10 Best Vampire Television Shows

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The Showtime series Penny Dreadful set out to right the wrongs that the Sean Connery-led League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG, if you prefer) unleashed on the public in 2003, and did so with aplomb. This John Logan-developed series is a mashup of pretty much every Victorian-era horror trope, which means that a whole lot of vampires pop up over the course of the show’s critically acclaimed, sadly underseen run.

Of course, you can have Victorian vampire shows with Dracula showing up eventually, but Penny Dreadful admirably managed to resist until the third and final season. Fortunately, before that, we got a whole lot of Josh Harnett, Eva Green, Timothy Dalton, and Reeve Carney fighting their way through werewolves, witches, and yes, vampires.

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Hemlock Grove was one of Netflix’s first forays into original programming, when it seemed laughable that a company known for sending DVDs through the mail would try to make its own shows and movies. However, you can never discount the appeal of vampire shows, and Hemlock Grove became the first streaming-only series to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

The show involves the murder of two young girls in the odd town of Hemlock Grove (which was lorded over by the imperious, aristocratic Famke Janssen) giving the series a Twin Peaks vibe that was sorely needed in the early 2010s. Plus, the series was a breakout horror role for a young Bill Skarsgard, setting him on a path to It and Barbarian.

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One of the weirder vampire shows that has ever been produced, Van Helsing is not related to the cult 2004 Hugh Jackman movie except in source material. Instead, this SyFy series stars Kelly Overton as Vanessa Van Helsing, the last descendent of Dracula’s greatest nemesis, who wakes from a coma to find herself in a world overrun by vampires. Alongside Axel Miller (Jonathan Scarfe), this particular Van Helsing attempts to save humanity with her special vampire-curing blood, giving this series a certain The Last of Us vibe.

Although Van Helsing might not be at the top of the list of vampire shows, it certainly is among the most daring. What other show would feature a near-future, post-apocalyptic Countess Dracula who becomes President of the United States, played by Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer?

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The Originals is a spin-off of another series and this isn’t the last time you’ll see a show like that on this list. This CW show follows the Mikaelson siblings: Klaus (Joseph Morgan), Elijah (Daniel Gillies), and Rebekah (Claire Holt), the three first vampires to exist within this particular fictional world.

After first appearing in The Vampire Diaries, The Originals sees the three siblings entangle themselves in the deadly political schemes and conflicts of New Orleans, making this something of a hybrid of vampire shows and Game of Thrones. As always, you can’t go wrong with sexy vampires fighting vampires in the sweaty southern heat.

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Being Human is one of the most comedic vampire shows on this list and also one of the most high-concept of the lot. Rather than sexy vampire siblings in New Orleans or future post-apocalyptic Earth, this show has a pretty fun premise: what if a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost were roommates?

The British series (which would be remade in America in 2011) deals with the day-to-day issues of life as a supernatural being in a human world, like holding down a job while also trying to suppress your eternal, all-consuming need to feed on human blood. Who can’t relate to that?

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Until Arrow rolled around and ushered in a whole goofy universe, The Vampire Diaries was the biggest thing ever on the CW. Much like the zeitgeist-devouring Twilight franchise, this vampire show featured a teenage girl (Nina Dobrev) in a small town falling in love with a much, much (much!) older vampire (Paul Wesley), initially believing him to be a regular human. He is not.

There’s even a love triangle between Dobrev and two supernatural beings, but if a formula works, there is no reason for vampire shows to break it. The series lasted an impressive eight seasons, spinning off The Originals (see above) and making a lasting impact in the history of vampire entertainment.

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If Game of Thrones ever had competition on HBO, it was True Blood. One of the great vampire shows of all time, this Southern gothic of a show featured Sookie Stackhouse (the X-Men’s Anna Paquin) living in a world in which vampires have emerged from the shadows to live in uneasy peace alongside humans. As you might guess, sex and violence ensue.

True Blood would air for seven seasons and feature an astonishing array of talented character actors, including a career-making role for Alexander Skarsgard, Barry’s Stephen Root, science fiction icon William Sanderson, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and the T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick. If you’re looking for adult-oriented, steamy vampire shows, you can’t do better than this.

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Angel is unquestionably the greatest vampire spin-off show of all time, the result of Buffy’s cursed nosferatu-with-a-soul played by David Boreanaz doing what all spin-offs demand: moving a character to Los Angeles. Where Boreanaz and his burdens of regret and violence were always a welcome part of Joss Whedon’s originals series, Angel was where the character could really spread his wings.

Over 110 episodes, Angel works as a private detective, battles a Satanic law firm, and does his very best to atone for decades of slaughter and mayhem. It’s one of the darker and more morally ambiguous series on this list of vampire shows, which is saying a lot.

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It is not a stretch to say that the Hulu adaptation of Taika Waititi’s vampire comedy film What We Do in the Shadows is one of the modern sitcom classics. Created by Jemaine Clement (who starred in and co-wrote the original film), the show follows Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, and Mark Proksch as send-ups of various vampire tropes, including “barbaric warlord” “sexy Victorian” “bloodthirsty Countess” and “boring guy.”

Fortunately, the series has one of the highest degrees of fantastic storytelling, amazing jokes, and shocking violence of anything on television, bar none. Not all vampire shows can wring as much existential angst out of a 13th-century warrior realizing that his scientific understanding of the universe is out of date, or give the warmest heart to the passive-aggressive, meek, yet incredibly deadly Renfield (Harvey Guillén). 

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not just the greatest vampire story of all these shows, it is one of the defining series of the 1990s (and early 2000s). Period. Created by Joss Whedon out of the wreckage of his 1992 film of the same name, the show features Sarah Michelle Gellar in the iconic role of a teenager tasked with defending the world against the forces of darkness, while still also having to deal with schoolwork, romantic entanglements, and just plain life.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer boasts some of the most ambitious episodes of television of the decade (such as the legendary musical episode “Once More, With Feeling”), as well as groundbreaking arcs involving family death, LGBTQ issues, and how hard it is to know what to do with your life. Simply put, it’s the best.