TV Shows Like Chernobyl
If you like Chernobyl, 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.
HBO · Drama · Chernobyl is ended
Chernobyl works because it refuses to look away. The HBO miniseries takes a disaster most people know only as a word, a symbol, and turns it into something visceral and human: the bureaucrats lying to cover their failures, the scientists fighting to be heard, the firefighters and miners who walked into lethal radiation because someone had to. Its power comes from the tension between institutions built on denial and individuals who have no choice but to confront the truth. It is also beautifully constructed as a limited series, with no filler, no wheel-spinning, just five hours moving toward an ending everyone already knows.
The best shows like Chernobyl
1. The 100
Chernobyl ends with a planet scarred by radiation; The 100 starts there, a century later, asking what survives. The premise draws a direct line from the kind of catastrophe Chernobyl documents, and the show does take the consequences of a poisoned Earth seriously as a backdrop. It is a faster, more action-driven series than Chernobyl, but fans who want to stay in a world where human decisions made the planet dangerous will find the premise resonates.
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2. The Haunting of Bly Manor
The Haunting of Bly Manor shares Chernobyl's format, a tight limited series building toward revelations that were always buried in the opening scenes, and it has the same patience for atmosphere over spectacle. Where Chernobyl unearths institutional secrets, Bly Manor unearths personal ones, and the slow accumulation of dread feels familiar. Fans who appreciated Chernobyl's structural control and its sense that the past cannot stay hidden will find the same instincts at work here.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
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3. Obsession
Obsession is a significant departure from Chernobyl's world, a contemporary erotic thriller about a London surgeon's destructive infatuation rather than anything systemic or historical. The connection is thin: both shows are dramas where one act of recklessness sets off consequences that cannot be contained. Fans of Chernobyl looking for historical weight or procedural rigor should temper their expectations, but those who simply want a short, tense drama may find it a quick watch.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
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4. Patrick Melrose
Patrick Melrose is about the cost of denial, specifically what happens when trauma is buried rather than confronted, and that puts it on the same frequency as Chernobyl even though the scale is entirely personal. Both shows are about systems, one a state, one a family, that punish honesty and reward silence until the damage becomes impossible to ignore. It is also a miniseries, tightly constructed, and it earns its ending the same way Chernobyl does, by making you understand exactly what the cover-up cost.
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5. Extrapolations
Extrapolations is the closest thematic match here: a miniseries about a slow-moving man-made catastrophe that institutions understand but refuse to address, told through the lives of ordinary people caught inside it. Where Chernobyl compressed its disaster into days, Extrapolations stretches its crisis across 33 years and eight stories, which gives it a different rhythm but the same underlying argument. Fans who connected with Chernobyl's anger at bureaucratic negligence will recognize that feeling immediately.
Stream on Apple TV, Apple TV Amazon Channel
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More on shows like Chernobyl
Fans of Chernobyl tend to want the same combination of things in their next show: high dramatic stakes attached to real or plausible consequences, tight storytelling with a clear beginning and end, and characters whose decisions under pressure carry actual weight. They are not necessarily hunting for more nuclear drama or Soviet-era history, but they do want to feel that what they are watching matters. The best recommendations meet that standard on different terms.
The five shows here cover a fair range. Extrapolations is the most direct thematic relative, trading nuclear catastrophe for climate catastrophe and using the anthology format to show how a systemic crisis reshapes individual lives across decades. Patrick Melrose shares Chernobyl's interest in the long cost of institutional and personal denial, though it works on a much smaller, more interior scale. The Haunting of Bly Manor is a gothic mood piece rather than a procedural, but it shares the miniseries format and a genuine concern for grief and buried secrets. The 100 takes Chernobyl's radioactive Earth as its literal premise, imagining what comes after the kind of catastrophe the real show documents. Obsession is the odd one out, a contemporary erotic thriller with little connection to Chernobyl's themes, and fans looking for a direct follow-up may find it the hardest sell.
None of these shows are Chernobyl, and the two that come closest, Extrapolations and Patrick Melrose, do so from very different angles. But if the source show's appeal was its discipline, its refusal to sensationalize, and its sense that the truth is always more damning than the lie, there is something here worth finding.
More shows like Chernobyl
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Chernobyl?
- The 100 is the most popular show similar to Chernobyl in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Chernobyl still on the air?
- Of the 12 shows similar to Chernobyl listed here, 0 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Chernobyl?
- 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.