18 explicit TV series about teenagers

1. Hooligans and nerds

USA, 1999-2000.
Teenage drama.
Duration: 1 season.
IMDb: 8, 8.

The action takes place in the early 1980s in a fictional town near Detroit. High school student Sam Weier, who is in the company of typical nerds, is trying to change his school life for the better. And Sam's older sister, an excellent student Lindsay, falls in love with the informal leader of freaks - charming Daniel Desario.

Project Jude Apatow - creator of "The Forty Years Old Virgin" and "Pineapple Express" - stayed on the screens all season. However, this did not prevent the series from firmly gaining a foothold among the cult. A brilliant cast of actors, including Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jason Siegel, have contributed much to the success.

2. Gilmore Girls

USA, 2000-2007.
Comedy family drama.
Duration: 7 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 1.

The plot is based on extraordinary situations occurring in the life of the main character Lorelai Gilmore and her teenage daughter Rory. Lorelai, who learned motherhood early, is trying to build a career and find a common language with her rich parents, and Rory is gradually transforming from a shy girl into a determined young woman.

Gilmore Girls is a kind of encyclopedia of women's life from Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of The Amazing Mrs. Maisel. The series pays a lot of attention to pressing issues: problems of family, friendship, love, education, career. Thanks to this, the project is still relevant today.

Although the Gilmore Girls never achieved any rating success, they were critically loved. And in 2016, the legendary series appeared on the screens again. The revamped project is titled Gilmore Girls: The Seasons and is streaming on Netflix.

3. Gossip girl

USA, 2007-2012.
Teenage melodrama.
Duration: 6 seasons.
IMDb: 7, 4.

The series, based on the book series by American writer Cecily von Ziegesar, centers around the lives of the wealthy and carefree teenagers of the Upper East Side and tells about their friendship, love, gossip and betrayal.

HBO is planning a 'Gossip Girl' Spinoff Series in the Works at HBO Max to relaunch the project as a spin-off of the original story. The plot will focus on a new group of young people from New York, and the action will develop eight years after the events of the last season of "Gossip Girl".

4. Skins

UK, 2007-2013.
Teenage drama.
Duration: 7 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 2.

The main plot revolves around a group of teenagers from Bristol. The guys are faced with difficult problems: sexual self-determination, family troubles, mental disorders. The main character of the first season, Tony Stonem, is a confident cheerleader, an intelligent and popular young man. It is his subtle psychological manipulations that become the catalyst for most of the events in the series.

Three generations of adolescents appear in Skins, each with two seasons dedicated to them. The final seventh tells about the adult life of the characters loved by the audience.

Some of the young actors who played the main roles in the series later achieved even greater success. For example, Dev Patel has been nominated for various prestigious awards more than once and has played in Slumdog Millionaire, Chappy Robot, Hotel Marigold.

Nicholas Hoult, who embodied the image of Tony Stonem, subsequently appeared in the films Mad Max: Fury Road, The Heat of Our Bodies, X-Men: First Class and many others. And Kaya Scodelario starred in the youth dystopia "The Maze Runner" and the biopic about the maniac Ted Bundy "Handsome, Bad, Ugly."

5. Losers

USA, 2009-2015.
Musical tragicomedy.
Duration: 6 seasons.
IMDb: 6, 7.

The action takes place in the most ordinary American school, where both losers and popular guys study. Spanish teacher Will Schuster opens a music club - a haven for nerds and losers. But when the choir is replenished with a star of the football team, the local elite also come there.

Ryan Murphy's "Losers" will appeal to both music lovers and lovers of good satire. The series features covers of pop music and reflects issues of concern to America today: racial intolerance, gender inequality and attitudes towards people with disabilities.

6. Very strange things

USA, 2016-2019.
Mystical thriller, drama, comedy.
Duration: 3 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 8.

The plot revolves around mysterious events taking place in the American town of Hawkins. Scientists from a secret government research center accidentally open the door to the eerie otherworld, in which the schoolboy Will disappears without a trace. His best friends begin their own investigation and meet the strange, silent girl Eleven, endowed with the gift of telepathy and telekinesis.

With subtle references to the cult sci-fi and horror movies of the 1980s, the Duffer Brothers series is considered one of the best nostalgic television projects in recent years. The creators themselves admit that they were inspired by the works of Stephen King, as well as the films of Steven Spielberg and David Fincher.

