Cross-media recommendations across film, TV, games, books & music — picked by taste.
The Good Doctor follows Shaun Murphy, a young surgeon whose autism and savant syndrome set him apart from everyone around him — socially isolated yet clinically extraordinary. At its core the show is about the tension between exceptional ability and human connection: can someone who struggles to read a room still earn the trust of colleagues, patients, and himself? If this premise pulls you in, you're drawn to stories where outsider intelligence collides with institutional scepticism, and where medicine becomes a lens for asking what it means to truly care for another person.
The Good Doctor is an American medical drama television series, a remake of the 2013 South Korean series of the same name, which aired on ABC from September 25, 2017, to May 21, 2024, lasting seven seasons and 126 episodes. The series stars Freddie Highmore as Shaun Murphy, a young surgical resident with autism at the fictional San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. Christina Chang, Richard Schiff, Will Yun Lee, Fiona Gubelmann, Paige Spara, Noah Galvin and Bria Samoné Henderson also star in the show. Nicholas Gonzalez, Antonia Thomas, Chuku Modu, Beau Garrett, Hill Harper, Tamlyn Tomita, Jasika Nicole, Osvaldo Benavides and Brandon Larracuente used to also star or had recurring roles in the show, but their characters were written out of the storyline as the series progressed. Modu reprised his role in the sixth season and became a series regular once again in the seventh season.
From the Wikipedia article The_Good_Doctor_(American_TV_series), available under CC BY-SA.
Film
The Good Doctor
A doctor whose need for respect curdles into something darker — medicine as ego rather than vocation.
Film
A Good Doctor
An emergency doctor sidelined by his own body must hand authority to an unlikely, unqualified stand-in.
Film
The Doctor
A surgeon forced to become the patient confronts the cold indifference he once practised on others.
Film
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
A cardiovascular surgeon's polished life is destabilised when an unsettling outsider insinuates himself into it.
Film
The Good Nurse
A healthcare professional risks everything to expose a colleague whose actions are killing patients.
Film
Doc Hollywood
A surgeon uprooted from his intended career must prove his worth in an unfamiliar community setting.
Book
The good doctor
Comedy sketches of life's minor tragedies set in Russia at the turn of the century.
Book
The Doctor's Reason to Stay
A guarded surgeon's distance from emotional commitment is challenged by an unexpected bond.
Book
To the Doctor
A self-sufficient country doctor finds his carefully ordered bachelor life suddenly and irrevocably disrupted.
Book
The Surgeon's Marriage
Two doctors juggling demanding careers and family life struggle to sustain connection under relentless pressure.
Book
Breakthrough!
The account of a landmark 1944 surgery traces the human determination behind a breakthrough in cardiac care.
Book
Something Special
A GP and a doctor navigate professional awkwardness and guarded feelings in a small medical community.
Series
Good Doctor
An autistic savant navigates discrimination and doubt on his way to becoming a paediatrician.
Series
Good Sam
A gifted surgeon forced to supervise her demanding former boss tests competence against ego and authority.
Series
Dr. Ken
A brilliant physician with poor bedside manner struggles to balance professional and personal good intentions.
Series
Doctors
A troubled teen guided by a compassionate mentor transforms into a street-smart neurosurgeon.
Series
Best Medicine
A blunt surgeon abandons prestige medicine for a small-town practice, struggling to fit where he does not.
Series
Good Doctor
A savant with exceptional memory but social difficulty pursues his dream of becoming a paediatric surgeon.
Start with Good Doctor (2013), the Korean series that inspired the show — it covers the same autistic-savant premise in a paediatric setting. Good Sam is another strong pick if you want hospital hierarchy drama with a gifted surgeon at its centre.
Good Doctor (2018) follows Minato Shindo, who shares savant syndrome and the same difficulty connecting with others while pursuing surgery. Doctors (2016) offers a different angle — a mentorship that reshapes an outsider into a neurosurgeon.
The show puts medical competence in direct tension with social belonging — Shaun's extraordinary gifts don't automatically earn him acceptance, which makes every small professional and personal win feel genuinely earned rather than given.