20 best shows like The Happening (2008)

A U.S. satellite crash-lands near a small town in Utah, unleashing a deadly plague that kills virtually everyone except two survivors, who may provide clues to immunizing the population. As the military attempts to quarantine the area, a team of highly specialized scientists is assembled to find a cure and stop the spread of the alien pathogen, code-named Andromeda.

The provocative story of Cole, a time traveler from a decimated future in a high-stakes race against the clock. Utilizing a dangerous and untested method of time travel, he journeys from 2043 to the present day on a mission to locate and eradicate the source of a deadly plague that will all but annihilate the human race.

Helix is an intense thriller about a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to a high-tech research facility in the Arctic to investigate a possible disease outbreak, only to find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind's salvation...or total annihilation.

Last Resort is an American military drama television series. When the crew of the U.S. Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, the USS Colorado, pick up a U.S. Navy SEAL team off Pakistan's coast, the Colorado receives an order to launch nuclear ballistic missiles at Pakistan.

After a brutal virus wipes out most of the population, two young siblings embark on a perilous search for safety. A Scandinavian thriller series.

Set amidst a wave of violent animal attacks sweeping across the planet, a young renegade scientist is thrust into a race to unlock the mystery behind this pandemic before time runs out for animals and humans alike.

A sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor. They become entangled in a murder plot and will shake the entire university and change the course of their lives.

A post-apocalyptic story about a botched U.S. government experiment that turns a group of death row inmates into highly infectious vampires, and an orphan girl who might be the only person able to stop the ensuing crisis.

Between is the story of a town under siege from a mysterious disease that has wiped out everybody except those 21 years old and under. The series explores the power vacuum that results when a government has quarantined a 10-mile diameter area and left the inhabitants to fend for themselves.

Person of Interest follows former CIA paramilitary operative, John Reese, who is presumed dead and teams up with reclusive billionaire Finch to prevent violent crimes in New York City by initiating their own type of justice. With the special training that Reese has had in Covert Operations and Finch's genius software inventing mind, the two are a perfect match for the job that they have to complete. With the help of surveillance equipment, they work "outside the law" and get the right criminal behind bars. 

Their mission is simple: Find a cure. Stop the virus. Save the world. When a global pandemic wipes out eighty percent of the planet's population, the crew of a lone naval destroyer must find a way to pull humanity from the brink of extinction.

After a massive alien artifact lands on Earth, Niko Breckinridge leads an interstellar mission to track down its source and make first contact.

Under the Dome is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. It tells the story of the residents of the small town of Chester's Mill in Maine, where a massive, transparent, indestructible dome suddenly cuts them off from the rest of the world. With no Internet access, no mobile signals and limited radio communication, the people trapped inside must find their own ways to survive with diminishing resources and rising tensions. While military forces, the government and the media positioned outside of this surrounding barrier attempt to break it down, a small group of people inside attempt to figure out what the dome is, where it came from, and when (and if) it will go away.

In the year 2093, a team of scientists aboard the Nightflyer, the most advanced ship ever built, embarks on a journey to find other life forms. Their mission takes them to the edge of the solar system, and to the edge of insanity, as they realize true horror isn't waiting for them in outer space—it's already on their ship.

Siberia is an American mockumentary series about a reality television show where 16 contestants must survive in the Siberian territory of Tunguska. The show was filmed in Birds Hill Provincial Park just north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It premiered on NBC on July 1, 2013. The first season was met with generally favorable reviews from critics and viewers, with average viewership per episode coming in around 2.03 million viewers. Metacritic scored the show with a 63 out of 100. The series concluded its first season on September 16, 2013.

After a fortuitous drug bender saves his life, addict Jake ventures out into the quiet streets… unaware that most of the world already died in their beds. Now, battling sleepless fatigue and encroaching delirium, Jake teams with a scrappy teenager, overnight doctor and red-eye pilot to search for answers… and just maybe find a way to sleep again.

400 years after the extinction of the human race, a small group of humans are revived by an alien civilization. The colony of revived humans encounter struggles with the aliens who extinguished humankind centuries before, while trying to understand and get along with the mysterious aliens who revived them.

Tales of science fiction, fantasy and the occult, exploring humanity's hopes, despairs, prides and prejudices in metaphoric ways. Next stop ahead The Twilight Zone.

When the sun suddenly starts killing everything in its path, passengers on an overnight flight from Brussels attempt to survive by any means necessary.

Young computer engineer Lily Chan investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a cutting-edge tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend.

After landing from a turbulent but routine flight, the crew and passengers of Montego Air Flight 828 discover five years have passed in what seemed like a few hours. As their new realities become clear, a deeper mystery unfolds and some of the returned passengers soon realize they may be meant for something greater than they ever thought possible.

An English teacher travels back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination, but discovers he is attached to the life he has made in a bygone era.

Before there was Batman, there was GOTHAM. Everyone knows the name Commissioner Gordon. He is one of the crime world's greatest foes, a man whose reputation is synonymous with law and order. But what is known of Gordon's story and his rise from rookie detective to Police Commissioner? What did it take to navigate the multiple layers of corruption that secretly ruled Gotham City, the spawning ground of the world's most iconic villains? And what circumstances created them – the larger-than-life personas who would become Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker?

