Despite the fact that vampires have more or less fallen out of the zeitgeist sinceRob Pattinsonbrushed the last speck of glitter from the high planes of his cheekbones nearly a decade ago, the the sheervolumeof serialized vampire content available to anyone with access to even a single screen has, thanks to the rise of Peak TV, absolutely exploded.
On the one hand, it would be easy to look at this vampiric explosion and roll your eyes at the goofy excess of it all. Sure, thanks to Peak TV’s preference for the grim-dark and gory, little of the vampire content that’s made it to the small screen in the last couple of decades has included glitter—although the team behindChilling Adventures of SabrinaandRiverdalehas aBrides of Draculaprojectin the worksfor ABC, so who knows what the next several months might bring—but at some point, there’s got to be a limit to how many interesting stories can be told about attractively brooding immortal twenty- or thirty-somethings, you know?
And yet, thanks to its ability to both refract the darkest existential anxieties facing humanity (See:Being Human) and make room for the kind of deeply specific, deeply idiosyncratic character work that thrives in a serialized format (See:The Originals), the vampire story hasn’t yet found that limit. If anything, the ever-deepening volume of vampiric content over the last decade might be the very thing that’s given the vampire story the chance to moveaway fromthe occasional cringe-y spike into the zeitgeist, andtowardsthe kind of unflashy ubiquity that makes space for both novelty and variety. In the year of our fangèd lords 2020 alone we have had epic animated gore (Castlevania), a French allegory for undocumented immigration and ethnonationalism (Vampires), a CGI family musical (Vampirina) and whatever the hell it is those lovable Dracula-esque dummies onWhat We Do in the Shadowsare doing. We mean, talk about range!
Ultimately—at least when it comes to television—the vampire story might be more like a cop or medical procedural than any other niche genre out there: oddly comforting in its bloody familiarity, eternally adaptable in that comfort, and better and more interesting for every big swing someone takes in adapting the mythology anew.
To that end, we’ve curated a list of the 20 best vampire shows, from many eras and across multiple genres, currently available (at least to American audiences) to stream. Aside from the obvious fact that even a list that runs 20 titles long is bound to exclude more than a few reader favorites*, our definition ofbestcomes with a big caveat**: Takingvampireas our watchword, there are a number of more broadly monstrous series that, despite both having a strong vampiric presence and being ultra watchable, we nevertheless ended up leaving on the cutting room floor, includingSupernatural,Legacies,Wynonna Earp,A Discovery of Witches,Hemlock Grove,The Munstersand evenSuper Monsters. (Sorry, littlest vampire fans.) Also missing from this list: Ian Somerhalder’s short-lived Netflix series,V Wars, not because it was canceled after tepid public reception in January (although it was), but because its entire premise—that the real threat on humanity’s horizon isn’t war or economic collapse, but rather a global pandemic borne of a novel virus the contemporary human population has neither the immunity nor the resources to confront—is, at the moment, a bit too existentially relevant for comfort. See also: Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s 2015 FX series,The Strain. Sorry to those men, etc. etc., but no thank you!
All of that in mind, please enjoy this list of the best* vampire-centric** series on television.
Note:The better to serve your binge-watching needs, in addition to indicating which platforms each series was available to stream on as of publication, we have also included ratings for the overall tone of each series, drawing from the categories of Sexy, Gory, Campy, Angsty, Silly, Funny, Dramatic, Goth(ic), Religious, and Family Friendly. Watch wisely!
Created by:Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt
Cast:David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Amy Acker, Vincent Kartheiser, Andy Hallett, James Marsters, Mercedes McNab
Darker both thematically and visually than its Sunnydale-set predecessor,Angelis one of several series on this list that makes its lead vampire a detective, effectively taking two implicitly loner/outsider archetypes and merging them into one broody whole. As the titular vampire-with-a-soul,David Boreanazis in his element, playing up Angel’s goofy and tender sides with as much verve as he does his anger and angst, but the supporting (mostly non-vampiric) cast is just as much of a draw. If you liked the vibe and/or mythology of Angel’s first series,Buffy the Vampire Slayer(see below), but never got around to giving his spin-off a shot, there’s truly no better time than now.
