16 Teen Shows on Netflix that will Transport You Back to High School
Stories set in high school are never, ahem, too cool for school. Whether you were the brain, athlete, basket case, princess, or criminal, everyone can relate to those angsty years of growing up and wanting to belong, find romance, and experience the epic highs and lows of high school football. Thanks to television, graduation doesn’t have to mean leaving your teenage years behind. Check out some of the best teen series that make us feel like we’re 17 again. Photo: Chris Large / Netflix My Life with the Walter Boys Horse girlies, this one’s for you. Based on Ali Novak’s popular WattPad novel, My Life with the Walter Boys follows 15-year-old Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) as she moves in with her mother’s college best friend Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) after a family tragedy. Jackie leaves behind the glitz and glamour of New York City for the natural splendor and home comforts of Silver Falls, Colorado, which might be just what she needs to heal. Katherine and her husband, George (Marc Blucas) have 10 kids they look after already, and this pushes Jackie out of her comfort zone and into the arms of two very different brothers: the reliable and bookish Alex (Ashby [...]
T. Kauer 
Stories set in high school are never, ahem, too cool for school. Whether you were the brain, athlete, basket case, princess, or criminal, everyone can relate to those angsty years of growing up and wanting to belong, find romance, and experience the epic highs and lows of high school football.
Thanks to television, graduation doesn’t have to mean leaving your teenage years behind. Check out some of the best teen series that make us feel like we’re 17 again.
Photo: Chris Large / Netflix
My Life with the Walter Boys
Horse girlies, this one’s for you. Based on Ali Novak’s popular WattPad novel, My Life with the Walter Boys follows 15-year-old Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) as she moves in with her mother’s college best friend Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) after a family tragedy. Jackie leaves behind the glitz and glamour of New York City for the natural splendor and home comforts of Silver Falls, Colorado, which might be just what she needs to heal. Katherine and her husband, George (Marc Blucas) have 10 kids they look after already, and this pushes Jackie out of her comfort zone and into the arms of two very different brothers: the reliable and bookish Alex (Ashby Gentry), and the mysterious and troubled Cole (Noah LaLonde). Who does Jackie end up with? Well, you’ll have to tune into Season 2 to find out.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
Heartstopper
After watching Heartstopper, you’ll never think of the word “hi” the same way again. Based on the webcomic by Alice Oseman, the endearing British series follows Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), an openly gay year 10 student, as he falls for popular year 11 rugby player, Nick Nelson (Kit Connor). The series is a tender story of learning to accept who you are and leaning on the loved ones in your life to help guide you through it all. Plus, the soundtrack is tailor-made for when you’re mad for someone — teen years and beyond.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
Never Have I Ever
Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) is just your regular Indian American Valley girl with a dream: to sleep with Sherman Oaks High’s hottest member of the swim team, Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet). But the series isn’t just about lusting after your crush. Over its four seasons, the comedy also tackles owning up to your mistakes, the journey of working through grief and loss, and learning to love yourself — the kinds of things you can’t learn from a textbook.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
Stranger Things
Set in ’80s Hawkins, Indiana, Stranger Things doesn’t exactly present its teens with a run-of-the-mill high school experience. As one of the show’s heroes, Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), points out in Season 4 of the series, calling their town “cursed” isn’t exactly far off. In between Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and shopping trips to their local Starcourt Mall, these young adults also enroll in the very specific extracurricular activity of facing off against monsters from an alternate dimension, the Upside Down. Add that to your college application.
Sex Education
Let’s be honest, sex education in schools can really be a travesty. Just take Mean Girls’ Coach Carr telling his students that if you have sex, you’ll get chlamydia. And die. Not exactly sex positive — or even accurate. Luckily Sex Education is a little more open and informative. The series revolves around Otis (Asa Butterfield), the teenage son of a sex therapist who, although not super sexually experienced himself, is an encyclopedia on the subject thanks to his upbringing. Of course the natural progression for Otis is to join forces with his classmate (and crush) Maeve (Emma Mackey) to set up a sex clinic for the students inside a dilapidated bathroom on campus. Make sure to schedule your appointment to watch all four seasons.
XO, Kitty
Precocious teens take on a whole new life with Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart) in XO, Kitty. You might remember her matchmaking ways from the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy, when she put her sister Lara Jean’s (Lana Condor) secret love letters in the mail. But now she’s 16 and ready to branch off on her own in this spin-off series, as she heads to boarding school in South Korea for her junior year to follow in her late mom’s footsteps. She’s also eager to spend more time with her long-distance boyfriend, Dae (Minyeong Choi), whom she met on a family trip to Korea in the third To All the Boys film, Always and Forever. But when she arrives at KISS (Korean Independent School of Seoul), she learns a whole lot more about herself than she could have ever expected. Kitty’s love story is only just beginning though, and there will be plenty more KISSes in Season 2.