Each episode transports the audience to worlds of wonder through the lens of today’s most imaginative filmmakers, directors and writers. A reimagining of the original anthology series by Steven Spielberg.

What would you do to have everything you desire? Step inside 666 Park Avenue, New York's most seductive address. We all have some burning needs, desires and ambitions. For the residents of The Drake, the premier apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side, these will all be met – for a price – courtesy of the building's mysterious owner, Gavin Doran. But be careful what you wish for, because the price you have to pay is your soul.

When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one strange little girl.

We love to play games with our children. But what happens when someone else starts to play with them too? Someone we don't know. Can't see. Can't hear. In The Whispers, someone or something -- is manipulating the ones we love most to accomplish the unthinkable. An unseen alien force has figured this human weakness out. They have invaded earth and are using our most unlikely resource to achieve world domination – our children.

Picks up 25 years after the inhabitants of a quaint northwestern town are stunned when their homecoming queen is murdered.

The Outer Limits is an anthology series of distinct story episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end. Unlike the original incarnation of the series, which was a pure anthology with each episode completely unrelated to the others, the revival series maintained an anthology format, but occasionally featured recurring story elements that were often tied together during season-finale clip shows.

A thriller set two hundred years in the future following the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

Stripped of everything, the survivors of a horrific plane crash must work together to stay alive. But the island holds many secrets.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King is an 8-episode anthology series on TNT based on short stories written by Stephen King. It debuted on July 12, 2006, and ended its run on August 2, 2006. Although most of them are from the collection of the same name, there are some stories from different collections by King. A trailer confirming a DVD release of the series was made available in October 2006. The series was filmed entirely in Melbourne, Australia.

A physicist discovers a briefcase containing postdated documents and evidence which indicate he will die five days in the future.

Four young friends' paper routes are disrupted on Hell Day 1988, when they unknowingly time travel to 2019. While searching for a way home, they come face-to-face with their adult selves and learn how to work together to save the world.

After years of playing second fiddle to Agents Mulder and Scully on  The X-Files, the trio of computer-hacking conspiracy geeks popularly known as The Lone Gunmen are finally heading out on their own. Never ones to stray far from the center of corporate and government intrigue, the threesome play like a misguided Mission Impossible team, embarking on a series of comic adventures that simultaneously highlight their genius and ineptitude.

Falling Skies opens in the chaotic aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the six months since the initial invasion, the few survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign against the occupying alien force.

Aided by his own remarkable abilities and an eclectic team of associates, real estate agent Luke Roman specializes in “metaphysically engaged properties,” aka haunted houses. Together they investigate, clear and close the houses nobody else can.

The Martian Chronicles deals with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there.

FBI agent Audrey Parker arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine to solve a murder and soon discovers the town's many secrets—which also hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of her lost past.

Two federal agents from two different continents, and two different mindsets, must work together to investigate when wreckage from a destroyed alien spacecraft has mysterious effects on humankind.

The Event is an emotional, high-octane conspiracy thriller that follows Sean Walker, an everyman who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his would-be fiancée Leila, and unwittingly begins to expose the biggest cover-up in U.S. history.

On a night in London in 1946, newspaper reporter Ellen McGillivray arrives at the home of legendary literary figure, Herbert George Wells. Expecting to hear of the events and people who formed his prophetic imagination, she is informed of a world in which known scientific boundaries no longer exist. It begins a half-century earlier at London's Imperial College of Science where Wells meets Jane Robbins, a scientist equally fascinated by unnatural phenomenon, and a woman who immediately captures Wells' heart. Through midnight experiments and secret investigations into the paranormal, through the follies of chance and the miracles of fate, Wells and Robbins find themselves slipping into whirlpools of time, both past and present.

A chronicle of the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book.”

Sleepwalkers is an American science fiction series which began airing on NBC in late 1997. It tells the story of a team of researchers who used technology to enter the dreams of psychiatric patients in order to diagnose their problems.The show was created by Stephen Kronish and David S. Goyer, who would go on to produce the Blade films.

FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham, brilliant but formerly institutionalized scientist Walter Bishop and his scheming, reluctant son Peter uncover a deadly mystery involving a series of unbelievable events and realize they may be a part of a larger, more disturbing pattern that blurs the line between science fiction and technology.

In a world mostly wiped out by the plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil, the fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and a handful of survivors. Their worst nightmares are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.

When a mysterious object crashes to Earth, a group of seemingly unconnected strangers die from the energy pulse, but then awaken to learn that they have assigned the task of preventing the impending Apocalypse.

Jericho is an American action/drama series that centers on the residents of the fictional town of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of nuclear attacks on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States.

A contemporary and culturally resonant drama about a young programmer, Elliot, who suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He wields his skills as a weapon to protect the people that he cares about. Elliot will find himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations that are recruiting him to bring down corporate America.

After a rash of disappearances and a likely murder, an inquisitive, young female production assistant on a wildly popular television show called Cult joins a journalist blogger in investigating the rabid fans of the series who might be re-creating crimes seen on the program, in real life.