13 Shows Like 'Wednesday' You Should Watch Next
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Considering it began life as a series of single-panel comics, The Addams Family has shown impressive staying power. The '60s TV show became a Broadway musical and the mid-'90s movies are cult classics today, but more recently, Wednesday was a surprisingly massive, social media-fueled hit on Netflix when it debuted in 2022.
After a long wait, the show is back for its second season, reminding us that in an age when the demands of conformity are as great as they've ever been, we all crave a little misfit inspiration—and it needn't stop there. After you've binged Wednesday season two, you might find yourself craving more adventures of the proudly weird, and these 13 shows will do you proud.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018 – 2020)
This one's pretty obvious: a spooky young lady leads a series full of supernatural shenanigans that (mostly) keeps tongue planted firmly in cheek throughout. Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) is an old-school witch living in a household that’s not at all unlike the Addams family: two witchy aunts (played by Miranda Otto and Lucy Davis) alongside her warlock cousin (Chance Perdomo) and her loyal familiar, Salem the cat, all of them living their witchy lives just out of view of the local normies. At the outset of the series, Sabrina's forced to choose between signing her name in Satan’s book and becoming a full-fledged witch, or staying in high school with her human friends. Instead, she refuses to choose. Cannibalism, human sacrifice, and blood rituals abound. You can stream Sabrina on Netflix.
The Midnight Club (2022)
The Midnight Club, a Mike Flanagan series based on several different YA Christopher Pike novels, involves a group of eight terminally ill young patients at a bucolic hospice home run by a secretive and mysterious doctor (A Nightmare on Elm Street's Heather Langenkamp). Each night the kids meet secretly to share scary stories, each also promising to return from beyond the grave when their time comes. It's spooky and often moving without ever getting schmaltzy or precious. The tone is slightly more serious than that of Wednesday, but it still offers plenty of creepy fun in its extended, imaginative storytelling sequences. It was planned as more than a miniseries, so the cancellation after just one season leaves several questions unanswered. You can stream The Midnight Club on Netflix.
Legacies (2018 – 2022)
A (sorta!) standalone spin-off from the Vampire Diaries universe, Legacies follows Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), an orphan descended from bloodlines that include vampires, witches, and werewolves—meaning the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted suits her perfectly: supernatural beings of all sorts attend, and it serves as a secret haven and training ground for those with powers. It's a place where they can learn to control and/or conceal their abilities—sort of a cross between Wednesday's Nevermore Academy and Charles Xavier's School. Naturally, coming-of-age drama and teen angst abound. You can stream Legacies on Netflix or buy episodes from Prime Video.
What We Do in the Shadows (2019 – 2024)
Five vampires share a gothic, appropriately run-down Staten Island residence alongside familiar Guillermo, occasionally hatching plots to conquer humankind...but mostly content to hang out at home and get on each other's nerves. The tone is more outright comedic than Wednesday, and there's a significant flip in the premise: Where the Addams family, and Wednesday herself, are always presented as the cool kids in a world of squares, our Staten Island vampires are decidedly not. Though convinced that their powers should grant them an exalted status, they're hopelessly out of touch with the modern world and self-centered to a point of literal absurdity. What they all do have in common is that they're very much outsiders—and don't care one bit whether you like it or not. You can stream What We Do in the Shadows on Hulu or buy episodes from Prime Video.
The Munsters (1964 – 1966)
A curveball, I know, but, as much as we all adore The Addams Family, I might give The Munsters a slight edge among these two 1960s sitcoms—bearing in mind that there were two years during which you could have watched them both on different networks, and perhaps been confused to find that they were two entirely different shows (they even began and ended within weeks of one another). While The Addams Family's humor was sharper in a way that's ensured its staying power, The Munsters was the perfect parody of the sitcoms of its era, imagining the Universal monsters of old in a Leave it to Beaver-esque setting, with an impressively well-drawn cast of characters and a cast including Fred Gwynne, the wildly under-appreciated Yvonne De Carlo, and Al Lewis, with master voice actor Mel Blanc playing the family raven. You can stream The Munsters on Peacock or buy episodes from Prime Video.
Blood & Water (2020 – , )
This South African import doesn't go for dark comedy in the manner of Wednesday, but in all other regards it’s a top-tier teen drama, starring Ama Qamata as Puleng Khumalo, a teenage girl who’s lived her entire life in the shadow of a sister who was taken as a baby by human traffickers; Puleng’s parents even hold a birthday celebration for the sister each year. When invited to a party by popular Fikile Bhele (Khosi Ngema), a student at the elite Parkhurst College in Cape Town, Puleng can’t help noticing their similarities. Could this be her long-lost sister? Puleng transfers to the school to get to the bottom of things, navigating juicy school drama while uncovering family secrets. You can stream Blood & Water on Netflix.
