The 10 Best Shows Like 'Stranger Things' You Should Watch Next
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Stranger Things, which is ending for good this fall, debuted back in 2016. Given the pace of life these days, the end of the Obama administration feels, somehow, as distant as the series' nostalgic 1980s setting. The show solidified Netflix as the streamer to beat in terms of original programming, and introduced a new generation of child stars who are all now firmly adults. The show's blend of nostalgia, horror, and small-town weirdness has been wildly influential (and endlessly copied), but its success is based, also, on its synthesis and deft reworking of deeply familiar elements. In that spirit, here are a few shows of the past and present that, in various ways, carry some of those Stranger vibes.
I Am Not Okay With This (2020)
Sophia Lillis, straight from playing Beverly Marsh in the It movies, stars as Sydney Novak, a 17-year-old living in a small town with her mother and sister. Her father recently died by suicide; she has a crush on her best friend; and all she and her mother do is argue. In the middle of all of that, she discovers that she had powers triggered by her emotions, both of which she'll need to learn to control if she wants to get her life in order. As the lead, Lillis sells the hell out of this offbeat coming-of-age story which was canceled after one season. Because of course it was. You can stream I Am Not Okay With This on Netflix.
Haven (2010 – 2015)
There are few (if any) teens here, but Haven (based on the Stephen King short story "The Colorado Kid") has got the "weird stuff goes down in a small town" vibe down pat. Emily Rose stars as Audrey Parker, an FBI Special Agent sent to the title town of Haven, Maine on a routine case. Soon, she gets drawn into “the Troubles," a series of harmful supernatural events that have recurred throughout the town’s history—and, by no coincidence, are happening again. A supernatural-case-of-the-week format gives way to a bigger mystery when Audrey comes to learn that this isn’t her first time in Haven, nor the first time she’s encountered the Troubles. Lucas Bryant and Eric Balfour co-star. You can stream Haven on Tubi, Peacock, and Prime Video.
Dark (2017 – 2020)
Dark began as a mystery involving a missing child and evolved, over its three seasons, into a wildly complex narrative: a time travel-driven story that explores dark family secrets over the course of several generations. The German import has a striking look and incredibly atmospheric feel, with an ensemble cast of teens and adults whose narratives are deftly intertwined. Especially given the title, you'd be absolutely right to assume that the tone here is quite a bit more dark than that of Stranger Things, but the shows have plenty in common, including an interest in the '80s. You can stream Dark on Netflix.
Fear Street (2021 – )
Not a series, precisely, but a series of movies that play out like a miniseries (at least initially), and that play in the retro-nostalgia horror-vibe that Stranger Things does so well. Adapted from the R. L. Stine books, Fear Street Part One: 1994 kicks off the series by introducing the town of Shadyside, which the local kids call “Shittyside,” and has a dark history of multiple murders, most of them covered up. A group of teens upsets the grave of a witch, kicking off the revival of a murderous cult. There are some legit gore and scares (it’s YA, more or less, but definitely not kids’ stuff) as Janiak pays homage to a wide range of horror movies past. The series continues with an impeccable camp slasher homage in Fear Street Part Two: 1978, and then an origin tale that brings the initial trilogy to a conclusion in Fear Street Part Three: 1666. There's a standalone fourth film, as well, and more on the way, but you're fine sticking with the initial trilogy. You can stream Fear Street Part One: 1994 on Netflix.
Tales From the Loop (2020)
A gorgeous-looking anthology (sort of), Tales From the Loop takes place in the small town of Mercer, Ohio—a town that happens to sit upon the titular Loop, a physics lab exploring mysteries for which science has no answers. Each episode offers the story of a person or family in the town impacted by the work of the Loop, in slow-burning stories about the intersection of technology and human existence. It’s based on a conceptual art book by artist Simon Stålenhag, and successfully ports over that book’s striking look and feel. It's far quieter and more meditative than something like Stranger Things, but worth your time if that's your 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) face tragedy accompanied by supernatural threats from outside of our normal space and time. That's a reasonably fair synopsis of both Stranger Things and Twin Peaks, but it also serves to obscure the massive tonal differences between the two shows. Kyle MacLachlan plays FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who arrives in the title town to investigate the murder of teenager homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). His arrival in town precipitates a (very) long night of the soul as Cooper uncovers secrets and mysteries among the town's delightfully, and often disturbingly, weird residents. You can stream Twin Peaks on Paramount+ and Mubi or buy episodes from Prime Video.
Alice in Borderland (2020 – )
The Upside Down of Stranger Things is a dark, challenging, chaotic mirror to our own reality—so imagine a similarly sinister parallel space, now with a bit more obvious structure. Video-game obsessed Arisu gets his wish, after a fashion, when he finds himself, along with a couple of friends, transported to an alternate, eerily abandoned version of Tokyo—the title’s Borderland—vividly brought to life via some clever green screen work. The three are directed to an arena and given the instructions for the game, which they’ll be playing whether they want to or not. The first competition involves a locked-room-style puzzle; if they fail, the room goes up in flames with them in it—think Ready Player One, with deadlier stakes. There are games each night, though the rules allow for winners to get time off. There are a lot of rules, actually, but the games are cleverly and sadistically constructed. You can stream Alice in Borderland on Netflix.
School Spirits (2023– )
Peyton List stars as Maddie, a teenager in small-town Wisconsin for whom her death is very much just the beginning. Stuck in a high school in the afterlife (because hell is definitely for children), she goes on a journey to solve her own murder while uncovering secrets and lies in both worlds. It all sounds a bit grim, but the show has a sense of fun about it: While Maddie does develop the ability to communicate with the living, her world is populated by ghost teens from various eras and generations, with customs, mores, and cliques having developed in ghost high school just as in our world. You can stream School Spirits on Paramount+ (the first season is also on Netflix) or buy episodes from Prime Video.
Goosebumps (2023 – )
Taking a turn off of Fear Street, we return to R.L. Stine—who is, after all, our reigning master of YA horror (his name appearing on well over 300 books). In contrast with earlier adaptations, this series ditches the episodic anthology format of the 1990s series in favor of a more anthologized teen drama, probably in direct response to the popularity of Stranger Things. The first season is set in the present (while involving a mystery from the past), so skips the nostalgic charms (and traps) of the Netflix series, finding a modern group of teens in a weird town encountering the various monsters and scares (many of them legitimately freaky). Each season shifts the focus to a new story, with a new cast of actors in their mid-20s playing teens. You can stream Goosebumps on Disney+.
Yellowjackets (2021 – )
This time-jumping survival drama is about a group of teenage girls becoming stranded in the wilderness in 1996 and doing terrible things to survive—the extent of which we only learn about via flashbacks from the present, where the events of those 19 months continue to have an impact. There are teases of the supernatural here, much of it ambiguous, but there's plenty of horror in a past that we're still seeing fleshed (ahem) out. Where Stranger Things revels in its '80s setting, Yellowjackets more cynically posits that there's a huge difference between the version of the past we talk about and the one that really happened. You can stream Yellowjackets on Paramount+ (the first two seasons are also on Netflix) or you can buy episodes from Prime Video.
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