Television series

Looking for Alaska

Name: Looking for Alaska
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 2019
Cast: Kristine Frøseth, Charlie Plummer, Ron Cephas Jones, Sofia Vassilieva, Denny Love

A ten-episode drama about a lonely teenager who enrolls at a boarding school and falls into the orbit of Alaska Young, a magnetic, self-destructive girl who upends everything he thought he wanted. It's Francophone romanticism colliding with American adolescence—literary, melancholic, occasionally devastating, and entirely sincere about the transformative power of being seen by the right person at the right time.

TVMaze rating

3.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a slow-burn coming-of-age story about first intense friendships and a restless kid who finds his nerve among clever, reckless classmates, and you don't mind the mood turning heavy.

Skip it if you need a plot that barrels forward; much of this is talk, lingering atmosphere and teenage restlessness, and it can feel self-indulgent for long stretches.

What it asks of you: Eight hour-long episodes that drift in loose, unhurried scenes and stay emotionally heavy, so it rewards patience and a few evenings rather than one binge.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Perks of Being a Wallflower2012

A film about outsider teenagers finding their people at school, with the same gentle literary sensibility and emotional precision. Shares the sense that a few friends can rewire your whole understanding of what living means.

But It leans harder into whimsy and indie-rock sentimentality. Some find it oversells the magic of teenage friendship, or the pacing feels slight.

Dead Poets Society1989

The archetypal story of a charismatic figure—here a teacher—who teaches a group of boys that life is meant to be seized. Same DNA: seizing the day, literary ambition, the cost of nonconformity, and the weight of absence.

But Deliberately inspirational in a way that can feel manipulative on revisit. The sentimentality is engineered; some viewers find it cloying rather than moving.

The Summer I Turned Pretty2022

A coming-of-age romance about a girl transformed by a summer away from home and a magnetic love interest. Captures that specific vertigo of sudden, all-consuming attraction and the characters who make us feel truly alive.

But Glossier and more conventionally romantic. Trades melancholy and complexity for warmth and wish-fulfillment; some will find it too light.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Looking for Alaska

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Normal People2020

Both depict the transformative power of a specific person and a specific time, examining how we are permanently altered by someone else's presence—and how that alteration can be painful even as it's necessary.

A miniseries following the intricate, electric connection between two teenagers across years and contexts. Like Looking for Alaska, it's about how one person can completely reorganize your sense of what's possible—but it tracks the relationship across time, showing how that intensity fractures, resets, and returns.

But Deliberately unglamorous; handheld camera work and minimal plot can feel repetitive. Long, intimate scenes of people just being together, which bores viewers looking for conventional drama.

13 Reasons Why2017

Another teen ensemble drama with genuine stakes and a death that reshapes everything. Explores how one person's absence can ripple through a group of friends, and the pain of unanswered questions.

But It's considerably darker and more graphic about suicide and sexual assault. The moral framework has been criticized as murky or exploitative.

Daisy Jones & the Six2023

A series about intensity, ambition, and people who burn bright. Features a charismatic protagonist who magnetizes everyone around her, and a romantic tension that underpins the whole narrative.

But It's structured as an oral history/interview show, which some find gimmicky. The pacing is fractured; it doesn't build in a traditional way.

You2018

A story about obsessive love and the fantasy we construct around another person. Like Looking for Alaska, it examines the gap between who someone is and who we need them to be—though it approaches that darkness from a much more sinister angle.

But It's a psychological thriller about stalking and murder. The darkness here isn't poetic or distant; it's intimate and toxic in ways that can feel gratuitous.

My So-Called Life1994

A cult classic about adolescent yearning and the friends who remake us. Angela's fixation on Jordan Catalano has the same quality as Pudge's obsession with Alaska—the person becomes a symbol of becoming.

But Only one season; it ends on a cliffhanger and left audiences bereft. Also distinctly of the '90s in ways that can feel dated.

Everything Sucks!2018

A comedy-drama about misfits at a high school where the film and theater kids orbit each other. Warm, funny, and genuinely about how the people we find make us feel less alone.

But It was cancelled after one season. Also more comedic than Looking for Alaska—the tone is lighter, less literary and introspective.

Ginny & Georgia2021

A series about a teenage girl finding her footing in a new town and falling into an intense friendship. Has moments of real vulnerability beneath the darker family drama.

But It's part mystery-thriller with genre elements that muddy the focus. Tonal tightrope between teen soap and dark family secrets; doesn't always land.

My Brilliant Friend2018

Both center on a charismatic, magnetic girl who rewires the protagonist's entire understanding of themselves and what they're capable of—but this one unfolds across time, showing how that influence persists and mutates.

An HBO series about two girls in 1950s Naples, tracking their intense, complicated friendship across decades. A meditation on how one person can be your entire world at seventeen, and how that bond shapes everything you become.

But It's in Italian with subtitles and has a deliberately slow, literary pace. The setting and era distance it; the neighborhood violence and poverty are visceral in ways that complicate any romanticism.

The Vanished2020

Where Looking for Alaska is about a teenager processing absence and searching for meaning, this takes that framework into adulthood and collective grief—same essential engine (how do we live after someone disappears?) told through a radically different form.

A documentary-style film following a community reckoning with sudden, inexplicable loss. Instead of following a teenage narrator, it captures how a single absence can fracture and reorganize everyone around it—told through interviews, investigation, and mounting confusion.

But It's meditative and deliberately oblique rather than narrative-driven. No easy answers; the structure resists conventional dramatic closure. Some find it frustratingly quiet.