10 Binge-Worthy HBO Shows for Fans of The Last of Us
You loved The Last of Us for more than its infected. The ruined cities, impossible choices and evolving bond between Joel and Ellie gave every dangerous mile an emotional reason to matter. If you are looking for another HBO series with survival, mystery, world-building or people trying to stay human in a frightening setting, this countdown offers ten different routes into that feeling.
Some picks share the post-apocalyptic premise directly. Station Eleven and The Leftovers imagine what people do after a world-changing event, though neither copies the game’s action. Chernobyl offers a real historical catastrophe and the effort to contain it; The Outsider moves from crime investigation towards something stranger. Game of Thrones, His Dark Materials and Westworld build unfamiliar worlds where trust and survival have different rules.
Each entry starts with the story and central characters, then explains what works, who will enjoy it and why it sits at that exact position. The descriptions avoid major spoilers so you can discover the turns on screen.
These shows are connected by theme rather than by being all zombie or apocalypse stories. Some are science-fiction, some are fantasy, some are crime dramas, and The Pacific is a war miniseries. What they share is pressure on relationships: people have to decide what to protect, whom to trust and which rules still matter when ordinary life has changed.
If you are choosing by genre, start with the fact that these are companion watches rather than direct copies. The Pacific is a historical war story; True Blood and His Dark Materials lean into supernatural worlds; Game of Thrones turns survival into fantasy politics. Station Eleven and The Leftovers are closest to the question of how people rebuild meaning after a catastrophe, while Chernobyl offers a grounded account of institutional failure under extreme pressure. The entries explain those differences so you can find the emotional or world-building connection that matters most to you, even when the genre changes. It also helps if you are not seeking another infected-versus-survivors story: several of the strongest matches are really about attachment and endurance.
For UK viewers, HBO Max launched in March 2026 and can also be accessed through some Sky and NOW packages. Individual title availability changes, so check each current listing before you commit. If you want the closest emotional companion to The Last of Us, the #1 pick takes the top spot for the way it connects survival with art, memory and community.
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What makes a good show to watch after The Last of Us?
This ranking looks for more than monsters or ruined buildings. We compared the emotional bond at the centre of each series, the clarity of its survival stakes, the strength of its world-building and whether the characters’ choices create a story that keeps moving. Some titles are close matches in genre; others share The Last of Us’ interest in what people try to preserve when the world changes.
We also considered completeness and binge rhythm. Station Eleven and The Leftovers are limited stories, while Game of Thrones and True Blood are longer multi-season worlds.
The countdown explains why it beats the other entries for this particular topic without claiming every viewer wants the same kind of post-apocalyptic drama.
10. The Pacific (2010)
This ten-part World War II miniseries follows three US Marines—Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge—through the Pacific theatre. Their paths cross different campaigns and islands as the war moves forward, with each man facing the gap between military duty and the physical and emotional cost of combat. Unlike The Last of Us, its threat is not an infection or a ruined modern world; it is a real historical conflict that pushes people through danger, loss and exhaustion. The central story is how the Marines carry their experiences back into ordinary life after surviving the next battle.
Produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the series uses an ensemble structure to show that courage and fear can sit beside each other. James Badge Dale, Jon Seda and Joseph Mazzello anchor different parts of the story, while the combat scenes are deliberately intense.
Why it ranks here: The Pacific starts at #10 because it shares danger and survival stakes with The Last of Us but has the weakest match in setting and relationship-driven storytelling. His Dark Materials, Game of Thrones and The Outsider offer more immersive fictional worlds, while this series is rooted in a specific war.
Who should watch: viewers interested in war history, intense survival stories and the cost of combat.
