grey’s Anatomy. ABC ordered the series on a pitch and set it as a mid-season replacement in 2005. By the end of its first season, Grey’s Anatomy was drawing in 20 million viewers each week.
In 2017, Rhimes signed a roughly $100 million, four-year deal with Netflix, leaving ABC/Disney(the network that launched her career) for a variety of reasons. One of most speculated-upon reasons for her departure was the time that the network she made billions for wouldn’t even give her an all-access pass to Disneyland for one day,which sealed the deal for Rhimes’ departure to the streaming giant. Let’s hammer that point home — it’s possible that ABC let Rhimes, the network’s cash cow, go because they were too cheap to comp her a $154 ticket to Disneyland.
ABC’s loss is Netflix’s (and the world’s) gain. Let’s take a look at every series from Shonda Rhimes and her Shondaland production company, ranked.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
11 Still Star-Crossed
Disney - ABC Domestic Television
Still Star-Crossed is based on the book by Melissa Taub. The series tells the tale of Rosaline Capulet and Benvolio Montague, cousins of the late Juliet and Romeo, who are set to be married against their will in order to increase their families’ power. Still Star-Crossed ran for one season of seven episodes in 2017. It was the most poorly written Shonda Rhimes show, but it provided the foundation for the much better Bridgerton a few years later with its multi-cultural period piece setting filled with romance and political intrigue.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
10 Off the Map
9 For the People
For The People ran on ABC for two seasons with 20 episodes total from March 2018 to May 2019. The courtroom drama was set in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Federal Court and followed the attorneys who handled high profile cases on both the prosecution and the defense sides. For the People was a by-the-numbers legal drama but one with surprisingly rich characters who were explored with great depth. Unfortunately, there was no real twist to set the show apart from anything else, and For the People was one of the last projects Rhimes would do for network television, the final nail in the coffin after several years of diminishing returns.
8 The Catch
The Catch ran on ABC for two short seasons from March 2016 to May 2017, with 20 episodes total. The series revolved around private investigator Alice Vaughn, who is on the hunt for the former fiancé who defrauded her, Benjamin Jones. Along the way, she discovers that he’s a con man working for a high-stakes international crime group with the FBI on his tail, and Alice might have the opportunity to get her revenge by teaming up with the FBI.
The premise and narrative of the shows was unique and fun, and it had a good sense of humor, but the casting was off-base and it became bogged down with its own twists and turns; The Catch would mark the beginning of Rhimes’ fall from grace with network television, the first of three back-to-back shows which were quickly canceled and mostly forgotten.
7 Inventing Anna
Netflix
In June 2019, Shonda Rhimes and her production company Shondaland, working with Netflix, acquired the rights to the life story of Anna Sorokin, the woman who spent years fooling the socialites of New York City into believing she was a wealthy German heiress. Rhimes and Netflix also acquired the New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler called “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People,” and developed it into Inventing Anna.
Rhimes wisely decided to keep this as a limited, nine-episode series, as opposed to the multi-year projects she so often does; any more than nine episodes and Inventing Anna would become truly infuriating and obnoxious, due to the fact that its titular character is such a disgusting human being. Inventing Anna premiered on Netflix on February 11, 2022, quickly becoming the number one show on the streaming platform. The series stars an almost unrecognizable but amazing Julia Garner (Ozark) doing an great job playing the awful titular character, and Anna Chlumsky is good as the journalist who uncovered her con.
6 How To Get Away With Murder
How To Get Away With Murder is one of Shonda Rhimes’ and Shondaland’s most successful series. Starring Viola Davis, the legal crime thriller ran for six seasons from September 2014 to May 2020. The series revolved around Davis as Annalise Keating, a lawyer and law school professor, and a group of five of her students who become involved in solving a murder.
How To Get Away With Murder aired on Thursday nights on ABC on an all Shonda Rhimes night of entertainment, alongside Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal; that’s how big Rhimes had become, that an entire night of primetime television was devoted to her production company. As Keating, Davis became the first Black woman to win the Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama Series. She also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actress and the Image Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.
