There’s something so absolutely blessedly mind-numbing about going all-in on a (usually mediocre and brief) televised psychological thriller. Wealthy women who live on the seashore with dark secrets! The family matriarch and/or patriarch suddenly vanishes without a trace! Pretty young people with their whole bright futures ahead of them find themselves implicated in a vicious murder plot! Whether these stories begin as YA novels or beach reads, they eventually land on a streaming network for us to enjoy. Most recently, Netflix’s Perfect Couple has managed to strike a chord with people looking for something to half-watch on a screen. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of the forgettable thrillers I watch on Netflix (e.g., Behind Her Eyes, Fair Play, The Watcher, Anatomy of a Scandal, Safe), there were no lesbians in it!

So let’s get into some thrillers that do have queer characters. For this list I focused on thrillers that are centered on the relationships between humans impacted by whatever mystery or thrilling situation lies at the heart of the show, rather than thrillers that are centered on law enforcement, government officials, journalists or podcasters investigating a crime that they’d have no relationship to were it not for their vocation, which I think would be a different list. 

Psychological Thrillers About Toxic Romantic Relationships

Tell Me Lies

Hulu // Season Two currently underway // Based on Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering

(Disney/Josh Stringer)

The centerpiece of this soapy thriller set in 2007 at a fictional upstate New York college is the relationship between Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and her absolutely insufferable and transparently toxic on-again-off-again boyfriend Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White). Lucy’s roommate, Macy, is killed in a car accident her first week of school, setting off a twisty little spiral of events that ensnare their whole social group. We’re also transported back and forth in time to a 2015 wedding between two of Lucy’s college buddies. In Season One, Lucy gets a new roommate, Charlie, who’s a lesbian, and although her stay on the series is brief, (spoiler alert) Lucy’s best friend Pippa also turns out to be queer.

Wilderness

Prime Video // Limited Series // Based on Wilderness by B.E. Jones

©Prime UK/David Giesbrecht

British couple Liv (Coleman) and Will (Jackson-Cohen) appear to have it all — a glamorous life in New York far away from their provincial home town, a widely envied marriage — but it all comes crashing down when Liv learns of Will’s affair with Cara (queer actor Ashley Benson). After coping with heartbreak, Liv moves on to revenge, and plans to execute it on a couples road trip to all the National Parks, only to arrive at Yellowstone and find Cara’s already there. Liv is sexually fluid and her best friend, Ash, is a lesbian with a very obvious crush on Liv.

Gypsy

Netflix // One Season

Gypsy Season 1

Still the only television program I’ve found so riveting that I hooked up my phone to my car (not a routine behavior for me in 2017, bear with me here) so I could continue listening to it on my way home from the gym, this objectively bad one-season Netflix show stars Naomi Watts as a psychologist who infiltrates the private lives of her patients. She becomes… entangled with Sidney Pierce (Sophie Cookson), a barista who falls in love with Jean and whose ex-boyfriend is a client of Jean? Also Naomi Watts is married and her husband is Billy Crudup. IDK you’ll have to see for yourself.

Leopard Skin

Peacock // One Season

Describing the plot of Leopard Skin is both challenging and largely irrelevant, as it is entirely its own beast, a very weird and compelling and erotic mystery about Alba (Carla Gugino), a documentarian whose husband let her for a cocktail waitress named Batty (Gaite Jansen), who Alba now lives with for murder-related reasons, and both of them and their housekeeper are held hostage in their mansion by some diamond thieves. “The show feels a bit as if David Lynch were to try his hand at a softcore Cinemax production,” Kayla wrote.

You

Netflix // 4+ Seasons // Based on the You series by Caroline Kepnes

The queer content in You is … meager, to say the least. Shay Mitchell plays Peach Salinger in Season One, a rare character who was queerer in the book than the show. Later seasons see our protagonist falling for a woman who has some lesbian besties. There are also some gay male characters. But this has become, for better or for worse, one of the best-known series in the genre, following Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager who becomes obsessed with the women he loves, manipulating and stalking them into submission — and worse. The fifth and final season is currently in production.

‘Secrets Lurking Beneath Seemingly Idyllic Lives’ Thrillers

Harlan Coben’s Shelter

Prime Video // One Season // Based on Shelter by Harlan Coben

I think I’ve watched every televised adaptation of this man’s work (The Stranger, Safe, Fool Me Once, Stay Close, etc), but can’t really remember a single minute of any of them — except this one because it was gay!

