Film

Extracurricular

Extracurricular treats teenage murder like extra credit: four honor-roll overachievers stalk, plan and kill with the same clinical focus they bring to AP exams. It's a slick, nihilistic B-movie thriller—glossy, fast, occasionally very funny in a mean way—more interested in cold competence than gore or scares. Good for anyone who wants their high-school horror served with a shrug instead of a shriek.

TMDb rating5.1

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Thoroughbreds2018

Two teenage girls plot a murder with the same eerie competence and near-total absence of guilt—same icy tone, same private-school gloss, but tighter and stranger.

But It's slower and stranger than a straight thriller; if you want blood and momentum, the stillness might frustrate you.

Thoroughbreds poster

Heathers1989

The original blueprint for teen-murder-as-satire—sharp, quotable, and savage about the cruelty hiding beneath high-school hierarchy, and the clear tonal ancestor of Extracurricular's dark, gleeful comedy of manners.

But The 80s slang and tone are very of-their-moment; some of the satire's edges have dulled with age.

Heathers poster

American Psycho2000

Swap the yearbook committee for Wall Street and you get the same joke: a spotless overachiever whose flawless competence is really just a mask for something monstrous underneath.

But It's more character study than plot-driven thriller, and the satire can read as celebration if you're not tuned to it.

American Psycho poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Heavenly Creatures1994

Same engine—overachieving teenagers whose competence and closeness curdle into violence—but played as true tragedy instead of stylish satire, because it actually happened.

Peter Jackson's true-crime drama about two brilliant, inseparable teenage girls whose intense bond tips into a real, notorious murder plot—gorgeous, aching, and ultimately devastating to watch.

But There's no dark comedy here at all—it's a tragedy based on fact, and it earns its heaviness rather than winking at it.

Heavenly Creatures poster
More like this (8)

Élite2018

A Spanish series built on the exact same premise—glamorous, high-achieving students with a rising body count—stretched luxuriously into a soapy, binge-friendly whodunit across multiple seasons.

But It leans hard into telenovela melodrama and keeps going long after the mystery's cleverness runs out.

Élite poster

You2018

If you liked watching the killers in Extracurricular stay one calm step ahead of everyone, this hands you a narrator just as composed, charming and quietly deranged.

But The premise repeats itself season to season, and the show sometimes seems to admire its killer more than it should.

You poster

A Simple Favor2018

A dark comedy-thriller with the same appetite for glossy, morally weightless fun—stylish, clever people doing genuinely terrible things and thoroughly enjoying themselves while doing it.

But The tone flips between camp and genuine menace so fast it can feel tonally whiplash-y.

A Simple Favor poster

Cruel Intentions1999

Privileged teenagers running elaborate manipulative schemes against each other with total composure—less murder, sure, but the same appetite for cruelty dressed up as ambition and romance.

But The stakes are social rather than lethal, so it's a much softer, campier version of the same idea.

Cruel Intentions poster

Assassination Nation2018no page yet

A louder, gorier, far more explicitly furious take on teenagers turning violent underneath the polite mask of normal, ordinary high-school life, aimed squarely at rage rather than irony.

But It's deliberately excessive and abrasive—style over restraint, and not for anyone who found Extracurricular already too much.

Dexter2006

For the long game: a methodical killer maintaining a spotless double life, procedural rhythms and workplace banter included, if you want this idea stretched luxuriously across seasons.

But It's a much longer commitment, and later seasons dilute the show's early control and confidence.

Dexter poster

Confessions2010no page yet

Shares the structural DNA—clever students, methodical plotting, adults hopelessly outpaced—but strips out every joke and replaces it with genuine devastation.

A Japanese thriller where a grieving teacher and her students trade confessions about a child's murder, each one revealing calculation and grief in equal, chilling measure.

But It's relentlessly bleak and structurally demanding, with none of Extracurricular's dark humor to soften the descent.

American Vandal2017

Same fascination with the gap between teenage performance and hidden motive, filtered through the true-crime documentary format Extracurricular's own plot could easily have inspired.

A mockumentary series that treats a dumb, trivial high-school crime with the deadpan seriousness of a true-crime doc, and somehow becomes weirdly moving about teenage motive.

But The crime itself is deliberately trivial—if you want murder, not vandalism, the joke might feel like a letdown.

American Vandal poster

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