19 Best Romantic Teen Dramas, Ranked

On the sun-soaked barrier islands of North Carolina, the Pogues, the middle-class greasers, and the Kooks, the rising generation of institutional wealth, clash in a class war for sandy supremacy. But as frequently as the fisticuffs fly, so do the sparks between the Pogues as they chase after each other’s hearts — as well as treasure that’s been buried for centuries. At the end of the day, the G-game (aka gold game) is fun and all. But the real stakes are in the romances, where the life-or-death predicaments pale in comparison to the vulnerability of young love and putting yourself out there.

What do teenagers do when they find themselves trapped in their town with no adults and no way out? They do exactly what teenagers do every day. They fight, they flirt, they fall in love, and they descend into a Lord of the Flies-brand of social survival that made this Netflix series a masterfully realized (and gone-too-soon) examination of teenage emotion pushed to the extreme. We still debate the minefield of relationships that were forged in this one-season wonder, which starred the next generation of stars, including Kathryn Newton, Kristine Froseth and Olivia DeJonge.

The image of Jenna Hamilton (Ashley Rickards) in an arm cast is something you could not escape if you were watching MTV in the 2010s (and really, who wasn’t?). But beyond her traumatic injuries, what Jenna endured in high school has struck a chord with us ever since, specifically her on-again-off-again relationship with sweet-but-airheaded jock Matty (Beau Mirchoff) that became one of the defining relationships of MTV’s sorely missed scripted era.

Among a generation of teen dramas that defined The WB’s lineup in the late 1990s, very few captured the alienation of what it is like being a young person who spent their childhood as “the Other.” In this case, the outsider is Max Evans (Jason Behr), one of three aliens who crash landed in the famous New Mexico town in 1947. But it was Max’s relationship with human Liz (Shiri Appleby) that really defied the odds — navigating regular threats from the FBI, a dangerously seductive fourth alien, and galactic implications to stand alongside some of the best romances of its day.

While this was the two-hander story of teenager Rory (Alexis Bledel) and her mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham), the first half of this tale of Stars Hollow was all about the boys that fluttered in and out of the younger Gilmore’s life. Her relationships with Dean (Jared Padalecki) and Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) defined her high school experience and colored an entire generation of teen girls green with envy. But don’t forget the murderer’s row of other up and coming talent that landed on Rory’s doorstep like Chad Michael Murray and Matt Czuchry. If nothing else, Gilmore Girls was the training ground for a generation of romantic leading men.

When a doctor, played by the late Treat Williams, moves his family to the small Colorado town of Everwood, it changes the lives of his children and the town forever. This sweet series from Greg Berlanti about the pains and pleasures of small-town life helped close out the iconic era of The WB. But the slow burn love story of Ephram (Gregory Smith) and Amy (Emily VanCamp) was the marquee reason Everwood makes our list. Where some shows were weighed down by the tropes of the soap opera, it spoke to the trials of being a teenager — and a teenager in love — so gracefully. And our obsession with the beautiful scenery was its own love story!

Few shows on The CW were as big — and continued to be as big — as All American. The story of a Crenshaw teenager recruited to play for Beverly Hills High School’s football team was the standard cultures-clashing series, until it managed to prove its staying power with genuinely captivating stories and a roster of teen romances to get wrapped up in. Despite having its foot in both worlds, All American has impressively offered authenticity to both experiences, while never shying away from the tough stories of what love means at a young age, no matter where you are from.

The story of high school student Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) made being a teenager funny again. As the wave of teen dramas leaned heavily into the tragedy and trauma of adolescence, creator Mindy Kaling gave Devi a reason to laugh about the graceless time of youth. She also gave her an inner monologue by John McEnroe and a love triangle for the ages in Paxton (Darren Barnet) and Ben (Jaren Lewison).

There is no greater hallmark of the teenage experience than indecision. The indecision of your future, of who you are or what path to take. But in the case of Belly (Lola Tung), her uncertainty also lies in choosing between the two brothers that defined her childhood summers at Cousins Beach — Conrad (Christoper Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). In many ways, our character is forged in those moments like endless summers chasing after the dreams of who we are and who we want to be, and Belly and Co. know that all too well.

The lasting impact of Canada’s defining teen drama was not confined to the Great White North. Although there were iterations of the series as early as 1979, it was The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015, that became a cultural phenomenon among teens of the age for its depiction of the rather normal (though sometimes outrageous) student body of a Toronto high school. High school is about the fleeting feelings of hormones, and Degrassi always understood that young love feels like both the beginning of everything and the end of the world.

