There’s something wildly comforting (and occasionally unhinged) about a great “sisters” show. Sisters are the people who can read you in one glance, defend you like it’s their job, and still bring up that one embarrassing thing you did in 2009 at the worst possible moment.
The best series about sisterhood don’t just give us matching outfits and heartfelt hugs. They show us the messy and contradicting parts of having a sister. The constant rivalry that somehow also comes with deep-rooted loyalty, constant bickering that goes hand in hand with inside jokes for days and the weird telepathy that only comes from growing up together (or surviving something together). These are the shows that showcase all the intricacies of a sisterhood in all sorts of scenarios, from mundane and painfully realistic to magical and otherworldly.
Charmed—Sisterhood as a Literal Superpower
If you want the gold standard of “sisters first, everything else second,” Charmed is it. The series centers on the Halliwell sisters—Prue, Piper, and Phoebe—whose bond activates their magic (“the Power of Three”), and later expands when Paige joins the family.
What makes Charmed work isn’t just the demon-fighting. It’s the way the show treats sisterhood like the engine of the story. The sisters engage in arguments about responsibilities, clash over life decisions, experience jealousy and fear, yet consistently support each other during crucial moments. Even when their lives are chaotic—jobs, relationships, grief, identity—the one constant is that they keep coming back to the idea of “we’re a unit.”
In a genre that can easily lean into melodrama, Charmed earns its emotional beats because the sister dynamic feels like the real plot twist: magic is the background noise; family is the main event.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch—The aunts who feel like sisters
Technically, Sabrina the Teenage Witch is about a teenage girl discovering she’s actually a witch. But her homelife is run by two sisters who are raising her—Zelda and Hilda Spellman. Their relationship has that classic sibling energy. They bicker all the time, they tease each other mercilessly bickering, but they also love each other deeply and can work as a surprisingly good team when things get serious.
Zelda and Hilda represent two archetypes of adults—one more practical, one more chaotic—and it’s their push-pull dynamic that makes the household feel lived-in. The plotlines in this show can and often do get very silly, but the emotional takeaway is very real. Families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but they thrive on a good routine, patience, and people who stick around while you figure it out. If you like “sisters raising a kid together” energy, this one’s a cozy classic.
The Powerpuff Girls—Sisters, but make it tiny and feral
If you grew up with The Powerpuff Girls, you already know the deal: Blossom is the planner, Bubbles is the heart, Buttercup is the chaos gremlin. They’re “created” rather than born, but the show writes them like siblings in the purest sense—different personalities, shared upbringing, shared mission, and a lot of screaming before bedtime.
What makes it such a smart sisters show is how often the conflicts are emotional, not just superhero-based. They constantly learn how to collaborate as a team without sacrificing their individuality. And honestly? That’s basically the lifelong sister challenge in one sentence.
Modern Family—The sibling dynamic that sneaks up on you
Modern Family is an ensemble about interconnected relatives, but one of its most consistent “sisters” threads is in the Dunphy household—especially the Haley/Alex relationship. The show lets them evolve from classic teen sister stereotypes (popular vs. nerdy) into something more nuanced: two sisters who annoy each other, misunderstand each other, and still quietly root for each other when no one’s watching.
The best part is that Modern Family doesn’t force big speeches every time. It gives you small moments—support during breakups, pride during milestones, the occasional “only I’m allowed to make fun of her” protective instinct—that feel extremely true to life.
Orphan Black—Sisterhood as identity, survival, and choice
Orphan Black takes the concept of sisterhood and bends it into something thrilling and existential. The series follows Sarah Manning as she discovers a web of genetically identical clones—each with her own personality, life, and trauma—and they slowly form a complicated, powerful “sister” bond.
This show is one of the best explorations of sisterhood because it asks: Does sharing DNA make you family? And then it goes further: what if family is the people who fight with you, protect you, and refuse to let you be reduced to an experiment?
The show is intense, smart, and emotionally charged in a way that unexpectedly captures your attention. You come for the sci-fi thriller; you stay because watching these women become each other’s lifeline is genuinely moving.
Fleabag—The most painfully real sister relationship on TV
The sisterhood in Fleabag isn’t cute. It isn’t aspirational. It’s painfully accurate.
Fleabag and her sister Claire love each other, but they also don’t know how to communicate without sarcasm, tension, or emotional landmines. The show’s brilliance is how it captures a very specific sister dynamic: the one where you’re desperate for connection, but you keep failing at it because you’re both carrying too much baggage and pride.
It’s a masterclass in the kind of intimacy that only sisters have—the “I know you better than you know yourself” thing that can feel like comfort or a threat depending on the day.
Derry Girls—Cousins who function like sisters
On paper, Derry Girls is about a group of friends navigating teen life in 1990s Derry during the Troubles. In practice, it’s also about the kind of family closeness where cousins are basically sisters—especially Erin and Orla, who live in the same house and share that constant “we’re stuck together, so we might as well be a unit” vibe.
The show’s genius is that it captures girlhood as a form of sisterhood: intense friendships, chaotic loyalty, and the feeling that your friends are your family because you’re all trying to survive adolescence at the same time. It’s hilarious, but it also nails the emotional truth that sister-style bonds aren’t always about biology—they’re about history.
Wynonna Earp—A supernatural show that’s secretly a love letter to sisters
Yes, there are demons. Yes, there are guns. But the thing that makes Wynonna Earp special is the relationship between Wynonna and Waverly—sisters who are wildly different, deeply bonded, and constantly fighting for each other’s safety (and self-worth).
A lot of genre shows use family as motivation. Wynonna Earp makes it the emotional core. Their bond doesn’t stay static; it changes as they learn who they are, what they’re capable of, and how to stop defining themselves only by the family legacy they inherited.
If you like sister dynamics that are protective, tender, and occasionally explosive, this one delivers.
What I Like About You—The underrated “realistic older/younger sister” sitcom
This early 2000s sitcom is built around a simple premise: teenager Holly moves in with her older sister Val in New York City, and they figure out how to live together without destroying each other.
What makes it work is the balance: Val is the responsible one, Holly is the hurricane, and the show consistently finds humor in that friction without making either sister the villain. It’s a rare “sisters learning boundaries” series—light, funny, and weirdly sweet in the moments where they choose each other over the drama.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer—When sisterhood arrives mid-series and changes everything
Buffy is famous for chosen family and friendship, but it also becomes a compelling sisters show when Dawn Summers enters the story and Buffy’s world shifts from “saving the world” to “saving someone who feels like her responsibility in the most personal way.” Dawn is introduced in Season 5, and their relationship becomes one of the show’s most emotional anchors.
What’s powerful here is that Buffy’s sister bond isn’t easy or romanticized. It’s frustrating, protective, exhausting, and ultimately profound—because Buffy’s heroism stops being abstract. It becomes domestic. It becomes “I’m doing this because I love you.”
This Way Up—A brutally honest portrait of sisters and mental health
This Way Up follows Aine and Shona, sisters living in London, dealing with the fallout of Aine’s mental health crisis. It’s funny, but it’s also sharp and intimate—because it shows the messy reality of being the “well” sibling, the “not well” sibling, and how love can turn into friction when caretaking becomes part of the relationship.
But this show isn’t trying to teach you a lesson. It just show you that people are complicated and so are their relationships: sometimes codependent, sometimes tender, sometimes incredibly infuriating. And that’s exactly why it hits: it treats sisters like whole people, not archetypes.
Whether the sisters are witches, clones, animated crime fighters, or just two women trying to survive adulthood without spiraling, these shows understand the same truth: sisterhood is a relationship you don’t outgrow—you just learn how to live inside it.
