TV Shows to Watch if You Love Stranger Things

Probably the best place to start if you dig the Duffer Brothers is Wayward Pines, the Fox series on which they cut their teeth.

Produced by M.

Night Shyamalan (but don't hold that against it), the show tapped into many of the same small-town supernatural mystery tropes that Stranger Things does so well.

When FBI agent Ethan Burke heads to a small Idaho town to investigate a disappearance, he finds he's unable to leave.

Wayward Pines only lasted two seasons, and kind of lost its footing halfway through as the tone shifted from mysterious investigation to pew-pew action, but the tone and atmosphere was truly tremendous.

The twist in season one, where you learn what the strange creatures in the woods are, is classic Shyamalan, in the best possible way.

Growing up is hard enough without the sudden emergence of super powers.

Sydney Novak is a 17-year-old dealing with the loss of her father and trying to make sense of the world, when she suddenly develops telekinetic powers.

Based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman, I Am Not Okay With This  is a collaboration between the producers of Stranger Things and the director of The End of the F***ing World.

It's a must-watch for fans of quirky teen drama and superpowers.

Creepiness is not limited to the states; many have already dubbed Dark  the German Stranger Things.

At first, it might seem like your average tale of children disappearing in a small town.

But throw in a little time travel and those "missing" children living in alternate timelines, and it's very much like the Hawkins kids who find themselves lost in the Upside Down.

The first two seasons are currently streaming on Netflix right now, with a third and final season still to come.

In this French-language series, a town suddenly has an influx of "new" residents.

People who died years ago have returned in the form they inhabited shortly before their deaths.

No one knows what's going on, and despite the joy of being reunited with loved ones, it's clear something creepy is happening.

Residents new and old are trapped; the road out of town just leads you back to where you started.

An English-language version called The Returned debuted on A&E in 2015, but was cancelled after one season.

An ABC adaptation called Resurrection also ran for two seasons, but if you can handle subtitles (or speak French), the original is best.

If you love the faux '80s aesthetic in Stranger Things, you will love the very real '90s feel of The X-Files, complete with all the monster, conspiracies, and secret government facilities you could ask for.

Hulu has all nine seasons; watch the Fight the Future and I Want to Believe films on Starz. 

If you're looking for something spooky that also explores alternate worlds, check out all five seasons of Fringe.

The basic structure of the series was an X-Files-esque procedural, with a federal task force charged with monitoring incursions into our reality and containing them.

A great cast (notably John Noble in the role of his life as scientist Walter Bishop) elevated it above its inspiration from the very beginning.

The show got extra tricksy as it went on, though, with parallel-universe versions of many of the main characters adding intrigue to the complex, overarching plot.

The fifth season, which jumped us into an alternate future, might have been a bridge too far, but there are still few TV experiences like it.

Fringe is currently available to watch for free on the ad-supported IMBb TV.

Remember Sabrina the Teenage Witch? The folks at Netflix brought back the character for a far darker and spookier take.

Initially developed as a companion series for Riverdale on The CW before moving to streaming, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is inspired by the more recent, horror-focused Archie Comics.

Sabrina Spellman is a teenager stuck between her life in high school and her destiny as a witch.

She has mortal friends and a loving boyfriend, but she also has a role to play in the Dark Lord's plans for the mortal world.

Her aunts also have a heavy influence over her life choices.

Like Stranger Things, this show involves plenty of small-town adventures into the unknown, where not everything is as it appears to be.

Will Sabrina get her way and successfully navigate both worlds, or will magic ruin all her hopes of ever having a normal life again?

We all have TV shows and movies that creeped us out as kids, but it's okay, because it was all in our imagination.

In Channel Zero, that might not be the case.

The series brings to life creepypasta from the internet—terrifying stories that originated in online forums.

Each season is one self-contained story.

The first season is subtitled Candle Cove, about missing children and a creepy children's TV series.

Season two's No-End House revolves around a house of horrors tourist attraction, while the third season, Butcher's Block, is about a series of disappearances.

The fourth and final season is called The Dream Door, and it concerns a mysterious door in the basement of a house.

This SyFy original runs on Shudder, a streaming platform dedicated to horror, which is available via Amazon Prime Video as a $4.99 add-on.

Before he was the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane's most famous resident, Hannibal Lecter was just a psychiatrist and foodie trying out elaborate new dishes.

Just don't ask him for the recipe. Hannibal is not for the faint of heart; it's gory and disturbing enough that it's surprising the show made it past the NBC censors.   

However, it is a well-acted show with impressive performances from Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne, Gillian Anderson, and more.

It is also beautifully shot, with dream sequences that will remind you of the Upside Down in Stranger Things.