Rated:Angsty, Funny, Dramatic
Watch it on:Hulu,Facebook Watch
Being Human (UK)
Created by:Toby Whithouse
Cast:Lenora Crichlow, Russell Tovey, Aidan Turner, Sinead Keenan, Michael Socha, Damien Molony, Kate Bracken, Steven Robertson
While technically a story as much about the trauma and grief inherent to being both a ghost (Lenora Crichlow) and a werewolf (Russel Tovey) as it is about those inherent to being a vampire (Aidan Turner), the relatively solitary/short-lived nature of ghosts and werewolves means that this original BBC Three series about a trio of psychologically fragile supernatural housemates puts the greater vampiric world—Turner’s Mitchell frequently included—in the position of Big Bad more often than not. Mitchell’s unreliability as the kind of feral animal vampire that populatesBeing Human’s world makes for a constant source of compelling tension, both within the overarching supernatural plot and between the characters on the human level. It also—if you’re into this sort of thing—leads to a particularly bittersweet slow-burn romance, which a vampiricSam Witwerin turn riffs on in novel (and novelly compelling) ways in Syfy’s four-season American remake.
Rated:Gory, Angsty, Funny, Dramatic
Watch it on:IMDb TV, Filmrise, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Tubi, Vudu (Additionally, the US version is available on Pluto TV and Sundance Now)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Created by:Joss Whedon
Cast:Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Stewart Head, David Boreanaz, Seth Green, James Marsters, Marc Blucas, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson
Where you have vampires, you (almost always) have vampire slayers, and where you have vampire slayers, you have Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Despite putting Buffy and her Scooby pals in the role of hero and putting most of its vampiric population at the pointy end of Buffy’s stake,Buffy the Vampire Slayernevertheless established a significant proportion of the modern generation’s understanding of vampiric lore: Sunlight? Burns. Holy stuff? Burns. Vamp face? Bumpy. Wooden stakes? POOF! Crossing the threshold? Invite only. Souls? None, unless forced back into you by a painful magical ritual. Vampire boyfriend love triangle? Duh, it’s the twenty-first century. Musicals?Fine, but only if you must. (And better if you make it a habit with theBuffering the Vampire Slayerpodcast.) So, you know, basic modern vampire stuff. Also, the best.
Castlevania
Creators:Warren Ellis, Kevin Kolde, Fred Seibert and Adi Shankar
Cast:Richard Armitage, James Callis, Alejandra Reynoso, Graham McTavish, Tony Amendola, Matt Frewer, Emily Swallow
When the pilot of a religiously inflected vampire series ends with its version of Dracula (Vlad Tepes, in the case of the video game-inspiredCastlevania) rampaging so mercilessly that he leaves behind the gory, mutilated corpses of women, children, and babies, you know you’re in for a dark, shocking ride. Thank heavens (hell?), then, for the distancing power of animation, which givesCastlevaniafans a direct line to the battle between the Count and his main adversaries Trevor Belmont, Alucard (Dracula’s son), and Sypha Belnades (as well as the whole human race), while keeping the sheer scale of fire and gore on display stylized enough to not distract viewers from the story itself.
Rated:Gory, Dramatic, Goth(ic), Religious
Watch it on:Netflix
Dark Shadows (1966)
Created by:Dan Curtis
Cast:Joan Bennett, Grayson Hall, Jonathan Frid, Nancy Barrett, Alexandra Moltke, Louis Edmonds, Kathryn Leigh Scott, David Selby, David Henesy, Lara Parker. Thayer David
Despite seeing a dramatic TV remake in 1991 (featuring a baby Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a campy film remake in 2012 (directed by Tim Burton), the soapy, gothic power of theDark Shadowsbrand is strongest in its original mid-century ABC form, which attracted a large teenaged audience and ran for an incredible 1,225 episodes. Following the lives (and beyond) of a family so wealthy they share a name (Collins) with their small Maine town (Collinsport),Dark Shadowsfeatures a wide array of supernatural happenings, but is most widely known for its main vampire character, Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), who was so rabidly beloved by fans that Frid reportedly faced Beatles levels of public fawning whenever he’d go out. Audiences today might look atDark Shadows’aesthetic with no small amount of bemusement, but you want a precursor to Mystic Falls, Va look no further than Collinsport, ME.
