NoBadPicks

Shows Like The Strain

If you loved The Strain's Sci-Fi & Fantasy and Drama storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.

Top Picks

V Wars
7.2

V Wars

2019

After a mysterious disease begins transforming people into vampires, Dr. Luther Swann is pitted against his best friend, now a powerful vampire leader.

Let the Right One In
7.1

Let the Right One In

2022

Mark and his 12-year-old daughter’s lives were changed forever 10 years earlier when she was turned into a vampire. Locked in at age 12, perhaps forever, Eleanor lives a closed-in life, able to go out only at night, while her father does his best to provide her with the minimal amount of human blood she needs to stay alive.

What We Do in the Shadows
8.0

What We Do in the Shadows

2019

A documentary-style look into the daily (or rather, nightly) lives of a group of vampires in Staten Island who have “lived” together for hundreds and hundreds of years.

True Blood
7.6

True Blood

2008

Thanks to a Japanese scientist's invention of synthetic blood, vampires have progressed overnight from legendary monsters to fellow citizens. And while humans have been safely removed from the menu, many remain apprehensive about these creatures "coming out of the coffin." Religious leaders, government officials, and vampire fundamentalists around the world have chosen their sides. But in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps, the jury is still out.

The Stand
6.8

The Stand

2020

In a world mostly wiped out by the plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil, the fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and a handful of survivors. Their worst nightmares are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.

The Walking Dead: Dead City
7.9

The Walking Dead: Dead City

2023

Maggie and Negan travel to post-apocalyptic Manhattan - long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made it a world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror.

Midnight, Texas
7.4

Midnight, Texas

2017

Welcome to a place where being normal is really quite strange. In a remote Texas town no one is who they seem. From vampires and witches to psychics and hit men, Midnight is a mysterious safe haven for those who are different. As the town members fight off outside pressures from rowdy biker gangs, ever-suspicious cops and their own dangerous pasts, they band together and form a strong and unlikely family.

The Passage
7.0

The Passage

2019

A post-apocalyptic story about a botched U.S. government experiment that turns a group of death row inmates into highly infectious vampires, and an orphan girl who might be the only person able to stop the ensuing crisis.

More Shows Like The Strain

The Originals
8.6

The Originals

2013

The Vampire Diaries spin-off that follows the Mikaelsons, a family of millennia-old, power-hungry vampires who want to reclaim the city they built, New Orleans, and dominate all those who have wronged them.

Interview with the Vampire
7.4

Interview with the Vampire

2022

A century-old vampire from New Orleans reunites with an ailing journalist to recount his life of bloodlust and his tumultuous relationship with the rakish Frenchman who turned him.

The Beauty
6.3

The Beauty

2026

The world of high fashion turns dark when international supermodels begin dying in gruesome and mysterious ways. FBI Agents Cooper Madsen and Jordan Bennett are sent to Paris to uncover the truth. As they delve deeper into the case, they uncover a sexually transmitted virus that transforms ordinary people into visions of physical perfection, but with terrifying consequences.

Z Nation
7.2

Z Nation

2014

Three years after the zombie virus has gutted the country, a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood.

You
8.0

You

2018

A dangerously charming, intensely obsessive young man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by.

The Alienist
7.5

The Alienist

2018

New York, 1896. Police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt brings together criminal psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, newspaper illustrator John Moore and secretary Sara Howard to investigate several murders of male prostitutes.

Moonlight
7.3

Moonlight

2007

Mick St. John is a captivating, charming and immortal private investigator from Los Angeles, who defies the traditional blood-sucking norms of his vampire tendencies by using his wit and powerful supernatural abilities to help the living.

Station Eleven
7.0

Station Eleven

2021

The survivors of a devastating flu attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew – while holding on to the best of what’s been lost.

FROM
8.2

FROM

2022

Unravel the mystery of a nightmarish town in middle America that traps all those who enter. As the unwilling residents fight to keep a sense of normalcy and search for a way out, they must also survive the threats of the surrounding forest – including the terrifying creatures that come out when the sun goes down.

Zoo
6.7

Zoo

2015

Set amidst a wave of violent animal attacks sweeping across the planet, a young renegade scientist is thrust into a race to unlock the mystery behind this pandemic before time runs out for animals and humans alike.

Earth Abides
7.2

Earth Abides

2024

When a plague of unprecedented virulence sweeps the globe, the human race is all but wiped out. In the aftermath, as the great machine of civilization slowly and inexorably breaks down, only a few shattered survivors remain to struggle against the slide into extinction.

Blood Ties
7.6

Blood Ties

2007

Blood Ties is a Canadian television series based on the Blood Books by Tanya Huff; the show was created by Peter Mohan. It is set in Toronto, Canada and has a similar premise to an earlier series also set in Toronto, Forever Knight, in which a vampire assists police in dealing with crime. It premiered in the United States on March 11, 2007 on Lifetime Television, and during fall of 2007 on Citytv and Space in Canada. In May 2008, Lifetime declined to renew the series.

Why These Shows Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with The Strain (2014): Sci-Fi & Fantasy and Drama themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of The Strain.

See full details for The Strain (2014)

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