We have a problem. We want Wednesday season 2 now. Yet, we also think it's going to be a while before Jenna Ortega's edition of Ms. Addams returns for another semester at Nevermore. The Netflix series isn't likely to come back until 2024.
If you're like us, then you'll be happy to hear we did what Eugene told us Hummers always do: stick together. Below, you'll find seven recommended movies and shows to watch while you wait. Not all of these, though, are going to make a best list like Wednesday made it onto our best Netflix shows list. Fear not, though, as we've also pulled a whole slew of other recommendations that we're not even counting toward the main seven here.
First, though, a warning: We recommend you do not watch Fate: The Winx Saga when looking for shows and movies similar to Wednesday. We've tried the series about teens dealing with all the normal tropes of a boarding school for those with magical powers, and it's more of a dud than Fred Armisen's Uncle Fester.
Oh, and if you're looking for the real Fester? The original Addams Family can be seen on multiple streaming services. Both seasons of the 1964 TV series can be found on The Roku Channel, Tubi and Freevee, the 1973 animated The Addams Family series is on Pluto.
Then, for the movies The Addams Family is on Netflix, as is Addams Family Values. And the 2019 animated Addams Family movie? It's on Paramount Plus, as is its sequel.
Also, as I've written, Wednesday is the Harry Potter alternative I didn't know I needed. For anyone who is having trouble finding these movies where the titular boy-who-lived is sent to live at a boarding school where his parents lived iconic lives The good news is that you actually have a choice. All of the original wizarding films are on HBO Max and Peacock at the time of publication. They go back and forth across the two, though.
Now, let's get down to the best shows and movies to watch while you wait for Wednesday season 2 — but, of course, expect some spoilers for what just happened in the Wednesday finale. You wouldn't be reading this first, would you?
Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself isn't bad at all
You know how Wednesday Addams (in this show) is put in the wrong place — not just high school, but one near a town where her father has a decidedly checkered past — at the wrong time (as a teen)? Well, Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself raises the stakes with its own magical bad situation. Meet Nathan Byrne (Jay Lycurgo), the illegitimate son of the "World's Most Dangerous Blood Witch," who is basically an important chess-piece between the Blood Witches and Fairborn Witches.
And while his life hasn't been great, things got a little better when he meets Annalise (Nadia Parkes), with whom he has some chemistry. The only problem? She's the daughter of Fairborn Witches leader Soul (Paul Ready). Praised for its excellent dialogue and chemistry, Half Bad is a show that (when binged) can fill Wednesday's void for a day. The only issue is that Netflix just canceled the show after just one season.
Genre: Fantasy (YA)
Episodes: 8
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Stream it on Netflix
The Magicians teaches humans how to do magic
Lev Grossman's novels were adapted with much success on the SyFy network, and are thankfully still streaming to this day on Netflix. In this series, we meet Quentin (Jason Ralph), whose life-long fascination with the magic tricks that humans know is actually connected to a magical realm. Things get more complicated when his childhood friend Julia (Stella Maeve) is recruited by an opposing force.
Through its five-year run, The Magicians got increasingly better reviews. Commended for its ability to shake up its formula to keep audiences entertained.
Genre: Drama
Seasons: 5
Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%
Stream it on Netflix
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina stars another bewitching young actor
Kiernan Shipka was critically acclaimed for her performance as Sally Draper, the precocious youth of Mad Men. So it was a bit of an unexpected delight for Shipka to show up in the Archie-verse, that series of shows that began with The CW's Riverdale. Half-mortal and half witch, Sabrina Spellman (Shipka) has lived a double-life for 15 years, and upon her 16th birthday, she is forced to choose between them. Except she refuses to.
Campy and filled with demons and the macabre, Chilling Adventures may be one the nearest 1:1 comparisons to Wednesday, except she's not as reclusive of a character.
Genre: Fantasy drama (YA)
Seasons: 4
Rotten Tomatoes score: 82%
Stream it on Netflix
Legacies is a well-regard Vampire Diaries series
There's a reason why we think Weems isn't necessarily dead: popular characters and franchises always come back for more. Such was the case with Legacies, which turned a new page in The Vampire Diaries and its spinoff The Originals. Here, Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) — the daughter of werewolf Hayley Marshall and vampire Klaus Mikaelson, who also has werewolves in her ancestry — is the first ever Tribrid.
Seen as being born from evil, but actually fighting for good, Hope is a perfect candidate to make life at the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted more complicated. The school is supposed to try and keep kids safe, but four seasons of action and drama — while locals don't know their secrets (yet) says otherwise.
Genre: Fantasy drama (YA)
Seasons: 4
Rotten Tomatoes score: 82% (for season 1, future seasons didn't get enough reviews)
Stream it on Netflix
Vampire Academy adds a dash of royalty
If high fantasy movies are proof of anything, it's that too much lore can create too wide of a scope. And that's why a lot of these shows tend to keep things focused on a single school. Vampire Academy, instead, bites off a huge chunk of canon to chew on. For example, it has three kinds of vampires, starting with the magically-capable and upper-class Moroi aristocrats, and the half-Moroi and half-human Dhampir hybrids that protect them.
Protect them from what, you ask? Well, there are the zombie-like Strogoi. And at Vampire Academy, we meet friends Lissa (Daniela Nieves), a Moroi princess, and Rose (Sisi Stringer), a Dhampir in training. Adapted from Richelle Meade's novels, Vampire Academy uses the above structure to make the series more than your average YA romantic-drama.
If critics agree about anything when it comes to Vampire Academy's issues, it's that the series has too much going on. That's the kind of problem that helps people think a second season is coming.
Genre: Fantasy drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 75%
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Stream it on Peacock
Motherland: Fort Salem brings the military into this
Okay, so going through this list, we've had increasingly dramatic narratives. Now, we reach the point in this escalation where the army gets involved. Specifically, there's an elite group of witches pulled in to fight terrorists. That description is probably everything anyone needs to know whether or not they want to hit play. How is this show similar to Wednesday? Well, meet Abigail Bellweather (Ashley Nicole Williams), who comes from a family where enlisting in this military isn't just expected, but where success is demanded. And at Fort Salem, these witches learn to hone their powers and become soldiers.
Genre: Fantasy drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 71% (for season 1, future seasons didn't get enough reviews)
Seasons: 3
Stream it on Hulu
The School for Good and Evil is a stylish house
For those who want all the fits and drip that the most stylish members of the Nevermore Academy could pull off, Netflix also offers you School for Good and Evil. A fun (but pretty by-the-books) YA boarding school adventure, this movie doesn't toy around with subtext. Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Whylie) are the latest students at the titular school for the magically able, but are curiously placed in the houses they didn't expect. The good-natured Sophie is taught by the seemingly-devious Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron), and Agatha supervised by Professor Dovey (Kerry Washington), the glamorous and good-natured educator.
Filled with a ton of familiar references to popular fairy tales, School for Good and Evil isn't going to challenge you, but its style will inspire. Critics weren't exactly plussed (so says its 38% Rotten Tomatoes score), but audiences ranked it higher with a 66%. If you are tied to the lore of the books it's adapted from, though, you may have even more issues with it.
Genre: Drama (YA)
Run-time: 2 hours, 29 minutes
Rotten Tomatoes score: 38%
Stream it on Netflix
Next: Also check out the 9 best new Christmas movies for 2022.