Where to watch in the UK: Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
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9. True Blood (2008)
In the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps, telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse meets vampire Bill Compton after synthetic blood allows vampires to reveal themselves to human society. Sookie’s ability to hear people’s thoughts makes ordinary relationships difficult, and her connection to Bill draws her into supernatural politics and danger. Her friends, family and neighbours have their own reactions to vampires becoming public, while vampire Eric Northman adds another powerful presence to the town’s orbit. The series begins as a romance and mystery, then expands into a wider conflict about who gets to live safely when humans and supernatural beings share a world.
Anna Paquin gives Sookie a mix of curiosity and stubbornness, while the show uses its Southern Gothic setting for humour, horror and melodrama. The world is larger and more fantastical than The Last of Us, but both series ask how fear changes communities and how intimacy can survive dangerous conditions.
Why it ranks here: True Blood ranks #9 because its supernatural world and relationship drama are entertaining, but it is a looser tonal fit for viewers drawn to The Last of Us’ spare, post-apocalyptic journey. The Pacific is more grounded in real survival, while the titles above build stronger links between a distinctive world and a tightly defined emotional arc.
Who should watch: viewers who want vampires, Southern Gothic atmosphere, romance and adult fantasy drama.
Where to watch in the UK: Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
8. His Dark Materials (2019)
Lyra Belacqua grows up at Jordan College in a world where each person’s soul appears as an animal companion called a dæmon. When her friend Roger disappears and the mysterious Mrs Coulter takes Lyra away from Oxford, Lyra begins a journey that leads her beyond her familiar world and towards dangerous questions about authority, family and freedom. Her uncle Lord Asriel’s research into parallel worlds gives the larger story another direction. The central conflict is Lyra’s effort to find the people she loves and understand the forces trying to control knowledge and movement between worlds.
Dafne Keen gives Lyra an adventurous centre, while Ruth Wilson makes Mrs Coulter both polished and unsettling. The dæmons offer a visually clear way to express character, and the series’ settings move from Oxford to unfamiliar landscapes without losing its focus on Lyra’s choices.
Why it ranks here: It sits at #8 because its parallel-world adventure is compelling, but the family and survival stakes are less intimate than the entries above it. Game of Thrones offers more political danger, while The Outsider brings its threat closer to a contemporary investigation.
Who should watch: fans of fantasy quests, parallel worlds, young heroes and stories about family and freedom.
Where to watch in the UK: Sky Go and BBC iPlayer. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
7. Game of Thrones (2011)
The Stark family’s life at Winterfell changes when Ned Stark is called to King’s Landing and drawn into a fight over the Iron Throne. Across Westeros, the Lannisters and Baratheons pursue power, while Daenerys Targaryen begins a separate journey and danger grows beyond the Wall. The series follows rival families, political bargains and people facing threats larger than themselves. Its central conflict is who can rule a fractured realm and whether anyone can prepare for a danger that makes the contest for the crown seem small. The sprawling fantasy world gives the show room for different kinds of survival story.
The show’s ensemble and changing alliances make it easy to keep watching because every choice can alter another character’s situation. Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke and Lena Headey lead stories with very different ideas of power and family.
Why it ranks here: It ranks #7 because its survival stakes and world-building are strong, but the scale pulls attention away from the intimate relationship focus that makes The Last of Us distinctive. The Outsider and Westworld centre more tightly on a mystery or a pair of characters, while Watchmen and Chernobyl have more concentrated narratives.
Who should watch: viewers who want fantasy politics, high stakes, rival families and a big multi-season world.
Where to watch in the UK: HBO Max. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
6. The Outsider (2020)
Detective Ralph Anderson investigates the murder of a child in a Georgia town, and the evidence seems to implicate local teacher Terry Maitland. The case becomes difficult when details do not fit together, drawing in Maitland’s wife Glory, attorney Howie Salomon and investigator Holly Gibney. As the team follows clues, the crime story gradually approaches supernatural horror. Its central conflict is whether the investigators can trust ordinary explanations when the evidence points in directions that should not be possible. Like The Last of Us, the series lets an unseen threat change how people behave and whom they believe.
