Combining humor, drama, and survival horror into one exhilarating package, Showtime's Yellowjackets has emerged as a distinct series despite what might have been a formulaic premise and other shows like Yellowjackets can often be genre-bending as well. Told in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, it reveals what happened to a high school girls' soccer team after their plane crashes in the Ontario wilderness, exploring the breakdown of societal norms as they struggle to survive long enough to be rescued.

Fans of Yellowjackets might want to further investigate the dissolution of civilization with the introduction of anarchy, follow gritty survivors of plane crashes on desert islands, uncover spooky plot twists, or dive into the intense emotional complexities of communal grief and trauma. There are many TV shows that are able to provide all that as fans wait for more Yellowjackets.

Dead of Summer (2016)

A Summer Horror Story

Dead of Summer was initially planned as an anthology horror series, but it did not last beyond the first season. It has the most in common with the teenage timeline for Yellowjackets, but it also employs the use of flashbacks to flesh out the backgrounds of its characters. The series follows a group of counselors as they prepare a summer camp. The camp, in the grand tradition of horror movies, has a violent past, but so do some of the counselors.

Each episode of the season typically gives the spotlight to a different character, fleshing them out through flashbacks to their year before becoming a camp counselor. They are eventually picked off one-by-one by a killer. The murder mystery and the dark tone of the series will be what appeals to Yellowjackets fans. While the entire cast is not populated by teenage girls, the cast is predominantly female.

The show also strives to be inclusive with gay and nonbinary characters in the series, much like Yellowjackets. While the show does not see its young cast resort to cannibalism, they are mostly cut off from the outside world while in camp and fighting for survival, and there is also a mysterious darkness at work, so it shares a lot in common with the newer series.

Nancy Drew (2019)

Classic Mystery Combines With The Supernatural

Nancy Drew is a property that has seen many iterations, mostly through novel series and computer games. After a few different adaptations for television and movies, however, a new series landed on the CW in 2019. The show was different from past versions. While most of the previous adaptations were straight-up mysteries, the new series featured mysteries of the week alongside a longer supernatural arc.

Nancy Drew takes place in a small town in New England where a teenager has decided to forego college while grieving the loss of her mother. Though she had abandoned the mystery-solving ways of her childhood, she embraces them again when she and her coworkers all become suspects in a murder mystery. Following that mystery being solved, doors to more mysteries, ghost stories, and local lore are all opened in town.

This show is for those Yellowjackets fans who are intrigued by the more supernatural aspects of the series. While the show makes nods to classic Nancy Drew, it is decidedly modern, changing up the dynamics of Nancy (Kennedy McMann) and her friend-group, introducing love stories that go beyond the grave, and weaving a very interesting mythology for the show. The pieces of the lore are slowly built over the course of four seasons, much like that of Yellowjackets has been slowly building throughout its run.

Station Eleven (2021)

An Apocalyptic Setting Meets A Mystery Cult

Station Eleven is inspired by the 2014 novel of the same name, and it has a very unique premise. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which an illness has changed the world. The main group of characters survive by working as a traveling group of performers who mostly do Shakespeare’s works. Along their travels, they encounter a cult leader with ties to one of their own.

While Yellowjackets is not set after an apocalyptic event, the part of the show’s timeline following the crash survivors certainly feels like that sometimes. They cannot rely on technology or modern medicine to help them while they struggle to survive. That aspect is similar to the apocalyptic shows found here.

Also similar to Yellowjackets is the weaving in of a ritualistic cult. While Yellowjackets has not yet delved too far into the details of the rituals that take place in the woods, it’s clear there is a lot going on the audience has not yet seen thanks to brief flashbacks. That aspect is here in Station Eleven as well. As a bonus, Station Eleven is a miniseries, so it is also a quick binge-watch if Yellowjackets fans are interested.

The 100 (2014)

The Last Humans Struggle To Maintain Their Humanity

The 100 was developed for television at the same time the novel series of the same name was written, so while it does not have exactly the same storyline as the original novels, it does feature the same initial premise. About 100 years after Earth has been abandoned due to radiation, what is left of humanity lives in a cobbled-together space station called the Ark. Leaders opt to send 100 juvenile prisoners slated for death on their 18th birthdays to the Earth to see if it is survivable as the Ark is beginning to break down.

A prequel series was considered with a backdoor pilot airing during The 100. The series would have examined the immediate fall of Earth, but it did not move forward.

The initial seasons of the series are about those teens learning to survive on the ground and coming into with other humans who have survived the Earth’s dangerous radiation levels - Grounders. It’s those initial seasons that have a lot in common with Yellowjackets as a few of the teenagers emerge to become leaders while others devolve into chaos.

There is a plot involving cannibalism in later seasons, also involving a ritualistic fight to determine who ends up providing protein for the survivors. Like Yellowjackets in its earlier timeline, The 100 is very much about what it means to survive at all costs and whether it is possible to hold on to humanity while doing so.

Cruel Summer (2021)

An Anthology Series About Teenage Cruelty

Cruel Summer tells a different story in a different time period with a different cast in each of its two seasons. The series is presented as a mystery, going back and forth between different time periods, providing a storytelling structure very similar to Yellowjackets. While it does not feature the same supernatural elements as Yellowjackets, it does have a central mystery and it examines the possible cruelty of teenage girls.

