8 Shows Like Inside the Circle You Must See

Netflix’s ‘Inside the Circle’ or ‘El círculo’ is a Mexican thriller series created by Alejandro Lozano and based on Jorge Zepeda Patterson’s novel ‘Los corruptores.’ Four lifelong friends, Jaime (Osvaldo Benavides), Tomás (Michel Brown), Amelia (Zuria Vega), and Mario (Raúl Briones), find their lives thrown into turmoil when a video connected to the murder of actress Pamela Dosantos becomes public. Tomás, a reporter, had shared the footage without realizing that it showed Dosantos entering the home of powerful Defense Secretary General Escolta Salazar (Gerardo Lizalde) shortly before her death.

As Tomás faces threats while trying to verify the video’s authenticity and trace its source, his friends are pulled deeper into the situation. Jaime’s business interests depend on Salazar, while Amelia belongs to Salazar’s political party, and Mario becomes involved through his daughter, Viridiana (Mariané Cartas). Soon, the friendship between the four is tested by secrets, pressure, and blackmail as unexpected events unfold around them. These shows, similar to ‘Inside the Circle,’ contain puzzling character arcs, unpredictable plot twists, crises, and mysteries that will keep you engaged.

8. Cruel Summer (2021-)

‘Cruel Summer’ is an anthology mystery drama series in which a different group of teenagers faces life-changing turmoil each season. In Skylin, Texas, the disappearance of popular student Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt) turns Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia) into a subject of suspicion. Accused of knowing more about Kate’s fate than she admits, Jeanette watches as the mystery begins to fracture friendships and damage reputations. The story changes in the second season, which takes place in Chatham, Washington.

There, Megan Landry (Sadie Stanley), Isabella LaRue (Lexi Underwood), and Luke Chambers (Griffin Gluck) find themselves caught in a complicated love triangle. Their relationships become increasingly troubled when a brutal crime occurs, drawing the three teenagers into a mystery that permanently alters their lives. The Bert V. Royal creation, akin to ‘Inside the Circle,’ places characters in increasingly dangerous circumstances after disturbing events unfold, showing how a single incident can have far-reaching consequences.

7. One of Us Is Lying (2021-2022)

Erica Saleh is the creative voice behind ‘One of Us Is Lying,’ a mystery drama series based on Karen M. McManus’ novel of the same name, which turns a high school detention into the starting point of a murder investigation. Five students enter Bayview High’s detention room, but only four, including Addy Prentiss (Annalisa Cochrane), Bronwyn Rojas (Marianly Tejada), Nate Macauley (Cooper van Grootel), and Cooper Clay (Chibuikem Uche), leave alive. The student who dies, Simon Kelleher (Mark McKenna), ran a gossip app that had made him notorious for exposing his classmates’ secrets. His death initially appears to be an allergic reaction, but investigators soon determine that it was not accidental.

With the four surviving students now under suspicion, they cannot simply wait for the truth to emerge. Instead, they begin digging into Simon’s death themselves, hoping to identify what really happened while proving that none of them is responsible. ‘Inside the Circle’ revolves around Jaime, Tomás, Amelia, and Mario, while ‘One of Us Is Lying’ similarly places four characters at the center of a dangerous mystery that tests their relationships and trust.

6. Pretty Little Liars (2010-2017)

‘Pretty Little Liars’ chronicles the friendship between Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale), Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell), Hanna Marin (Ashley Benson), and Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario) in Rosewood, Pennsylvania. The bond between them collapses when Alison DiLaurentis (Sasha Pieterse), the most popular girl in their school, suddenly disappears. Their lives take another turn a year later when the four friends begin receiving threatening messages from someone calling themselves A. The mysterious figure knows secrets they thought only Alison could have known, leaving the girls questioning who is watching them and how much that person knows.

The discovery of Alison’s remains makes the situation even more disturbing. Determined to uncover what happened to their friend and expose A, the four reunite and begin searching for answers as the threats intensify. From the mind of I. Marlene King, the mystery drama series is based on Sara Shepard’s novel series of the same name. Akin to ‘Inside the Circle,’ the show explores how an unexpected incident can alter friendships, reveal secrets, and affect trust.

5. The Stranger (2020)

In ‘The Stranger,’ Adam Price (Richard Armitage), a seemingly secure family man, begins to unravel when an enigmatic woman known only as The Stranger (Hannah John-Kamen) tells him a secret about his wife, Corinne Price (Dervla Kirwan). Corinne disappears soon afterward, leaving Adam with little choice but to investigate the circumstances surrounding her absence. His search takes him beyond his immediate family as he discovers that friends, neighbors, and seemingly unrelated people are tied together by secrets they have kept hidden. The more Adam learns, the harder it becomes to separate coincidence from conspiracy.

