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The X-Files poster

Shows that feel likeThe X-Files (1993–2018)

The exploits of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigate X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in the existence of aliens and the paranormal while Scully, a skeptic, is assigned to make scientific analyses of Mulder's discoveries that debunk Mulder's work and thus return him to mainstream cases.

If you loved The X-Files, the closest series we have are Sense8 (2015), American Gods (2017) and The Expanse (2015). All three share The X-Files' cerebral and dreamlike feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Project Blue Book (2019).

11 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

If The X-Files hit the spot, these will too

Sense8 poster
Sense8
2015–2018 · 2 seasons · Netflix
★ 8.2sci-fi & fantasy · dramaNetflix

Ordinary people caught in something inexplicable and hunted for it

The difference: Warm and sensual, with the paranoia backgrounded

One gunshot, one death, one moment out of time that irrevocably links eight minds in disparate parts of the world, putting them in each other's lives, each other's secrets, and in terrible danger. Ordinary people suddenly reborn as "Sensates."

American Gods poster
American Gods
2017–2021 · 3 seasons · STARZ
★ 7.6drama · mystery · sci-fi & fantasyPrime Video

Hidden powers moving through roadside America, seen in strange fragments

The difference: Hallucinatory and unhurried — mood and myth instead of case files

An ex-con becomes the traveling partner of a conman who turns out to be one of the older gods trying to recruit troops to battle the upstart deities. Based on Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel.

The Expanse poster
The Expanse
2015–2022 · 6 seasons · Syfy
★ 8.5drama · mystery · sci-fi & fantasyPrime Video

A missing-person case that unravels into something enormous and hidden

The difference: Hard sci-fi politics across the solar system, with no paranormal edge

A thriller set two hundred years in the future following the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

Project Blue Book poster
Project Blue Book
2019–2020 · 2 seasons · History
★ 7.6sci-fi & fantasy · mystery · drama

A believer and a sceptic sent out to explain away UFO sightings

The difference: Period Cold War drama, more earnest and far less eerie

A chronicle of the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book”.

Person of Interest poster
Person of Interest
2011–2016 · 5 seasons · CBS
★ 8.5action & adventure · crime · sci-fi & fantasyPrime VideoPeacock

Weekly cases stacked on top of a slow-building surveillance conspiracy

The difference: Action-forward and tech-grounded — punch-ups rather than dread

John Reese, former CIA paramilitary operative, is presumed dead and teams up with reclusive billionaire Finch to prevent violent crimes in New York City by initiating their own type of justice. With the special training that Reese has had in Covert Operations and Finch's genius software inventing mind, the two are a perfect match for the job that they have to complete. With the help of surveillance equipment, they work "outside the law" and get the right criminal behind bars. 

The Wire poster
The Wire
2002–2008 · 5 seasons · HBO
★ 9.3crime · dramaMax

Institutions protecting themselves at the expense of the truth

The difference: Social realism, and no mystery beyond the human kind

Told from the points of view of both the Baltimore homicide and narcotics detectives and their targets, the series captures a universe in which the national war on drugs has become a permanent, self-sustaining bureaucracy, and distinctions between good and evil are routinely obliterated.

Bodyguard poster
Bodyguard
2018 · 1 season · BBC One
★ 8crime · drama · war & politicsNetflix

Institutional conspiracy closing around someone who cannot trust anyone

The difference: One tight British thriller, entirely real-world

A troubled war veteran is assigned to protect a controversial politician who may be the target of a terror plot.

The Blacklist poster
The Blacklist
2013–2023 · 10 seasons · NBC
★ 7.9drama · crime · mysteryNetflix

Two agents pursuing a conspiracy with a mythology behind every case

The difference: Slick network thriller — no ambiguity, and much less eerie

Raymond "Red" Reddington, one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives, surrenders in person at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He claims that he and the FBI have the same interests: bringing down dangerous criminals and terrorists. In the last two decades, he's made a list of criminals and terrorists that matter the most but the FBI cannot find because it does not know they exist. Reddington calls this "The Blacklist". Reddington will co-operate, but insists that he will speak only to Elizabeth Keen, a rookie FBI profiler.

Taboo poster
Taboo
2017 · 1 season · BBC One
★ 8.3drama · mysteryPeacock

A man who knows too much, moving against forces that own everything

The difference: 1814 London, filthy and personal

Adventurer James Keziah Delaney returns to London from Africa in 1814 along with fourteen stolen diamonds to seek vengeance after the death of his father.

Criminal Minds poster
Criminal Minds
2005– · 19 seasons · CBS
★ 8.1crime · drama · mysteryPrime VideoHulu

FBI agents applying method to horrors that shouldn't be possible

The difference: Straight profiling, nothing paranormal

An elite team of FBI profilers analyze the country's most twisted criminal minds, anticipating their next moves before they strike again. The Behavioral Analysis Unit's most experienced agent is David Rossi, a founding member of the BAU who returns to help the team solve new cases.

The Night Agent poster
The Night Agent
2023– · 4 seasons · Netflix
★ 7.4action & adventure · drama · mysteryNetflix

Both are working the same pair: fbi, conspiracy

The difference: Trades the ideas of The X-Files for an angle of its own

Brought together by a midnight phone call, an FBI agent and a cybersecurity expert must unravel an ever-growing web of political conspiracies.

Prison Break poster
Prison Break
2005–2017 · 5 seasons · FOX
★ 8.3action & adventure · crime · dramaHulu

Common ground: conspiracy

The difference: Takes it somewhere less twisty than The X-Files does

Due to a political conspiracy, an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother, who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out, from the inside out.

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The best-reviewed series that share The X-Files’ defining feeling.