Still Chasing That ‘Euphoria’ High? These Shows Fill the Void Better Than You’d Expect

Few television experiences have rattled the cultural cage quite like ‘Euphoria’. Created by Sam Levinson and based on an Israeli miniseries of the same name, the HBO drama follows a group of teenage students as they wrestle with modern sexuality, substance abuse, mental illness, love, and friendship, doing so with a visual daring and emotional rawness that most prestige television simply refuses to attempt.

‘Euphoria’ premiered on HBO on June 16, 2019, and has since become the second most-watched HBO series since 2004, sitting only behind ‘Game of Thrones’. With its third and final season now airing, the ache fans feel knowing the end is near is already palpable. The good news is that the streaming landscape is stacked with dark, layered, and deeply affecting shows for when the credits eventually roll for the last time.

The British Predecessor That Made ‘Euphoria’ Possible

No list of shows like ‘Euphoria‘ is complete without leading with ‘Skins’. Created by Jamie Brittain and Bryan Elsley, the British teen drama won numerous awards including two BAFTAs and is widely credited as a trailblazer that influenced a generation of shows dealing with thematically similar subject matter. The connection between the two series is not incidental.

‘Skins’ is notable for its raw style, which allows for more intense storytelling and out-of-the-box character choices, and while ‘Euphoria’ definitely takes after the UK series, the HBO hit doesn’t come close to its sheer audacity.

That is meant as a compliment to both. The ensemble cast of ‘Skins’ features future Hollywood stars including Nicholas Hoult, Daniel Kaluuya, Jack O’Connell, Dev Patel, and Kaya Scodelario, and the show understood how to portray delicate themes such as substance abuse, mental health issues, dysfunctional family dynamics, and sexuality without being didactic or judgmental.

The 2007 British teen drama was doing the whole “doesn’t shy away from tough subject matter” thing years before it became cool to do so, and because of the show’s structure, where each episode typically centers on one character, you get to know the teens at its center in remarkable depth. At the time of writing, ‘Skins’ is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+, with all seven seasons ready to binge.

Dark Teen Drama With a Global Flavor

Beyond British shores, ‘Elite’ on Netflix has been delivering equally intoxicating drama with a distinctly European gloss. Since 2018, ‘Elite’ has told the story of working-class students who attend a fictional elite high school in Spain called Las Encinas, following their social and romantic relationships alongside controversial issues including homosexuality, drug abuse, and parental neglect.

The show is celebrated for its intricate, interwoven plotlines and its willingness to tackle complex and often controversial themes, from sexuality and religion to class and corruption, with a constantly evolving cast of morally ambiguous characters keeping things fresh and unpredictable. Much like ‘Euphoria’, no character is ever entirely a villain or a saint, and the show weaponizes that ambiguity to devastating effect.

For those wanting a lighter but still dramatically loaded alternative, ‘Heartbreak High’ on Netflix delivers something special. Think of ‘Heartbreak High’ as ‘Euphoria’ meets ‘Sex Education’ meets ‘Mean Girls’, but with Australian accents, following teen girl Amerie who becomes a social pariah after creating a mural that exposes the secret hookups of everyone at her school.

The show takes itself less seriously than ‘Euphoria’ while tackling the same subjects of sexuality, bullying, and finding one’s identity, making it a much lighter watch for those who like their teenage drama with a hint of comedy.

HBO’s Own Gritty Young Adult TV Landscape

‘Euphoria’ did not emerge in a vacuum and HBO has cultivated an ecosystem of adult-leaning, emotionally confrontational storytelling that rewards fans looking for more of the same network’s DNA. Luca Guadagnino’s ‘We Are Who We Are’, set on an American army base in Italy, centers around two high schoolers trying to carve out their own identities, bringing Guadagnino’s signature sensory immersion to a story about belonging and self-discovery that echoes ‘Euphoria’s’ most introspective stretches.

‘Sex Education’, streaming on Netflix, remains one of the genre’s most celebrated achievements. It is anchored by a great cast of young actors with fantastic chemistry, high production values, a great soundtrack, excellent costumes, and gorgeous framing that make it one of the smartest, funniest, and most stylish entries in the teen drama canon. Where ‘Euphoria’ leans into darkness and despair, ‘Sex Education’ finds radical empathy and even optimism in the same messy adolescent terrain.

‘Mood’, the spiky British dramedy adapted from Nicôle Lecky’s one-woman play Superhoe, follows a struggling young musician whose introduction to an influencer’s glossy lifestyle changes everything, and the attention it pays to exploring influencer culture in all of its unfiltered darkness puts it in close conversation with ‘Euphoria’. It is one of the more underseen gems on this list and deserves far more attention than it receives.

What Makes ‘Euphoria’ Irreplaceable, and Why That Matters

Part of what makes finding a true substitute for ‘Euphoria’ so difficult is the specific alchemy the show achieved through performance. Zendaya, who stars as Rue, has earned two Primetime Emmys for Best Actress in a Drama Series, making her the youngest double winner in the category’s history and the first Black woman to win it twice. That kind of once-in-a-generation performance is nearly impossible to replicate.

With the series widely rumored to be ending after its third season, the show’s final chapter has arrived more than four years after season two premiered, and it picks up five years later with Rue, Cassie, Nate, Jules, and Maddy navigating the chaos of young adulthood rather than high school hallways.

Creator Sam Levinson has described the new season as being about “being out of the safety net of school,” framing it as a coming-of-age story for people who are technically already grown. That thematic shift is precisely what makes this final chapter feel like a natural endpoint rather than a betrayal.

The shows on this list, from ‘Skins’ to ‘Elite’ to ‘Heartbreak High’, each capture fragments of what makes ‘Euphoria’ so singular, its visual audacity, its emotional violence, its unflinching insistence on treating young people as fully complex human beings rather than cautionary tales.

None of them are exact replacements, but together they form a pretty compelling argument that dark, beautiful, morally complicated television about youth is not going anywhere. If you have already watched ‘Euphoria’ season three’s final episodes, we would love to know which show from this list you turned to next, and whether anything even came close to filling that particular void.