Television series

The Wilds

Name: The Wilds
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Released: 2020
Cast: Mia Healey, Reign Edwards, Shannon Berry, Sophia Taylor Ali, Jenna Clause

Ten teenage girls survive a plane crash on a deserted island and start clawing toward order, alliance and self-discovery — except the crash was arranged, and someone is watching. It splits time between the beach and the girls' messy pre-crash lives, using flashbacks to slowly explain why each of them was chosen. Glossy, soapy, and sneakily thoughtful about trauma and power.

TVMaze rating

6.9

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Lost2004

The original island-mystery ensemble: strangers stranded together, secrets doled out through flashback, and a slow-burn conspiracy about who put them there and why. The Wilds owes it a huge debt.

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Yellowjackets2021

Teen girls, a crash, a dual timeline, and buried secrets — but darker, meaner, and willing to go places The Wilds only hints at. The closest thing to a spiritual sibling on this list.

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The wildcard

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The Stanford Prison Experiment2015

The Wilds' twist is that the girls' suffering was orchestrated by researchers watching from a distance. This film is that exact idea, minus the fiction — a real experiment where the people in charge learned they'd created a monster.

The true story behind The Wilds' central premise: adults secretly engineering a controlled environment to study how ordinary young people behave under pressure, and just how quickly that control curdles into cruelty.

But It's a grim, clinical docudrama with none of the island scenery or teen-drama warmth — closer to a case study than entertainment.