Television series
The Leftovers
Three years after two percent of humanity vanishes without explanation, The Leftovers refuses to explain it, focusing instead on the wreckage of grief, faith and rage left behind in one small town. Moody, elliptical, occasionally furious, it swings from grounded procedural realism to full magical-realist swoon. Prestige TV as spiritual crisis: gorgeous, exhausting, and deeply serious about heartbreak — not built to hand you answers.
If you liked this
Lost2004
Damon Lindelof's earlier ensemble mystery about survivors grappling with an inexplicable event, mixing character drama with cosmic stakes and the same fascination with fate, faith and coincidence.
But The mythology sprawls across six seasons, and the finale remains one of television's most argued-over endings.

Six Feet Under2001
Alan Ball's meditation on death and family, opening each episode with a corpse and closing with the mess the living make of grief; the same unflinching tenderness toward mortality.
But The funeral-home setting and slow-burn family dysfunction can feel relentlessly morbid before it earns its payoff.

Watchmen2019
Lindelof again, bending superhero mythology into a meditation on inherited trauma and moral reckoning, with the same appetite for structural risk and sudden tonal swerves.
But Requires patience with dense alternate history, and won't fully land if you're unfamiliar with the comic it's shadowing.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Manifest2018
Same premise engine — people vanish and reappear inexplicably, splitting families and towns — but played as network mystery-soap instead of philosophical drama, proof of how differently one idea can be dressed.
If you ever wished Leftovers would just explain the mechanics of its mystery, here's the trashy, cliffhanger-stuffed answer, complete with numerology, prophecy and a genuinely fun conspiracy engine.
But The writing is broad and the plotting soapy — none of Leftovers' interest in grief as subject rather than plot device.

More like this (8)
Rectify2013
A wrongly imprisoned man returns to a small town changed beyond recognition, in a hushed, literary drama about how a community absorbs an impossible re-entry into ordinary life.
But Extremely slow, almost meditative pacing; little happens by design, which some viewers will find punishing.

Fargo2014
Small-town order fractures under a strange, violent visitor, blending dark comedy with real dread — the same sense that ordinary people are being tested by forces bigger than themselves.
But More plot-driven and darkly comic than Leftovers' interiority; it's more interested in crime than grief.

True Detective2014
Season one's existential dread and philosophical monologues, following men undone by a case that becomes a referendum on meaning itself — the same brooding, literary ambition.
But Quality varies wildly across seasons, and its nihilism runs colder than Leftovers' aching sincerity.

Big Little Lies2017
A glossy ensemble unravels grief and secrets beneath a beautiful coastal surface, anchored by performances as raw as anything Coon or Dowd bring to Leftovers.
But Trades cosmic mystery for domestic soap; the hook is thinner than Leftovers' existential one.

Mare of Easttown2021
A grieving small town, a woman barely holding together after loss, and a slow unspooling of communal trauma under grey Pennsylvania skies.
But A more conventional whodunit structure, less interested in the metaphysical questions Leftovers keeps circling back to.

Station Eleven2021
A pandemic wipes out most of humanity, and survivors build meaning through art and memory — the same tender, mournful curiosity about what people do after the world ends.
But Gentler and more hopeful in tone; if you want Leftovers' fury and dread, this may feel too soft.

Wings of Desire1987
Decades before Leftovers used a genre premise to stage grief, Wenders used literal angels who cannot fix or explain human sorrow to ask the same question: what do you do with pain you can't cure?
A poetic, black-and-white fable about angels wandering Berlin, aching to feel human suffering rather than merely witness it — gorgeous and unlike anything mainstream TV attempts.
But Meandering and deliberately plotless; a slow art-house mood piece with none of Leftovers' narrative propulsion.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father2008
No science fiction framing here — just a real, senseless loss and the people left to make sense of it, the rawest possible version of Leftovers' central question: how do you keep living after an absence with no explanation?
One of the most emotionally overwhelming documentaries ever made, and a case study in how grief actually behaves when there's no mystery to solve — only the fact of loss.
But Nonfiction and utterly devastating; a genuine gut-punch with no genre distance to soften it.

People
Cast
Writing
- Damon LindelofCreator
- Tom PerrottaCreator
- Lila ByockStory Editor
- Nick CuseStory Editor
- Tamara P. CarterStory Editor
Production
- Albert BergerCo-Executive Producer
- Eugene KellyCo-Executive Producer
- Jacqueline HoytCo-Executive Producer
- Lesli Linka GlatterCo-Executive Producer
- Michael EllenbergCo-Executive Producer
- Mimi LederCo-Executive Producer
- Ron YerxaCo-Executive Producer
- Carly WrayCo-Producer
- John BlairCo-Producer
- Patrick SomervilleCo-Producer
- Elizabeth SarnoffConsulting Producer
- Monica BeletskyConsulting Producer
- Reza AslanConsulting Producer
- Damon LindelofExecutive Producer
- Eugene KellyExecutive Producer
- Mimi LederExecutive Producer
- Peter BergExecutive Producer
- Sarah AubreyExecutive Producer
- Tom PerrottaExecutive Producer
- Tom SpezialyExecutive Producer
- Alma KuttruffProducer
- Amanda CrittendenProducer
- Nan Bernstein FreedProducer
- Patrick MarkeyProducer
- Curtis GwinnSupervising Producer
- Jacqueline HoytSupervising Producer
- Kath LingenfelterSupervising Producer
- Patrick SomervilleSupervising Producer
Recommended by
Twin Peaks, Solaris, Lost, Rectify, Six Feet Under, Watchmen, Yellowjackets, Midnight Mass, Station Eleven, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, The OA, A Ghost Story, Angels in America, The Handmaid's Tale, Pluribus, FROM, Counterpart, Supernatural, Manifest, Carnivàle, Angel, Ghost Whisperer