With a combination of '80s nostalgia, Dungeons & Dragons monsters, Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and horror movie tropes, Stranger Things rose to fame quickly with the arrival of its first season on Netflix. With its beloved characters and storytelling, the town of Hawkins and the missing Will Byers threw fans headfirst into a mystery that kept viewers glued from Season 1 to its most recent Season 3.
With the ending of Season 3, there's nothing to do except wait for Season 4, and try to find something else to watch in the meantime. So, if you're looking for something similar to scratch that Stranger Things itch, there are many series that should give you the same thrill and emotional satisfaction.
10 Fringe: A Deeper Dive Into Scientific Experimentation
The MK-Ultra experiments, including its development into experimenting on children in an attempt to give them powers and open alternate dimensions, are a central storyline to the world of Stranger Things. Fringe takes these ideas—including LSD experiments and the scientist behind them—even deeper, providing an arch for the 'mad' scientist to atone for his sins and confront his own losses while facing the now-adult children of his experiments.
With similar themes and taking an approach to what it means to have been a part of an experiment, powers and all, Fringe takes the experiments of Stranger Things and provides an explanation and deep reasoning for them while exploring the trauma that it produces in a moving, satisfying way.
9 Locke & Key: A Group Of Kids Fight Evil
Locke and Key, based on the comic series by Joe Hill, is another Netflix original where a group of kids fights supernatural beings, only with special keys they find in their new home of Keyhouse. The Locke siblings are not only facing their grief of the loss of their father but the larger mystery of both their new home and their family legacy.
Much like Stranger Things where the kids are fighting evils the adults don't know about or believe, the Lockes are doing the same, and the horror both real and supernatural will enthrall any Stranger Things fan.
8 Raising Dion: A Mother Protects Her Son
Joyce Byers does everything to get her son, Will, back from the Upside Down, particularly in Season 1, she is the first to believe he is missing. Another series that features a mother going above and beyond to protect her son and find out the truth is Raising Dion.
The series follows Nicole, a widow whose son, Dion, develops superpowers. While trying to keep his powers a secret, and keep him safe, she is also trying to find out why he has them and how it happened.
7 Twin Peaks: A Stranger In A Strange Town
Stranger Things is largely inspired by classic films and stories of the '80s, so much so that it creates an atmosphere that hits viewers from the first moment. That same immediate atmosphere can be found in the highly influential series Twin Peaks.
While there are oddities similar to the town of Hawkins, such as dimensional travel, there are also notable characters and locations that fans of the series quote and remember to this day. It invokes a sense of nostalgia even without aiming for it, as the show itself has influenced many other television series. Psych even did an entire episode dedicated to the world of Twin Peaks.
6 The X-Files: An Influential Classic About Conspiracies & The Unusual
There's an added conspiracy and cover-up in Stranger Things, particularly after the events of Season 1. In Season 2, viewers meet Murray, a conspiracy theorist trying to expose the truth, the real truth behind Hawkins and Hawkins Lab.
For fans of Murray, there's Fox Mulder, an FBI Agent who believes in the conspiracies and the strange while his partner, Dana Scully, does not. Throughout The X-Files, a series that inspired many other series including Fringe, the pair investigates strange crimes and even stranger mysteries including cryptids and aliens, and later try to unearth government cover-ups.
5 Teen Wolf: A Small Town Facing The Supernatural
Hawkins doesn't start out as a town with strange occurrences, not until Will Byers goes missing. Once the door is opened, things escalate, including the infection caused by the Mind Flayer and the resulting possessions of citizens in town.
Beacon Hills, the town in Teen Wolf, has a history of the unusual. However, it isn't until Scott McCall is bitten by a werewolf that the unusual becomes more usual, especially as more and more threats arise and Scott and his pack must protect their town and their families, both found and given, another theme similarly explored in Stranger Things.
4 The Outsider: A Murder Mystery, A Mysterious Creature, & The World Of Stephen King
Stephen King's stories of people facing evil and particularly children facing evil—both human and other—are prominent in the world of Stranger Things. From Eleven's mysterious powers to the kids trying to defeat a monster and face their own bullies, there are plenty of references to King's works, like It and Stand By Me.
The Outsider is HBO's adaptation of a King novel of the same name. It centers on the death of a young boy in town and the investigation into his murder that yields a much darker result with a much more sinister presence of evil. The Outsider revolves more around the detective trying to solve the case and face his own trauma while fighting an evil being and solving a mystery which should prove a worthwhile watch for fans of Jim Hopper.
3 Channel Zero: A Horror Anthology
Channel Zero, on Shudder, is a horror anthology series where each season centers on its own characters and story. Based largely on CreepyPasta's, the series creates lore-heavy storylines that are sure to scare viewers. For fans of Stranger Things who like the horror aspect, Channel Zero will have audiences tense as they wait for the next moment.
Each season features various horror tropes sure to please fans. Season 1's "The Tooth Child" is just as haunting as the first appearance of the Demogorgon.
2 Nancy Drew: A Teen Detective
Stranger Things features Nancy Wheeler trying to solve her best friend's disappearance in the first season and later trying to expose Hawkins Lab in Season 2. This leads her to do some detective work with the help of Jonathan Byers that leads the pair to discover things are much darker and stranger.
Nancy Drew, a series on The CW, shares more thematically than just the same name of a central character. The teen is trying to solve a murder with her friends, much at the expense of her own personal goals, which leads her to discover a much larger and more supernatural-focused mystery.
1 Dark: A Child's Disappearance & Time Travel
Dark kicks off the same way Stranger Things does, a child goes missing, setting off a chain of events that change its ensemble cast's lives. But where Stranger Things firmly goes with inter-dimensional travel and the monsters from there, Dark dives into time travel and the sins of the past affecting the present with a science fiction focus.
Much like the town of Hawkins, the German town of Winden's cave system beneath the nuclear power plant has a tear or wormhole in it. While Dark involves specific families of the town and their connection to the wormhole, it also extends into apocalypses and altering realities, something Stranger Things touched on with the appearance of the Mind Flayer. Fans of Stranger Things will want to experience Dark and its complete connected story sure to keep viewers on edge and hitting the next episode on Netflix.