20 Shows Like Lost Fans Should Binge-Watch Now

There's no doubt that ABC's "Lost" was one of the most successful and addicting television series of the aughts. The show, which ran from 2004 through 2010, told the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who crash land on a mysterious island and find themselves battling with "others," dealing with mysterious hatches and videos, traveling in time, running from smoke monsters, becoming pawns in a fight between immortal beings, and essentially coming to terms with their own issues and demons.

Created by J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Jeffrey Lieber, the show had a huge cast of various archetypes and characters. But what made audiences love "Lost" wasn't just the mysterious island, the creepy voices, or the science fiction elements. What kept people coming back every week was the characters, their backstories, and how they all intertwined. The show implemented a brilliant use of flashbacks to show audiences who these people were before the crash and how the island was going to affect them as a result.

There are six season of "Lost" to binge, and when you're done, if you need something more, here are 20 more shows like "Lost" to binge as well. Much like "Lost," these shows have sci-fi roots, but their characters and the relationships between them give them an emotional edge, and their cliffhangers, twists, and mysteries make them just as addicting. Have fun!

"Heroes" premiered on NBC a couple of years after "Lost" and quickly grabbed the attention of a similar audience. Those who gravitated towards "Lost" for its likable characters, mysterious mythology, and addicting cliffhangers were roped in by much of the same on "Heroes." The sci-fi drama tells the story of a group of seemingly ordinary people who develop superhuman powers or abilities after a strange eclipse. Cheerleader Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) becomes indestructible, her body healing like a teenage girl version of Wolverine. Politician Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) can suddenly fly, while his little brother Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) can mimic the powers of others. Japanese tech worker Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) can teleport himself through space and time. Greg Grunberg is an LAPD officer who can read people's minds. They and other super-powered individuals come together when yet another blessed with new abilities starts murdering people. 

"Heroes" developed its own mythology and various backstories as the seasons went on. In its original run, it lasted four seasons, ending in 2010. A reboot called "Heroes: Reborn" featured many of the same characters and ran as a miniseries in 2015. Rumors continue to swirl that another reboot is heading to Peacock sometimes soon, so get those first few seasons binged while you can.

This HBO drama from "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof is pretty heavy, so head into a binge knowing you're delving into sad territory. In the world of "The Leftovers," 2% of the world's population suddenly disappeared in an event called the Sudden Departure. Three years later, people are recovering and moving on, or not. The main characters at the start of the show include suburban police chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) whose family remained, but broke in the aftermath, the local Reverend Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston) and his sister Nora Durst (Carrie Coon), a woman who lost her entire family and whose job it is to investigate fraud surrounding the Sudden Departure. 

Meanwhile, a cult called the Guilty Remnant harasses survivors of the departure and lures others into their fold. The second season branches out to Jarden, Texas, a town where not a single person was taken in the Departure, while the third and final season heads all the way to Australia and dives deeper into some serious science fiction territory. "The Leftovers" is fun, weird, and sad, and ultimately about how people cope with grief and things that they cannot and will not ever be able to explain. 

A true sci-fi classic, "The X-Files" stars David Duchovny as FBI Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson as FBI Agent Dana Scully. The open-minded Mulder heads up the FBI's X-Files division, which investigates aliens, goblins, vampires, and other unexplainable phenomenon, while Scully is essentially sent to spy on him but eventually joins him in his quests. The show ran on Fox from 1993 to 2002 and has since returned for two sequel seasons in 2016 and 2018. 

"The X-Files" made believers out of us all. Whether it was the fun and quirky "monster of the week" episodes or the more serious, overarching alien invasion mythology episodes, viewers were hooked, and the chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson didn't hurt, either. The "will they or won't they" tension lasted just about the entire run of the show, with confirmation of their relationship only happening once the movies kicked in (and in later seasons, when they were just kind of open about it). "The X-Files" is a long binge and there's a lot of mythology to get through, so start now — it's worth it.

Eureka, Oregon, isn't just an ordinary Pacific Northwest town. It's populated by theoretical physicists, scientists, engineers, and all-around geniuses. Since the end of World War II, the United States government has been sending the world's smartest people and their families to the isolated town of Eureka as a way of keeping them safe. The inhabitants of the town live inside a protective electromagnetic bubble owned by a company called Global Dynamics, and though they are super-geniuses, they manage to live normal, everyday lives. That all changes when U.S. Marshal Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) and his daughter Zoe (Jordan Hinson) stumble on the town accidentally, and Jack is offered a new job as the town sheriff.

"Eureka" is a less serious, more quirky sci-fi show than "Lost," which makes for a more lighthearted binge. And if you finish all five seasons and still need more, you're in luck — the SyFy show is part of a trio of overlapping series, along with "Warehouse 13" and "Alphas," that feature some of the same characters.

Did you know that TNT turned Bong Joon-ho's post-apocalyptic dystopian film "Snowpiercer" into a more fleshed out series? If you enjoyed the movie, chances are you'll also like the show, which stars Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, Mickey Sumner, Lena Hall, and Sean Bean, among many others.

