Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Severance season 2.Now that Severance season 2 is over and the wait for season 3 has begun, fans of Adam Scott’s intense sci-fi mystery show may need a new series or movie to watch to bide the time, and these nine options are all tremendous in their own rights. The cliffhanger ending of Severance season 2 likely has fans on edge and wanting more of the show. Severance season 3 has been confirmed, but it’s still a long ways off, and many of the show’s biggest mysteries seem to be at least a year away from being answered.
Luckily, there are plenty of movies and shows that can help make the time between Severance seasons 2 and 3 pass quicker. Severance is also such a varied show – it touches on everything from mystery to sci-fi dystopias and tragic love stories – that it has a lot of parallels. These nine movies and shows all offer something that fans of Severance will enjoy, and while they can’t solve all the questions Severance season 3 needs to answer, they can scratch the itch of the acclaimed series’ absence.
9 From
Stream On: MGM+, Fubo
From 8/10 727 9.5/10 Release Date February 20, 2022 Network Epix, MGM+ Where to watch Close WHERE TO WATCH Streaming
Severance is a deeply disturbing show on an existential level, but for anyone who wants a more outright unsettling series to binge, From is a perfect option. From is a horror/mystery show that centers around a town that traps and terrorizes everyone who enters. Without getting into spoilers, Severance fans will find quite a bit to like about From, including its hellish town that feels like a prison in the same way Lumon’s severed floor does to its interesting cast of characters that are as easy to root for as the innies.
Related 10 Biggest Mysteries & Unanswered Questions From Season 4 Must Solve Some of From’s biggest mysteries were solved in season 3, but there are still major unanswered questions that remain heading into season 4.
The main reason to watch From after Severance, however, is the mystery of it all. Severance’s various mysteries, like Gemma taking the crib apart or countless others, are reflected in From’s confusing details, like the Man in Yellow. Viewers will have no shortage of questions that are enthralling to see answered and confusing twists that no one could predict. It may be a bit scarier than Severance, but From is just as delightful to unravel.
8 Lost
Stream On: Netflix, Hulu
Lost 9/10 102 8.6/10 Release Date 2004 – 2010-00-00 Network ABC Where to watch Close WHERE TO WATCH Streaming
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Showrunner Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse
Severance has captured viewers’ attention and spawned countless fan theories since it debuted in 2022, which is very reminiscent to the cultural impact Lost had in 2004. Lost follows a group of plane crash survivors who are stranded on a supernatural and deeply mysterious island. It’s not a bleak corporate setting, but Lost’s island is just as confusing and deeply intriguing as Lumon is in Severance. Anyone who can’t stand waiting for Severance to unravel all of its conspiracies and hidden agendas can get some instant satisfaction out of Lost, which had its controversial finale years ago.
7 Minority Report
Stream On: Paramount+
Minority Report 8/10 Release Date June 21, 2002 Runtime 145 minutes Where to watch Close WHERE TO WATCH Streaming
While it is much more of an action movie than Severance, Tom Cruise’s Minority Report can more than scratch the itch of fans looking for another sci-fi mystery thriller. Minority Report follows John, a member of the “Precrime” division of the Washington D.C. police who targets people who are going to commit murder with the help of psychics who can predict the future. John is then singled out as a future killer, and he goes on the run in the cyberpunk dystopia. The plots differ significantly, but the dystopian world of Minority Report is quite similar to that of Severance.
6 Devs
Stream On: Hulu
Devs 9.4/10 Release Date 2020 – 2019 Network FX Where to watch Close WHERE TO WATCH Streaming BUY
Showrunner Alex Garland
Lumon, the mysterious, possibly tech-based, evil company is one of the best parts of Severance, and Devs has one of the best counterparts to it. In Devs, Lily begins investigating the shady company Amaya, who is somehow involved in the realm of quantum computing, after the death of her boyfriend, Sergei. Devs blurs the line between science fiction and mystery in a similarly compelling way to Severance, and its mystery is just as engaging. Unfortunately, Devs only ran for one season, so unlike Severance, there probably won’t be any answers in store.
5 Westworld
Stream On: Max
Westworld 6/10 7.3/10 Release Date 2016 – 2022-00-00 Network HBO Max Where to watch Close WHERE TO WATCH BUY
Showrunner Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy
Long before Severance coined the idea of innies and outies, HBO’s Westworld already tackled the idea of a workforce comprised of sci-fi slaves who rise up against their oppressors. In Westworld, a group of androids known as hosts go from entertaining guests at a Western-themed resort to taking over the entire human race. The earlier seasons of Westworld touch on a lot of the same oppressive workplace drama that made Severance the sensation it is, but it added a new layer of dehumanization on top.
Related Severance: MDR’s Numbers & What They Do Fully Explained (Theory Confirmed) The true purpose of Macrodata Refinement’s job and the meanings behind the number clusters are finally revealed in Severance’s season 2 finale.
