10 Best TV Shows Like Stranger Things You Should Watch
Stranger Things , which is finally ending this fall, debuted in 2016. Given the pace of our modern lives, the end of the Obama administration seems as distant as the show’s nostalgic 1980s setting. The series cemented Netflix’s position as the leading streaming service for original programming and introduced a new generation of now-adult child stars. The show’s blend of nostalgia, horror, and suburban weirdness has been hugely influential (and endlessly copied), but its success also relies on synthesizing and cleverly reworking deeply familiar elements. In that spirit, here are a few shows, past and present, that channel Stranger in different ways.
I’m not okay with this (2020)
Sophia Lillis, who played Beverly Marsh in the It films, plays Sydney Novak, a 17-year-old girl living in a small town with her mother and sister. Her father recently committed suicide; she’s in love with her best friend; and all she and her mother do is fight. In the midst of all this, she discovers that she has powers that come from her emotions, and she’ll need to learn to control both if she wants to get her life in order. As the title character, Lillis sells this unusual coming-of-age story, which was canceled after one season. Because, of course, it was. You can watch I Am Not Okay with This onNetflix .
Asylum (2010 – 2015)
There aren’t many (if any) teenagers here, but Haven (based on the Stephen King short story “The Colorado Kid”) has a “small-town weirdness” vibe. Emily Rose plays Audrey Parker, an FBI special agent sent to Haven, Maine, on a routine case. She soon finds herself caught up in “The Troubles,” a series of malevolent supernatural events that have recurred throughout the town’s history and, not coincidentally, are happening again. The “supernatural case of the week” format gives way to a bigger mystery when Audrey learns that this isn’t her first visit to Haven, nor the first time she’s encountered The Troubles. Starring Lucas Bryant and Eric Balfour, Haven is available on Tubi, Peacock , and Prime Video .
Darkness (2017 – 2020)
Dark began as a missing-child mystery and evolved over three seasons into an incredibly complex tale: a time-travel tale that explores dark family secrets across generations. The German import boasts striking visuals and a surreal atmosphere, with a cast of teenagers and adults whose stories are expertly intertwined. Especially given the title, you’d be absolutely right to assume that the tone is much darker than Stranger Things , but the shows have a lot in common, including an interest in the ’80s. You can watch Dark onNetflix .
Fear Street (2021 – )
Not a TV series, of course, but a series of films that play out like a miniseries (at least at first) and play into the retro-nostalgic horror vibe that Stranger Things does so well. Adapted from the books by R.L. Stine, Fear Street Part I: 1994 begins the series by introducing the town of Shadyside, known to the local kids as “Shittyside,” which has a dark history of multiple murders, most of which are hidden. A group of teenagers desecrate a witch’s grave, sparking the resurgence of a deadly cult. There’s some real blood and scares (this is more or less YA fiction, but definitely not kids’ fiction) as Janiak pays homage to a wide range of horror films of the past. The series continues with a pitch-perfect camp slasher in Fear Street. Fear Street Part Two: 1978, and then an origin story that wraps up the original trilogy in Fear Street Part Three: 1666. There’s also a standalone fourth film, with more on the way, but you can stick with the first trilogy. Fear Street Part One: 1994 is available onNetflix .
Tales from the Loop (2020)
A gorgeous-looking anthology (sort of), Tales From the Loop is set in the small town of Mercer, Ohio — a town that just happens to sit on the eponymous Loop, a physics lab that explores mysteries that science has no answers for. Each episode follows a person or family from a town touched by the Loop’s work, in slowly unfolding tales about the intersection of technology and human existence. It’s based on a concept art book by artist Simon Stålenhag, and successfully captures that book’s striking style and atmosphere. It’s much quieter and more meditative than something like Stranger Things , but worth your time if that’s the mood. You can stream Tales from the Loop on Prime Video .
Twin Peaks (1990–1991, 2017)
Teens and adults in a deceptively quiet small town (in the ’80s, no less) are faced with tragedy, accompanied by supernatural threats from beyond our normal space and time. It’s a fair enough synopsis for both Stranger Things and Twin Peaks , but it also serves to gloss over the vast tonal differences between the two shows. Kyle MacLachlan plays FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who arrives in the titular town to investigate the murder of teenage prom queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). His arrival in town sets off a (very) long night of the soul, as Cooper uncovers secrets and mysteries among the town’s delightfully, and often disturbingly, strange inhabitants. You can stream Twin Peaks on Paramount+ and Mubi, or buy episodes on Prime Video .
Alice in Borderland (2020 – )
The Underbelly of Stranger Things is a dark, complex, chaotic mirror of our own reality – so imagine a similarly sinister parallel space, now with a little more obvious structure. Video game-obsessed Arisu gets his wish, of sorts, when he finds himself, along with a couple of friends, transported to an alternate, eerily abandoned version of Tokyo – the Borderland of the title – vividly brought to life with some clever green-screen work. The three are directed into an arena and given instructions for a game, which they’ll be playing whether they want to or not. The first challenge is a locked-room-style puzzle; if they fail, the room catches fire with them inside – think Ready Player One , with more lethal stakes. Games take place every night, though the rules allow the winners to get a vacation. There are actually a lot of rules, but the games are cleverly and sadistically constructed. You can stream Alice in Borderland onNetflix .
School Spirits (2023–)
Peyton List plays Maddie, a small-town Wisconsin teenager for whom her death is, in fact, just the beginning. Trapped in a high school in the afterlife (because hell is definitely for kids), she sets out on a journey to solve her own murder, uncovering secrets and lies in both worlds. It all sounds a little dark, but there’s a fun element to the show: While Maddie does develop the ability to communicate with the living, her world is populated by ghost teenagers from different eras and generations, with their own customs, mores, and cliques that evolved in a ghost high school just as they did in our world. You can stream School Spirits on Paramount+ (the first season is also on Netflix) or buy episodes on Prime Video .
Goosebumps (2023–)
Taking a break from Fear Street , we return to R.L. Stine — who is, after all, our reigning master of young adult horror (his name appears in over 300 books). Unlike earlier adaptations, this series eschews the episodic anthology format of the 1990s series in favor of a more anthologized teen drama, likely in response to the popularity of Stranger Things . The first season is set in the present (though it does include a mystery from the past), so it forgoes the nostalgic delights (and pitfalls) of the Netflix series, finding a modern-day group of teens in a strange town who face a variety of monsters and fears (many of which are rightfully creepy). Each season shifts the focus to a new story, with a new cast of actors in their mid-20s playing the teens. You can stream Goosebumps on Disney+ .
Yellow Jackets (2021 – )
This time-jumping survival drama follows a group of teenage girls stranded in the wilderness in 1996, doing terrible things to survive — the extent of which we only learn through flashbacks to the present, where the events of those 19 months continue to reverberate. There are hints of the supernatural, much of it ambiguous, but there are plenty of horrors in the past that we can still see in the flesh (ahem). Where Stranger Things revels in its ’80s setting, Yellowjackets more cynically argues that there’s a vast difference between the version of the past we’re talking about and the one that actually happened. You can stream Yellowjackets on Paramount+ (the first two seasons are also onNetflix ), or you can buy episodes on Prime Video .