Stream all three seasons on Amazon.

One of the best things about Stranger Things is the honesty with which it portrayed its young characters as flawed, judgmental human beings just trying to keep their lives together as everything got weird around them.

If that's the kind of thing you dig, British TV show Misfits will give you plenty more of it.

When a bizarre freak storm hits London, people get all sorts of unusual superhuman powers, and five delinquents have to deal with the repercussions.

Although the series lost steam towards the end as cast members left, the good episodes of Misfits are funny, scary, and touching all at once.

Joe Gilgun, who also stars in Hulu's Preacher, shines as Rudy, who can split himself into a good and an evil doppelganger.

The OA follows Prairie Johnson, who returns to her family in a Michigan suburb seven years after she mysteriously vanished.

The twist here is that Prairie was blind prior to her disappearance, but now she can see.

We come to learn her story, or the story as she knows it.

There are elements of Stranger Things here, from the ragtag bunch of school kids who sometimes take bike rides at night to mysterious other dimensions reminiscent of the Upside Down.

Season two was released in March 2019 and follows Prairie into a different dimension.

Unfortunately, the series was cancelled prematurely, so if you don't like unsolved cliffhanger endings, maybe only watch the first season.

This one is a little less prestigious than some of the other shows here (it did air on the WB in the early 2000s, after all), but devotees still believe Roswell handled small-town paranoid sci-fi in a way that was ahead of its time.

The New Mexico town famous for UFOs played host to a teen drama centering on three aliens who crash-landed in 1947 and have been living among humanity.

The effects are pretty corny and the plotlines could hail from Dawson's Creek, but the high points of Roswell were quite good.

The mythology unfolded slowly throughout three seasons, leaving plenty of mysteries for viewers to puzzle over.

The show is currently streaming on Hulu, while the CW remake is available on Netflix.

Another original Netflix series from a pair of siblings, the Wachowskis' Sense8 is the polar opposite of Stranger Things in a lot of ways.

Instead of being confined to a small town of mostly white people, it takes place on a global scale with one of the most diverse sci-fi casts in recent memory.

If the human connection between Mike and Eleven is the soul of Stranger Things, that connection is what Sense8 is all about, too.

The show centers around eight seemingly random individuals who have been linked through shared psychic powers.

The gifted protagonists are then hunted by a shadowy government agency, while they psychically interact and help one another.

Although the vibe is different, it still scratches that itch for human-centered science fiction that we love.

Though the show ended sooner than it should have, you can stream both seasons and two specials on Netflix.

David Lynch's milestone 1991 series really set the tone for just about every small-town supernatural mystery that followed.

When FBI agent Dale Cooper comes to a Washington logging town to help investigate the murder of a high school girl, he's quickly drawn into the interpersonal dramas and creepy business dealings of dozens of quirky residents.

Not only was Lynch's character work exceptional, the show also featured its own extradimensional location called the Black Lodge, where you meet your "shadow self." The show is both funny and weird, and though it is very much of its time, Twin Peaks holds up well today.

Despite the show's cult following, it only ran for two seasons and received a TV movie prequel before going off the air.

But Twin Peaks returned in 2017 on Showtime, 25 years after the original series ended, with many original cast members in two alongside newcomers like Laura Dern, Brett Gelman, and Trent Reznor.

You can catch up by streaming it on Hulu, CBS All Access, and Netflix, but you'll have to buy or rent Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Check out the new episodes on Showtime, which you can get for an additional $10.99 a month through Amazon Prime.

One thing that Stranger Things handled exceptionally well is that the world goes on despite bizarre occurrences.

A great example of another show that deals with this situation is HBO's The Leftovers, based on the Tom Perrotta novel.

When 2 percent of Earth's population disappears instantly with no rhyme or reason, the survivors are left behind to contend with their grief, guilt, and unresolved emotions.

The protagonist is an emotionally unstable cop (sound familiar?) who deals with losing his wife to a post-departure cult.

Amazing performances from Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon elevate this one to a top spot for us.

One of the many great things about Stranger Things is the show's epic old-school synth soundtrack, composed by Austin band Survive.

When the Duffer Brothers pitched the series to Netflix, they even used some of the group's music to sell it.

So while USA's twitchy hit Mr.

Robot doesn't share too many similarities, from an audio standpoint it's pretty close.

Composer Mac Quayle uses retro synth tones to underscore the action, with lots of drones and loops.

Soundtrack aside, Mr.

Robot is one of the best new shows of the last few years.

Rami Malek stars as a computer hacker with a few wires loose in his brain, and (without spoiling anything for you) things go from bad to worse as he becomes embroiled in a conspiracy to essentially destroy the world's entire financial system.

