Teen Dramas to Stream Next If You’re Hooked on Netflix’s Italian Military School Series

Netflix’s newest teen drama arrived with an unusual setting for the genre. The eight episode series, produced by Picomedia and directed by Ivan Silvestrini, premiered globally on Netflix on September 22. The story follows a young cadet who searches for answers about a missing friend while navigating discipline, rivalry and family pressure among the teens at Minerva Military High School.

Viewers who finish ‘Minerva Academy’ and want something with the same mix of institutional secrecy, teenage rebellion and coming of age tension have plenty of options. The shows below share at least one core ingredient with ‘Minerva Academy,’ whether that is a strict boarding school setting, a mystery buried inside the student body, or a cast of teenagers hiding more than they let on.

‘Elite’

Set at a fictional school for wealthy teenagers, ‘Elite’ follows working class students who win enrollment at Las Encinas through a scholarship program and the social and romantic fallout that follows. The series centers on a murder mystery, opening with the crime before flashing back to the events that led up to it. Like ‘Minerva Academy,’ the show uses an exclusive institution as a pressure cooker where class tension and secrets eventually explode.

‘Young Royals’

This Swedish series is set at the fictional elite boarding school Hillerska and follows Prince Wilhelm of Sweden and his romance with fellow student Simon Eriksson. The show earned a 99 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and became an instant hit after its 2021 premiere. Fans of the rigid rules and hidden vulnerabilities at Minerva will recognize the same tension between duty and personal freedom that defines Wilhelm’s world.

‘Wednesday’

Wednesday Addams investigates twisted mysteries while making new friends and foes at Nevermore Academy after being expelled from her old school and sent to the boarding school where her parents fell in love. The comedic horror tone is different from the grounded drama of ‘Minerva Academy,’ but the framework is the same, a new student uncovering a mystery buried inside a school with strict traditions and long buried history.

‘Heartbreak High’

This reboot of the beloved 1990s Australian teen drama follows a new generation of students at the fictional Hartley High. A discovery makes one student an instant pariah and causes a public rift with her best friend, setting off a season built around reputation, love and community among the school’s outsiders. It trades military discipline for social politics but keeps the same ensemble energy that makes ‘Minerva Academy’ compelling.

‘Class’

This Hindi language series is set in a wealthy Delhi school and follows the secrets and rumors involving a group of students that eventually lead to a murder. Three students from a poor neighborhood join the exclusive school, and dark secrets and rumors ultimately lead to tragedy. Anyone who liked how ‘Minerva Academy’ mixes class tension with institutional mystery will find a similar structure here, filtered through a different culture and setting.

‘Wayward’

This limited series follows two best friends sent against their will to a boarding school for wayward teens in a remote town, where things turn out to be more sinister than they appear. The series alternates between a police officer trying to uncover the school’s secrets and a student living through them from the inside. The authoritarian headmistress at the center of the story echoes the commanding officers who run Minerva with an iron hand.

‘Skam’

The original Norwegian version of this series follows the daily lives of teenagers at Hartvig Nissen School, a prestigious institution in Oslo, and broke viewership records upon its release. Each season shifts focus to a different student, giving the franchise a grounded, diary like intimacy that stands apart from the mystery plotting of ‘Minerva Academy.’ It remains a touchstone for the genre and a reminder of how much range exists within stories about teenagers navigating strict institutions.

Every one of these series takes the closed world of a school and turns it into a stage for secrets, discipline and the kind of pressure that forces its characters to grow up fast, much like the cadets learning what they are truly made of inside the walls of Minerva Military High School. Which of these institutions would you actually want to survive alongside Salvo, Vincenzo and Camilla, and which one would send you running for the front gate?