There’s a fine line between love and hate. Just ask Tell Me Lies couple Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen (Jackson White), whose all-consuming romance is in its third season as of this week. Romantic obsession — the kind that narrows your world down to a single person — doesn’t have to be ugly. Some of the best relationships start with the kind of can’t-sleep, can’t-eat passion that makes you want to shout about it from the rooftops. But isn’t it fun to watch when things go south?
When Beyoncé sang about being “Crazy in Love,” she could have been talking about the characters in these series and movies on Netflix. They cover the spectrum of obsessive love, including exes who can’t stay away; two people caught up in an illicit affair; and a stalker with a literal body count. Read on to learn more.
Billie Connelly (Sarah Shahi) is a housewife and mother of two who lives in a quiet town with her husband, Cooper (Mike Vogel). But when suburban mundanity begins to weigh on her, she yearns for her wild former life in New York City — and for her ex, record producer Brad Simon (Adam Demos). To try and recapture her sense of self, Billie begins reflecting on (and writing about) her steamy former relationship, but quickly learns that diving too deep into the past can have unexpected consequences, especially when that past comes knocking.
Based on Anna Todd’s novel, this romance stars Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Picture This) and Josephine Langford (Moxie) as Hardin and Tessa, two college students whose immediate attraction to each other goes against everything they thought they knew about themselves. Hardin is a brooding, leather jacket–wearing rebel; Tessa is a by-the-books, straight-A student. But they can’t seem to stay away from each other, and they strike up a romance that has the potential to destroy them both. Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions), Inanna Sarkis (Brews Brothers), Shane Paul McGhie (The Last Shift), and others co-star.
Hardin and Tessa’s tumultuous love story continues in the movie’s four sequels: After We Collided, After We Fell, After Ever Happy, and After Everything.
This two-season thriller stars Kgomotso Christopher (Legacy) as Nandi, a college professor in Cape Town, South Africa, who strikes up a passionate affair with a younger man, Jacob (Prince Grootboom). As they become more entangled, their illicit relationship forces Nandi to wrestle with uncomfortable truths, including her recent miscarriage and questions about her husband’s (Thapelo Mokoena) potentially criminal past. Nat Ramabulana (Askies!) and Ngele Ramulondi (Noughts + Crosses) also star in the series, created by Steven Pillemer (The Brave Ones).
When Sophie O’Neil (Brittany Snow) moves with her husband (Evan Jonigkeit) and young son from the East Coast to fictional Maple Brook, Texas, she meets socialite Margo Banks (Malin Akerman), who heads up the titular clique of local women. At first, Sophie’s happy to have some new friends, even if she feels like an outsider. But as she and Margo grow closer, jealousies arise, and Sophie is soon drawn into a web of obsession, lust, and murder. Katie Lowes (Inventing Anna), George Ferrier (Juniper), Dermot Mulroney (The Wedding Date), Jaime Ray Newman (Eastwick), and Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) co-star.
Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) leads this five-season psychological thriller as Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager whose hopeless-romantic exterior hides a dark secret. The first season takes place in New York City and follows Joe’s growing obsession with aspiring writer Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail). When he begins to stalk Guinevere in an attempt to woo her, his carefully crafted fantasies unravel and no longer match reality. He snaps — with dangerous results. Greg Berlanti (Supergirl) and Sera Gamble (The Magicians) developed the series, based on Caroline Kepnes’s novels, which also stars Victoria Pedretti (The Haunting of Hill House), Tati Gabrielle (Kaleidoscope), Charlotte Ritchie (Feel Good), Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’s Tale), Shay Mitchell (Trese), Jenna Ortega (Wednesday), among others.