You can watch three seasons on Amazon.

Probably the best place to start if you dig the Duffer Brothers is Wayward Pines, the Fox series on which they cut their teeth.

Produced by M.

Night Shyamalan (but don't hold that against it), the show tapped into many of the same small-town supernatural mystery tropes that Stranger Things does so well.

When FBI agent Ethan Burke heads to a small Idaho town to investigate a disappearance, he finds he's unable to leave.

Wayward Pines only lasted two seasons, and kind of lost its footing halfway through as the tone shifted from mysterious investigation to pew-pew action, but the tone and atmosphere was truly tremendous.

The twist in season one, where you learn what the strange creatures in the woods are, is classic Shyamalan, in the best possible way.

Growing up is hard enough without the sudden emergence of super powers.

Sydney Novak is a 17-year-old dealing with the loss of her father and trying to make sense of the world, when she suddenly develops telekinetic powers.

Based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman, I Am Not Okay With This  is a collaboration between the producers of Stranger Things and the director of The End of the F***ing World.

It's a must-watch for fans of quirky teen drama and superpowers.

Creepiness is not limited to the states; many have already dubbed Dark  the German Stranger Things.

At first, it might seem like your average tale of children disappearing in a small town.

But throw in a little time travel and those "missing" children living in alternate timelines, and it's very much like the Hawkins kids who find themselves lost in the Upside Down.

The first two seasons are currently streaming on Netflix right now, with a third and final season still to come.

In this French-language series, a town suddenly has an influx of "new" residents.

People who died years ago have returned in the form they inhabited shortly before their deaths.

No one knows what's going on, and despite the joy of being reunited with loved ones, it's clear something creepy is happening.

Residents new and old are trapped; the road out of town just leads you back to where you started.

An English-language version called The Returned debuted on A&E in 2015, but was cancelled after one season.

An ABC adaptation called Resurrection also ran for two seasons, but if you can handle subtitles (or speak French), the original is best.

If you love the faux '80s aesthetic in Stranger Things, you will love the very real '90s feel of The X-Files, complete with all the monster, conspiracies, and secret government facilities you could ask for.

Hulu has all nine seasons; watch the Fight the Future and I Want to Believe films on Starz. 

If you're looking for something spooky that also explores alternate worlds, check out all five seasons of Fringe.

The basic structure of the series was an X-Files-esque procedural, with a federal task force charged with monitoring incursions into our reality and containing them.

A great cast (notably John Noble in the role of his life as scientist Walter Bishop) elevated it above its inspiration from the very beginning.

The show got extra tricksy as it went on, though, with parallel-universe versions of many of the main characters adding intrigue to the complex, overarching plot.

The fifth season, which jumped us into an alternate future, might have been a bridge too far, but there are still few TV experiences like it.

Fringe is currently available to watch for free on the ad-supported IMBb TV.

Remember Sabrina the Teenage Witch? The folks at Netflix brought back the character for a far darker and spookier take.

Initially developed as a companion series for Riverdale on The CW before moving to streaming, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is inspired by the more recent, horror-focused Archie Comics.

Sabrina Spellman is a teenager stuck between her life in high school and her destiny as a witch.

She has mortal friends and a loving boyfriend, but she also has a role to play in the Dark Lord's plans for the mortal world.

Her aunts also have a heavy influence over her life choices.

Like Stranger Things, this show involves plenty of small-town adventures into the unknown, where not everything is as it appears to be.

Will Sabrina get her way and successfully navigate both worlds, or will magic ruin all her hopes of ever having a normal life again?

We all have TV shows and movies that creeped us out as kids, but it's okay, because it was all in our imagination.

In Channel Zero, that might not be the case.

The series brings to life creepypasta from the internet—terrifying stories that originated in online forums.

Each season is one self-contained story.

The first season is subtitled Candle Cove, about missing children and a creepy children's TV series.

Season two's No-End House revolves around a house of horrors tourist attraction, while the third season, Butcher's Block, is about a series of disappearances.

The fourth and final season is called The Dream Door, and it concerns a mysterious door in the basement of a house.

This SyFy original runs on Shudder, a streaming platform dedicated to horror, which is available via Amazon Prime Video as a $4.99 add-on.

Before he was the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane's most famous resident, Hannibal Lecter was just a psychiatrist and foodie trying out elaborate new dishes.

Just don't ask him for the recipe. Hannibal is not for the faint of heart; it's gory and disturbing enough that it's surprising the show made it past the NBC censors.   

However, it is a well-acted show with impressive performances from Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne, Gillian Anderson, and more.

It is also beautifully shot, with dream sequences that will remind you of the Upside Down in Stranger Things.

Stream all three seasons on Amazon.