Riverdale
In case you haven’t noticed, Riverdale is weird. It’s for the weirdos. It doesn’t fit in — and it doesn’t wanna fit in. Slide into a booth at Pop’s diner and order a milkshake with Archie Andrews (K.J. Apa), Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), and Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) as they try to solve the mystery of a Riverdale High teen’s murder. But this contemporary adaptation of the Archie Comics gets even weirder as the seasons go on. We’ll take all the Jingle Jangle and floating babies we can get.
Wednesday
This isn’t the Addams Family you remember. This time around, it’s the “little storm cloud” herself taking the lead, as 16-year-old Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) heads off to her parents’ alma mater, Nevermore Academy. The ultimate beacon for outcasts is finally amongst her own kind with other psychics, werewolves, sirens, vampires, and… monsters that murder locals in the night. Watch Wednesday woefully dance her way through her first term, solving mysteries and (begrudgingly) making new friends. Snap to it before Season 2 rears its menacing head.
Ginny & Georgia
Fifteen-year-old Ginny Miller (Antonia Gentry) is tired of living her life on the run, but that’s all she knows. Her 30-year-old mom, Georgia (Brianne Howey), has moved her and her younger brother Austin (Diesel La Torraca) around for years. But Ginny is hopeful that their new digs in a small New England town will finally be a place where she can set down some roots, especially after she meets bad boy next door Marcus (Felix Mallard) the first night they move in. Though that alone could be reason enough for Georgia to start packing.
Elite
Murder, hookups and school uniforms? Tío, you can count on a day at Las Encinas to never be boring. The Spanish series follows three scholarship students who, after an earthquake devastates their school, transfer to the most elite private school in España where they have to traverse cliques, social class and scandal. Each season begins with a new mystery that, of course, the teens have to solve for themselves.
Derry Girls
Derry Girls centers on a group of friends living in Derry, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles in the early ’90s. Come for the hilarity and chaos these teens cause, stay for the delectable one-liners from Sister Michael (Siobhán McSweeney), the gang’s sarcastic headmistress at Our Lady Immaculate College.
Cobra Kai
Sometimes when you’re a teenager, you encounter a rival, whether academically or — if you’re a character on Cobra Kai — at the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament. The series sees The Karate Kid martial artists and former adversaries Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) all grown up, training the next generation of karate kids at the dojo. Or, sorry, karate teens.
Outer Banks
Craving a Goonies-style adventure with your best pals? Join the Pogues on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, as this group of working-class kids team up to help their bud John B (Chase Stokes) find his missing dad. Along the way, they discover that a legendary treasure is linked to his disappearance. You know, standard high school stuff.
Young Royals
You might think that being a royal is a privileged life, but being a teen combined with the constant scrutiny of growing up under a microscope is no afternoon tea party. On Young Royals, the fictional second-born Prince of Sweden, Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding), is sent off to a prestigious boarding school, Hillerska, to shape up in the eyes of his family. Without watchdogs around every corner, Wilhelm is able to blossom and even fall in love with day student Simon (Omar Rudberg). That all comes to a head, though, when Wilhelm shockingly becomes next in line for the throne and has to choose between his new life of freedom or duty.
Rebelde
¡Y soy rebelde! Yup, Elite Way School (EWS) is back in session, ready for the next crop of superstar musicians to find their spotlight — and a record deal. A reboot of the beloved early 2000s Mexican telenovela of the same name, Rebelde charts the rise of six new freshmen at EWS who come together to compete in the Battle of the Bands. The Mexican series features plenty of romance, musical performances and Easter eggs for fans of EWS’ most famous alumni, the members of real-life, best-selling pop group RBD.
On My Block
Monsé (Sierra Capri), Jamal (Brett Gray), Ruby (Jason Genao) and Cesar (Diego Tinoco) have been best friends all their lives and man, does it come in handy to have a tight crew like that when you’re starting high school. But just because a new social stratosphere awaits, that doesn’t mean that the South Central Los Angeles streets they came from stopped calling. The lighthearted comedy deftly navigates the struggle of trying to build more for yourself, but always carrying that block you grew up on with you — something you can relate to whether you’re 15 or 75.