Mickey Bolter (Jaden Michael), a teen still recovering from his father’s sudden death, moves in with his aunt in his father’s hometown, and meets a mysterious old woman in a mysterious old house who said his dad isn’t dead. Then he gets a crush on a girl who disappears immediately. These confusing situations and many others in this seemingly picture-perfect town are ripe to be tackled by Mickey and his brand new friends, Spoon (Adrian Greensmith) and queer goth art girl Ema (Abby Corrigan). Honestly what made this series work for me is 90% that it’s really surprisingly gay (keep your eye on Constance Zimmer as Mickey’s aunt!!) and 10% the plot, which has its moments and also has its eye-rolls. Sadly it was cancelled after one season, as so many gay things are.

Apples Never Fall

Peacock // Limited Series // based on Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Based on the book by Liane Moriarty (of Big Little Lies fame), Stan (Sam Neill) and Joy (Annette Benning) are tennis coaches who’ve sold their school and are prepping for a lovely retirement when Joy disappears, sending her family into TUMULT. All eyes are on Savannah (Georgia Flood), a domestic violence survivor who Joy and Stan had invited to live with them some months earlier who turned out to be full of secrets and lies. Savannah is queer, as is Joy’s youngest daughter, Brooke (Essie Randles), a physical therapist engaged to Gina Solis (Paula Andrea Placido). This show is by all accounts not great, but if you can move past that, it’ll eventually hook you!

The Last Thing He Told Me

Apple TV+ // Limited Series // based on The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Hannah’s (Jennifer Garner) husband disappears — right after his tech company falls under investigation for fraud — thus forcing Hannah to have to find a way to connect with her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Bailey, to figure out the truth about who he really was and where the hell he went. Aisha Tyler plays Hannah’s (lesbian) best friend, a San Francisco Chronicle sports journalist who wants to help her friend — she just has to figure out how to do that and her job.

Murder Mystery Psychological Thrillers

Past Lies

Hulu // One Season

Rita (Elena Anaya from Room in Rome) is a successful lesbian film director who returns to her hometown with her girlfriend to settle her mother’s estate, only to find herself there for an unexpected event: the remains of a high school classmate, who disappeared on their senior trip 25 years ago, turns up. Her high school friend group, still intact and in her hometown, are shaken, and old ghosts come rattling to the surface in more ways than one.

A Murder at the End of the World

Hulu // Limited Series

Darby (non-binary actor Emma Corin) is a hacker, author and amateur detective invited to a mysterious and exclusive retreat hosted by a billionaire at an isolated Arctic compound in Iceland in this miniseries from Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. She’s surprised to see a very close estranged friend at dinner on the first night, and even more surprised to when she finds him killed on their first night at the resort.

Teen Drama Psychological Thrillers

Dare Me

USA // One Season // Based on Dare Me by Megan Abbott

This atmospheric mystery thriller based on the Megan Abbott novel finds a group of cheerleaders entangled in a dark web of lies and mysteries when new coach Colette French (Willa Fitzgerald) takes over the squad, coming between best friends Addy (Herizen F. Guardiola) and Beth (Marlo Kelly). After Addy and Beth catching Colette cheating on her husband with her ex, the dominoes begin to fall. Eventually there is in fact a murder! Kayla writes that Dare Me “dresses up its darkness with glitter, but that mask is very intentional, a piercing juxtaposition of the thrills and terror of high school sports.”

Cruel Summer Season One

Freeform // Anthology Series

You have to wait until the literal last episode of Season One to really get your gay payoff (and the link above has a gay spoiler in it so be careful!), but this teen thriller is pretty compelling without it. In 1993 in Skylin, Texas, the beautiful, popular Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt) disappears, and socially awkward Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia) manages to take her place, even getting her boyfriend. In 1995, Jeanette is loathed nationwide after Kate is rescued and Jeanette accuses her of witnessing her abduction and failing to report it. A legal battle ensues but the spiral of secrets has only begun to unravel. Harley Quinn Smith plays queer character Mallory, one of Jeanette’s best friends who then becomes Kate’s best friend.