One of the best things about Stranger Things is the honesty with which it portrayed its young characters as flawed, judgmental human beings just trying to keep their lives together as everything got weird around them.

If that's the kind of thing you dig, British TV show Misfits will give you plenty more of it.

When a bizarre freak storm hits London, people get all sorts of unusual superhuman powers, and five delinquents have to deal with the repercussions.

Although the series lost steam towards the end as cast members left, the good episodes of Misfits are funny, scary, and touching all at once.

Joe Gilgun, who also stars in Hulu's Preacher, shines as Rudy, who can split himself into a good and an evil doppelganger.

The OA follows Prairie Johnson, who returns to her family in a Michigan suburb seven years after she mysteriously vanished.

The twist here is that Prairie was blind prior to her disappearance, but now she can see.

We come to learn her story, or the story as she knows it.

There are elements of Stranger Things here, from the ragtag bunch of school kids who sometimes take bike rides at night to mysterious other dimensions reminiscent of the Upside Down.

Season two was released in March 2019 and follows Prairie into a different dimension.

Unfortunately, the series was cancelled prematurely, so if you don't like unsolved cliffhanger endings, maybe only watch the first season.

This one is a little less prestigious than some of the other shows here (it did air on the WB in the early 2000s, after all), but devotees still believe Roswell handled small-town paranoid sci-fi in a way that was ahead of its time.

The New Mexico town famous for UFOs played host to a teen drama centering on three aliens who crash-landed in 1947 and have been living among humanity.

The effects are pretty corny and the plotlines could hail from Dawson's Creek, but the high points of Roswell were quite good.

The mythology unfolded slowly throughout three seasons, leaving plenty of mysteries for viewers to puzzle over.

The show is currently streaming on Hulu, while the CW remake is available on Netflix.

Another original Netflix series from a pair of siblings, the Wachowskis' Sense8 is the polar opposite of Stranger Things in a lot of ways.

Instead of being confined to a small town of mostly white people, it takes place on a global scale with one of the most diverse sci-fi casts in recent memory.

If the human connection between Mike and Eleven is the soul of Stranger Things, that connection is what Sense8 is all about, too.

The show centers around eight seemingly random individuals who have been linked through shared psychic powers.

The gifted protagonists are then hunted by a shadowy government agency, while they psychically interact and help one another.

Although the vibe is different, it still scratches that itch for human-centered science fiction that we love.

Though the show ended sooner than it should have, you can stream both seasons and two specials on Netflix.

David Lynch's milestone 1991 series really set the tone for just about every small-town supernatural mystery that followed.

When FBI agent Dale Cooper comes to a Washington logging town to help investigate the murder of a high school girl, he's quickly drawn into the interpersonal dramas and creepy business dealings of dozens of quirky residents.

Not only was Lynch's character work exceptional, the show also featured its own extradimensional location called the Black Lodge, where you meet your "shadow self." The show is both funny and weird, and though it is very much of its time, Twin Peaks holds up well today.

Despite the show's cult following, it only ran for two seasons and received a TV movie prequel before going off the air.

But Twin Peaks returned in 2017 on Showtime, 25 years after the original series ended, with many original cast members in two alongside newcomers like Laura Dern, Brett Gelman, and Trent Reznor.

You can catch up by streaming it on Hulu, CBS All Access, and Netflix, but you'll have to buy or rent Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Check out the new episodes on Showtime, which you can get for an additional $10.99 a month through Amazon Prime.

One thing that Stranger Things handled exceptionally well is that the world goes on despite bizarre occurrences.

A great example of another show that deals with this situation is HBO's The Leftovers, based on the Tom Perrotta novel.

When 2 percent of Earth's population disappears instantly with no rhyme or reason, the survivors are left behind to contend with their grief, guilt, and unresolved emotions.

The protagonist is an emotionally unstable cop (sound familiar?) who deals with losing his wife to a post-departure cult.

Amazing performances from Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon elevate this one to a top spot for us.

One of the many great things about Stranger Things is the show's epic old-school synth soundtrack, composed by Austin band Survive.

When the Duffer Brothers pitched the series to Netflix, they even used some of the group's music to sell it.

So while USA's twitchy hit Mr.

Robot doesn't share too many similarities, from an audio standpoint it's pretty close.

Composer Mac Quayle uses retro synth tones to underscore the action, with lots of drones and loops.

Soundtrack aside, Mr.

Robot is one of the best new shows of the last few years.

Rami Malek stars as a computer hacker with a few wires loose in his brain, and (without spoiling anything for you) things go from bad to worse as he becomes embroiled in a conspiracy to essentially destroy the world's entire financial system.

You can watch three seasons on Amazon.