Television series

Yellowjackets

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

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

6.9

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.

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 Summer2021no page yet

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 Flies1990no page yet

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.