Ambitious in its scope, Common Side Effects has been one of the most enduring animated productions of 2025. So far, 2025 has been a solid year for animation, with films like KPop Demon Hunters, Predator: Killer of Killers, and shows like Eyes of Wakanda and Lazarus speaking to the medium’s modern scope. However, Common Side Effects is one of the most cerebral cartoons of the year, a thriller following a well-meaning scientist’s efforts to keep a miracle mushroom he’s discovered out of the wrong hands. The entire show is now streaming on HBO Max and is a great satire about the pharmaceutical industry.
With Common Side Effects officially getting a second season, fans of the show will have to wait a little while to find out what happens to Marshall and Frances. In the meantime, though, there are plenty of creative cartoons with deep thematic arcs worth checking out on Disney+, Apple TV+, and YouTube TV. Here are the 10 best shows like Common Side Effects to watch now.
Carol & The End of The World (2023)
Fans of Common Side Effects’ animated approach to a runaway thriller will find plenty to love in Carol & The End of The World. As humanity prepares for the apparent end of the world, a middle-aged woman named Carol (Martha Kelly) finds fulfillment in her routine thanks to a company called “The Distraction.”
Like Common Side Effects, Carol & The End of the World explores capitalist institutions from a grounded personal perspective. Similar to bittersweet explorations of the apocalypse like Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and Don’t Look Up, Carol & The End of the World is a deeply moving story that I wasn’t expecting to hit so hard. Both shows also reflect on the nature of death and life from a slightly absurd and animated perspective, unafraid to show the reality of death and the failures of humans. As a Netflix original, Carol & The End of the World makes an easy pick for those with a subscription to the streamer. .
Strange Planet (2023)
A bizarre exploration of life from an alien perspective, Strange Planet shares a cutting and cartoony edge with Common Side Effects. Co-created by the webcomic creative and Nathan W. Pyle, the show (now available on Apple TV+) features snippets into the lives of dozens of blue aliens that have bizarrely blunt riffs on human traits.
The fast-paced nature of the series recalls animated shows like Robot Chicken, but with a bit more absurdist interest in the world at large. Co-created by Community creator Dan Harmon, Strange Planet shares a certain amount of bittersweet bizarreness with shows like Rick & Morty and Ugly Americans that make it easy to watch. I appreciate the expressive and purposefully off-putting design aesthetics of Strange Planet. Those who dug Common Side Effects unique animation will find a complementing follow-up here.
The Shivering Truth (2018)
Fans who appreciated the darker and more experimental visuals of Common Side Effect will find plenty to love in The Shivering Truth. Created by Vernon Chatman, the stop-motion horror anthology embraces a surreal touch that will resonate with anyone who was creeped out by the little white humanoids who haunt anyone who has eaten the Blue Angel mushrooms in Common Side Effects.
The scary imagery at the end of Common Side Effects’ first season is very memorable and reminiscent of the unsettling creations that appear in The Shivering Truth. Not for the faint of heart or those too easily prone to upset stomachs, The Shivering Truth is a stunning work of art that will impress, mesmerize, and freak out viewers in equal measure. It shares a similar scary aesthetic with the Adult Swim Infomercials and the films of David Lynch, like Eraserhead. It’s a show that keeps me up at night in the same way that Common Side Effect’s more unnerving beats do.
Smiling Friends (2022)
Smiling Friends shares a comedic sensibility and view on modern society with Common Side Effects. Created by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, Smiling Friends focuses on Charlie Dompler and Pim Pimling, who work at a charity dedicated to making people happy. The bizarre and surreal nature of their adventures is communicated through a creative approach to animation that incorporates multiple forms of the medium.
This experimentation, similar to the medium-blending, mixed-media approaches taken in shows like The Amazing World of Gumball, makes Smiling Friends visually distinct amid a large number of rival animated shows. While I appreciate how both series mine people’s flaws for dark comedy, I’m always impressed with the clear humanity that Common Side Effects and Smiling Friends highlight in their beautiful (and horrifying) approach to the bizarre.
Ten Year Old Tom (2021)
Ten Year Old Tom is a painfully grounded, frequently funny, and offbeat companion piece to the more adventurous Common Side Effects. Created by and starring Steve Dildarian, Ten Year Old Tom is a spiritual successor to his former show The Life & Times of Tim, focusing on a young boy named Tom and the misadventures he experiences in his town.
Although the show has far lower stakes than the thriller, Ten Year Old Tom is still a great little character study about a young boy and the well-meaning but ill-equipped adults in his orbit. It has some quiet similarities to other emotionally heavy animated shows like Morel Orel, making for a good animated answer to the “mundane setting made funny” tone of The Office. With a supporting cast that includes Edi Patterson, Erik Griffin, Gillian Jacobs, and John Malkovich, Ten Year Old Tom works best for fans of heavier animated series.