If in the first season the main characters were still children, then by the second season they had already matured a little: they fell in love, kissed and danced for the first time at the prom. And in the third, they turned into adolescents altogether.

7. American vandal

USA, 2017–2018.
A pseudo-documentary comedy drama.
Duration: 2 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 2.

A California high school is shaken by an act of outrageous vandalism. The suspicion of students and teachers falls on the local bully Dylan Maxwell. And only high school students Peter Maldonado and Sam Ekland do not believe that this is so. To get to the bottom of the truth, the guys start their own investigation.

American Vandal creators Tony Yasenda and Dan Perrault, authors of the popular YouTube comedy almanac CollegeHumor, conceived of their project as a comic parody of investigative documentary series like Making a Killer or Serial. But in the end, they got something more - a witty, subtle and poignant statement about the life of modern adolescents.

8. End of the *** world

UK, 2017 - present.
Teenage drama, black comedy, road movie.
Duration: 2 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 1.

The series tells the story of two troubled teenagers who escaped from their native backwoods. The unsociable 17-year-old James considers himself a psychopath and is going to kill his classmate Alice. But the girl unexpectedly offers to leave the city together. James agrees, deciding that his plan can be carried out later, but gradually falls in love with his companion.

Critics and viewers praised the adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Charles Forsman. The series is full of violence and dark humor, but first of all it is a story of how desperately teenagers want to become adults and what comes out of it.

9. Atypical

USA, 2017 - present.
Teenage drama, black comedy.
Duration: 3 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 3.

Sam Gardner, an eighteen-year-old schoolboy with autism spectrum disorder, leads a very ordinary life: he talks to his best friend Zahid, works after school and goes to a psychologist. The latter advises the hero to get a girl in order to better adapt to society.

"Atypical" is an unpretentious, but very kind series. Moreover, it is not so much autism itself that comes to the fore, but the attitude of other people to this feature. Nevertheless, the creators still consulted with experts for a long time so that the actor Keir Gilchrist looked and behaved believable.

10.13 reasons why

USA, 2017 - present.
Teenage detective drama.
Duration: 4 seasons.
IMDb: 7, 9.

High school student Clay Jensen finds audio tapes that his girlfriend Hannah Baker recorded before committing suicide. From them, the hero has to learn that the girl was pushed to this step by the cruelty of her peers and the indifference of adults. But he himself is somehow guilty in front of her.

“13 Reasons Why” raises very serious topics, including school bullying, the psychological rehabilitation of rape victims and the prevention of teenage suicide. The first season is based on the bestseller of the same name by Jay Escher and fully revealed the plot of the book.

The success of the first season was followed by the second and third. In them, the characters gradually grow older and face even more serious problems. The series matures with its characters and increasingly resembles Riverdale in concept and atmosphere.

11. Riverdale

USA, 2017 - present.
Teenage detective drama.
Duration: 4 seasons.
IMDb: 7, 2.

Football star Archie Andrews, a resident of the small town of Riverdale, finds himself caught in a love triangle with his best friend Betty Cooper and the newly arrived daughter of a wealthy businessman, Veronica Lodge.

Meanwhile, under mysterious circumstances, young Jason Blossom is killed. Investigating this case, the guys are increasingly immersed in the dark secrets of Riverdale.

Riverdale is often compared to the iconic projects of the 90s - Twin Peaks and Beverly Hills 90210. The show is based on the iconic Archie comics for American pop culture, the first editions of which appeared in the early 40s. For a long time they remained quite old-fashioned, but a few years ago the series was restarted, making it progressive and modern. And the series is based on these updated comics.

12. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

USA, 2018 - present.
A mystical comedy drama.
Duration: 2 seasons.
IMDb: 7, 7.

The young half-blood witch Sabrina Spellman is looking forward to her sixteenth birthday, because on this day she is destined to become the bride of Satan and renounce her earthly friends for the sake of serving the devil. But the closer the date, the more Sabrina doubts this idea: the girl does not want to part with her friends and her boyfriend. A long struggle begins, in which the heroine tries to defend her freedom and the right to human life.

