Shows like Wednesday are a very specific pleasure: a sardonic teen outsider, a gothic setting, a monster mystery, and a found family of misfits. Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams turned Nevermore Academy into Netflix’s biggest comedy-horror hit, and the shows below share that DNA in different proportions — some darker, some funnier, all teen-driven. Start with Wednesday itself if you want the benchmark, then explore.
The Closest Matches
Wednesday (2022) is the template: Wednesday Addams, expelled from school after school, lands at Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts, and solves a monster mystery while refusing, very entertainingly, to make friends. Tim Burton’s gothic eye and Ortega’s deadpan delivery made it a phenomenon.
The Umbrella Academy (2019) shares the misfit-family energy: 43 infants born on one day in 1989 to mothers who had not been pregnant, adopted by an eccentric billionaire, grown into a dysfunctional superhero family that keeps breaking — and saving — the timeline. Aidan Gallagher’s Number Five and Elliot Page’s Viktor anchor four seasons of gloriously weird television.
Sex Education (2019) is the lighter, warmer cousin: Asa Butterfield’s Otis runs an underground sex-therapy clinic at Moordale Secondary, with Gillian Anderson as his mother Jean and Ncuti Gatwa’s Eric stealing scenes. It is not gothic, but its teen-outsider heart and sharp comedy rhyme perfectly with Wednesday’s.
More Darkly Funny, Teen-Driven Picks
Stranger Things (2016) is the obvious next step: Hawkins, Indiana, 1983, Will Byers vanishes, and a group of kids on bikes face the Upside Down. It is more horror-adventure than comedy, but its ensemble of misfit kids and its 80s heart make it Wednesday-adjacent in the best way. Beyond that, the genre’s hall of fame includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s school-as-hellmouth, Sabrina’s witchy coming-of-age, and The Addams Family films that started it all.
Why the Formula Works
The secret is the outsider heroine — or hero — who sees the world more clearly than everyone else. Wednesday’s refusal to conform is the joke and the point: she is right about the monster, right about the adults, and wrong only about needing people. The Umbrella Academy’s siblings, Sex Education’s Otis, Stranger Things’ party — all of them are outsiders who find their people, and that arc never gets old.
The other ingredient is tone. Wednesday balances genuine scares with deadpan comedy, and the best entries here do the same: the horror makes the jokes land harder, and the jokes make the horror survivable. It is a balance few shows manage, which is why this list is shorter than most.
Where to Start Tonight
If you want the closest match, The Umbrella Academy is the pick for gothic weirdness, and Sex Education for comedy with heart. If you want the ensemble adventure, Stranger Things is the marathon. And if you have not finished Wednesday, its later seasons lean even harder into the mystery.
For the full story behind the show that defines this list, see the complete Wednesday page.
One More Reason the Misfits Win
There is a final reason this corner of television keeps growing: it lets teenagers be strange without punishing them for it. Wednesday never has to become normal to win; the Umbrella Academy’s siblings are at their best when they stop pretending to be a proper family; Sex Education’s Otis helps people precisely because he is awkward and honest about it. For viewers who felt like outsiders at school, that message lands harder than any monster reveal. The gothic setting is just the wrapping — the gift inside is permission to be weird, and to find your people anyway.
For the full story behind the show that defines this list, see the complete Wednesday page.
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