What to watch after you finish ‘Squid Game’ Season 2
What to watch after you finish ‘Squid Game’ Season 2
The sophomore season of the hit Korean dystopian survival series returned Thursday with seven new episodes.
Netflix’s “Squid Game” is back with a vengeance. The record-setting, culture-changing Korean survival series returned for its long-awaited Season 2 on Dec. 26 after three years with new games alliances, and old foes. Led by creator/director/writer Hwang Dong-hyuk, series star Lee Jung-jae, new cast members including Park Sung-hoon, Im Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, and Kang Ae-shim, the new batch of episodes sees Gi-hun, a.k.a. Player 456, return to the deadly competition with a plan to end its trail of carnage from the inside— if he can best the shadowy Front Man at his own game.
Netflix released the full second season early on Thursday morning… unfortunately, the full second season is only seven episodes (down from Season 1’s nine), and you, like me and many, maybe in that end-of-the-year sweet spot where you could spend seven hours on the couch on Thursday binging it all.
The third and final season of “Squid Game” will be released sometime in 2025, but if you need more deadly games to keep you occupied, check out our recommendations of what to watch next!
Squid Game
Hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children’s games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits — with deadly high stakes.
Love ‘Squid Game’? Watch: ‘Alice in Borderland’ (2020– ) | Netflix
You don’t have to go far to watch what might be the “Squid Game’s” closest companion: Netflix’s Japanese thriller series “Alice in Borderland.”
Based on Haro Aso’s suspenseful, supernatural survival manga of the same name, the series follows Arisu (played by Kento Yamazaki), a listless and jobless gaming-obsessed teen who after a drunken night out with his friends Chōta (Yūki Morinaga) and Karube (Keita Machida) finds himself in a strange, empty version of Tokyo after following signs to a game arena. They soon realize they are trapped and must compete in a series of dangerous games. Meeting up with Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), a young woman navigating the games alone, they set out to complete the mysteries of the Borderlands and survive. The two-season cast also includes Nijirō Murakami, Ayaka Miyoshi, Aya Asahina, Dori Sakurada, and more.
“Alice in Borderland” had the bad luck of premiering nine months before “Squid Game” and didn’t really get a chance to build its international audience the same way the Korean hit, Netflix’s most-watched originals series, did, but it deserves just as many eyes. Instead of centering on people in deep debt and danger, “Alice in Borderland” mainly follows a group of demotivated teens, but otherwise, most of the same dystopian themes of extreme human conditions, capitalism, and survival apply. Plus, the series has been consistently great when it comes to its cinematography and performances.
And just like “Squid Game,” Season 3 of “Alice in Borderland” will also premiere in 2025.
Alice in Borderland
With his two friends, a video-game-obsessed young man finds himself in a strange version of Tokyo where they must compete in dangerous games to win.
More to watch after finishing ‘Squid Game’ Season 2
Battle Royale (2000) | Prime Video
Battle Royale
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary “Battle Royale” act.
The Platform (2019) | Netflix
The Platform
A slab of food descends down a vertical facility. The residents above eat heartily, leaving those below starving and desperate. A rebellion is imminent.
Cube (1997) | Prime Video
Cube
A group of strangers find themselves trapped in a maze-like prison. It soon becomes clear that each of them possesses the peculiar skills necessary to escape, if they don’t wind up dead first.
Ready or Not (2019) | Hulu
Ready or Not
A young bride’s wedding night turns into her worst nightmare when her ridiculously rich in-laws force her to play a gruesome game of hide-and-seek.
Ready Player One (2018) | Hulu
Ready Player One
When the creator of a popular video game system dies, a virtual contest is created to compete for his fortune.
The Hunt (2020) | Prime Video
The Hunt
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are—or how they got there. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, ruthless elitists gather at a remote location to hunt humans for sport. But their master plan is about to be derailed when one of the hunted turns the tables on her pursuers.
Nerve (2016) | Prime Video
Nerve
Industrious high school senior Vee Delmonico has had it with living life on the sidelines. When pressured by friends to join the popular online game Nerve, Vee decides to sign up for just one dare in what seems like harmless fun. But as she finds herself caught up in the thrill of the adrenaline-fueled competition partnered with a mysterious stranger, the game begins to take a sinister turn with increasingly dangerous acts, leading her into a high stakes finale that will determine her entire future.