Television series

The X-Files

Name: The X-Files
Genre: Drama, Crime, Science Fiction
Released: 1993
Cast: Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, Mitch Pileggi, Robert Patrick, Annabeth Gish

The show that turned FBI paranoia into appointment television: a believer and a skeptic chasing monsters, aliens, and government cover-ups one case at a time, while a decade-spanning mythology hums underneath. It's monster-of-the-week comfort food with real dread mixed in, anchored by a partnership that's more compelling than any alien. For anyone who wants their case-of-the-week fix with existential unease.

TVMaze rating

8.6

If you liked this

Fringe2008

JJ Abrams' spiritual heir gives you the exact MOTW/mythology rhythm you loved, plus a mad scientist even weirder than Mulder and a sibling-universe plot that actually pays off its long game.

But The first season leans procedural-generic before it finds its own freak; give it time or skip ahead.

Twin Peaks1990

The show that taught Chris Carter how to make small-town weirdness feel cosmic; Lynch's fingerprints are all over the show's sense that something ancient and wrong lives under the ordinary.

But Deliberately obtuse and often maddening — this isn't mystery you solve, it's mood you surrender to.

Millennium1996no page yet

Carter's other, darker FBI show, made in the same offices with some of the same writers — swap aliens for serial killers and millennial dread, and it's bleaker, stranger, criminally underseen.

But Punishingly grim in places, and the budget and plotting are shakier than its more famous sibling.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Last Kingdom2015

Same year as X-Files' first season, same premise really — an institution where bureaucratic order runs up against something nobody can explain — just filtered through European arthouse horror instead of network procedural.

A Danish hospital built on marsh ground where the dead don't quite leave and the living start hearing things — surreal, funny, and genuinely unsettling in a way most horror never risks.

But Von Trier's tone is deliberately off-kilter and absurdist; it can feel more like a fever dream than a show with a plot.

Supernatural2005

Takes the believer-skeptic-turned-brothers engine and runs it for fifteen years of monster hunts, urban legends, and increasingly baroque mythology, with genuine warmth Mulder and Scully never quite allowed themselves.

But Fifteen seasons is a genuine commitment, and the tone swings from horror to soap opera to comedy without much warning.

Lost2004

Same appetite for a mythology that keeps deepening instead of resolving, the same sense that every answer breeds three new questions, and a cast worth getting attached to along the way.

But The ending divided people badly, and some mysteries never do pay off — go in knowing that.

True Detective2014

Swaps the paranormal for the metaphysical: two mismatched investigators, a case that curls at the edges into something almost occult, and dread thick enough to touch.

But Only the first season really hits this note — later seasons are patchier, so manage expectations early.

Dark Skies1996no page yet

A short-lived 90s conspiracy show that plays the same hidden-history, real-events, government-cover-up game as X-Files' mythology arc, just compressed into sixty minutes instead of drawn out over years.

But Cancelled after just one season, so it ends completely mid-thought — frustrating if you want any closure.

Person of Interest2011

Trades aliens for algorithms: a paranoid procedural about mass surveillance and hidden power structures, with a central partnership and a slow-building mythology that genuinely rewards patience.

But Starts as a fairly generic vigilante procedural before the good stuff kicks in around season two.

Grimm2011

Lighter, pulpier monster-of-the-week comfort viewing — a homicide detective who discovers fairy tales are real, cases solved with folklore instead of forensics, easy to dip in and out of.

But Never approaches X-Files' atmosphere or ambition; this is comfort food, not a mythology to lose yourself in.

MINDHUNTER2017

Take away the aliens and you're left with the actual engine of the show: a partnership investigating things the institution would rather not look at, one agent changed by proximity to the unexplainable.

Two FBI agents drive around America interviewing killers, one methodical and one increasingly consumed by what he's hearing — the double-act rhythm of Mulder and Scully with the supernatural replaced by real human darkness.

But It's quiet and cerebral where X-Files is pulpy — no monsters, no jokes, just dread that builds slowly across two seasons and then stops.