TV Shows Like The OA
If you like The OA, here are 10 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
Netflix · Sci-Fi & Fantasy · The OA is cancelled
The OA caught viewers off guard because it looked like a mystery wrapped in science fiction but functioned more like a spiritual transformation story. A woman returns home with strange abilities, and the show wants you to follow her on faith alone—at least at first. She gathers a group of ordinary people and asks them to trust her completely, which means the viewer has to trust her too. That's a bold move in television, where the typical instinct is to withhold information and parcel out reveals. Instead, The OA asks you to sit with ambiguity and accept that some things might not have rational explanations.
The best shows like The OA
1. Fringe
Like The OA, Fringe builds its appeal on unexplained phenomena and asks you to trust an ensemble cast as they work through increasingly strange mysteries. Both shows develop a defined mythological framework while maintaining that sense of wonder about what might actually be possible.
Stream on Hulu
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2. La Brea
La Brea traps its characters in an incomprehensible place and forces them to survive without understanding why they're there, which mirrors The OA's focus on ordinary people suddenly caught in extraordinary circumstances. Both shows emphasize community and connection as survival tools.
Stream on Netflix, Peacock Premium, Netflix Standard with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
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3. Manifest
Manifest, like The OA, starts with an impossible event and uses it to explore what happens to people who've been touched by something they cannot explain. The show shares The OA's interest in how ordinary people respond when the world stops making sense.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
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4. The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits, as an anthology, lets you sit with a different impossible scenario each week, capturing the spirit of The OA's willingness to present the unexplained without always resolving it. Each episode can ask a fresh question about what's possible.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
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5. Torchwood
Torchwood takes the strange and treats it as part of everyday work, giving you the same sense that the inexplicable is simply part of this world's reality. Like The OA, it values character and ensemble dynamics alongside the mysteries that surround them.
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More on shows like The OA
Fans of The OA are looking for shows that do something similar: they want stories where the impossible is presented straight-faced, without apology or constant logical justification. They want ensemble casts bound by strange circumstances. They want mysteries that don't necessarily resolve into neat sci-fi explanations, where the emotional and spiritual stakes matter as much as the plot mechanics. They're comfortable with shows that are a little strange, a little hard to categorize, and that demand something from the audience besides passive consumption.
The recommendations here all traffic in mystery and the inexplicable, though in different ways. Fringe builds its own mythology around impossible events and brings a committed ensemble together to solve them, with a deliberate architecture that fans of The OA's larger mysteries will recognize. Manifest strips away explanation even further—five years vanish from the sky, and the show is interested in what that absence means to people as much as how it happened. La Brea does the spectacle version of the same thing: hundreds of people disappear into a sinkhole and have to survive in an unknowable place. Torchwood treats the strange as a job rather than a disruption, following a team that investigates the unexplained as routine work. The Outer Limits operates in anthology format, which means each episode can ask a different question about what's possible and impossible, letting you sit with that weirdness in smaller doses.
More shows like The OA
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like The OA?
- Fringe is the most popular show similar to The OA in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like The OA still on the air?
- Of the 10 shows similar to The OA listed here, 0 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like The OA?
- 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.