One of Us Is Lying

Peacock // Two Seasons // Based on the One of Us Is Lying series by Karen M. McManus

Based on a buzzy YA thriller, a disparate group of students find themselves under suspicion after online gossip scourge Simon suddenly dies while they’re all in detention. Simon’s best friend, Janae Matthews, is the unlikely outsider who finds her way into this clique, and who comes into her own as queer and non-binary.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Prime Video // One Season // Inspired by I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan-Arquette

This adaptation of the teen horror movie that was an adaptation of a novel rockets the story into present day Hawaii with the same basic conceit but an otherwise very different story. It’s difficult to describe what happens without giving you spoilers, but for our purposes here: there is a bisexual main character played by Brianne Tju and the lead has some …. bisexual qualities.

Comedy-Mystery-Thrillers

Bad Sisters

Apple TV+ // 1+ Season

Wry and warm and funny; this Irish series co-starring and co-created by Sharon Hogan finds four sisters trying desperately to kill John Paul, the insufferable, abusive husband of the fifth sister. Sarah Greene plays second-youngest sister Bibi Garvey, a married lesbian who lost her right eye in a car crash. Although we sadly didn’t write a standalone review of its first season, that was not for a lack of love: Bad Sisters easily made our list of the Best TV Shows of 2022, where it was described as a “MASTERPIECE in television.”

Bad Sisters has been renewed for a second season.

Imposters

Bravo // Two Seasons

Maddie (Inbar Lavi) is a con artist, part of a larger web of similar scammers, who works her way into the romantic lives of men and women before breaking their hearts and stealing all their valuables and money. Then three of her jilted paramours  — Ezra, Richie and Jules — find each other and want revenge. “Imposters is a show about love, sort of,” writes Natalie. “It’s about the different ways in which we fall in love and what that love says about us as individuals.”

The Other Black Girl

Hulu // One Season // Based on The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

With the exception of the horror shows listed below, I mostly avoided shows with any supernatural elements for this list because that would be a whole entire other sort of list! But I made an exception for genre-blending satire / thriller / comedy The Other Black Girl. Nella, a young publishing assistant, is the only Black girl at her publishing office and is stoked when a second Black girl is hired. But her relationship with the new girl, while promising at first, eventually turns suspicious. As Nella digs deeper into her employer’s history with Black writers and employees, she discovers a web of sinister secrets. Nella’s queer best friend, Malaika, is the show’s unsung hero.

Baby Reindeer

Netflix // Limited Series

It’s hard to put this show into any category, and psychological thriller is really only half the story, as is calling it a “comedy.”  Aspiring comic Donny Dunn works as a bartender at a pub where he meets Martha, a woman who immediately becomes obsessed with Donny and begins stalking and harassing him. Donny tells us his own story at his own pace, about the sexual abuse and shame around his bisexuality that drives his present despair and anguish. He also dates Teri, a trans woman played by trans actress Nava Mau. “We need more shows like Baby Reindeer,” wrote Drew. “Challenging work that leads with empathy and a commitment to the many contradictions of our world.

Psychological Horror-Thrillers

Dead Ringers

Prime Video // One Season

Rachel Weisz plays twin gynecologists seeking to revolutionize the way pregnancy and birth are handled in the medical world in “this bloody and horny psychosexual thriller full of body horror, mind games, and sci-fi-ish strangeness.” An adaptation of the 1988 David Cronenberg film, one of the twins is a lesbian, but the other has been known to seduce on her behalf.

Swarm

Prime Video // Limited Series

Donald Glover’s horror series takes a stab at stan culture through unhinged protagonist Dre (Dominique Fishback) whose passion for Ni’Jah, a pop star with a fan club called “the swarm” drives her into making a series of bananas decisions such as “homicide.” Around mid-season she spends some time with a queer cult led by Billie Eilish.While her queerness is a bit apparent in the start, it’s not fully at the surface until the last episode, which also features a queer graduate student named Rashida (Kiersey Clemons).

Ratched

Netflix // One Season //

Sarah Paulson stars as the titular Nurse Ratched, the antagonist from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in this thoroughly gay series that “takes the original film’s backdrop of queerness and splatters it on the screen in blood.” As Drew writes: “There is so much to chew on, so much to celebrate, so much to critique, and yet the whole thing feels so completely Ryan Murphy it’s hard not to just delight in its very existence.”

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!