TV Shows Like Manifest
If you like Manifest, here are 11 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
NBC · Sci-Fi & Fantasy · Manifest is ended
Manifest works because it keeps two anxieties running at the same time. On one level it is a family drama about people who vanished and came back to find that the world moved on without them. On another level it is a mythology-heavy mystery about why it happened and what it means. The "callings," the shadowy forces, the ticking-clock threat of a death date, all feed a very specific viewer appetite: the need to believe that strange events have a pattern, and that the pattern matters. NBC ran it as a network procedural, but the audience it found treated it more like a cult puzzle box.
The best shows like Manifest
1. La Brea
La Brea is the most direct match for Manifest's core hook: a sudden, unexplained event splits a group of people from their families and deposits them somewhere they cannot explain. The split-screen structure, with survivors trying to stay alive in a strange world while those left behind scramble for answers, mirrors exactly what Manifest does with its passengers and their grieving relatives. If you liked watching two timelines converge on a shared mystery, this one scratches the same itch.
Stream on Netflix, Peacock Premium, Netflix Standard with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
Ended0%
2. The Strain
The Strain shares Manifest's setup of a small group of people who recognize that something deeply wrong is happening while authorities and the public refuse to accept it. The mystery starts with a single catastrophic arrival, much like Flight 828, and then spirals outward into a larger, older threat. It is considerably darker and more visceral than Manifest, but viewers who liked the idea of a hidden truth threatening everyone will find plenty to hold their attention.
Stream on Hulu, AMC Plus Apple TV Channel , AMC+ Amazon Channel, AMC+
Ended0%
3. Continuum
Continuum centers on a person displaced in time who has to function in an unfamiliar world while keeping the truth about herself hidden, which maps neatly onto the emotional isolation that Manifest's passengers feel after their return. The show is disciplined about its mythology and rewards close attention, much like Manifest at its best. It also has a strong procedural structure that keeps individual episodes moving even as the larger conspiracy builds.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock Premium, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
Ended0%
4. Torchwood
Torchwood is built around the idea that strange, inexplicable things happen and that most people never find out, which is the same quiet dread that runs through Manifest. The team investigating the unusual fills a similar role to the passengers piecing together their callings, people who have been pulled into a world of knowledge they cannot share with everyone around them. It is more action-oriented and occasionally playful, but the sense of operating on the edge of something vast and unknown is very familiar.
Ended0%
5. 12 Monkeys
12 Monkeys is one of the few genre shows that fully commits to its time-bending mythology and actually resolves it in a satisfying way, which will appeal to any Manifest viewer who wanted the mythology to feel airtight. Cole's mission has the same urgency as the death date storyline, a countdown with real stakes for a large group of people. The emotional core, built around relationships that keep getting tested and reshaped by time travel, gives the sci-fi mechanics the same kind of human weight that made Manifest more than just a puzzle.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, MyOutdoorTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Ended0%
More on shows like Manifest
Fans of Manifest tend to want a few specific things in their next show. A displaced-people premise, where a group is cut off from the world they knew and forced to rebuild their understanding of reality. Mysteries that feel like they are heading somewhere rather than spinning in place. And some emotional weight underneath the genre mechanics, usually in the form of family relationships being tested by impossible circumstances. They are not necessarily looking for hard science fiction; they want the feeling that something inexplicable is happening and that it is personal.
The shows collected here deliver those things in different combinations. La Brea is probably the closest structural cousin, a group of ordinary people suddenly dropped into an unknown world while their loved ones try to reach them from the outside. 12 Monkeys is the most ambitious of the bunch, a time-travel series that actually commits to its own complex mythology and pays it off. Continuum takes a similarly disciplined approach to time displacement, grounding its sci-fi premise in a strong central character. Torchwood is looser and more episodic, but it has that same appetite for the weird and the inexplicable. The Strain is the outlier tonally, leaning into horror, but it shares Manifest's interest in a small team of people who know the truth about something catastrophic that the rest of the world cannot see.
More shows like Manifest
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Manifest?
- La Brea is the most popular show similar to Manifest in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Manifest still on the air?
- Of the 11 shows similar to Manifest listed here, 0 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Manifest?
- 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.