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15 Shows Like The Vampire Diaries — Supernatural Romance, Teen Drama, and Dark Secrets

Miss the Salvatore brothers? These shows deliver the same supernatural romance, small-town secrets, love triangles, and immortal drama that made TVD essential viewing.

15 FILMS·April 2026·By MoviesPack

Section 1

The Vampire Diaries Formula

The Vampire Diaries worked because it never stopped. **New mythology every episode, love triangles that actually rotated, characters who died and came back with new complications.** The CW perfected the formula: a small town with supernatural secrets, an ensemble cast where everyone has a history, and a willingness to blow up the status quo every season finale. If you want more of that relentless forward momentum, these are your options. [Use our tool: Shows Like The Vampire Diaries](/shows/similar/the-vampire-diaries) — algorithmically matched

Section 2

The Closest Matches

The Originals

2013–2018

★8.2IMDb

Klaus Mikaelson — the original hybrid, one thousand years old and dangerous to everyone around him — returns to New Orleans, a city he helped build, to reclaim it from the witches and werewolves who've taken over in his absence. He brings his brother Elijah and his pregnant werewolf lover, which immediately complicates everything. Five seasons of family loyalty, supernatural politics, and a father trying to be better than he is.

Why it matters

Same creators, same mythology, but an older audience and higher emotional stakes. The Mikaelson family dynamics are the best the TVD universe ever produced — Klaus is a better protagonist than anyone in the original show.

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Legacies

2018–2022

★6.6IMDb

Hope Mikaelson — daughter of Klaus, tribrid of vampire/werewolf/witch — attends the Salvatore School for supernatural teenagers in Mystic Falls, where she's surrounded by students who find her terrifying. A new creature arrives almost every episode, summoned by an artifact the school is guarding. More self-aware and comedic than TVD, with a monster-of-the-week format that keeps things moving. The same universe, a younger and more diverse cast, lighter in tone.

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True Blood

2008–2014

★7.9IMDb

Vampires have publicly revealed themselves after the invention of synthetic blood, and they're lobbying for equal rights while small-town Louisiana decides how it feels about this. Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, falls for a 173-year-old vampire who is one of the few minds she can't hear. More adult, more explicit, and more politically pointed than TVD — the vampire rights movement as allegory for gay rights, with Alexander Skarsgård as Eric Northman being magnetic throughout.

Why it matters

Same core vampire-romance pleasure, different flavor. The first three seasons maintain the balance between mythology and satire; the later seasons lose it.

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Teen Wolf

2011–2017

★7.7IMDb

Scott McCall gets bitten by a werewolf in the woods outside Beacon Hills and suddenly has to figure out how to be a teenager and a monster simultaneously, while his best friend Stiles pieces together that their entire town is built on supernatural lines that attract serious trouble. The first season is modest; by Season 3, the show became genuinely excellent teen drama with its own dense mythology. Dylan O'Brien as Stiles starts as comic relief and ends as the emotional center of the whole show — one of TV's best sidekick evolutions.

Why it matters

Same "supernatural secret in a small town" structure, same ensemble of teens carrying ancient curses, same escalating mythology. The banter is better than TVD's.

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Shadowhunters

2016–2019

★6.6IMDb

Clary Fray is an art student in New York when her mother gets kidnapped and she discovers she's a Shadowhunter — a half-angel warrior who fights demons — and has had her memories of this world wiped her entire life. She has to learn the rules of a supernatural society she didn't know existed while finding her mother. Based on Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments novels. The world of Shadowhunters, Warlocks, Vampires, and Werewolves is expansive and the show builds it episode by episode.

Why it matters

Large ensemble of supernatural beings, romantic entanglements with supernatural complications, and a mythology that keeps expanding. The fandom passion is comparable to TVD's.

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Section 3

The Supernatural Teen Dramas

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

1997–2003

★8.2IMDb

In every generation there's a Chosen One. She's sixteen, she just moved to Sunnydale, and she was hoping high school would be different this time. Sunnydale sits on top of a Hellmouth — a convergence point for supernatural activity — and there's a new Big Bad every season trying to end the world. Buffy has to stop them while also, occasionally, dating one of the vampires. This is the original — where TVD learned everything it knows. Seasons 2-3 are extraordinary.

Why it matters

Same small town as supernatural nexus, same slayer/vampire romance, same season-ending Big Bad structure. The template.

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The Secret Circle

2011–2012

★7.4IMDb

Cassie Blake moves to Chance Harbor after her mother dies and discovers the town has a coven of young witches — and she's the last member needed to complete it. The six teenagers have enormous power together but no ability to control it, and the adults in town have reasons to keep them weak. Created by the same showrunner as TVD (Kevin Williamson). Cancelled after one season despite strong ratings — it's a genuine tragedy because the mythology was accelerating beautifully. Binge it knowing it ends on a cliffhanger that was never resolved.