If you haven't seen the movie, the premise revolves around a giant train that continually circumnavigates the world years after the Earth has become a frozen wasteland. While it's an excellent film, you don't necessarily need to watch it before digging into the TNT series, because the series is actually a prequel, taking place years seven years before the start of the movie. And there's plenty of new material to be explored — with 1,001 train cars separated by class, there are bound to be issues aboard a never-ending train ride that systematically separates the rich from the poor. There are coups, revolutions, entire functioning societies and economies, all aboard an always-moving, compellingly futuristic train.

Here's another franchise that has multiple iterations and therefore plenty to binge. "Battlestar Galactica" started out as a single-season series in 1978, with a sequel series called "Galactica 1980" following in — wait for it — 1980. In 2003, a new "Galactica" miniseries hit SyFy, and a massively celebrated reboot of the franchise began. It tells the story of humanity's battle with a robot species called the Cylons that humans invented, but who ultimately revolted and turned on their masters. The miniseries' storyline acts as a sequel to the premise of the 1970s-80s plot lines, ultimately blooming into a full-fledged series that ran for four seasons and was nominated for 19 Emmy Awards.

The show is a really compelling sci-fi commentary on post-9/11 issues such as national loyalty, the creation of enemies, and misguided war, while also touching on mythological and religious themes. "Lost" fans will certainly enjoy all of the allusions to various historical religions and mythological characters. And if you run out of "Battlestar Galactica" to binge, there are also numerous webisodes, a prequel webseries called "Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome," two TV movies ("Battlestar Galactica: Razor" and "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan") and a prequel TV series called "Caprica."

"Under the Dome" is another one of those shows that feels designed specifically with a "Lost" fan in mind. The sci-fi series hit CBS in 2013 and ran for three seasons, and yes, it revolves around the idea of living under a dome. Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, the residents of the small town of Chester's Mill find themselves suddenly trapped under an indestructible, clear dome that surrounds their town. Cut off from the rest of the world, the townspeople have to find a way to survive when they can't get any food or other resources into their cut-off community.

Much like "Lost," "Under the Dome" involves a mysterious corporation, secrets from the past, and people who aren't really what who they say they are — or even what they say they are. We won't give away the true premise here and the secret of what causes the dome to form, but be advised that "Under the Dome" ventures into sci-fi realms that "Lost" would never dare to tread. 

This NBC drama starts out with a huge mystery: Imagine getting on a plane for a short flight during which you hit a bit of turbulence. Everything settles and seems fine, but when you land, it's five years later. Your family thought your flight went missing, but you never went anywhere. Much like "Lost," "Manifest" begins with a big problem on a plane, and the questions just keep coming after the pilot. The show stars Melissa Roxburgh as Michaela Stone, an NYPD detective, and Josh Dallas as her brother, Ben, a professor. The two were traveling with Ben's son, Cal, and when they land back in New York, they find that Michaela's fiancé has married someone else, Cal is five years younger than his twin sister Olive (Luna Blaise), and the world is pretty much losing its mind because a plane full of lost people suddenly reappeared.

"Manifest" aired for three seasons on NBC but was abruptly cancelled in 2021. Fans were vocal, however, and demanded an ending, a request that ultimately resulted in the show's fourth and final season.

If you loved the manipulative, direct, and mysterious ways of Benjamin Linus while watching "Lost," check out "Person of Interest," which stars the man himself, Michael Emerson. Emerson, in all his direct and creepy glory, stars as Harold Finch, a billionaire software engineer who develops a program that claims to predict terrorist attacks or other horrendous atrocities and the people who are going to commit them. The premise is a little bit like the precogs of "Minority Report," but set in a procedural network show.

Jim Caviezel co-stars as John Reese, a former solder in the U.S. Army and now a CIA agent who is presumed dead, but whom Finch recruits to seeks out and "handle" the people that the machine predicts are going to do something terrible. Other recurring cast members throughout the show's five seasons include Taraji P. Henson, Amy Acker, Sarah Shahi, and Kevin Chapman. And yes, J.J. Abrams had a hand in this show, as well.

The CW's "The 100" is a wild ride of a sci-fi series. 100 years after a nuclear holocaust sent most of humanity into space, surviving on a giant ark that orbits the Earth, the survivors learn that their ship is dying. To test out if the Earth is inhabitable again, they send 100 juvenile delinquents back down to the surface. But the 100 soon learn that they're not alone. Humans who survived the nuclear winter formed tribes and now live as the primitive Grounders. Meanwhile, scientists called the Mountain Men survived by holing themselves up in a high tech mountain compound. Subsequent seasons of "The 100" get even more wild, branching out into the realms of artificial intelligence, space travel, reincarnation, and even aliens. 

"The 100" ran for seven seasons, so there's a lot of show to get through. It starts out as "captive teens released in the wilderness go wild," which really is how all CW teen dramas should start, but the addition of the adult characters' story lines, as well as how the teens mature and progress, makes "The 100" a compelling drama to accompany all the futuristic fighting leather corsets.