The project was announced as a remake of the teenage sitcom of the 90s "Sabrina the Little Witch", but in fact it turned out that it has almost nothing in common with the original, except for the names of the main characters. The new "Sabrina" is full of demonic themes and frankly violent scenes, but this all makes the series only more interesting and unusual.

13. It sucks

USA, 2018.
Teenage comedy.
Duration: 1 season.
IMDb: 7, 5.

The action takes place in a high school provincial American town with the telling name Boring (translated from English "boredom") in the mid-90s. A shy protagonist named Luke comes to the school video club, meets a girl there and instantly falls in love. Due to an unsuccessful attempt to win the heart of his beloved, Chekhov's production is thwarted, and the offended guys from the theater club declare war on the video club.

Like 13 Reasons Why, the series plunges into the complex inner world of adolescents. The main characters are typical losers and nerds who have to learn their first serious life lessons. Unfortunately, the show only lasted one season. But "It sucks!" still worth checking out (like many other canceled Netflix projects).

14. Elite

Spain, 2018 - present.
Crime teenage drama.
Duration: 3 seasons.
IMDb: 7, 6.

Samuel, Nadia and Christian are ordinary teenagers who have received scholarships to study at the most prestigious school in Spain, attended by the children of only wealthy and influential people. The locals immediately disliked the newcomers, which led to a serious conflict over class intolerance. Unknown circumstances lead to the death of one of the students.

The Elite structure is reminiscent of Big Little Lies. At the very beginning of the series, the viewer will find out who died and under what circumstances, but the identity of the killer will become known only in the finale.

In addition to the fact that Elite is a rather gripping thriller with an unexpected ending, it is also a very life-like drama about schoolchildren who face childish problems: drugs, early pregnancy, racial and class intolerance, and even HIV infection.

15. Sex education

UK, 2019 - present.
Comedy teenage drama.
Duration: 2 seasons.
IMDb: 8, 3.

Once shy and uncommunicative, Otis helps school bully Adam solve a very delicate problem. Realizing that in an educational institution almost every teenager has a lot of problems with his personal life, and there is usually no one to discuss them with, he teams up with the local riot Maeve and opens an underground psychotherapy room for his peers.

Despite the fact that there are enough explicit scenes in "Sex Education", the story as a whole still looks very touching. In the series, sex is presented primarily as a way to understand yourself. The show is not limited to talking about how to make love correctly and safely, but uses this topic to say: all problems are from poor communication. After all, sometimes it is enough just to listen to each other.

16. Society

USA, 2019 - present.
Mystical drama.
Duration: 1 season.
IMDb: 7, 1.

A group of teenagers returns from a school trip, but at home it turns out that all the adults have disappeared without a trace, and not a soul is left in the city. The euphoria from the newfound freedom quickly passes, and it is not possible to get out of the native settlement. The heroes will not only have to leave their childhood behind and understand the mysterious reasons for what happened, but also survive.

The series is inspired by the Lord of the Flies novel and perfectly reveals the topic of human relations. In addition, watching the show is quite exciting thanks to the unexpected plot twists and the skillful whipping up of the drama.

17. Euphoria

USA, 2019 - present.
Teenage drama.
Duration: 1 season.
IMDb: 8, 4.

The story is told from the perspective of a girl named Ru. After an overdose and rehabilitation, she returns to her hometown. The heroine talks about her friendship with a transgender high school student Jules and her environment, which uses drugs and leads an antisocial lifestyle.

It is arguably the most provocative TV show on this list. "Euphoria" is aimed at an adult audience rather than adolescents themselves. At the same time, creator Sam Levinson hopes ‘Euphoria’ Is Too Mature For Teens, But It Can Help Them, that his project will help parents find a common language with children of Gen Z.

18. Wayne

USA, 2019 - present.
Comedy thriller.
Duration: 1 season.
IMDb: 8, 5.

The plot is centered around a couple of teenagers who ran away from home to retrieve the stolen car of the protagonist's late father. And along the way, they get involved in a fight for any reason. In addition, as events unfold, the viewer learns about the guys' difficult past.

This series, released on YouTube Premium, is full of grotesque violence and cruel humor. And this is not surprising, because its authors are one of the creators of the film about Deadpool. Events in the show are developing rapidly, so it is interesting to watch.