Shows Like
Shows Like Squid Game: Survival Thrillers That Deliver
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
Squid Game finished. Hwang Dong-hyuk's series ran three seasons on Netflix, from September 2021 to the final episodes in June 2025, and it left a very specific hole. Not gore, and not competition either. What it had was debt, a group of people who genuinely could not walk away, and children's games shot like executions.
Most lists in this genre just name anything with a countdown timer. This one sorts by which part of Squid Game you actually want back: the games, the trapped-group politics, or the argument about money. Each pick notes what it shares, what it does differently, and who should take it. Where each title streams moves around, so the title page on BingeNext shows current US options.
If you want the games themselves
Alice in Borderland (Netflix, Japan, 2020 to 2025, three seasons) is the obvious first stop and it is genuinely as good. Kento Yamazaki wakes in an emptied Tokyo where survival means clearing games sorted by playing-card suit, some of them physical, some of them pure logic. It is bigger and more science-fiction than Squid Game, and it is more interested in puzzle design than in class. The third season arrived in September 2025, so the whole thing is there.
The 8 Show (Netflix, Korea, 2024, eight episodes) puts eight people in a building where time itself is the currency, and the higher your floor the more you earn per minute. It is the sharpest satire on this list, funnier and nastier than Squid Game, and it does not bother with a mystery box. Eight episodes and out.
Liar Game (Fuji TV, Japan, 2007) is where a lot of this genre starts. Adapted from Shinobu Kaitani's manga, it is a Japanese drama about a naive student and a con artist working through rounds of a psychological money game, and it was later remade in Korea. No violence, all deception. Take it if the marbles episode was your favorite.
Battle Royale (2000, Japanese film, directed by Kinji Fukasaku) is the ancestor of the entire form: a school class dropped on an island and told only one comes back. A hundred and thirteen minutes, still shocking, and the reason every later show has to work harder.
If you want the trapped group
All of Us Are Dead (Netflix, Korea, 2022, twelve episodes) traps students in a school during a zombie outbreak, and the horror is almost entirely about who gets left on the wrong side of a door. Same Korean instinct for making you love someone right before something happens to them. More monster movie, less allegory.
Sweet Home (Netflix, Korea, 2020 to 2024, three seasons) locks residents in an apartment block while people start turning into monsters shaped by their desires. It is more emotional and more uneven than Squid Game, with a superb first season. Choose it for the building-as-society structure.
The Wilds (Prime Video, 2020 to 2022, two seasons) strands a group of teenage girls on an island and cuts between the beach and the interviews afterward, which tells you fairly quickly that this is not an accident. Softer and more character-driven. Good for people who came for the alliances rather than the deaths.
The Platform (2019, Spanish film, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia) is a vertical prison where a food platform descends one level at a time and the people above eat first. Ninety-four minutes, one idea, executed brutally. It is the most explicit statement of Squid Game's thesis on this list.
If you want the argument about money
3% (Netflix, Brazil, 2016 to 2020, four seasons) is a dystopia where every twenty-year-old gets one shot at a selection process that admits three percent of them to a better world. It is lower budget than Squid Game and considerably more political, and it thinks harder about what happens to the people who pass.
Hellbound (Netflix, Korea, 2021 and 2024, two seasons) is Yeon Sang-ho's series about supernatural announcements of damnation and the cult that grows up to explain them. It is not a game show at all, but it has Squid Game's appetite for watching institutions fail loudly. Choose it if you liked the world-building more than the contest.
Snowpiercer (2020 to 2024, four seasons, premiered on TNT and finished on AMC) is a class war on a train that never stops, based on the same graphic novel as Bong Joon-ho's film. It is a network drama rather than a prestige swing and it has procedural episodes, but the front-of-train, back-of-train structure is Squid Game's VIP balcony stretched over four seasons.
Physical: 100 (Netflix, Korea, 2023 to present, two seasons) is the real-competition version, a hundred athletes in physical challenges, no stakes beyond a prize. I include it because it captures the spectacle and the design of the sets almost exactly, with nobody getting hurt. Watch it when you want the adrenaline and none of the dread.
Where to start
Alice in Borderland if you want the closest and biggest. The 8 Show if you want one sitting and a sharper joke. Battle Royale or The Platform if you have an evening rather than a week. Physical: 100 if what you actually miss is the tension without the body count.
If you would rather not guess, hand a few favorites to BingeNext's TV recommendations and it will return picks with the reason each one fits and where it streams. Takes about a minute.
Topics covered: thriller, survival, competition, psychological-drama, korean-drama, netflix
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.