Westworld may be a bit more high-concept sci-fi than Severance, as it does deal with artificial intelligence, but it asks all the same biting questions. Viewers who watch either Westworld or Severance will walk away wondering what it means to be human, and what amount of abuse and pain crosses the threshold of being intolerable. Plus, with four seasons, Westworld should more than help bridge the gap between Severance seasons 2 and 3.
4 Sorry to Bother You
Stream On: Hulu
There are quite a few baffling moments in Severance that later proved to be strokes of genius, and no movie captures that uncanny ability to find profundity in the ridiculous like Sorry to Bother You. In Sorry to Bother You, LaKeith Stanfield plays Cash, a Black man who takes on a white voice to succeed at his job as a telemarketer, only to discover that the company he works for is involved in weapons contracts, slave labor, and truly bonkers genetic experimentation. Sorry to Bother You has all the anti-corporate messaging of Severance, and it has the same thrilling sci-fi mysteries to unravel.
Sorry to Bother You has all the anti-corporate messaging of Severance, and it has the same thrilling sci-fi mysteries to unravel.
One of the best parts of both Severance and Sorry to Bother You is their morally questionable protagonists. Mark Scout spends much of Severance being a jerk and caring only about himself, while Cash’s journey through Sorry to Bother You is similarly self-serving. Both Mark and Cash experience a huge amount of character development, however, and they both end up tearing at the fabric of their dystopian corporations.
3 Nineteen Eighty-Four
Stream On: MGM+, Fubo
A large part of life as an innie in Severance, particularly in the first season, was characterized by constant and omnipresent surveillance. The very idea of such an authoritarian power system was basically created by George Orwell’s timeless novel “1984,” and there’s no better film adaptation than 1984’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Like in Severance, Nineteen Eighty-Four follows Winston Smith, a man who lives under the constant surveillance of “Big Brother,” a boogeyman created to compel the people of Oceania to obey the powers that be even in the inner workings of their minds.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is possibly even more bleak and dystopian than Severance is, but the similarities run deeper than that. A major part of Nineteen Eighty-Four is the romantic relationship between Winston and Julia, just as Severance is largely about the different Marks and their relationships to Helly R. and Gemma. Winston even faces a similarly devastating choice at the end of Nineteen Eighty-Four that Mark S. does at the end of Severance season 2, though the former is (hopefully) more depressing than the latter.
2 The Truman Show
Stream On: Hulu, The Criterion Channel
In the sub-genre of stories about people questioning the very foundation of their reality, as the innies do in Severance, no movie has ever been able to top Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show. In The Truman Show, Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a man who has had every second of his life televised to a worldwide audience. The film follows Truman as he slowly whittles away the confines of his fake life to emerge in the real world, free from his TV producer overlord, Christof (Ed Helms). The Truman Show is an utter masterpiece, and it was no doubt one of many inspirations for Severance.
Related What Happens To Jim Carrey’s Truman After The Truman Show Though The Truman Show’s ending is perfect, some viewers may wonder what Jim Carrey’s Truman does after entering the real world for the first time.
The Truman Show and Severance have countless similarities, but it’s their differences that makes the former such a good option to watch. The Truman Show is infinitely more hopeful than Severance, which may help make the wait for Severance season 3 more bearable. Truman’s happy and triumphant ending can act as a bandage to help heal the wound of Mark’s less than decisive finale in Severance season 2.
1 Maniac
Stream On: Netflix
Maniac Release Date 2018 – 2018-00-00 Showrunner Patrick Somerville Directors Cary Joji Fukunaga Writers Cary Joji Fukunaga, Patrick Somerville, Danielle Henderson Where to watch Close WHERE TO WATCH Streaming
I only recently found out about Netflix’s Maniac, starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, and I was immediately blown away by how similar it is to Severance. At the surface level, both shows feature a retro-futuristic corporate dystopia, both follow a depressed male lead and an enigmatic female lead, and they both have the same dry, deadpan sense of humor. Those similarities alone are almost uncanny, but the actual meat and potatoes of Maniac and Severance are astonishingly alike. I won’t get into too many spoilers, however, because Maniac also has a mystery that’s just as gripping as Severance’s.
Related Netflix Already Released A Thrilling Psychological Drama To Watch While Waiting For Severance Season 2 Apple TV+ renewed Severance for season 2 in 2022, but a release date is still unknown. So, in the meantime, fans can watch a similar show on Netflix.
For example, Hill’s Owen Milgrim is almost a blueprint for Scott’s Mark Scout, the only difference being he has schizophrenia instead of alcoholism. Maniac also features the exact same mind-bending traipse into a sinister corporation that Severance does, though it swaps the severance procedure for a “wonder” drug that takes its recipients on otherworldly trips through their own minds. Really, the only problem with Maniac is that it’s only one season long, but that one season is a truly wild ride from start to finish. If anything is a near-perfect replacement for Severance, it’s Maniac.