Television series

Sense8

Name: Sense8
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller
Released: 2015
Cast: Jamie Clayton, Max Riemelt, Brian J. Smith, Tuppence Middleton, Aml Ameen

Eight strangers scattered across the planet wake up one day sharing each other's minds — thoughts, skills, senses, eventually bodies. The Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski build a globe-trotting, queer, sex-positive soap opera about empathy as survival, all sincerity and no irony. It's gorgeous, occasionally ridiculous, and asks you to feel everything loudly. Best for viewers who want big emotion and don't mind loose plotting in exchange for genuine warmth.

TVMaze rating

8.1

If you liked this

Orphan Black2013

Another identity-conspiracy thriller with a found family under threat, one extraordinary actress playing many selves, and the same scrappy, paranoid heart beating underneath the sci-fi premise.

But Grittier and more claustrophobic, without Sense8's globe-trotting scope, sensuality, or optimism.

Cloud Atlas2012

The Wachowskis' own sibling project — souls connected across centuries, maximalist emotion, and total commitment to the idea that connection outlasts the body.

But Six timelines colliding in one film ask a lot of patience, and its sentimentality can feel heavy-handed.

The OA2016

A Netflix ensemble mystery about strangers bound by trauma and possibly something beyond it, with the same willingness to swing for the fences and risk looking silly doing it.

But Even more tonally polarizing, and it was cancelled mid-story, leaving big questions permanently open.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Until the End of the World1991no page yet

Both hinge on technology or fate letting strangers inhabit each other's senses, and both treat seeing through someone else's eyes as a genuine moral act, not just a gimmick.

Wim Wenders' delirious, globe-hopping road movie about a device that lets you see through someone else's eyes — nearly three decades before Sense8, and just as sincerely convinced that shared perception could save the world.

But Almost three hours long, wildly uneven in tone, and its 90s tech-optimism now plays more quaint than prophetic.

The Umbrella Academy2019

A superpowered found-family drama with style, humor, and warmth, if you want the fun of an unlikely chosen family without quite so much philosophizing.

But Leans harder into comic-book plotting and quips than into Sense8's slow emotional intimacy.

Heroes2006no page yet

A network-era ensemble about ordinary people worldwide discovering powers and being hunted for them — earnest, sprawling, save-the-world stuff.

But Dated effects, uneven later seasons, and none of Sense8's sexual or political daring.

Dark2017

A German Netflix puzzle-box with a similarly sprawling, interconnected cast whose lives loop across time and place in ways that reward total immersion.

But Much bleaker, colder, and more demanding — little of Sense8's hope or tenderness.

Stranger Things2016

Another Netflix ensemble hit built on collective heroism against an unseen power, with the same appetite for big emotional swings.

But Kid-focused horror-adventure rather than psychic intimacy — a very different kind of connection between characters.

The Matrix1999

The Wachowskis' signature move — chosen family, awakening consciousness, resisting a system that wants everyone asleep — done as pure action-philosophy.

But Delivers its ideas through exposition and spectacle rather than character intimacy; less felt, more argued.

The 44002004no page yet

Ordinary people reappear with strange new abilities and immediately become targets of government paranoia — an earlier, scrappier take on the same fear of being hunted for what you've become.

But Early-2000s budget limits show, and it's more monster-of-the-week than serialized emotional arc.

Paprika2006

Both dramatize the vertigo of another consciousness bleeding into your own uninvited, and both use that intrusion to ask what a self even is once it's shared.

Satoshi Kon's animated fever-dream about a device that lets people enter each other's dreams, rendered in some of the most inventive, unnerving imagery animation has ever produced.

But Ninety minutes of dream logic with almost no exposition, in Japanese, and a hard left turn from Sense8's slow-burn seriality.

Push2009no page yet

Same engine — gifted people networked against their will and pursued by an organisation that wants to control or erase them — just built for a Friday night instead of a philosophy.

A gleefully trashy B-movie about psychics with specific powers being hunted across Hong Kong by a shadowy agency — the exact same premise as Sense8, stripped down to a popcorn chase.

But Thin characters, plot holes everywhere, and none of the emotional or political ambition that gives Sense8 its weight.