The pods are closed, the infamous gold cups are empty, and another season of Love Is Blind is in the books. The two-month journey that followed a group of hopeful Chicago daters from small, insulated pods to vacations in Mexico to wedding ceremonies officially culminated in a splashy, shocking March 4 reunion, and now there’s a train-wreck-shaped hole in your heart. Luckily, there’s no shortage of dating shows that feature scheming singles, love triangles and squares, and beautiful people tearfully trying to find their person. From Love Is Blind’s international spinoffs to gems from the early aughts to lots and lots of Love Island, here’s everything to watch next.
Love Is Blind: Japan
If this season had you aching for more love stories à la Cameron and Lauren (and fewer contestants like this guy), Love is Blind: Japan might be more your speed. The Japanese iteration of the sight-unseen love experiment is formatted like the frothy, often stressful American show, but you’ll notice much more earnest romance over drama. There’s also a greater focus on the contestants as they build their relationships preengagement: It takes five episodes instead of two for the couples to leave the pods. Maybe it’s all a matter of editing, but in any case, this one’s definitely for the romantics. Motomi and Ryotaro forever.
Where to watch: Netflix
Married at First Sight
Married at First Sight bravely asks, What if two eligible singles went on a blind date … to their own wedding? As the name suggests, this show follows “expertly matched” couples that meet for the first time immediately before saying “I do” — and documents their disastrous first few weeks of marriage as they get to know their new partners, move in together, and try to integrate their lives. In some ways, Married at Fight Sight is just Love is Blind if you ditched the pods altogether. And eliminated the idea of choosing your partner. And the stakes weren’t a broken engagement but a full-on divorce. Fun!
Where to watch: Lifetime or Hulu
Too Hot to Handle
Love is Blind is all about dating people without seeing them. Meanwhile, on Too Hot to Handle, you can look at all the beautiful, horny people around you — but you can’t touch them. (At this rate, we might have a Netflix dating show for each of the five senses by 2025.) If the daters can keep their hands to themselves, they get to split a massive cash prize, but anyone who steps out of line is publicly reprimanded by an Alexa-esque robot named Lana. If you’re looking for lasting couples, this show doesn’t have Netflix’s best success rate, but you can’t say it’s not entertaining.
Where to watch: Netflix
Love Is Blind: Brazil
Like the U.S. version, Love Is Blind: Brazil focuses more on how the daters’ relationships fare once they’re outside the pods — and compared to Japan, there’s a little more drama than romance. If you can’t look away from train-wreck pairings and secretly love a juicy breakup-at-the-altar moment, this is definitely the international spinoff for you. But that’s not to say the LIB experiment doesn’t work: There are some couples to root for and sweet moments amid all the mess.
Where to watch: Netflix
My Mom, Your Dad
If you’ve ever wished for a dating show populated by contestants who aren’t 20-somethings, HBO Max’s latest foray into the world of reality TV might be your best bet. Hosted by Yvonne Orji of the HBO Cinematic Universe (Insecure; Momma, I Made It!), the show follows a group of single parents — and their college-age kids — as they head to a desert retreat. Once there, the kids secretly set their parents up and “meddle” in their dates from behind the scenes. There’s definitely a lot of humor here, too, as some of the rustier dads drone on to their dates and kids skeptically suss out their parents’ new connections.
Where to watch: HBO Max
Bachelor in Paradise
At this point, The Bachelor is such a ubiquitous entity that it almost feels too redundant to include, but the show’s summery, free-for-all spinoff Bachelor in Paradise is a perfect entry point for Love Is Blind fans hoping to tiptoe into the franchise. There are love triangles and love squares, in-fights and petty feuds, and, of course, a reality-TV-ready beach resort backdrop. Still, maybe because of the sheer number of singles who hit the beach every year, this show actually has a higher success rate than The Bachelor or The Bachelorette and even more drama — as well as, after longtime host Chris Harrison left the show, guest hosts including Lance Bass and Lil Jon.
Where to watch: Hulu
Love Island
We’d be remiss not to mention the show that is, in many ways, the modern dating-show blueprint. With American, British, and Australian iterations (just to name a few), this is a great franchise to jump into if you have a lot of time and an insatiable, bottomless need for footage of people flirting, kissing, and yelling at each other, often in thick British and Australian accents. Each season has more than 65 episodes, so if you’re ready to enjoy the messiest summer vacation of your life, head over to Hulu. Just get ready to turn on those subtitles.