Each revelation brings him closer to the truth while exposing consequences that threaten the people involved and leaving Corinne’s fate increasingly uncertain. The British mystery thriller series is adapted from the novel of the same name by Harlan Coben, who also serves as creator. Tomás in ‘Inside the Circle,’ pursues the truth behind a dangerous video, while Adam investigates his wife’s disappearance, pushing both men deeper into mysteries they cannot easily escape.

4. The Five (2016)

‘The Five’ or ‘Harlan Coben’s The Five’ is a British mystery thriller series that is built around a disappearance that continues to haunt four friends for two decades. In 1995, Jesse Wells vanishes after being left behind by his older brother, Mark Wells (Tom Cullen), and their friends Danny Kenwood (O. T. Fagbenle), Slade (Lee Ingleby), and Pru Carew (Sarah Solemani). Jesse is never found despite years of searching, leaving the group to carry the unresolved loss into adulthood. Twenty years later, Danny is working as a detective when DNA recovered from a murder scene seemingly belongs to Jesse.

The discovery suggests that Jesse could still be alive, prompting the four friends to reunite and investigate what happened to him. Their search brings buried wounds back to the surface as they confront the possibility that everything they believed about his disappearance may be wrong. The Harlan Coben creation, much like ‘Inside the Circle,’ places four friends at the heart of the story, with their longstanding relationships becoming crucial as an unexpected event disrupts their lives.

3. Big Little Lies (2017-)

‘Big Little Lies’ unfolds in an affluent coastal community, where Madeline Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) and Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) welcome Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), a single mother who has recently arrived with her son, Ziggy Chapman (Iain Armitage). Though Jane is an outsider, the three women quickly become closely connected, bringing their families and personal lives into one another’s orbit. What appears to be an ordinary friendship gradually exposes insecurities, tensions, and secrets that lie beneath the surface. As their relationships become increasingly complicated, conflicts within their families begin to have consequences none of them can easily contain.

The three women are eventually forced to confront what they have concealed from one another, setting off a chain of events that leads to chaos. The David E. Kelley creation is a crime drama series based on Liane Moriarty’s eponymous novel. The polished community in ‘Big Little Lies’ conceals personal struggles and deception, while the seemingly stable lives of the four friends in ‘Inside the Circle’ are similarly disrupted when hidden connections surrounding Pamela Dosantos emerge.

2. The Pact (2021-2022)

Creator Pete McTighe’s ‘The Pact’ is a British drama series exploring the secrets people keep and the lengths they will go to in order to protect those who matter to them. The first series revolves around Jack, the cocaine-addicted son of a brewery owner who takes charge of his family’s old business. His disrespectful treatment of the staff creates growing resentment among friends and workers, Anna (Laura Fraser), Nancy (Julie Hesmondhalgh), Cat (Heledd Gwynn), and Louie (Eiry Thomas). During a celebration, the four friends take an intoxicated Jack into the woods and leave him there, only to learn later that he died. Terrified of what might happen if the truth comes out, they agree to keep their involvement hidden, which leads to chaos.

The second series tells the story of Christine (Rakie Ayola), a social worker whose family is struggling after the death of her son Liam. The fragile lives of Christine and her other living children are upended when a stranger enters the picture, claiming a special connection with them. Jaime, Tomás, Amelia, and Mario struggle to protect their friendship as threats and blackmail escalate in ‘Inside the Circle,’ while ‘The Pact’ puts four friends under similar pressure after Jack’s death.

1. Now and Then (2022)

In ‘Now and Then,’ a carefree beach celebration becomes a nightmare for six college friends when Alejandro (Jorge López) is pulled from the water dead after an apparent accident. Marcos (Jack Duarte), Dani (Miranda de la Serna), Ana (Alicia Jaziz), Pedro (Darío Yazbek Bernal), and Sofia (Alicia Sanz) were also in the car and know what really happened, but they conceal the truth by making it appear that Alejandro died while driving alone. Two decades later, the surviving friends have grown distant and built seemingly successful lives across Miami, leaving their college days behind. Their past suddenly catches up with them when they are summoned to a reunion and threatened with exposure unless they each pay a million dollars.

Forced back together, the five must protect the lives they built while confronting the secret that has followed them into adulthood. Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, and Teresa Fernández-Valdés are the creators of this unpredictable crime-thriller drama series that explores chaotic group dynamics, much like ‘Inside the Circle’. The five surviving friends in ‘Now and Then’ are bound by what happened to Alejandro, akin to how Jaime, Tomás, Amelia, and Mario are connected by the Pamela Dosantos mystery.