With the arrival of John Wick 4 in theaters, movie-goers have been gifted yet another opportunity to watch Keanu Reeves take down the nefarious High Table crime syndicate in creatively violent ways. But what happens when action movie fans finish watching Baba Yaga kill off his enemies, what are we to do then?
If you’re looking for an action movie inspired by – or perhaps the inspiration for – John Wick, there are some great ones available to stream, like Nobody, the 2021 Bob Odenkirk movie that was written by Derek Kolstad, the man who also created John Wick. Or, if you’re in the mood for a lady killer, look no further than Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde, in which she plays an MI6 agent in Berlin on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. (Atomic Blonde also has a connection to John Wick, it was directed by David Leitch who also worked on several of the Wick films as a producer and director.)
These movies, as well as every other one one our list, feature high-octane action and stylized fight scenes hat are thoroughly entertaining.They’re sometimes funny, often contain plots about Russian crime syndicates, and they usually feature an honorable vigilante who kills a lot of people, but they kill for a purpose. No matter the motive, be it vengeance, national security or…more vengeance, the heroes in these films kick butt and don’t stick around long enough to take names.
The 2021 film Nobody shares a lot of the same DNA as John Wick due to the fact that it was written by Derek Kolstad, who created the John Wick series, and produced by David Leitch, who co-directed and produced Wick. In the film, Bob Odenkirk stars as Hutch Mansell, a meek and unsuccessful guy with a wife and kids who barely respect him. After his house is robbed, Hutch, once a government assassin, allows his past self to emerge and he becomes something of a vigilante, seeking out justice and retribution and killing the members of a local, violent crime syndicate that have threatened him.
Where to stream Nobody
Guy Ritchie is a master of stylized, fast-paced action, and while just about any of his films would fit in nicely on our list, 2021’s Wrath of Man starring Jason Statham is a crime caper that’s hard not to compare to John Wick. In the film, Statham stars as a man named H whose son Dougie is killed by a group of robbers. To avenge his son’s death, H gets a job driving an armored truck so that he can eventually hunt down Dougie’s killer and exact his revenge.
Where to watch Wrath of Man
Bullet Train, which stars Brad Pitt, is yet another movie on our list that has director David Leitch’s fingerprints on it. In this action-comedy, Pitt stars as an assassin named Ladybug, who boards a Japanese bullet train with a mission to retrieve a briefcase full of money, but before he can leave the train, he has to fight a handful of other killers and criminals who also happen to be on board. The film co-stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Tyree Henry, and Joey King as three of the other assassin passengers. (Assassengers?)
Where to watch Bullet Train
Charlize Theron stars in this 2017 film as a spy tasked with securing a top-secret list of names of every double agent working in Berlin in 1989, just as Communism is falling in the country. Based on the 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, the film is further proof that Theron is a thrilling, magnetic action star (as if Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t already prove that). The addition of classic 1980s New Wave and pop hits which play over some of the action scenes make the film even more stylized and fun to watch (and sing along to).
Where To Watch Atomic Blonde
Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the title role in Kate, a Netflix original movie. Kate is an assassin whose mentor, Varrick, played by Woody Harrelson, gives her one last job (it;s always one last job with these assassins, isn’t it?) to kill a yakuza boss.
During the job, she has a one night stand with a sexy stranger named Stephen (Michiel Huisman) who poisons her. With only one day to live, Kate tracks down Stephen, who tells her he was paid to poison her, so she sets out to find out who wants her dead (and kills everyone else in her path).
Watch Kate on Netflix
Die Hard is just one of the all-time great action movies filled with memorable combat and shootouts, a guy walking barefoot on glass, and iconic, memorable one-liners. But Die Hard is also a movie about a wife guy. Look, just because John McClane (Bruce Willis) knows how to kill terrorists with his bare hands doesn’t mean he doesn’t take his vows seriously, even when he’s going through a rough patch with Bonnie Bedelia. So like John Wick, Nobody, and Riders of Justice, the point of Die Hard is that if you come for a man’s wife, kids, or dog, don’t expect mercy. Expect to meet your maker in truly creative, often explosive ways.
Where To Watch Die Hard
David Harbour as a bloodthirsty Santa who kills intruders in the home of a family he’s dropping off presents for? If Die Hard isn’t a Christmas action film, then Violent Night certainly is. In the film, Harbour plays a drunken Santa who’s making his rounds on Christmas Eve at a Connecticut mansion that gets overtaken by mercenaries with holiday-themed code names (their leader, played y John Leguizamo, is Mr. Scrooge). Santa immediately puts these killers on his naughty list aas he tries to knock them off one by one in order to protect the family ensure that Christmas isn’t ruined.
Where to watch Violent Night
In the Danish film Riders of Justice, Mads Mikkelsen teams with frequent writer/director collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen for a film that is, at its heart, a violent revenge story. Mikkelsen plays Markus, who, like John Wick, is a widower. But Markus’s wife didn’t die of natural causes, she was killed in a train accident that ends up being no accident at all. So he does what any normal person does, he teams up with a group of people who all have vengeful reasons for finding the people responsible for the train wreck, and they hold them accountable for their crime through any violent, vicious means necessary. It sounds gruesome, but it is in fact, a meditation on grief which also plays up the revenge for laughs.
Where To Watch Riders of Justice
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, 2014’s The Equalizer (and it’s two sequels) features Denzel Washington as former Marine Robert McCall who is now living a quiet life in Boston. The trouble is, he’s a vigilante at heart and when a young woman he knows is beaten by a local pimp, he seeks out that pimp and beats him, not realizing the pimp is a part of a larger crime syndicate. This makes Robert their primary target, but what nobody realizes is that he’s a man with a particular set of skills, and comes out of retirement to show them off.
Where to watch The Equalizer