Television series

Yellowjackets

Name: Yellowjackets
Genre: Drama, Horror, Supernatural
Released: 2021
Cast: Tawny Cypress, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Christina Ricci, Sammi Hanratty

Coming-of-age
Very dark

A plane full of teenage soccer players crashes in the Canadian wilderness, and what starts as gritty survival story slowly curdles into folk horror, while the timeline jumps forward twenty-five years to show the grown women still carrying whatever happened out there. It's moody, gory, funny in flashes, and built on the slow reveal of who these girls become — and why none of them can quite say it out loud.

TVMaze rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like your survival stories split across two timelines, where the grim present keeps shadowing a teenage past and the mystery matters as much as the dread.

Skip it if you want a tidy, self-contained thriller; this unspools slowly, lingers in its bleak moods, and repeatedly makes you sit through brutal material.

What it asks of you: Two timelines to track at once, a deliberate pace that builds dread across many hours, and a tone that stays dark even in its quieter, more human scenes.

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

If you liked this

Lost2004

The template for stranded-ensemble mystery box storytelling: flashbacks doing double duty as character study and plot engine, an island that seems to be alive, and a cast you'll grieve for.

But Six seasons is a real commitment, and the mythology gets heavier than the mystery it starts as.

The Wilds2020

Teenage girls, a plane crash, a hidden agenda, and the same dual-timeline structure — but leaner, faster, and unafraid to be a little trashy about its twists.

But Thinner characters than Yellowjackets and a bigger conspiracy hook that some find gimmicky rather than earned.

Big Little Lies2017

Same appetite for women hiding something enormous behind ordinary lives, with a cast of ferocious actresses turning suburban drama into something close to horror.

But No wilderness, no cannibalism — this is domestic dread, glossy and interior rather than visceral.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Yellowjackets

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Picnic at Hanging Rock1975

It's the ur-text for 'teenage girls, wild landscape, something ancient wakes up' — Yellowjackets' mood and mythic pull trace straight back here, decades before mystery boxes were a genre.

Schoolgirls vanish into the Australian bush and the film never explains why — pure atmosphere, sun-bleached dread, and the sense that the wilderness itself is a character with intentions.

But Almost nothing happens by conventional plot standards; if you need answers, this will infuriate you.

Sharp Objects2018

A woman returns to the town and the trauma that made her, told in fractured flashback — the mood is just as suffocating, just as concerned with what girlhood does to people.

But Glacially slow by design; if you want plot momentum rather than dread, this will test you.

Cruel Summer2021

Teen girls, three interwoven timelines, and a central mystery about who did what to whom — scratches the same itch for piecing together a friendship gone wrong.

But Glossier and more soapy, with none of the supernatural dread or survival stakes.

Lord of the Flies1990

The original blueprint: children stranded, order collapsing, civilization revealed as a thin coat of paint. Watch it and see exactly what Yellowjackets is arguing with.

But Dated production values and an all-boys cast make it feel like a different, blunter species of story.

Alive1993

Based on the real 1972 Andes plane crash, this earns every ounce of the cannibalism storyline Yellowjackets fictionalizes — brutal, physical, and strangely tender.

But Straightforward survival drama with none of the horror atmosphere or present-day mystery structure.

The Society2019

A town's teenagers wake up alone with no adults and have to build their own society from scratch — the same fascination with kids reinventing power structures under pressure.

But Cancelled after one season on a cliffhanger, so you're signing up for an unfinished story.

The Leftovers2014

Less about the disaster than what it does to the people who survive it years later — grief, guilt, and cult-like belief systems forming around unexplainable trauma.

But Deliberately oblique and emotionally punishing; it withholds answers as a matter of principle.

Touching the Void2003

Strip away the supernatural and the cannibalism and you're left with this: the structural DNA of Yellowjackets' dual timeline, played completely straight, in a medium that can't fake the terror.

A documentary reconstruction of two climbers' real survival ordeal in the Andes, narrated by the men themselves decades later — the exact same trick of letting the present-day survivor haunt the past-tense disaster.

But No fiction, no ensemble, no horror trappings — just two men, a mountain, and the unbearable specifics of what survival costs.

Fresh2022

Same raw material — female hunger, cannibalism, survival as metaphor for what girls and women endure — but blown up into loud, campy, unapologetic genre trash instead of prestige dread.

A darkly funny modern horror about dating, appetite, and cannibalism as a metaphor for what women are expected to survive — genuinely unnerving, genuinely hilarious, sometimes in the same breath.

But Broad, gleefully trashy genre filmmaking with a fraction of the runtime and none of the slow-burn ambiguity.