Fired on Mars (2023)
In a similar way to how Common Side Effects works as a satire about working in modern America, Fired on Mars uses sci-fi to comment on the plight of the average office drone. Jeff Cooper (Luke Wilson) is a graphic designer living on a human settlement on Mars, who finds himself without a job and struggling to find a new purpose in life.
While Common Side Effects has Reutical Pharmaceuticals, Inc as the central villainous organization, Fired on Mars and Common Side Effects are both critical of the ultra-wealthy and the companies that prop them up. Common Side Effects has a harsher perspective than the more sitcom-y Fired on Mars, but both shows embrace their genre conventions for dramatic purposes. With a creative approach to science fiction like Solar Opposites and Finale Space, Fired on Mars is for satire-loving audiences who crave fun jokes at the expense of the job market, tech industry, and wealth disparity.
Inside Job (2021)
Common Side Effects is ultimately a conspiracy thriller about a man trying to fix the world in a way that the people who run it don’t approve of, which is the exact kind of worldbuilding and social satire that’s at the heart of Inside Job. The Netflix animated show focuses on Reagan (Lizzy Caplan), a brilliant scientist who works for a company that specializes in global conspiracy cover-ups.
While Inside Job plays that concept more for laughs, its roots as a darkly comedic riff on conspiracy theories gives the series a shared creative DNA with Common Side Effects. Inside Job’s Cognito Inc has plenty of comedic potential, brought to life by some of the creative team from Gravity Falls. The show’s crass sense of humor and liberal reference points also make it an ideal watch for fans of The Simpsons and Futurama. Inside Job might be a perfectly hilarious cool-down after the more intense turns of Common Side Effects, and I’m still annoyed that Netflix ended the show after only two seasons.
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (2024)
Another animated show that takes aim at the state of the medical industry in the United States, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy brings a critical eye to the state of the nation in a very different way from Common Side Effects. Created by Cirocco Dunlap, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is set in a distant corner of the cosmos and focuses on two female alien surgeons (and best friends), Dr. Sleech (Stephanie Hsu) and Dr. Klak (Keke Palmer). The show draws a lot of comedy from the way the hospital cuts costs and earns money, while also offering a sci-fi riff on the hospital drama popularized by shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy.
Fans of comedies like Children’s Hospital and social commentaries like Fairfax will recognize a similar vibe. However, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy offers an optimistic and romantic side that I would have never expected from the onset. Sleech’s slow-burning romance with Kieran Culkin's Dr. Plowp is genuinely tender, and Maya Rudolph's Dr. Vlam cracks me up constantly. Similar to how Common Side Effects has a harsh view of Reutical Pharmaceuticals, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy offers a compelling and fantastical exploration of real-world challenges faced in the medical industry, without ever losing sight of its characters’ humanity.
Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-head (2022)
One of the most recognizable voices in Common Side Effects is Mike Judge, the creator of Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-head. Judge is also the mind behind fan-favorite animated classic King of the Hill. Here, Judge plays Rick Kruger, one of the execs at Reutical, who seeks to use the Blue Angel for his own gain. A legend of animation in his own right, Judge’s performance also shares a clear and satirical perspective on modern society that the filmmaker has brought to plenty of other projects like Idiocracy and Office Space.
For fans of Common Side Effects, I’d recommend the modern revival of the show that placed Judge on the map. The latest iteration of Beavis and Butt-head focuses on the titular teenagers and their crude perspective on the world, which cracks me up just as much now as the original show did when I was a kid watching reruns after school on TV. The new batch of episodes has some great twists and turns, with a subtly sardonic touch that makes all the hilarious surface-level gags land even harder.
Scavengers Reign (2023)
Created by Joseph Bennett (who is one of the creatives behind Common Side Effects) and Charles Huettner, Scavengers Reign is a compelling sci-fi series that, like Common Side Effects, never loses sight of the humanity at the core of the story. Focusing on the survivors of the damaged interstellar cargo ship Demeter 227 as they struggle to survive on the alien world of Vesta, Scavengers Reign is a visually rich and deeply compelling sci-fi drama
It’s a terrific one-season show that was cancelled too early, but it still serves as a great piece of sci-fi. Comparable to other modern stylistic animated dramas like Cowboy Bebop, Pluto, and Samurai Jack, all fans of modern animation should check out this show. That’s especially true for audiences who enjoyed Common Side Effects. Scavengers Reign contains the same deep character and introspective exploration of the human condition, just on a much different scale.