Ben Mendelsohn plays Ralph as a detective carrying personal grief into the case, and Cynthia Erivo’s Holly sees patterns other people overlook.
Why it ranks here: The Outsider reaches #6 because it turns a crime case into a frightening genre mystery, but it does not build a world as expansive or emotionally sustained as the series above it. Westworld, Watchmen and Chernobyl have more fully realised systems around their central threats.
Who should watch: viewers who like crime investigations that become supernatural horror, with a serious tone. It suits viewers after eerie tension more than action-heavy survival.
Where to watch in the UK: HBO Max. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
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5. Westworld (2016)
At a futuristic theme park, wealthy guests enter a western world populated by android hosts who follow scripted lives. Dolores Abernathy and Maeve Millay begin encountering details that unsettle their routines, while Bernard Lowe and park founder Robert Ford occupy different positions in the system that controls them. The guests believe the park is built for their entertainment, but the hosts’ repeated stories create questions about memory, choice and who is allowed to cause harm. The series’ central conflict is whether a person created for someone else’s amusement can recognise the rules shaping their life and act beyond them.
The premise invites viewers to consider the park from different points of view, and the show makes structure part of the suspense. Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton and Jeffrey Wright give the hosts distinctive emotional lives, while Anthony Hopkins lends the park’s design a quiet authority.
Why it ranks here: Westworld ranks #5 because its world-building and moral questions are excellent, but later story expansion makes it less consistently focused than Watchmen or Chernobyl. It beats The Outsider for the scale of its sci-fi setting and sits above Game of Thrones for its closer interest in created life and survival.
Who should watch: fans of science fiction, artificial intelligence, theme-park world-building and puzzles about memory and choice.
Where to watch in the UK: not currently streaming; paid downloads are listed on Apple TV Store, Amazon Video and Sky Store. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
4. Watchmen (2019)
In an alternate America decades after the events of the original graphic novel, Tulsa police detective Angela Abar works under the masked identity Sister Night. An attack on the city’s police force leads Angela into an investigation connected to masked groups, local history and people whose lives overlap with the conspiracy. FBI agent Laurie Blake arrives with her own methods, while Angela’s family history becomes increasingly relevant to the case. The central conflict is her attempt to uncover what is happening in Tulsa and understand how the past continues to shape the city’s present.
Regina King gives Angela a clear emotional centre, and the show uses setting, dates and visual motifs to reward attentive viewing. Its superhero frame lets it examine justice and history, but the investigative story stays close to a detective trying to understand events around her.
Why it ranks here: It sits at #4 because its ambitious mystery and historical world are powerful, but the density asks more of viewers than Chernobyl or The Leftovers. It beats Westworld for a more compact, self-contained story and a sharper connection between its setting and its themes.
Who should watch: viewers open to superhero drama that mixes mystery, history and social questions.
Where to watch in the UK: HBO Max. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
3. Chernobyl (2019)
In April 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant creates an unfolding crisis that officials and engineers struggle to understand. Valery Legasov and plant deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov become part of the effort to establish what happened, while physicist Ulana Khomyuk investigates the technical failures and people such as firefighter Vasily Ignatenko face the human cost. The series follows workers, scientists and families as radiation spreads beyond the plant. Its central conflict is the race to contain a real disaster while secrecy and institutional fear make honest information difficult to obtain.
Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård anchor the political and scientific response, while Emily Watson’s Khomyuk represents a composite of the scientists who investigated the catastrophe. The show’s five episodes turn technical decisions into suspense without losing sight of the people affected.
Why it ranks here: It reaches #3 because it combines a clear crisis, investigative momentum and deeply human consequences in a concise structure. The Leftovers takes #2 for its broader emotional exploration of a changed world, and Station Eleven takes #1 for connecting survival to art and community.
Who should watch: viewers who want a tense historical miniseries about disaster, science and institutional failure.
