Credit: Netflix

Netflix teen dramas never really run out of style. But when they blend teenage tropes with mystery scoops, they become all the more invincible, as with Minerva Academy.

The Italian teen mystery series unfolds against the backdrop of a strict, prestigious military high school in Naples, and follows Salvo, who joins the elite academy with a hidden motive: to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his best friend from within the institution.

While the Netflix Original series accurately combines coming-of-age stories, high-school rivalries, and rigid institutional discipline with an overarching dark mystery, what happens when you finish the series and still want more?

Well, that’s where we step in with five Netflix shows to binge if you loved Minerva Academy. So, take the pointers and save the watchlist!

Five Netflix shows to stream after Minerva Academy

Elite (Carlos Montero and Darío Madrona, 2018-2024)

Teen drama marathons on Netflix will always remain incomplete without Elite, the streamer’s hit Spanish thriller. So, once you’re done with Minerva Academy, head to Las Encinas, an elite private school in Spain that’s a hotbed of tension and secrets. The series opens with a major inciting incident when a local public school collapses, prompting the construction company responsible to offer scholarships to three working-class, displaced students – Samuel, Nadia, and Christian.

As the trio tries to fit in, despite coming across as a fish out of water, they face intense classism, bullying, and exclusion from their wealthy classmates at their new school. Across its eight-season run, Elite focuses on separate but interconnected crime or murder mysteries, capitalising on flash-forwards of police interrogations paired with timelines of the students’ romances, rivalries, secrets, and betrayals.

Blood & Water (Nosipho Dumisa-Ngoasheng, Daryne Joshua and Travis Taute, 2020-2024)

If you’re intrigued by Salvo’s motivation to join Minerva Academy, you cannot skip Blood & Water on Netflix. Set in Cape Town, Africa, the teen crime-drama series follows 16-year-old Puleng Khumalo, who joins an elite private school, Parkhurst High, to get close and find out whether its star swimmer, Fikile Bhele, is actually her long-lost sister, Phume, who was abducted at birth. The suspicion begins when, on the same day of Phume’s birthday, she receives a birthday invite to Fikile’s party.

But when her new acquaintance Wade suggests the uncanny similarities, Puleng’s conviction grows. Determined to uncover the truth, she transfers to the prestigious private school. Blood & Water centres on Puleng’s investigation into the family mystery alongside her new classmate Wade, which uncovers a dark web of secrets her family and friends keep alongside a dangerous illegal adoption network.

Control Z (Alejandro Lozano and Bernardo de la Rosa, 2020-2022)

If you like the narrative trope of high-school dramas and high-stakes mysteries of Minerva Academy, Control Z is the quintessential follow-up on Netflix. The Mexican teen drama series unpacks its mysteries right at the heart of Colegio Nacional, where students face unlikely trouble when an anonymous hacker starts leaking their deeply personal secrets, not only destroying reputations but also turning the social hierarchy upside down.

Desperate to put an end to the leaks, Sofia joins forces with her new classmate Javier to track down the culprit, relying on her observational skills. While the debut season of Control Z spotlights a hacker on a mission to destroy lives, the sophomore season centres on a new anonymous vigilante who shares the destructive instinct witnessed in the season prior. As for what awaits the third? Well, you might want to find that out for yourself.

Get Even (Andrew Gunn, Max Myers, and Sarah Walker, 2020)

Minerva Academy proves that high school life doesn’t always mean innocence, and Get Even doubles down on the idea. Adapted from Gretchen McNeil’s book series Don’t Get Mad, the British teen thriller follows four girls – Kitty Wei, Margot Rivers, Bree Deringer, and Olivia Hayes – who form a secret society called DGM at their private school, despite coming from distinctly different social orders.

DGM has one simple mission: expose school bullies and end institutional injustice. Instead of getting mad at others’ wrongdoings, they aim to checkmate by orchestrating public exposes. While all seems to go well initially when a predatory teacher goes down, things take a dark turn when a student targeted by DGM’s activism and exposes is found murdered, and the girls end up becoming prime suspects in the case.

The Boarding School: Las Cumbres (Denis Rovira, Carles Torrens, Jesús Rodrigo, and Mikel Rueda, 2021-2023)

To wrap up the post-watch party for Minerva Academy, we recommend The Boarding School: Las Cumbres. Although not a Netflix original, it is currently available on the platform, and it couldn’t have chosen a better time. The gripping teen thriller follows four troubled, rebellious students – Manuel, Amaia, Paul, and Adele – who plan to escape from the strict, fortress-like Las Cumbres, an isolated monastery school with deep hidden secrets.

But during their escape, Adele blacks out, prompting Paul to stay back and the other two to flee into the dark nearby forests. In the woods, Manuel is knocked unconscious and kidnapped by a mysterious entity flaunting an unsettling crow mask, panicking Amaia. However, when Amaia informs the higher-ups at her boarding school, everyone dismisses her, citing that she’s suffering from mere hysteria, leaving the trio to take matters into their own hands and launch their own investigation.