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I’m a little worried about Ryan Murphy. He hasn’t debuted a new show in literal weeks, and Hulu’s The Shards is only his third new series this year). On the plus side, it’s as batshit (complimentary) as you might expect given the prolific producer has teamed with controversial author Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero, American Psycho) to adapt his 2023 book—part high school memoir and part serial-killer thriller. With the season (series?) finale dropping this week, here are 10 more series about rich kids behaving badly to stream next.
Pretty Little Liars (2010 – 2017)
Four one-time best friends reunite in Rosewood High School a year after the disappearance of the leader of their little clique, all having received threatening messages from the mysterious “A,” who knows everything they did last summer…and pretty much all the rest of the time. Shoplifting, parents having affairs, students hooking up with teachers—you name it, it’s happening in town, and A knows it all. After the prime suspect turns up dead, the girls are caught in the killer’s web while trying to keep their secrets hidden. If seven juicy seasons and three A’s aren’t enough for you, there are three spin-offs. Stream Pretty Little Liars on Hulu and HBO Max.
One of Us Is Lying (2021 – 2022)
Murder and mystery among rather shockingly well-dressed high schoolers? Check. This one’s based on a young adult novel from Karen M. McManus involving a group of five high schoolers who show up to detention, only to have one of them die of what at first appears to be an allergic reaction. But My Girl this is not: Seems Simon ran a blog that revealed everyone’s secrets, meaning that pretty much everyone had a motive for murder. It’s a solid, effectively twisty-turny mystery series that dovetails surprisingly well into its second season. Stream One of Us is Lying on Peacock.
Blood & Water (2020 – 2024)
This top-tier teen drama stars Ama Qamata as Puleng Khumalo, a teenage girl who’s lived her entire life in the shadow of a sister who was taken as a baby by human traffickers (Puleng’s parents still hold a birthday celebration for the sister each year). When invited to a party by popular Fikile Bhele (Khosi Ngema), a student at an elite school in Cape Town, Puleng can’t help noticing similarities to her missing sibling. Puleng transfers to the school to get to the bottom of things and uncovers plenty of juicy high school drama and family secrets along the way. The show is elevated by its unexpected dramatic heft and a multitude of queer characters and storylines. Stream Blood & Water on Netflix.
Extracurricular (2020)
Just another drama about a seemingly dull teenage overachiever providing security for a criminal sex ring by night. OK, so this one’s pretty unique, blending dark comedy and action with hints of relationship drama and, you know, the Korean sex trade. Needing some extra money, Oh Ji-soo has this specific gig when he’s not in school, but is otherwise a typical teenage doofus. His friend Gyu-ri comes from a wealthy family, but still wants in when she learns about Ji-soo’s sideline. Before long, both competitors and the police begin to circle, and life for the teens gets considerably more complicated, violent, and dangerous. Stream Extracurricular on Netflix.
Elite (2018 – 2024)
Juicy import Elite follows a group of working-class friends who earn scholarships to Las Encinas, a fictional private school that is, in the show’s universe, the most exclusive in Spain. What they find there is snobbery, mystery, murder, and lots and lots of sex (between and among characters of various sexual orientations and numerical groupings). The smart, wonderfully trashy show ran for a shocking (in our modern streaming era) eight seasons, with a couple of regional remakes. Stream Elite on Netflix.
Cruel Summer (2021 – )
When pretty, popular girl Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt) goes missing without a trace in 1993, awkward Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia) steps in to fill the gap, modeling herself after Kate by working her way into the missing girl’s social circle and getting close with her boyfriend. That’s all going great until Kate reappears two years later, accusing Jeanette of having witnessed the events around her disappearance and keeping quiet. Whoops. There’s even more going on, as the show shifts back and forth between 1993, 1994, and 1995 to slowly reveal the missing pieces. Season two takes on a different story set in 1999 and 2000, and the forthcoming third season will shake things up again. Stream Cruel Summer on Hulu.
Gossip Girl (2007 – 2012)
Teen drama at its finest and most bitchy, Gossip Girl follows the many scandals of a group of young Upper East Side socialites and hangers-on. The tangled teenage lives of Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), her best frenemy Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), scholarship kid Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), and more pretty young boys and girls are chronicled in meticulous detail by the title’s mysterious, omnipresent blogger Gossip Girl (voiced by Kristen Bell). It might seem slightly tame compared to The Shards, but the show carved a path nonetheless, scandalizing parents in the mid-aughts and hitting unhinged heights before its conclusion. (The two-season 2021 follow-up is also available on HBO Max.) Stream Gossip Girl on HBO Max and Netflix.
Bates Motel (2013 – 2017)
The tone is more insular than the glossy high school drama of The Shards, dealing primarily with pop culture’s most disturbing mother-son relationship, but there’s something very Ryan Murphy in the heightened operatic ickiness of it all. Freddie Highmore stars as Norman Bates (original author Robert Bloch having based the character on serial killer Ed Gein), with Vera Farmiga as his mother Norma (in her pre-dessicated-corpse days). Like a lot of media spun off from Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal Psycho, it’s better than it has any right to be, with compelling character development and several surprises, even if we already know more or less where it’s all heading. Stream Bates Motel on Prime Video.
Riverdale (2017 – 2023)
As utterly batshit on its own terms as The Shards (and then some), Riverdale is a wild take on the once entirely wholesome Archie comics universe, veering wildly between genres. At its outset, it’s a coming-of-age teen drama for the visible-abs set, with a murder mystery and a student-teacher sex thing going on. There’s plenty of that kind of thing before the weirder stuff comes into play, from supernatural shenanigans to alternate universes. Luckily, it knows what kind of show it is, and taking itself seriously in the face of absolutely bonkers plot twists is very much part of the fun. Steam Riverdale on Netflix.
Scream Queens (2015 – 2016)
An earlier bit of Ryan Murphy wackiness, this one is more of an overt satire—though with the over-the-top selections of the producer’s oeuvre, the line between comedy and drama is always a little thin. Here we find the all-star line-up of Emma Roberts, Ariana Grande, Billie Lourd, and Abigail Breslin as sorority sisters facing down a threatening and downright vicious dean (Jamie Lee Curtis, in a flawless bit of casting) alongside a serial killer who dresses up like their school’s Red Devil mascot, all of it tying in to some wild stuff that went on way back in 1995. Stream Scream Queens on Hulu.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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