Now that Season 1 has ended, some of our questions have been answered, but we still have a long list of others we desperately want addressed: Who killed Travis? Who died in the pit? What happened to Shauna’s pregnancy? And are these Canadian woods haunted by something supernatural, or is everyone super sleep-deprived and undernourished enough to be simply imagining it? When they’re not, that is, tripping on mushrooms. You might also be wondering how on earth you will pass the time while waiting for Season 2, but fear not! The good thing about finding something to entertain you after Yellowjackets is that, given what a fun mash-up of genres it is, there’s plenty of other movies and TV shows—and even some fantastic YA novels, if that’s your thing—to scratch that it. Take a look at our picks below for 20 films, series and books to check out after Yellowjackets Season 1.
What to watch after Yellowjackets
Lost
The six-season drama about survivors aboard the downed Oceanic Flight 815 was a multi-faceted mystery wrapped in a supernatural enigma and buried deep down inside a series of underground bunkers with science labs and… seriously, what is going on? The strangers who boarded the flight in Sydney, Australia, turn out to have unexpected connections to one another, revealed piecemeal in flashbacks (and later, flash-forwards). Every revealed secret spawns more questions and mysteries, not least about the bizarre, paranormally sinister island they’re stranded on. It’s impossible to discount the grip Lost had on pop culture from 2004-2010 and how it’s become the gold standard by which we now measure all other slow-burn supernatural mysteries. It’s well worth watching for anyone missing Yellowjackets’ character explorations and deep dark intricately overlapping mysteries.
The Wilds
Wolf Like Me
This brand-new, under-the-radar series (available to stream now on Peacock) is one of those shows where, the less you know going into it, the better, but: Josh Gad and Isla Fisher star as a pair of forty-ish lonelyhearts who meet in a star-crossed way and struggle to figure out how to be in one another’s lives without, shall we say, supernatural forces getting in the way. It’s kind of like if the circa-2021 characters in Yellowjackets were dealing with those dark, mystical compulsions from the wilderness, except out in the real world.
Pretty Little Liars
Loosely based on the book series written by Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars follows a clique of high school girls that breaks up after their Queen Bee, Alison, disappears. One year later the estranged best friends all start receiving notes signed with an “A,” threatening to expose all their past lies, mistakes, and confidences, things only Alison would have known. That “A” could be Alison is, of course, way too easy a solution and is eliminated as one by the end of the first episode. Pretty Little Liars lasted seven seasons and dug deep into exploring how and why teen girls can be so vicious to one another.
Heathers
If you’re looking for more backstabbing teen-girl stories, please visit the Westerberg High School clique made up of three Heathers and one Veronica. When the head Heather (KimWalker) is accidentally killed, Veronica (WinonaRyder) and her boyfriend (ChristianSlater) stage it as a suicide, which–since this Heather was so popular–triggers a school-wide suicide fad. The 1989 cult classic plays all of this as extremely camp, which makes it a good choice for those drawn to Yellowjackets’ more darkly comedic violent moments.
Mean Girls
Those who want more comedy than drama in their adolescent backstabbing should check out 2004’s Mean Girls, written by SNL alum and 30 Rock star TinaFey. Partially based on Fey’s own experiences in high school, the movie follows sweetly naive transfer student Cady Heron (LindsayLohan) as she navigates her new school’s social hierarchy, ruled by “The Plastics” clique led by Queen Bee Regina George (RachelMcAdams). Think of it as a light pink palate cleanser after all the heavy savagery of Yellowjackets.
Alive
Yellowjackets draws much from 1993’s Alive, based on a true story of a team of rugby players from Uruguay who crash in the Andes Mountains and face horrible decisions about how to survive (spoiler alert: it involves cannibalism, though in this case the victims had already frozen to death and this was treated as an absolute last resort. It plays out differently in Yellowjackets’ first episode). You can also read the book that inspired the movie, written by Piers Paul Read.
Silence of the Lambs
We can’t mention cannibalism without mentioning 1991’s Oscar-winning psychological thriller about an FBI agent (JodieFoster) and her unorthodox collaboration with an incarcerated serial killer (AnthonyHopkins) to catch another psychopath before he kills again. Hopkins is both chilling and mesmerizing as Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, and his brutal acts of violence are underscored by darkly funny moments, two beats that Yellowjackets also deftly plays together.
Lord of the Flies
WilliamGolding’s 1954 novel is the primary inspiration for so many “kids stranded in the wilderness” stories, but Lord of the Flies was a direct response to an earlier adventure story called The Coral Island, by R. M. Ballantyne. In Ballantyne’s story, three boys are shipwrecked on a South Pacific Island and have rollicking fun adventures. Golding wanted to push back against the idea that children–boys specifically, and British schoolboys in a post-war era even more specifically–would stay on their best behavior if left unsupervised. The forming of two camps, the violent turns on each other, the notion that the beasts lurking in the shadows are figments of their imaginations–all these bear similarity to tropes in Yellowjackets. In fact, co-creator Ashley Lylecame up with Yellowjackets after reading skepticism that a gender-swapped Lord of the Flies was believable: “Lyle recalled one man’s comment, which read, ‘What are they going to do? Collaborate to death?’ And she recalled what she immediately thought in response: ‘You were never a teenage girl, sir.’” It’s been adapted into numerous feature films over the decades, including one from 1990 starring BalthazarGetty and a 2018, all-female adaptation titled Ladyworld.