Lockwood & Co. (2023)
In an alternate modern Britain, ghosts are an everyday occurrence, which is not to say they aren't a nuisance—their touch is deadly. Technological progress has largely ground to a halt, while ghost-hunting agencies abound and, since adults lose the ability to sense ghosts directly, kids and teens are on the front lines. Ruby Stokes (Bridgerton) plays Lucy Carlyle, an extremely sensitive listener who was cast aside when she was unfairly blamed for several deaths at her first job. With nowhere else to go, she joins up with the shady, unregulated Lockwood & Co., a two-orphan operation working outside the law. It's a solidly spooky teen drama with a fair bit of action and a beating heart in and among all of the dead people. You can stream Lockwood & Co. on Netflix.
Home Before Dark (2020 – 2021)
Having moved from Brooklyn to the a Twin Peaks-esque coastal town of Erie Harbor, preteen Hilde Lisko (Brooklynn Prince) has used her blog to report on a mysterious, little-discussed death—only to face heckling from kids her age as well as adults. It turns out that she's uncovered threads that stretch from an unsolved disappearance decades ago to the recent death of a woman linked to that earlier cold case. Though the tone is more grounded than Wednesday's (it's based on the rather incredible true story of real-life kid journalist Hilde Lysiak), neither character will be told what they can and can't do, no matter how much pressure the world puts on them to be normal. You can stream Home Before Dark on Apple TV+.
Spellbound (2023 – , )
Fifteen-year-old American Cece Parker Jones travels to Paris to join the prestigious dance school, only to discover that she's an actual witch with a family history of magic. Now, she struggles to balance dance, magic, and her desire to be a normal teenager while dealing with the Mystics, natural enemies to Cece's type of witch. It's a very solidly entertaining blend of teen drama, magical duels, and uniquely, ballet. The show is a standalone successor to the time travel-focused Find Me in Paris (also on Hulu). You can stream Spellbound on Hulu.
The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself (2022)
Winning the prize for best title on this list, Bastard Son stars Jay Lycurgo as 16-year-old Nathan Byrne, the son of a fiercely dangerous witch in a world divided between Fairborn Witches (always assumed to be good and pure) and Blood Witches (less so). He's judged for his parentage, which doesn't stop the daughter of the Fairborn leader, Annalise (Nadia Parkes) from becoming his bestie. When bodies start piling up, Nathan is assumed to have taken his father's place as the nastiest Blood witch of all. It's all teen drama and stories of self-discovery, standing apart from the crowd by being far darker and bloodier than most. You can stream The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself on Netflix.
Doom Patrol (2019 – 2023, four seasons)
Moving away from teen drama for just a moment, this uncharacteristically bold and very freaky entry in the superhero canon is a freaky delight. Based on the indescribably weird comics, it finds a group of misfits and weirdos assembled by Timothy Dalton's unhinged scientist Niles Caulder as part of an experiment he's been running for decades. Their mansion home functions a bit like a school dormitory, but for adults who have no idea how to function in the outside world. The group includes characters like the non-binary Danny the Street (a literal street), paranormal investigators the Sex Men, Imaginary Jesus, and orgasm-generating body builder Flex Mentallo. But it's also, remarkably, grounded in excellent, frequently emotional character work from the entire cast, including Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer, Michelle Gomez, Diane Guerrero, April Bowlby, and Jovian Wade. It’s also queer and sex positive, celebrating weirdness as these foul-mouthed sad sacks learn appreciate their differences. You can stream Doom Patrol on HBO Max or buy episodes from Prime Video.
Riverdale (2017 – 2023)
A wild take on the once entirely wholesome Archie comics universe, Riverdale veers wildly between genres, starting out by blending coming-of-age ten drama with a sexy murder mystery before very facing the supernatural and alternate universes (Sabrina, of teenage witch fame, even shows up later on). It's more dramatic, in many regards, than Wednesday, but it also knows what kind of show it is, and taking itself so seriously in the face of absolutely bonkers plot twists is very much comedy in and of itself, and part of the fun. You can steam Riverdale on Netflix or buy episodes from Prime Video.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 – 2003)
Well, obviously. High school is hell, posits this supernatural action classic, and you'll get no argument from me. Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Buffy Summers, the one girl in tall the world who can stop the demons, vampires, etc. Buffy just wants to be a regular teenager, which puts the end of her journey of self-acceptance in a spot closer to where Wednesday's, who's not terribly interested in "normal," begins. What they do share, though, is a blend of action, dark comedy, and coming-of-age drama. Watch it again, before the in-production reboot launches. You can stream Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Tubi and Hulu or buy episodes from Prime Video.