Where to watch in the UK: NOW TV and Sky Go. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
2. The Leftovers (2014)
Three years after two per cent of the world’s population vanishes without explanation, Kevin Garvey tries to keep his community functioning as police chief in Mapleton. His wife Laurie, son Tom and daughter Jill respond to the event differently, while Nora Durst carries the grief of losing her husband and children. People create new beliefs and rituals to explain what happened, but no answer unites them. The story’s central conflict is how to build relationships and a future when the world has changed and certainty has disappeared. The event is large; the series makes its consequences personal.
Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon give Kevin and Nora a complicated connection to the loss, while Ann Dowd’s Laurie shows how belief can become a way to survive or a new source of conflict. The show is willing to let mystery stay unresolved, shifting its tone and geography across three seasons without leaving the people at its centre.
Why it ranks here: The Leftovers earns #2 because it is an extraordinary drama about life after an impossible event, and it shares The Last of Us’ interest in grief, attachment and the people left behind. Station Eleven takes #1 for its stronger connection between survival, creativity and shared community.
Who should watch: viewers ready for a bold, emotional drama about grief, belief and a world that has no explanation.
Where to watch in the UK: HBO Max and NOW TV. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
Before we reveal our No. 1 pick…
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1. Station Eleven (2021)
After a pandemic wipes out most of humanity, travelling actor Kirsten Raymonde performs Shakespeare with the Travelling Symphony as the group moves between settlements around the Great Lakes. The story connects her post-pandemic life with the early days of the outbreak, when young Kirsten meets actor Arthur Leander and is helped by Jeevan Chaudhary. Years later, a prophet and the Museum of Civilization bring new pressures to the troupe’s route. The central conflict is not simply how to survive another dangerous encounter; it is how people preserve art, memory and relationships when familiar institutions have vanished.
Mackenzie Davis and Himesh Patel give the series a strong emotional centre, while the shifting timeline lets the viewer see how a handful of moments echo across decades. The Travelling Symphony’s performances make art a practical part of survival: a shared story can help people imagine more than fear.
Why it ranks here: Station Eleven takes #1 because it matches The Last of Us’ post-pandemic stakes while giving the aftermath its own identity through art, memory and community. The Leftovers is more metaphysical, and Chernobyl more historically urgent, but Station Eleven balances survival danger with the question of what people choose to rebuild.
Who should watch: viewers who want a thoughtful post-apocalyptic miniseries about survival, art and rebuilding community.
Where to watch in the UK: NOW TV and Sky Go. Availability changes; check the live JustWatch UK listing.
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Conclusion
The strongest recommendations here share The Last of Us’ belief that a dangerous world matters because of the people trying to move through it. The Pacific approaches survival through the history of war; His Dark Materials and Game of Thrones create fantasy systems with their own threats; The Outsider turns a crime case into something uncanny. Chernobyl and The Leftovers explore disaster and loss from very different angles.
Station Eleven wins #1 because it combines post-pandemic survival with a distinctive story about art, memory and community. The Leftovers is the best choice if you want unanswered questions and grief, while Chernobyl offers the most tightly controlled historical crisis. Which series gave you the same emotional pull as Joel and Ellie’s journey? Share your pick and the show we should add next.
Pick your next watch by the connection you want to follow: survival, grief, world-building or the bond between people under pressure. Station Eleven takes the top position because it gathers several of those threads into one complete story, while the other entries offer sharper genre experiences. The best follow-up is the one whose central question stays with you after the episode ends.
If you only want the closest tonal connection, begin with Station Eleven; if you want a complete change of genre, choose The Pacific or His Dark Materials.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What should I watch after The Last of Us?
Station Eleven is our top recommendation because it is another HBO post-pandemic story, but its focus is on art, memory and community. The Leftovers is a strong choice if you want a mystery about people coping with an unexplained event. For action and fantasy world-building, try Game of Thrones; for a grounded disaster story, start Chernobyl. The best follow-up depends on which element you want again, so use the premise and tone to choose rather than expecting a direct copy.
