Never underestimate the power of teamwork. The retirees at the center of The Boroughs certainly don’t. Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), who also serve as showrunners, the supernatural series follows a misfit crew of friends who uncover a dark secret at the heart of their seemingly idyllic retirement community. Alfred Molina stars as Sam, a grieving newcomer to the eponymous small town in the New Mexico desert. He’s joined by an all-star cast, including Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, and Bill Pullman, all of whom play Sam’s fellow retirees who get sucked into the series’ sci-fi mystery.
Executive produced by the Duffer Brothers (Stranger Things), The Boroughs proves that a good, hair-raising mystery is best solved with friends who stick with you every step of the way. So after watching all eight episodes of the new series, you can keep the vibes going with these 10 shows and movies that feature unlikely heroes working together to solve the unknown.
From the creators of Dark, this eerie eight-episode sci-fi mystery follows a group of emigrants aboard a steamship, the Kerberos, bound for New York City in 1899. When they encounter another enormous vessel, the Prometheus, on the open sea, the Kerberos’s crew boards — and quickly realizes it’s been abandoned. Questions about the deserted ship grow more urgent when the terrified passengers begin to experience strange happenings. Can they find the answers before they suffer the same unknown fate as those aboard the Prometheus? Or will the truth be lost to the ocean’s unforgiving depths? Emily Beecham (Outside the Wire), Aneurin Barnard (Timestalker), Andreas Pietschmann (Unfamiliar), Miguel Bernardeau (Elite), and more star.
When scientists all over the world begin dying seemingly without explanation, a group of brilliant friends must band together with an unflinching detective to confront a mysterious and existential threat. As humanity’s impending demise looms, the laws of science and the fabric of reality begin to crumble, throwing everything that these unlikely heroes thought they knew into question. This sci-fi epic — inspired by Liu Cixin’s internationally celebrated novel The Three-Body Problem and created by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo — also features a stacked ensemble cast, including Jess Hong (Grafted), Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones), Eiza González (I Care a Lot), Jovan Adepo (His Three Daughters), Jonathan Pryce (The Thursday Murder Club), Benedict Wong (Marco Polo), and many more.
If you need an unsettling mystery, you can’t go wrong with Stephen King. This two-season horror anthology follows residents of the fictional, eponymous Maine town who are both inspired by, and taken directly from, King’s substantial catalog. They include an aspiring writer with the surname Torrance, a prisoner at Shawshank State Penitentiary, a covert telepath, and a doctor working at a hospital in nearby Jerusalem’s Lot. Season 1 begins with criminal attorney Henry Deaver (André Holland) returning to his hometown, only to find that past events surrounding the nearby prison have come back to haunt him. Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets), Bill Skarsgård (Clark), Jane Levy (Evil Dead), Sissy Spacek (Bloodline), and Lizzy Caplan (Zero Day) also star in this series executive produced by J.J. Abrams (The Cloverfield Paradox).
When a massive sinkhole opens up near the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, hundreds of people fall through and find themselves in an uncivilized, unrecognizable world below the earth’s surface. Among them are a mother, Eve Harris, (Natalie Zea), and son, Josh (Jack Martin), who must band together with the other survivors if they have a hope of escaping the many dangers lurking in the shadows. Meanwhile, back home, Eve’s daughter, Izzy (Zyra Gorecki), and estranged husband, former Air Force pilot Gavin (Eoin Macken), begin to grieve — until Gavin begins experiencing strange visions that convince him that his wife and son are still alive on the other side. Can Gavin and Izzy convince the US military to helm a rescue operation, or will the Harris family be confined to separate worlds forever?
While this three-season series based on the comic books of the same name leans more fantasy than sci-fi, Locke & Key, like The Boroughs, is grounded in a mind-boggling mystery that requires next-level teamwork to unravel. After their dad Rendell’s unexpected death, the Locke children — Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) — move with their mom, Nina (Darby Stanchfield), to their father’s childhood home in Matheson, Massachusetts. Hidden throughout the enormous house are a collection of magical keys that open various, equally magical doors. As the siblings unlock their new home’s many perplexing puzzles, they stumble on a decades-old mystery involving a demonic entity who wants the keys for their own nefarious purposes.
A reimagining of the 1965 series of the same name, Lost in Space is set in 2046 and follows the Robinsons, a family of space colonists who find themselves stuck after crash-landing on a mysterious planet. Trapped deep in the intergalactic unknown, the family must work together and find ways to rescue each other from the many lurking, alien dangers while trying to get back to their life-or-death colonization mission. This classic sci-fi adventure — updated for the modern age — stars Molly Parker (Doc), Toby Stephens (Black Sails), Maxwell Jenkins (Arcadian), Taylor Russell (Bones and All), Mina Sundwall (The Graduates), and Parker Posey (The Staircase).
Death is inevitable, but it’s not necessarily the end in this thriller series created by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong. Set in 1994, The Midnight Club follows a group of terminally ill teens living at Brightcliffe Hospice Care. They have a pact: when one of them dies, they have to try and reach out to those they left behind from beyond the grave in the hopes of proving there’s something after death. When the group finally starts seeing ghosts and other supernatural creepy crawlies, they realize that someone who has passed away may have been successful — but they may also not be very friendly. Iman Benson (#blackAF), Ruth Codd (The Fall of the House of Usher), Annarah Cymone (Midnight Mass), Chris Sumpter (Goosebumps), and Sauriyan Sapkota (The Life of Chuck) star.
Haley Z. Boston is the creator and showrunner of this eight-episode atmospheric horror show executive produced by the Duffer Brothers. Rachel (Camila Morrone) and her fiancé, Nicky (Adam DiMarco), travel to Nicky’s family’s lavish home for an intimate wedding celebration. But it’s bad vibes from the get-go: the locals behave strangely, Nicky’s relatives are creepily eccentric, and his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and sister (Gus Birney) bulldoze the wedding plans to suit their selfish desires. Rachel’s growing unease comes to a head when she realizes that something in her own family’s mysterious past could spell impending doom, leading her to question how serious the consequences of marrying the wrong person might be.
Like The Boroughs, Stranger Things is peak ensemble sci-fi. However, its core cast veers slightly younger. This nostalgia-packed series follows a group of kids living in small-town ’80s Indiana whose lives are changed forever after their friend vanishes. They discover supernatural beings, alternate dimensions, and government conspiracies. Throughout its five seasons, the show weaves a vast web as it ratchets up the stakes, blending horror and science fiction with day-to-day teen drama. Come for the intriguing mystery, stay for the found family feels. Millie Bobby Brown (Enola Holmes), Finn Wolfhard (Saturday Night), Gaten Matarazzo (Pizza Movie), Caleb McLaughlin (Goat), Noah Schnapp (Hubie Halloween), and many more star in the Duffer Brothers’ original hit.
The Boroughs proves that it’s never too late to stir up a little trouble. The same can be said for The Thursday Murder Club, inspired by Richard Osman’s 2020 bestseller and directed by Chris Columbus. At a posh retirement home, four irrepressible retirees — Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), and Joyce (Celia Imrie) — spend their time solving cold case murders for fun. But when an unexplained death occurs on their doorstep, their cozy pastime turns into a race to catch a killer. Naomi Ackie (Master of None), Tom Ellis (Lucifer), Richard E. Grant (Too Much), and David Tennant (Broadchurch) also star in this whodunit.
