Best Supernatural TV Series Now Available to Stream

Brit Marling co-created and starred in this Netflix series about a young blind woman who returns to her hometown after having gone missing for seven years. She’s back with her sight restored and some in town regard this seeming miracle as threatening. “The OA” holds a Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics of 84% and 83% among audiences. The show has a 7.9 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

The sci-fi thriller that ran on Starz features Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Best Actor for “Whiplash”) as a nondescript U.N. employee who discovers that he is a top spy in a parallel universe that he accesses through a passageway hidden by his agency. The two-season series has a perfect rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, with Critics Consensus calling the taut thriller “an absorbing thrill-fest led by J.K. Simmons’ multi-faceted dual lead performance.” “Counterpart” holds an 8.1 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

“Eerie, Indiana” enjoys a perfect rating among critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. The plot for the 19-episode show that originally ran on NBC revolves around a teen whose family moves to the rural town of Eerie, Indiana. A lot of weird things are going on in town — Elvis is on the boy’s paper route and Bigfoot eats out of his garbage can — and the boy and a friend try to find out why. The show has an 8.2 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

Baby boomers probably remember the unnerving introduction of the show, a narrator’s ominous warning, “There is nothing wrong with your television set,” against visuals of an oscilloscope and eerie theme. The show was a creepy anthology series about the paranormal. Among the future stars who appeared on the ABC series were Martin Sheen, Bruce Dern, Cliff Robertson, Carroll O’Connor, and William Shatner. “The Outer Limits” holds a Freshness rating among critics of 91%, and it has a perfect score among audiences. Among IMDb users, the show has an 8.2 rating of 10.

The sci-fi/fantasy limited series is about a detective who while on an investigation at a motel discovers one of the rooms is a passageway to an alternate universe. The series appeared on the SyFy channel and holds a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness rating among critics of 77%. Critics lauded the cast and cinematography, but sometimes found the plot convoluted. “The Lost Room” has an 8.2 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

This eight-season vampire-themed series stars Nina Dobrev as a high school teen new to the town of Mystic Falls who becomes involved in a love triangle with two brothers who are vampires. Three of the show’s eight seasons which originally aired on the CW network have a perfect Freshness score among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

Vampire-drama “True Blood” is based on the novels by Charlaine Harris. The show starred Oscar winner Anna Paquin (Best Actress, “The Piano”) as a waitress with telepathic powers who encounters strange phenomena, including vampires. The series won a Golden Globe and an Emmy ran for seven years on HBO. After the first five seasons that were well received by critics, “True Blood” was in need of a transfusion, with TV critic Carrie Raisler finding the finale forced, “silly,” and — worst of all — “boring.”

The title of the series is the date President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the plot centers on an English teacher who travels back in time to try and stop the murder of the president. The teacher’s mission to prevent the tragedy runs into complications. The eight-episode mini-series that aired on Hulu stars James Franco and holds a rating of 8.2 out of 10 among IMDb users.

“Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” features a quirky detective and his assistant who use unconventional methods to try and solve mysteries. The two-season BBC America series is based on a novel series by Douglas Adams. The show enjoys a 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it holds an 8.3 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

In “Forever,” a New York City medical examiner tries to find out what has kept him alive for 200 years while he draws on his experiences from his very long life to solve cases. The ABC program was not well received by critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who gave the 22-episode series a Freshness score of 57%. Audiences differed, awarding the show a 92% approval score. Users on IMDb gave the show an 8.3 rating out of 10.

“Penny Dreadful” is a gothic horror series uniting characters from 19th century fiction such as Dorian Grey and Victor Frankenstein with a medium to battle supernatural creatures in London. The series executive producers are John Logan (“Alien: Covenant”), Pippa Harris (“Revolutionary Road”), and Sam Mendes (“1917”). The Showtime series holds a 91% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and a 90% rating from audiences. It has a rating of 8.2 out of 10 among more than 108,000 IMDb users.

“The Originals” is a spinoff of “The Vampire Diaries” and tells the story of a vampire family who return to New Orleans to reclaim the city they once controlled from a rival vampire. Critics didn’t warm to the CW series in its first season, giving it a 57% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it received a perfect score over the next three seasons. Among more than 111,000 IMDb users, the series received a rating of 8.2 out of 10.

“The Leftovers,” adapted from Tom Perrotta’s novel, centers around how a small town copes after some of its residents have mysteriously disappeared during a global event called the Departure. The perplexing HBO series holds a 91% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and 89% of audiences liked the show. It has an 8.3 rating out of 10 on IMDb.

Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Buffy, a cheerleader selected to battle vampires and other undead denizens, in the Emmy Award-winning series that was a ratings winner for the WB network. The seven-season series was lauded by critics for its performances and writing. It holds a 92% audience score among Rotten Tomatoes users, and it has an 8.2 rating of 10 among IMDb users.

American audiences know Dan Stevens as the young aristocrat from the British period series “Downton Abbey.” In the FX sci-fi fantasy “Legion,” he plays a man who’s been diagnosed as schizophrenic and who discovers he has special powers. Critics have called the series “visually arresting, mind-bending television that never fails to surprise.” The series has a Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 91%, and an 84% rating among audiences. “Legion” has an 8.3 rating of 10 among IMDb users.

The Netflix series created by J. Michael Straczynski and sisters Lana and Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix movie franchise) focuses on eight people from around the world who are connected mentally and must try to avoid being pursued and captured by those who consider them a threat. The provocative series holds an 86% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and audiences liked it even better, giving it a score of 91%. Among IMDb users, “Sense8” has a rating of 8.3 out of 10.

Tom Ellis plays the titular character, who’s grown bored with his time in Hell so he decides to go to Los Angeles, the City of Angels, where he helps law enforcement catch criminals. The Fox/Netflix series that began in 2015 found little favor among critics on Rotten Tomatoes in its first season, only getting a 49% Freshness score. Over the following three seasons, “Lucifer” received a perfect score. The series has a rating of 8.2 out of 10 on IMDb.

“Outlander” is a time travel-themed series based on a series of historical romance science fiction novels by Diana Gabaldon. The show is about a British combat nurse during WWII who is transported back to Scotland in the 18th century where she falls in love with a Scottish freedom fighter. The Starz series has a rating of 8.4 out of 10 among more than 112,000 IMDb users. The show holds approval ratings from critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes of 90% and above.

“Fringe,” a parallel universe-based show, revolves around an FBI agent who works with a once-institutionalized scientist and his son to investigate a string of bizarre crimes. The five-season series on Fox holds a Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics of 90%, and 93% of audiences enjoyed the program. It has a rating of 8.4 out of 10 on IMDb. All the seasons are available to watch on Amazon Video. The series has drawn many comparisons to “The X-Files.”

The series that coined the phrase “The truth is out there” starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents investigating unexplained phenomena. The series built a strong fan following and ran for 11 seasons on Fox. Over that time, the show hauled in 15 Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes. “The X-Files” has an 8.6 rating out of 10 among nearly 192,000 IMDb users.

The five-season series of suspenseful tales of the unexplained, hosted by master storyteller Rod Serling, made for thought-provoking and innovative television in the early 1960s and has retained a cult following. The Golden Globe and Emmy-Award winning series that ran on CBS has a Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics of 82%, and a 96% rating among audiences. IMDb users gave “the Zone” 9.0 out of 10.

The long-running (327 episodes) CW series is about two brothers whose mother is killed by malevolent forces and who are raised by their father to fight demons, monsters, and other supernatural beings. Nine of the show’s 15 seasons hold a perfect score among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and it has a 93% Freshness rating overall. “Supernatural” has an 8.4 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

“Dark” is a critically acclaimed plot-twisting series about how the disappearance of two young children in a German town reveals the tenuous and tense relationships among multiple families. The Netflix series that premiered in 2017 holds a 94% score among critics and audiences, and it has an 8.8 rating out of 10 among nearly 189,000 users of IMDb. Its third season is due to begin on June 27.

“Lost” is about the tensions that arise among survivors of a plane crash on what appears to be a deserted island. J.J. Abrams, who helped develop the Mission: Impossible franchise and was involved in the reboot of the Star Trek franchise, was one of the creators of “Lost.” The provocative series ran for six seasons on ABC and won 10 Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe. “Lost” holds a Rotten Tomatoes critics Freshness rating of 85%, and a 92% among audiences. The series has an 8.3 rating out of 10 among IMDb users.

Three seasons of this Netflix series, inspired by the small-town adventure and horror works of Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and others, have been released to date. Another eight-episode season to come in 2021. “Stranger Things” is about the disappearance of a boy in a small Indiana town that is followed by the appearance of a girl with special powers. The show has been hugely popular and won six Emmys thus far. The supernatural series holds an 8.8 rating out of 10 among more than 745,000 IMDb users. Critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes gave the show at least a 91% approval score.