The Fall of El Mayo is about Ismael Zambada, known as El Mayo, who helped run the Sinaloa cartel for decades. If you finished it and want to know how that world was built, these three shows tell the rest: two based closely on real events, and one that is pure drama.
Number 1
Narcos: Mexico
How the Guadalajara cartel was put together in the 1980s, and what it cost the American agent who went after it. Diego Luna plays the founder, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. This is the origin story for everything that came after, El Mayo included.
Streams on Netflix
Number 2
El Chapo
The life of Joaquín Guzmán, from a junior man in the Guadalajara cartel to the most wanted man in the world, through the escapes and the final capture. In Spanish, made with Univision, and less glossy than Narcos.
Streams on Netflix
Number 3
Queen of the South
Teresa Mendoza runs from Mexico after her boyfriend is murdered and works her way to the top of her own empire. It is fiction, based on a novel, and the most fun of the three. Alice Braga carries all five seasons.
Streams on Hulu
Streaming services are for the United States, checked 13 November 2026. Titles move between services, so check before you start.
Keep track of the one you start
ReelStack is an iPhone app that remembers which episode you are on, shows which service has every show and film, and tells you the day a new episode arrives. No account. Free for your first eight titles, then $4.99 once.
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