TV Shows Like Bates Motel
If you like Bates Motel, here are 12 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
A&E · Drama · Bates Motel is ended
Bates Motel works because it takes the psychological darkness of Psycho and grounds it in something recognizable: the complicated, suffocating bond between a mother and son. Norma is not a background character or a victim, but the center of the story, and the question the show keeps asking is how two people who love each other can become toxic in the ways they express that love. It's a family drama with a murder thriller underneath, and what makes it effective is that you're never quite sure which one you're watching. The show doesn't have to create suspense about what Norman will become; you already know. Instead it finds its tension in the slow, inevitable way that his mother's neediness and his own psychological fragility feed into each other.
The best shows like Bates Motel
1. 56 Days
Rather than following a killer across time, this show reconstructs a doomed relationship day by day, revealing how love and violence become tangled. If you were drawn to the psychological intensity and relationship dynamics of Bates Motel, this forensic look at how a couple destroys each other will resonate.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Ended0%
3. Dexter: Original Sin
Also drama
Stream on fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel
Cancelled0%
More on shows like Bates Motel
Fans of Bates Motel tend to be drawn to shows about broken people in closed systems, where the real horror emerges not from external threats but from the weight of family history and personal damage. They want to watch characters spiral. They're interested in the psychology of what makes someone dangerous, and they understand that the most interesting criminals are not cartoon villains but people warped by love, necessity, or circumstance. They want a small town setting where everyone is entangled with everyone else, and they want the narrative to dig into why people hurt the people closest to them.
These recommendations offer variations on that core appeal. Dexter: New Blood and Dexter: Resurrection both center on a character with a hidden, dangerous nature forced into proximity with family, and both explore what happens when you cannot escape your own darkness no matter how far you run. 56 Days strips away the genre machinery and asks you to sit in the messy, violent reality of a relationship destroyed by betrayal. Run Away takes a father's love and makes it the engine of tragedy. Imperfect Women keeps the focus on how secrets fester in intimate groups and destroy from within. None of these shows offers easy answers or clean resolution. They all understand that the damage runs deep, and that knowing someone does not mean you can save them.
More shows like Bates Motel
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Bates Motel?
- 56 Days is the most popular show similar to Bates Motel in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Bates Motel still on the air?
- Of the 12 shows similar to Bates Motel listed here, 0 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Bates Motel?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.