Rated:Campy, Dramatic, Goth(ic)
Watch it on:Tubi (in its entirety), IMDb TV (Season 1, as well as the 1991 remake), Hulu (Season 2)
Dracula (2020)
Created by:Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat
Cast:Claes Bang, Dolly Wells, John Heffernan
The latest modern spin on Bram Stoker’s infamous original novel, Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat’sDraculaminiseries is an unsettling treatise on the fear and shame inherent in Stoker’s take on the vampire myth, with a strong focus on physical deterioration and body horror. The ability of a vampire (or at least,Claes Bang’s Dracula) to take on the memories and personalities of the people he drains of blood is relatively unique to this version of vampiric rules, and your mileage may vary as to how much that seems like too handy aDracula ex machinaway to wrap up a time-traveling narrative, but that’s the gift a story as classic and adaptable as Stoker’s.
From Dusk till Dawn: The Series
Created by:Robert Rodriguez
Cast:D.J. Cotrona, Zane Holtz, Jesse Garcia, Eiza González, Madison Davenport, Brandon Soo Hoo, Robert Patrick, Wilmer Valderrama, Jake Busey, Esai Morales, Danny Trejo, Don Johnson
Reimagined for television by Robert Rodriguez from his cult favorite feature film of the same name,From Dusk till Dawn: The Seriesdiffers from the rest of the titles on this list in a few key ways. For one, starting as it does in the middle of the Gecko brothers’ (D.J. CotronaandZane Holtz) bank robbery getaway and then lingering on the geometry of that story for several long episodes, it takes a long time for the series to feel even a bit like a vampire story. For another, the vampires that do eventually come into play—led deliciously byWilmer Valderrama—aren’t the bat-coded variety made familiar byDracula, but rather an Aztec snake-goddess equivalent known asculebras. How that vampiric mythology stands apart from a Transylvanian/European one is both interesting and central to the series, but suffice it to say, faith, patriarchal violence, and blood loyalty are significant themes.
Rated:Sexy, Gory, Campy, Religious
Hotel Transylvania
Created by:Mark Steinberg
Cast:Bryn McAuley, Evany Rosen, Gage Munroe, Joseph Motiki, Dan Chameroy, David Berni
Another series adapted for television from a wildly successful feature film, Disney Channel’sHotel Transylvaniais less a reimagining of the Sony Pictures movie franchise than it is a playful prequel. Set four years before the firstHotel Transylvaniamovie, the series focuses on all the shenanigans Mavis (Bryn McAuley) and her various monstrous pals get up to in her Dracula dad’s monster hotel. Spiritually similar toWander Over YonderandStar vs. the Forces of Evil,Hotel Transylvaniais more than sufficiently entertaining for kids and parents/adults alike, even if (or, more likely, because) it is light on all the bloody, melodramatic substance of vampiric life found elsewhere on this list.
Rated:Silly, Funny, Family Friendly
Watch it on:Disney Now
Immortals (Yaşamayanlar)
Createdby:Alphan Eseli
Cast:Elçin Sangu, Kerem Bürsin, Birkan Sokullu, Selma Ergeç, Nilperi Sahinkaya, Efecan Senolsun
Using the vampire story as a vehicle for one about vengeance—more specifically, a woman taking vengeance on a man for violating her by turning her against her will centuries earlier—the Turkish seriesImmortals(Turkish:Yaşamayanlar) brings bothUnderworldvibes and aBuffy-style Scooby gang of amateur vampire hunters into the mix. Between subtitles, a big cast, and lots of moving parts/agendas/allegiances,Immortalsisn’t a casual watch (put that second screen down!), but clocking in at only eight episodes, it’s short enough that that’s attention you can probably spare.
Rated:Sexy, Gory, Dramatic
Created by:Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson
Cast:Alex O’Loughlin, Sophia Myles, Jason Dohring, Shannyn Sossamon
Not to be confused withMoonlighting(1985), another fan favorite alphabet network dramedy with a private detective agency and a will they/won’t they romance at its heart, CBS’sMoonlight(2007) has the dubious distinction of balancing its cult fan status with near universal critical derision—22% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes (plus a miserable critical average of 38 on Metacritic), versus a 90% audience score. It’s also the series we spent the most time weighing all meanings of the wordbestbefore including. (Conclusion:Bestdoes not have to meangood, on the whole.) Still, sometimes you’re just in the mood for a sexy mid-aughts goof-fest, former/future twentysomething genre stars and all, and if that’s the case, a floppy-hairedAlex O’Loughlin, anI always suspected Logan Echolls was a vampireJason Dohring, and the Betty/Veronica foiling ofSophia MylesandShannyn Sossamonare here for you.
Rated:Sexy, Silly, Dramatic
Watch it on:CW Seed