5 Station 19
Station 19 is the second official spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy (after Private Practice). The show takes place in the fire station (the eponymous 19) that is located just three blocks down the street from Grace Sloan Memorial Hospital in Grey’s Anatomy’s. The heavy drama series has crossover events with its sister show, made all the easier with the casting of Dr. Ben Warren (the aforementioned Jason George), husband of Grey’s Anatomy’s Miranda Bailey. Station 19 shows the relationships between the firefighters and paramedics of Seattle Fire Department’s Station 19 in their personal and professional lives, taking the structural format and emotional intensity of Grey’s Anatomy and placing it in the fire department.
4 Private Practice
Private Practice was the first official spinoff from Grey’s Anatomy. Shonda Rhimes created and produced this series that ran for six seasons from 2007 to 2013. The vibrant show follows Dr. Addison Montgomery, the ex-wife of Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Derek Shepherd, as she leaves Seattle to join a private practice, Seaside Health & Wellness Center, in Los Angeles. The show also followed the lives of the employees of the practice played by Tim Daly, Taye Diggs, Audra McDonald, Paul Adelstein, and an excellent Amy Brenneman. Grey’s Anatomy’s Caterina Scorsone also joined the cast as a recurring character (Dr. Amy Shepherd) of Private Practice in season three and became a regular in seasons four, five, and six.
3 Bridgerton
Maybe it was the COVID-19 related lock-downs, but when Bridgerton dropped on Netflix on December 25, 2020, audiences were ready for this steamy take on the social circles of Regency era London during the season when debutantes are presented to society. Officially, 82 million households tuned in to watch Bridgerton in its first 28 days, and the show claimed the number one ranking in 76 countries on Netflix; it’s already been renewed for seasons three and four. Based on the series of books by Julia Quinn, Bridgerton is the first scripted series for Netflix under Shonda Rhimes’ deal. Unlike the novels Bridgerton is based on, the series takes place in a London society that is mixed race.
Bridgerton is like if Gossip Girl was set in early 19th-century London. Society is scandalized by a shocking newsletter of sorts from a writer known as Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews), who knows everything going on in everyone’s lives in London. The series revolves around the Bridgerton siblings, Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth, as they search for love in London society. Regé-Jean Page was the breakout star of Bridgerton, but he revealed early on he wasn’t returning for season two. While Rhimes and Shondaland produced the show, she isn’t the showrunner and has yet to write an episode; even just the Rhimes name brings success.
2 Grey’s Anatomy
ABC
Grey’s Anatomy was a mid-season replacement in the spring of 2005 and since then it’s been a cultural touchstone. Every Thursday night for the past 17 years, Dr. Meredith Grey and her revolving cast of interns, doctors, and nurses have been coming into our homes and enduring more than their fair share of tragedies along the way. Seriously, no other show in history has killed off so many of its beloved regular characters, and no television character in history has gone through so much tragedy as Meredith Grey. Ellen Pompeo plays Grey, and probably says a prayer of thanks each and every night for Grey’s Anatomy. She’s been the star of Shonda Rhimes’ breakout hit for the past 18 seasons, and earns $20 million a season ($550,000 per episode) for her role.
Grey’s Anatomy has won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series - Drama and received 38 Emmy Award nominations over the years. Pompeo, Chandra Wilson (Dr. Miranda Bailey) and James Pickens Jr. (Dr. Richard Webber) are the only three original cast members still remaining on the series, but it’s been renewed for a 19th season nonetheless.
1 Scandal
For seven seasons from April 2012 to April 2018, millions of viewers tuned in to ABC every Thursday night to watch Olivia Pope and her team of gladiators clean up the scandals and crimes of the Washington D.C. elite. Kerry Washington played Olivia Pope in Scandal, which was one of the last great ‘watercooler TV’ moments in popular culture before the era of streaming.
Week in and week out, Scandal focused on crisis management firm Olivia Pope & Associates and its staff, as well as the staff of the White House. Watching the struggles and intrigue behind President Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn), Olivia’s love interest, and the surrounding political scene in Washington DC. Scandal was must-see TV, and Olivia Pope’s collection of very chic coats were to die for. Scandal was Rhimes firing all cylinders, her mind for production operating at its zenith; the unique premise combined political thrillers with legal dramas and soap opera romance, and the excellent cast and team of writers developed wonderful characters and put them in gripping situations. It remains the coolest, sexiest, and most entertaining series Rhimes and Shondaland has done.