Where to watch: Hulu
FBoy Island
HBO Max’s answer to Love Island — appropriately titled FBoy Island — has a pretty convoluted premise, so stick with me here. A group of three women are challenged to find a boyfriend in a sea of self-proclaimed nice guys and self-proclaimed f-boys, and while anyone who would describe himself as either is probably a walking red flag, the labels really boil down to this: Half of the male contestants want to find love, and half want to make it to the end and win a $100,000 cash prize. This series is full of twists and questions (like, What happens if an f-boy develops feelings for a contestant?), but it’s endlessly watchable, and it was recently renewed for a forthcoming second season.
Where to watch: HBO Max
Single’s Inferno
This breakout Korean dating show isn’t all that different from Too Hot to Handle or Love Island. If anything, it’s more simple — there are only 12 contestants, and there’s no grand pot of cash — but until they pair up, they are stuck in the sweltering, eponymous inferno, which sounds much steamier than it really is. Along with winning the grand prize of love, of course, coupled-up contestants get to leave Single’s Inferno for Paradise, a swanky hotel with modern plumbing, amenities, and air-conditioning.
Where to watch: Netflix
Dating Around
Compared to Love Is Blind, The Bachelor, and the genre’s other biggest hits, this show offers a pretty realistic look at what the casual-dating scene actually looks like. Well, fine, contestants are paired up with attractive people handpicked and vetted by Netflix, but there’s no immediate wedding or cash prize on the horizon and definitely no AI robot enforcing rigid rules. In each 25-minute episode, a contestant goes on five blind dates, then chooses just one person to see again. If you need a break from the chaos of the Too Hot to Handle, Love Island, et al., give this show a try.
Where to watch: Netflix
Flavor of Love
This one’s a classic, but if you’re a new convert to the world of dating shows, Flavor of Love is unmissable — I mean, it brought us Tiffany Pollard. Enough said. The VH1 classic followed Flavor Flav’s search for love (twice), and Pollard’s spinoff, I Love New York, aimed to help her find the one (she eventually did).
Where to watch: Hulu
Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey
Hear me out: A dating show, but it takes place on a party bus. Ainori Love Wagon, Netflix’s 2017 revival of a popular Japanese series from the early aughts, sees seven singles head on the journey of their lives across Asia. The goal? Enjoy an exciting, cross-continental vacation and try to find love. Whenever a contestant falls for another passenger, they’re given the choice to confess their feelings and travel back to Japan, hopefully with their new partner — but if it isn’t a love match, they still have to head back solo. After you’ve finished, check out Ainori Love Wagon: African Journey. (New trip, new contestants, same pastel-pink bus.)
Where to watch: Netflix
Indian Matchmaking
Indian Matchmaking is more of a docuseries than a dating show, but it’s highly entertaining (and coming back for a second season soon too!). The series centers around master matchmaker Sima Taparia as she thoughtfully sets up compatible singles across the U.S. and India, sometimes with difficult and even disastrous results. Although marriage is each couple’s end goal, Indian Matchmaking is more about dating than anything else: the nerves, the excitement, the horror stories, the ghosting.
Where to watch: Netflix
90 Day Fiancé
Like Love Is Blind and Married at First Sight, 90 Day Fiancé follows newlyweds-to-be as they race to the altar in record time. But this show’s premise isn’t just rooted in a reality-TV experiment: In each couple, one half isn’t an American citizen, and in order to live in the U.S., they must spend 90 days with their American partner before tying the knot. Needless to say, the stakes here are high, and you can catch up with the couples that made it work (and the ones that didn’t) in the show’s ten-plus spinoffs.
Where to watch: Discovery+
Terrace House
It’s kind of funny that the same genre that spawned Love Is Blind brought us Terrace House, a Real World–esque reality show with drama so subtle and tame that one of the franchise’s biggest, teariest moments revolved around stolen meat. Terrace House has been lauded for casting contestants you can actually root for with conflicts that are actually (well, usually) resolved in a calm, mature manner. Plus the show has a panel of commentators who share their opinions on all the house drama as it unfolds. Just imagine a season’s worth of Vanessa Lachey’s thoughts on Shake.
Where to watch: Netflix
Heart Signal
This South Korean reality show also focuses on all the day-to-day conversations, flirtations, and interactions that go down in a house of attractive singles, and there’s also a panel of celebrity commentators who weigh in on the burgeoning relationships. Unlike Terrace House, though, Heart Signal is more of a classic dating show: Every night, the contestants send anonymous text messages to the housemates who’ve piqued their interest — and in a Love Is Blind–style twist, they can’t confess their feelings face to face.
Where to watch: Viki
Temptation Island
Temptation Island originally went off air in 2003, but USA revived the show in 2019. Participating couples split up and join houses full of hot singles to “test their relationships,” and yes, it’s as stressful as it sounds. If that’s still not chaotic enough for you, though, you’ll just have to hang tight until the Lacheys’ next endeavor.
Where to watch: Peacock