Is Station Eleven similar to The Last of Us?
Both shows follow people living after a pandemic has changed society, and both place human relationships at the centre of survival. Station Eleven is less focused on combat and more interested in art, memory and the communities that form after disaster. It is a ten-episode limited series adapted from Emily St. John Mandel’s novel. The similarity is thematic rather than a shared story world, so you can start this series without watching the other one first.
Is The Leftovers about a pandemic?
No. The Leftovers begins after two per cent of the world’s population suddenly disappears. It follows the people left behind and how they respond to grief, belief and uncertainty. It is a character drama rather than a conventional mystery that promises a clear scientific explanation for the event. Check the rating and a current content guide if you are sensitive to its more intense scenes; the tone can be very different from a lighter HBO drama.
Where can I watch HBO shows in the UK?
HBO Max launched in the UK in March 2026. Some Sky and NOW customers can access it through eligible plans, and individual programmes may also appear on other services. Check each title in the official catalogue or on JustWatch UK before subscribing because streaming rights change. Search the exact programme title rather than assuming every HBO show remains in the same catalogue; UK streaming rights and bundles are title-specific and can change.
Which show on this list is most like a post-apocalyptic drama?
Station Eleven and The Last of Us both take place after a pandemic reshapes society. The Pacific is a historical war miniseries rather than a post-apocalyptic series, while The Leftovers focuses on a mass disappearance. Choose Station Eleven for community and art, or The Pacific for a grounded story of wartime survival. That choice reflects the criteria in this countdown: story control, character work and how satisfying the viewing experience is as a whole.
Is The Pacific based on real events?
The Pacific is a historical miniseries based on the experiences of US Marines during the Pacific theatre of World War II, including Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge. It is a dramatization rather than documentary footage. It shares the themes of danger, survival and comradeship, but its setting and events are historical. Check the rating and a current content guide if you are sensitive to its more intense scenes; the tone can be very different from a lighter HBO drama.
Is His Dark Materials a family-friendly show?
His Dark Materials is a fantasy series about Lyra Belacqua, parallel worlds and dangerous institutions, but it includes peril and mature themes. Its tone is more accessible to younger viewers than many dark HBO dramas, yet parents should check the age rating and content guidance for their household before watching. Check the rating and a current content guide if you are sensitive to its more intense scenes; the tone can be very different from a lighter HBO drama.
What is The Outsider about?
The Outsider begins with detective Ralph Anderson investigating a child’s murder and evidence pointing to local teacher Terry Maitland. As the facts become difficult to reconcile, investigator Holly Gibney joins the case. The series starts as a crime procedural and gradually moves towards supernatural horror. The series uses that setup to keep its larger premise grounded in specific people and the choices they make.
Is Westworld a good choice if I like The Last of Us?
Westworld is a good choice if you like science-fiction worlds and questions about autonomy, memory and what makes someone human. It is less focused on a two-person journey than The Last of Us, and its story uses a more complex structure. Start with season one’s basic premise and avoid spoilers before watching. Check the rating and a current content guide if you are sensitive to its more intense scenes; the tone can be very different from a lighter HBO drama.
Which series is the shortest binge on this list?
Chernobyl is a five-part limited series, and Station Eleven has ten episodes with a complete story. The Outsider has one season, while The Leftovers runs for three. Game of Thrones and True Blood are much longer commitments, so choose based on whether you want a weekend story or a world to spend more time in. That choice reflects the criteria in this countdown: story control, character work and how satisfying the viewing experience is as a whole.
More Places to Find Great Movies and TV Shows
NOW's HBO guide shows the current selection of HBO programmes available through NOW. Browse NOW's HBO catalogue
Sky's HBO Max page explains current access options for Sky customers. Visit Sky's HBO Max page
JustWatch UK lets you compare title availability by service and format. Check the HBO Max TV catalogue
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