The first season follows what happens between two very different teenage girls in the mid-90s when one of them is kidnapped and the other essentially rises to become popular and take her place (at least temporarily) in the social order. The story flashes back between the actual time of the kidnapping and the aftermath, debating whether or not the young woman who was not kidnapped knew about what was happening to the other girl and did not alert anyone.

Both shows use that narrative framing to tell their stories, but they also both examine what it means to be a teenage girl in a desperate situation and how they deal with the trauma of it.

The second season takes place in 1999 following an intense friendship between two teenage girls. Both girls become involved with the same boy and both girls also end up as suspects in his murder. Like the first season, the story goes back and forth between the past and present, similarly to Yellowjackets. Both shows use that narrative framing to tell their stories, but they also both examine what it means to be a teenage girl in a desperate situation and how they deal with the trauma of it. While the shows have very different subject matter, they follow very similar emotional beats for the audience.

Sharp Objects (2018)

A Story of Troubled Women

Sharp Objects is a miniseries adapted from the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name. It follows a woman (Amy Adams) who is a journalist and is sent to her hometown to cover the disappearance of a teenage girl and the death of one the year before. Her trip home proves to be triggering for her as she has been in and out of treatment for self-harm, and while there, her mother, her father, and several of the people in town continue to be overly critical of her efforts to get to the truth.

The story, however, goes deeper than its slow-burning murder mysteries. It examines how Adams’ character and her sister (Eliza Scanlen) are both impacted by the illness of their mother. Their own troubled actions manifest in different ways as their mother tries to control them, even as adults.

Like Yellowjackets, the focus here is firmly on the women of the story and how they handle traumatic events in their lives. It also features flashbacks to the past of the main character so that the audience can get a better understanding of her actions in the present, employing the same narrative tricks.

The Last Of Us (2023)

An Apocalyptic Event Changes Humanity

The Last Of Us is inspired by the video game franchise of the same name. While there are some differences between the show and the storyline of the games, overall, the idea of the two is the same. The Last of Us centers on Joel (Pedro Pascal) as he escorts Ellie (Bella Ramsey) from one safe zone to another in a post-apocalyptic world. The world has been infected by a zombie-like virus and Ellie might be humanity’s last hope for survival.

The struggle to survive in a hostile world is a common idea in shows like Yellowjackets. Most of the series feature extreme physical conditions for the characters, like this one. While in Yellowjackets much of the threats to the main cast seem to be psychological, there are also real physical threats of wildlife, threatening individuals, and, of course, cannibalism. The Last of Us sees a lack of trust among survivors in some instances while others bond fiercely, and that is very much in tune with Yellowjackets as well.

Severance (2022)

A Thriller With A Blank Memory

At first glance, Severance and Yellowjackets are nothing alike. Both are thrillers, but with very different subject matter. Severance also presents a very clean, almost sterile, environment for its characters, while Yellowjackets is a much more earthy and literally messy show. Severance follows the employees at a company that practices the titular procedure. The procedure involves employees working on top-secret projects to sever their personal and professional lives.

Severance has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

They undergo a procedure that allows them to do that, which means while at work, they have no knowledge of their life outside, and after leaving work, they have no knowledge of the job they do. It provides for somewhat different personalities and a big mystery for the audience. At the center of the story for Severance is Adam Scott’s character, who begins to see aspects of each life bleed into the other and mysteries surrounding him begin to unravel.

Though in Severance the characters do not know both sides of the story along with the audience, in Yellowjackets, it is the audience that is left in the dark as the show slowly reveals what happened in the past. The actual storytelling device is different, but the structure of the shows is not. It’s that mystery and the danger of it that will appeal to Yellowjackets fans as they want to know more about the cult-like company and just what everyone is up to.

The Wilds (2020)

Teenage Girls Survive The Wilds

After a plane crashes on a deserted island, a group of teenage girls en route to a young women's empowerment retreat find themselves fighting for survival. Despite their different backgrounds, they find commonalities as they work together to be rescued, unaware that they're being closely monitored as part of a devious social experiment. Much like Yellowjackets, the girls' escapades after the crash are intercut with flashbacks from their lives prior to the accident, as well as scenes being interviewed following their rescue.

The Wilds captures the visceral and complicated aspects of teenage girls' lives (with the addition of indigenous and LGBTQ+ perspectives), and because the mystery is revealed fairly early in the series, it can focus less on the why and more on how the girls' experiences change them. While Yellowjackets has a distinct focus on the mystery and thriller aspects of the series, the audience also gets to see how their experiences in the wilderness change them. Their traumas are not done with them in the present day.

Lost (2004)

An Island Has A Sweeping Mythology

After a plane crashes suddenly on a mysterious island, survivors from all walks of life struggle to survive by either forging alliances or planning betrayals, eventually realizing there might be bigger problems on the island than they think. Feelings of guilt, loss, and abandonment all set in before each person manifests their own new identity far away from the life they knew.

Fans of Yellowjackets' distinct characters, intriguing plot twists, supernatural mystery, and philosophical aspects will appreciate Lost. Its breakdown of society isn't quite as harrowing, but the circumstances are just as dire, and the deaths just as heart-achingly meaningful.

It might not focus on a set of teenagers, but the various cultures and ages of the people to survive the plane crash in Lost have similar stories and emotional journeys as the Yellowjackets team . Both shows also develop a rich lore behind the journeys of their characters. That lore adds an edge to the story, making it not just one of surviving the elements, but also surviving potentially supernatural forces.