There is maybe no more pure form of emotion than singing, and Glee really took that to heart. When it premiered in 2009, FOX’s musical series stormed the Billboard charts in a way not seen since The Beatles. But it wasn’t just genuinely great covers of your favorite songs that attracted fans. In the microcosm that was the choir room, Glee became a revolving door of funny, surprising, devastating, and thrilling romances among its members. It understood that being a teenager is about finding out what you like, and not just in your music tastes. It was about being open to exploring new genres of life and love, and it gave us some all-time couples, including Rachel (Lea Michele) and Finn (Cory Monteith), and Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss).

While so much of the action in Dillon, Texas, unfolded on the Panthers football field on Friday night, it was off the field where the show made its mark. We will never forget the love story between Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and Tami (Connie Britton), but at the end of the day, Friday Night Lights was a teen drama about marrying the adrenaline of football with the even more intoxicating rush of young love. Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) and Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) were among the hottest couples to grace our screens in recent years. Add in the sweet story of Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and Julie (Aimee Teegarden), and even the slow burn of Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons) and Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), and you’ve got a championship romance lineup.

Whereas a lot of the shows on this list leaned heavily into striking a balance between the dramatic and the mundane sides of adolescence, One Tree Hill almost always found the fun in the high drama. As a viewer, this led to some of the craziest storylines you can think of. But when emotions are as high as they always were in Tree Hill, it also gave us some generation-defining romances including Nathan (James Lafferty) and Haley (Bethany Joy Lenz), Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) and Peyton (Hilarie Burton), and Brooke (Sophia Bush) and herself.

The newest addition to this list is a prime and progressive example of just how far teen dramas have come in the age of the Gen Z and Alpha generations. In a small London community, Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) fall in love as they face the everyday trials and tribulations of being teens. Two decades ago, it was through teen dramas that TV made great strides in the realm of representation for queer people. Heartstopper proudly carries that torch by treating its characters who exist all over the LGBTQIA+ spectrum not like they are the exception to the norm, but rather just another shade of the human experience. Plus, the world would just be a better place if more of us had experiences like Nick and Charlie’s in our childhoods.

Hello, Upper East Siders. Gossip Girl here to tell you that even after almost 20 years, the backstabbing, boyfriend-stealing, and general debauchery of the students of the Constance Billard School for Girls and St. Jude’s School for Boys still hits just as hard as it did in 2007. The increasingly devious deeds of Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively), Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Chuck (Ed Westwick), Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), and their friends might not have been the average high school experience, but it sure did feel cathartic to watch them settle petty rich-people disputes by waging war on each other. All the while, their relationships served as catnip for a teenage generation that went to war online defending even the most controversial pairings.

Although it only lasted one season, the reverberations of My So-Called Life can still be felt today. The story of Angela Chase (Claire Danes) and her friends at Liberty High School brought to the forefront and embraced stories of gender, sexuality, and struggle in a way no teen drama ever had before. From a romance perspective, the immediate obsession with Angela’s crush, Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto), also presented audiences with the perfect ideal of the unattainable bad boy that people still lust after.

While most people couldn’t relate to the obscene wealth on display in FOX’s The O.C., the outsider-looking-in storyline with Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie) proved to be the perfect lens by which to enjoy the coastal elite. Between Ryan and Marissa (Misha Barton), Summer (Rachel Bilson) and Seth (Adam Brody), The O.C. is kind of unmatched in swoonworthy teen romances. Even if you don’t consider their many dalliances across four seasons, the Core Four gave us some of the most exciting and heartbreaking romances in recent memory.

It’s all right there in the lyrics of Paula Cole’s earworm theme song —“I don’t wanna wait for our lives to be over.” In a small town like Capeside, it can feel as though your life is passing you by, especially as a teenager. Dawson’s Creek, from creator Kevin Williamson, brilliantly captured the hunger and drive of teenagers looking to seize life before it’s too late. Culturally speaking, there were few things bigger than the love triangle of Dawson (James Van Der Beek), Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Joey (Katie Holmes), which made overnight sensations of its young cast. Coupled with other storylines like Jack’s (Kerr Smith) boundary-breaking coming out, and you have an all-time great teen series on your hands.

It’s hard to capture the phenomenon that Beverly Hills, 90210 was when it premiered in 1990. The story of a group of friends and enemies from the wealthy enclave of Beverly Hills literally rewired what a generation of teenagers wanted and expected from their own high school experience. They wanted Kelly (Jennie Garth) and Brandon’s (Jason Priestley) relationship. They wanted to be swept off their feet by a Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) or a David Silver (Brian Austin Green). 90210 made being a teenager cool, when actually being a teenager can be the worst feeling in the world, and left us with some of the greatest young love stories of the end of the 20th century.