Television series

You

Name: You
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Released: 2018
Cast: Penn Badgley, Victoria Pedretti, Charlotte Ritchie, Tati Gabrielle, Elizabeth Lail

A glossy Netflix thriller narrated by its own stalker: bookstore clerk Joe Goldberg falls in love, then falls into surveillance, lies and murder, all delivered in a purring internal monologue that makes his logic sound almost reasonable. It's pulpy, propulsive, darkly funny about romance tropes, and genuinely unsettling once you notice how easily you're rooting for him. For fans of charming monsters and unreliable narrators.

TVMaze rating

7.5

If you liked this

Dexter2006

The same trick, done first and done brilliantly: a serial killer's cozy internal voice makes his rituals feel intimate, even reasonable. If you like Joe's self-justifying narration, this is its blood-soaked ancestor.

But Eight seasons is a lot of commitment, and the later ones dilute what made the early run so sharp.

Killing Eve2018

An assassin and the agent obsessed with catching her circle each other with the same erotic, dangerous fixation Joe brings to his targets. Stylish, funny, and genuinely unpredictable across four tight seasons.

But The tone swerves wildly between comedy and horror, which some viewers find exhilarating and others find whiplash-inducing.

American Psycho2000

Patrick Bateman's smug, articulate voiceover is the direct blueprint for Joe's — a handsome monster narrating his own delusions with total confidence. Sharper satire, colder laughs, same rotten core.

But It's more interested in skewering yuppie vanity than building suspense, so it can feel oddly detached if you want thrills.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Collector1965no page yet

You's central image — a woman trapped by a man who insists his obsession is love — is almost a scene-for-scene inheritance from this 1965 film, minus the irony.

Decades before Joe built his glass cage, this quiet, horrifying film had a lonely man kidnap a woman he loves and keep her, convinced that devotion excuses captivity. It's the blueprint, played completely straight.

But There's no dark comedy cushioning the horror here — it's slow, small-scale, and sits with the cruelty rather than winking at it.

Sharp Objects2018

A woozy, unreliable-narrator mystery where trauma and denial blur what's real, much like Joe's self-serving version of events. Amy Adams is devastating, and the small-town dread seeps into everything.

But It's slow and grim by design — there's little of You's pulpy momentum, and the misery is not softened by irony.

The Fall2013

A methodical killer and the detective hunting him get equal screen time, forcing you to understand his rituals from the inside — uncomfortably close to how You makes Joe legible.

But It's deliberately slow-burn and clinical, without the dark comedy that keeps You's nastiness palatable.

Bates Motel2013no page yet

A prequel to Norman Bates that plays as a domestic drama about a young man's warped devotion curdling into violence — the origin story energy Joe's backstory episodes are clearly borrowing from.

But It leans heavily on soap-opera plotting and small-town melodrama, which can feel a notch campier than intended.

Fatal Attraction1987

The original mainstream obsessive-stalker thriller, and still the template: a brief affair curdles into terrifying fixation. If Love's chapters hit hard for you, this is where that nerve got exposed.

But Its gender politics feel very much of their era, and some of the shock beats have been imitated into cliché since.

Cruel Intentions1999

Gorgeous manipulators treating seduction as a game with real casualties — a trashier, campier cousin to Joe's romantic con artistry, with the same pleasure in watching charm weaponised.

But It's arch and stylized rather than tense; don't expect genuine dread, just deliciously bad behaviour.

Nightcrawler2014

Jake Gyllenhaal's unblinking sociopath narrates his own ascent with the same eerie self-belief Joe uses to justify himself — charisma as a weapon, ambition as pathology.

But There's no romance angle at all, and its focus on media ethics is a different, colder kind of unsettling.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes2019

Joe's seductive self-justification isn't invented — this documentary shows the real phenomenon of a charismatic killer narrating his own innocence, and an audience wanting to believe him.

Real audio of a real charming murderer explaining, rationalizing, and half-seducing everyone who listens to him — the exact mechanism You dramatizes, except this actually happened and people actually fell for it.

But It's a documentary about a real predator and real victims; the charm on display is disturbing rather than entertaining, as it should be.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes poster

Fleabag2016

Both shows run on a narrator who confides in the audience to control how you judge them; Fleabag just uses the trick for comedy and confession instead of murder.

A different genre entirely, but the same device: a narrator who talks directly to you, curating your sympathy while quietly incriminating herself. Whip-smart, devastating, and far funnier than You ever risks being.

But It's a British comedy-drama about grief and guilt, not a thriller — nobody gets stalked, and the stakes are entirely emotional.