Who Killed Sara?
Yellowjackets boasts a number of mysteries, so if you’re looking for a more streamlined whodunit (with a heaping side of good old-fashioned revenge), check out the Mexican thriller ¿Quién mató a Sara? (Who Killed Sara?), available on Netflix. The story follows Álex Guzmán, who has just been released from an 18-year stint in prison for killing his sister, a crime he did not commit. He immediately sets out to find the real killer and to exact revenge on the family that put him in jail. This show has it all, telenovela-style: murder, intrigue, infidelity, secret identities, family drama, and more. The bad news is that after two seasons, we still don’t know who killed Sara. The good news is that after two seasons we still don’t know who killed Sara, so watch for a third season coming soon.
Only Murders in the Building
For those looking to follow the clues to a single mystery, try Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. It’s a more classic whodunit with a slightly modern spin, as three Upper West Siders who share a love of true crime podcasts band together to solve a recent murder in their apartment building (well, technically, two murders. RIP Evelyn the cat) while recording their own podcast. We give this 10-episode series extra points for being something one could binge in a day, with time to spare.
The Handmaid’s Tale
If women-centric dystopias are more your bag, look no further than MargaretAtwood’s masterful work of speculative fiction, and/or the Hulu series based on it. Set in the near-future, Atwood’s story imagines a totalitarian theocracy, the Republic of Gilead, that takes over the United States, stripping women of all basic human rights, and reducing their roles in society to breeders. As narrator Offred goes through her daily routine, we learn of the existence of an underground resistance to Gilead.
Twin Peaks
Like Lost, Twin Peaks is often referenced when writing about other far-out television shows that feel unmoored from reality, and like many other shows on this list, it boasts a central whodunit–who killed Laura Palmer?–and hits several similar themes, combining detective noir with supernatural elements and a healthy dose of soap opera melodrama.
Derry Girls
While tonally very different from Yellowjackets, Derry Girls follows a close-knit band of teen girls in the 1990s in Northern Ireland. The political unrest there is ever-present but mostly remains in the background, as a daily inconvenience rather than imminent danger. Derry Girls is sure to scratch that coming-of-age trope itch, with a hefty helping of good humor. Two seasons are available on Netflix, with a third coming soon.
The Craft
Four outcast and bullied teen girls band together to practice witchcraft as a means of gaining power over their classmates. It’ll hit that sweet spot for those looking for a supernatural dark comedy about the seductive lure and inherent dangers of power, set to a mid-90s soundtrack.
A League of Their Own
Maybe you just want a nice, feel-good sports story about a group of talented women coming into their own and bonding on their all-female baseball team, recruited to play after World War II threatens to shut down Major League Baseball. You cannot go wrong with 1992’s classic film, based on the real life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, starring Geena Davis, Madonna, Lori Petty and America’s sweetheart, Tom Hanks.
What to read after Yellowjackets
We Ride Upon Sticks
The team dynamics of the Yellowjackets, for better or worse (sorry, Allie), have their literary counterpart in QuanBerry’s 2020 novel We Ride Upon Sticks. Set in the late 80s, a field hockey team from the Salem-adjacent town of Danvers, MA takes a page from their witchy heritage and turns to dark powers to boost their playing prowess.
The Future of Another Timeline
AnnaleeNewitz’s speculative sci-fi novel doesn’t involve plane crashes or islands, but does hit the same female empowerment/riot grrl notes as Yellowjackets. In a world where time travel has existed for centuries, various activist groups are fighting with each other over a history in which HarrietTubman became a U.S. Senator, yet abortion is illegal. Some groups want to edit the timeline to secure a better future for all women; others want to remove all rights for women, Handmaid’s Tale-style. The story follows time-traveler Tess as she bops around time making both political and personal edits to the timeline, while Beth in the early 90s is struggling to reconcile her riot grrl personality with increasingly amoral friends and a volatile family life.
Beauty Queens
Looking for another story about teen girls stranded after a plane crash? Check out LibbaBray’s 2011 YA novel. Like Yellowjackets all the girls have connections to each other prior to their plane crash; unlike the Yellowjackets, they’re all rivals in a beauty pageant. The format of the book resembles the structure of a typical reality TV show, highlighting the artificial nature of such competitions and, more broadly, how Western culture expects women to look and act.
A Certain Hunger
If you have the stomach for more cannibalism (sorry), you could read Chelsea G. Summers’ debut novel A Certain Hunger. Told in first person, the story recounts the life of prominent food critic-turned-serial killer Dorothy Daniels from adolescence to the height of her career to her current stint in prison. There’s something about linking a food writer to cannibalism that we find deliciously naughty, but fair warning: many reviews of the book caution that it’s not for the easily queasy. Next, 10 of the Best Movies Starring Women in Sports
