The best survival thriller TV shows streaming now (yes, ‘Hijack’ is here)
The best survival thriller TV shows streaming now (yes, ‘Hijack’ is here)
From plane hijackings to wilderness survival, these shows know how to keep the pressure on.
My wife and I just watched the first episode of Season 2 of “Hijack” on Apple TV, and it instantly reminded me why we tore through Season 1 when it first dropped. I could honestly watch Idris Elba drink a cup of coffee and still be engaged, so when he’s stepping up to save a plane full of people from total disaster (or a train full of people in Season 2), I’m completely locked in. With “Hijack” fresh on my mind, I started thinking about other survival thriller shows on streaming right now, and these are the ones that are absolutely worth your time.
Top 7 survival thriller TV shows on streaming right now:
No. 7: ‘24’ (2001) | Hulu
Even after 25 years, “24” still works. The hook is simple: each season takes place over one day, told in real time, with every episode covering a single hour. Kiefer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, a counterterror agent who is constantly racing against the clock while everything around him falls apart.
What makes the show so addictive is the way time becomes the enemy. Plans never go smoothly, information arrives too late, and every choice feels extremely important. Even when it leans into its early 2000’s intensity, the format keeps the tension tight. It’s pure survival TV built around the idea that you never get a pause button.
24
Counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer fights the bad guys of the world, a day at a time. With each week’s episode unfolding in real-time, “24” covers a single day in the life of Bauer each season.
No. 6: ‘Manifest’ (2018) | Netflix
“Manifest” follows a commercial flight that disappears and then lands years later, with the passengers believing almost no time has passed. Once they’re back, many of them start experiencing the same strange phenomena, sudden visions, voices, and vivid mental flashes that push them toward specific people or actions. These “callings” often feel like warnings or instructions, nudging the passengers to prevent accidents, save strangers, or uncover hidden truths, and they tend to escalate if ignored. Now, the survival element here is emotional as much as physical.
These characters are trying to survive a world that moved on without them, while also figuring out whether resisting these callings has real consequences. It’s earnest and a little messy at times, but that sincerity is part of the appeal. The stakes feel deeply personal, especially as relationships and families strain under the weight of all that lost time.
Manifest
After landing from a turbulent but routine flight, the crew and passengers of Montego Air Flight 828 discover five years have passed in what seemed like a few hours. As their new realities become clear, a deeper mystery unfolds and some of the returned passengers soon realize they may be meant for something greater than they ever thought possible.
No. 5: ‘Yellowjackets’ (2021) | Paramount+
“Yellowjackets” is survival horror wrapped inside a character study. The show follows a high school girls’ soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness, while also tracking several of them decades later as adults. The dual timeline is what makes it so gripping. In the past, survival was literal and brutal. In the present, survival is psychological, as guilt and secrets refuse to stay buried.
The cast is stacked, especially the kids’ lineup, and the performances make every choice feel loaded. Watching the wilderness slowly change who these girls are is unsettling in the best way, and you’re not just asking who survives, but wondering who they become as adults…
Yellowjackets
This equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama tells the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later.
No. 4: ‘Hannibal’ (2013) | Prime Video
“Hannibal” is a survival thriller that plays out almost entirely in the mind. Hugh Dancy plays Will Graham, an FBI profiler whose empathy allows him to think like killers, and Mads Mikkelsen plays Hannibal Lecter as his quietly terrifying psychiatrist. The show is technically about solving murders, but the real danger is the relationship between these two men. Will is constantly trying to survive his own mind, while Hannibal slowly pulls him closer to the edge.
It’s beautifully shot and deliberately paced, turning violence into something unsettlingly elegant. The tension comes from watching how long Will can stay himself before that closeness costs him everything.
Hannibal
Both a gift and a curse, Graham has the extraordinary ability to think like his prey—he sees what they see, feels what they feel. But while Graham is pursuing an especially troubling, cannibalistic murderer, Special Agent Jack Crawford teams him with a highly respected psychiatrist – a man with a taste for the criminal minded – Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
No. 3: ‘The Night Agent’ (2023) | Netflix
If you want something you can tear through fast, “The Night Agent” absolutely delivers. Gabriel Basso plays an FBI agent stuck answering an emergency phone line at the White House that never rings, until one night it finally does. From there, he’s pulled into a sprawling conspiracy and forced into full survival mode. The show keeps things simple in the best way.
Every episode ends with a new problem, a new betrayal, or a new clock ticking down. It’s not trying to reinvent the genre, but it does deliver it cleanly and at full speed. That momentum makes it incredibly easy to watch and enjoy.
The Night Agent
Brought together by a midnight phone call, an FBI agent and a cybersecurity expert must unravel an ever-growing web of political conspiracies.
No. 2: ‘Slow Horses’ (2020) | Apple TV
“Slow Horses” flips the spy survival thriller on its head. Instead of glamorous agents, it focuses on MI5 screwups banished to a dead-end department called Slough House. Gary Oldman plays their boss, Jackson Lamb, who looks like a disaster but turns out to be terrifyingly sharp. The survival angle here is about reputation and relevance.
These agents are constantly underestimated, which makes watching them claw their way out of impossible situations deeply satisfying. The writing is sharp, funny, and mean in the right ways, and it treats bureaucracy as its own kind of threat, which is lowkey satisfying.
Slow Horses
Follow a dysfunctional team of MI5 agents—and their obnoxious boss, the notorious Jackson Lamb—as they navigate the espionage world’s smoke and mirrors to defend England from sinister forces.
No. 1: ‘Hijack’ (2023) | Apple TV
I love “Hijack,” so much so that I named it the most underrated drama TV show on Apple TV. And now that it’s back with Season 2, it’s reminding my wife and me, yet again, why it deserves that honor.
Idris Elba plays Sam Nelson, a professional negotiator trapped on a hijacked flight, forced to keep people alive using nothing but conversation and instinct. Here in Season 2, he’s on a train in Germany doing something, er, sort of similar.
Now, there’s a big twist at the end of the first episode that I don’t want to ruin, but just know that as much as it feels like the first, this is going to be a very different second season… in a good way. If you’ve never seen “Hijack,” what are you waiting for? Watch this show.
Hijack
Expert negotiator Sam Nelson is in for the ride of his life—and so is everyone on board with him—after a group of hijackers take control. Sam will try every move in his playbook to take them down…as the stakes grow higher by the second.