TV Shows Like The X-Files
If you like The X-Files, 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.
FOX · Mystery · The X-Files is ended
The X-Files works because of friction. Mulder wants to believe, Scully wants proof, and the tension between those two positions generates almost every worthwhile scene in the show's run. The cases are strange, often genuinely unsettling, but the real engine is the partnership: two people who respect each other and fundamentally disagree about reality. That combination of procedural structure and paranormal weirdness, all set inside a federal agency that may or may not be hiding the truth from its own agents, gave the show a tone that was hard to replicate.
The best shows like The X-Files
1. Criminal Minds
Criminal Minds keeps the FBI setting and the sense that human beings are capable of things most people would rather not think about. The Behavioral Analysis Unit works cases by getting inside the minds of killers before they strike again, which gives the show a psychological edge that fans of The X-Files' more grounded episodes will appreciate. It lacks the paranormal element, but the procedural rigor and the team dynamics are genuinely solid.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential
Renewed100%
2. The Blacklist
The Blacklist is built around a central mystery: why did Raymond Reddington, one of the world's most wanted criminals, walk into FBI headquarters and ask to help? The show pairs him with a rookie profiler in a dynamic that has some of the same push and pull as Mulder and Scully, with one person holding information the other needs and neither fully trusting the other. Fans of The X-Files' conspiracy threads will find a lot to dig into here.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
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3. Fringe
Fringe is the closest thing to a spiritual successor The X-Files ever got. FBI Agent Olivia Dunham teams up with an eccentric, institutionalized scientist and his reluctant son to investigate cases where fringe science bleeds into something much stranger, and like The X-Files, individual episodes gradually connect to a mythology that gets bigger and more disorienting as the series goes on. If the Mulder-and-Scully dynamic and the question of what the government is not telling you were your favorite parts of the show, Fringe delivers both.
Stream on Hulu
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4. The Following
The Following trades aliens for a cult and puts a former FBI agent at the center of a case that keeps expanding in uncomfortable directions. It shares The X-Files' interest in how evil organizes itself and how investigators can get personally consumed by the cases they work. The tone is dark and the pacing is tense, which will suit fans who preferred the show's more disturbing standalone episodes.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
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5. CIA
CIA is a quieter show, but its core is a mismatched-partner dynamic that will feel familiar: a by-the-book FBI agent paired with a secretive CIA officer, working covert operations neither of them fully controls. The international and geopolitical stakes replace the paranormal, but the sense of operating inside agencies that are not entirely honest with you is very much in the same spirit as The X-Files.
Stream on fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel
Renewed100%
More on shows like The X-Files
Fans of The X-Files tend to want a few specific things when they move on. They want an investigative duo or team with real chemistry. They want cases that feel like they matter, not just week-to-week filler. Many of them want some element of a larger mythology running underneath the standalone episodes. And almost all of them want the FBI, or something close to it, as the setting. The shows here cover those bases in different combinations.
Fringe is the most direct heir. It takes the FBI-agent-meets-fringe-science premise almost literally and runs with it, adding a parallel universe arc that rewards long-term viewing. Criminal Minds and The Following trade the paranormal for psychology, focusing on how investigators read and pursue dangerous minds, which scratches the procedural itch without the supernatural element. The Blacklist is less about the cases themselves and more about a central, charismatic figure who operates in a grey area between criminal and consultant, which will feel familiar to anyone who appreciated the show's mythology-heavy episodes. CIA is the smallest and quietest of the bunch, a two-hander about mismatched partners navigating covert operations, which echoes the Mulder-Scully dynamic more than any particular plot element does.
None of these shows are The X-Files, and a couple of them have their weaknesses. Criminal Minds can feel repetitive across its long run, and The Following leans hard into darkness in ways that occasionally tip into excess. But each of them has something a fan of the source show will recognize: the sense that the official story is incomplete, and that the people tasked with finding the truth are working against odds they don't fully understand.
More shows like The X-Files
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like The X-Files?
- Criminal Minds is the most popular show similar to The X-Files in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like The X-Files still on the air?
- Of the 10 shows similar to The X-Files listed here, 2 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like The X-Files?
- 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.