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While Hollywood did their best to show their own perspective on the afterlife through movies, there's one other way to explore its entirety, from heaven to hell and beyond, and that's through episodic adventures.
Here are 8 shows that tell stories about the afterlife and discuss potential theories on what happens on the other side.
Miracle Workers (2019-2023)
Based on the novel What in God's Name, this anthology series is another workplace comedy, except it's set in heaven. Craig (Daniel Radcliffe), a low-level angel, handles all of humanity's prayers with his boss, God (Steve Buscemi).
However, after centuries had passed, God had grown tired of understanding the human race and decided to put a ticking time bomb on, when it's set to explode. Fellow angel Eliza (Geraldine Viswanathan) took it upon herself to answer the unanswerable prayer to save the Earth: help two humans fall in love.
Streaming Platforms: Hulu
Dead Boy Detectives (2024)
Dead Boy Detectives, based on one of Neil Gaiman's many works, follows two teenage boys, Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne, who refuse to enter the afterlife. Instead, they venture off to solve Earth's unsolvable mysteries. The series shows them investigating cases while avoiding the most powerful entities (from The Sandman universe) like Death, to keep their sleuthing on the go.
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
Black Mirror, San Junipero (2016)
One of the many Black Mirror episodes explores death, and this specific episode, San Junipero, which is from season 3 episode 4, centers on two women, Yorkie and Kelly, who meet and fall in love in the most unconventional (yet futuristic) way possible. The simulation is called San Junipero, where the elderly live forever as their younger avatars by uploading their consciousness while getting to spend their eternity with their soulmates.
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
Forever (2018)
Forever follows the married couple, June (Maya Rudolph) and Oscar (Fred Armisen) Hoffman, who find themselves in a bizarre afterlife after Oscar's death. Think San Junipero, but it just got weirder from there. From deaths to the nature of their marriage, the afterlife became their stage in navigating their rather monotonous marriage life in the living world.
Streaming Platforms: Amazon Prime Video
The Leftovers (2014-2017)
The afterlife in itself is a psychological experience to witness on TV, and The Leftovers made sure of that when the drama series tells the story of how people cope with the sudden, unexplained disappearance of 2% of the world's population. The Leftovers deals with the opposite. Instead of the afterlife setting, it's set on Earth and deep dives into how the population would navigate life after losing their loved ones in the blink of an eye (wink wink, Thanos's snap in another universe).
Streaming Platforms: HBO Max
Hazbin Hotel (2024-Present)
Hell has been punished in more ways than one, and it is up to Charlie Morningstar, aka the daughter of the fallen angel, Lucifer, and princess of Hell, to put a stop to it. Hell has been overpopulated for quite some time now, and the only way heaven decides to solve this is by their annual extermination of sinners.
With Charlie's Hazbin (a play-on-word for Has-Beens, as in Has-Been sinners) Hotel, she strives to find a way to redeem sinners and get their spot in heaven, despite suffering in the afterlife. And it also happens to be an animated musical!
Streaming Platforms: YouTube, Amazon Prime Video
Russian Doll (2019-2022)
Nadia Vulvokov, a game developer, found herself trapped in a time loop, where she is forced to live and re-live her 36th birthday, over and over again. She keeps repeatedly dying in every circumstance, despite the changes she'd already made from the previous loop, cornering her into thinking of the right way to escape her nightmare.
She eventually meets an equally trapped man in his own routine, and they must work together to confront their past traumas and escape their endless cycles of death and rebirth.
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
The Good Place (2016-2020)
Nothing could beat The Good Place when it comes to dealing with the afterlife while also making digestible discussions about morals and ethics. Apart from the series's unexpected twists and turns in every episode across 4 seasons, The Good Place provides a visual aid for viewers on what "heaven" and "hell" could look like (and it's not as black and white as they are usually portrayed in the Holiness materials).
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
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