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The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

2018–2020

★7.5IMDb

Sabrina Spellman is half-witch, half-mortal and has to choose on her sixteenth birthday: sign her name in the Book of the Beast and join the Church of Night, or stay human. The choice is never as simple as it sounds. Netflix leaned into Gothic horror aesthetics and anti-Christian iconography, making something more stylistically distinctive than any CW supernatural show. Kiernan Shipka plays Sabrina as someone who refuses both options and keeps getting punished for it across four parts.

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Section 4

The Romance-Forward Supernatural Shows

Reign

2013–2017

★7.7IMDb

Teenage Mary Queen of Scots arrives at the French court to marry the Dauphin and finds herself surrounded by political factions, love interests, and a supernatural threat lurking in the castle — a darkness in the woods that keeps taking people. The show wears its CW DNA openly: anachronistic costumes, a gorgeous young cast, and romance that drives every political decision. Four seasons of court intrigue with a supernatural edge.

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Roswell, New Mexico

2019–2022

★6.9IMDb

Liz Ortecho comes back to her New Mexico hometown a decade after leaving and discovers the boy she had feelings for in high school is an alien — one of three who survived the 1947 crash and have been living in secret ever since. The secret is now in her hands and the government has been watching for decades. A reboot of the 1999 series. The alien mythology escalates well, the central romance is genuinely steamy, and the alien-as-outsider immigration metaphor lands better than expected.

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Bitten

2014–2016

★6.9IMDb

Elena Michaels escaped the werewolf pack and built a normal human life in Toronto — photographer, boyfriend, apartment she chose herself. When something starts killing humans in the pack's territory, the Alpha calls her back. She's the only female werewolf in existence and the pack won't let her forget it. Based on Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld novels. Less teen drama and more adult supernatural romance, but the tension between Elena's human life and her pack obligations mirrors TVD's tension exactly.

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Section 5

The Dark Supernatural Shows

Being Human (UK, 2008–2013)

★8.0IMDb

A vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost move in together in Bristol and attempt to live normal human lives. The vampire is trying to stay off blood. The werewolf locks himself up once a month. The ghost can't figure out why she's still here. Five seasons of them failing and trying again in ways that are funny, then suddenly devastating. The British original uses the supernatural metaphor more honestly — addiction, identity, the need to belong — and the emotional beats land harder because the comedy cuts them more cleanly.

The Vampire Chronicles (Interview with the Vampire)

2022–present

★8.0IMDb

Louis de Pointe du Lac sits down with a journalist in the present day to tell the story of his life — starting in 1910 New Orleans, where he ran a chain of brothels and was turned into a vampire by the volatile, charismatic Lestat. The 2022 AMC series reimagines Louis as a Black gay man, making the power dynamics between maker and made explicitly about race and control in ways Anne Rice's original novel couldn't. The most sophisticated vampire storytelling on this list.

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From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series

2014–2016

★7.5IMDb

Seth and Richie Gecko are bank robbers on the run who stumble into a strip club on the Texas-Mexico border that turns out to be populated by ancient vampires — "culebras" — with their own cult, their own mythology, and territorial politics stretching back centuries. More action-forward than TVD, but the supernatural world-building is expansive and the show uses its three seasons to explore a mythology the original film only glimpsed.

Hemlock Grove

2013–2015

★6.7IMDb

A teenage girl is killed in Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, and a Roma boy who moves to town becomes the prime suspect — partly because a wealthy family just moved in next door who seem to be hiding something significantly worse than he is. Eli Roth produced this Netflix original. It's messy, strange, and atmospheric in ways polished CW shows never are, and Famke Janssen chews the scenery magnificently as the new family's mother.

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Section 6

Quick Match Guide

| Want... | Watch | |---------|-------| | Same universe | The Originals, Legacies | | More adult, more explicit | True Blood | | Better banter | Teen Wolf | | The original inspiration | Buffy the Vampire Slayer | | Gothic aesthetics | Chilling Adventures of Sabrina | | Sophisticated vampire drama | Interview with the Vampire | | Romantic small-town supernatural | The Secret Circle |

Section 7

Want More?

- [Full list: Shows Like The Vampire Diaries](/shows/similar/the-vampire-diaries) — 20+ algorithmic matches - [Supernatural romance shows](/shows/mood/romantic) — love with immortal complications - [Teen drama shows](/shows/mood/teen) — high school with higher stakes - [Vampire and werewolf shows](/shows/mood/supernatural) — the whole monster universe - [What show should I watch?](/shows/discover) — random recommendation

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