travel like jack reacher

Here's What Happens When Normal People Act Like Jack Reacher

Let's face it. There are moments over the course of your everyday life where you wish you could behave like Jack Reacher . You are the smartest person in the room . You are overflowing with confidence. And you are ready to tell complete strangers that they are going to do whatever you tell them, however you want to tell them to be. Like this guy, at the DMV, in a new spot titled "Everyday Reacher," shared exclusively with us by our friends at Paramount Pictures:

Did you ever hear of the phrase What Would Jesus Do? This new phrase for action junkies is What Would Reacher Do? And in the Department of Motor Vehicles, where the guy behind the counter is being a selfish prick and ruining everyone's day, the "Everyday Reacher" is ready to make things right. He demands that the guy stay on and do his job. E even reaches through that little hole, the one tat serves absolutely no real purpose, and smushes the dude's face. Yep, that's something Reacher would do. Don't believe me? Watch the most recent trailer for the new Jack Reacher movie, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

Due to hit theaters later this month , Ed Zwick's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back adapts a Lee Child book of the same name, which finds the perpetually wandering good guy (played by Tom Cruise ) returning to his former military outfit to assist a woman ( Cobie Smulders ) he only knows from telephone conversations. But Reacher can never walk away from trouble, and he finds plenty of it back in Washington, D.C. -- a far-reaching conspiracy that will have him hunting prey, and being hunted by a gaggle of pretty bad dudes.

The first Jack Reacher movie was a quiet success, doing OK in theaters -- $80 million domestically, but a whopping $138 million overseas -- but finding a larger audience on home video and, especially, cable. That buzz helped Paramount roll the dice on the sequel, and if it takes off, it can only help Cruise extend his franchise, as Lee Child has NUMEROUS Reacher novels that could power excellent films. And that would inspire even more Everyday Joes to act like Reacher in public... though, they better be pretty badass to back that attitude up.

Look for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back in theaters on October 21.

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How to Live Like Jack Reacher Paperback – February 21, 2018

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10 Shows Like Reacher to Watch if You Want More Reacher

When you need more gritty dramas with big dudes

Reacher  was an instant hit for Amazon Prime Video when Season 1 was released in 2022, and it's not difficult to figure out why. The series is based on Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, following the titular Jack Reacher (played by  Alan Ritchson ), a former military policeman who puts his unique mix of brawn and brains to good use as he travels around the U.S. solving mysteries and cracking skulls.

Now that  Season 2  is out and the episodes are being released weekly instead of all at once, we've got a hankering for some more shows like Reacher  while we wait for the next episode, so we put together some recommendations for shows like Reacher . From action shows to detective shows to other paperback adaptations, there's plenty here. Grab a cup of black coffee and a slice of peach pie and settle in to watch some wisecracking antiheroes beat up some bad guys. 

More recommendations:

• The Best Shows to Watch Based on Shows You Already Love
• The Best Shows to Watch on Prime Video Right Now
• The Best Murder Mysteries and Crime Dramas to Watch
• Reacher Season 2: Source Book, Release Date, Cast, and More

The Old Man

Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow, The Old Man

2022 was a pretty good year for shows featuring men chasing conspiracies with more than just muscle, and while Reacher was one of the best, my vote for THE best of the year would be FX's The Old Man . Based on the 2017 novel by Thomas Perry, The Old Man stars Jeff Bridges as Dan Chase, a former CIA operative whose life in hermitic retirement is disrupted when someone tries to kill him, sending him down a path of revenge and redemption involving his past. Like Reacher, Chase is direct, sharp, and can put a man down in ways you'd never expect. But Chase is sitting on a bed of secrets, which are doled out in excellent fashion throughout the seven white knuckle episodes. John Lithgow , Amy Brennman , and Alia Shawkat also star. If you like Reacher , you'll love The Old Man .  -Tim Surette  

The Terminal List

Chris Pratt, The Terminal List

Amazon has carved out a niche as the streaming home for action shows based on novel series. The streamer started with Bosch , perfected the model with Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (both shows are on this list), and scaled it this year with Reacher and  The Terminal List . The Terminal List , which is based on a novel by former Navy SEAL Jack Carr, follows a rogue SEAL played by Chris Pratt on a mission to get revenge on the people that orchestrated a conspiracy that caused great suffering for him and his loved ones. The testosterone-fueled thriller is a Reacher-sized hit. The biggest difference between the shows is that Reacher has a sense of humor and The Terminal List does not. -Liam Mathews

Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock

Jack Reacher is a brilliant detective with superior powers of deduction and no fear of saying exactly what he thinks. He's basically an extremely muscular, American version of Sherlock Holmes; specifically, Benedict Cumberbatch 's modern-day version of the iconic inspector from the 2010-2017 BBC show Sherlock . Holmes is a brilliant, acerbic London detective who's always the smartest person in the room, much to the chagrin of his more ordinary but still pretty brilliant sidekick, John Watson ( Martin Freeman ). Sherlock doesn't have the action-packed beatdowns of Reacher , but it does have the clever detective work that's the other half of the Prime Video show. If it's wall-to-wall action you're looking for, scroll down. -Liam Mathews

Antony Starr,  Banshee

If you love Reacher 's action and small-town crime, you have to check out Banshee . This Cinemax series ran for four seasons from 2013 to 2016 and tells the story a high-level diamond thief ( Antony Starr , now best known for playing Homelander on The Boys ) who gets out of prison and assumes the identity of Lucas Hood, the new sheriff of Banshee, a town in Pennsylvania Amish country, after Hood is randomly killed in a bar fight. Since the new sheriff in town is no sheriff at all but a career criminal with his own ideas about justice, the town gets lawless as hell. That lawlessness leads to some of the best action and fight sequences TV has ever seen. Antony Starr is not as large as Alan Ritchson (who is?), but he can scrap with the best of them. - Liam Mathews         

Hap and Leonard

Michael K. Williams and James Purefoy, Hap & Leonard

This is another Southern-fried crime drama with an arch sense of humor that's based on a book series. Hap & Leonard , which ran for three seasons on Sundance between 2016 and 2018, is based on a series of novels by cult favorite author Joe R. Lansdale about Hap Collins ( James Purefoy ), a white conscientious objector, and Leonard Pine (the late, great Michael K. Williams ), a gay, Black Vietnam vet. They're blue-collar best friends who have a way of getting caught up in criminal entanglements with violent people in '80s East Texas. Each season adapts a different one of Lansdale's novels, which is the same format Reacher will follow. Season 1, for example, finds Hap getting recruited by his left-wing radical ex-lover Trudy Fawst ( Christina Hendricks ) to help find some stolen cash that was lost in the area decades prior, a plan that's supposed to be simple but ends up getting very complicated. It's a clever, underrated show that always brought in a great supporting cast every season. - Liam Mathews

Timothy Olyphant, Justified

If it's a stone-cold guy embarrassing crooks and criminals and talking sh-- in the South that you're in the mood for, look no further than the modern masterpiece Justified , which is based on a character created by crime novel master Elmore Leonard. Timothy Olyphant plays U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a shoot-from-the-hip lawman whose tongue is as sharp as his aim. While more gregarious and poetic than and not quite as yoked as Reacher, Givens shares Reacher's sense of the ideal male fantasy; you'd swap places with either of these guys in a heartbeat. As for the show itself, each of the six seasons follows a season-long mystery involving plenty of investigation that bends the rules just a bit. - Tim Surette

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

John Krasinski, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

If you can't get enough of ass-kicking Jacks on Amazon Prime Video after watching Reacher , then your next binge should be the action thriller Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan , another book-to-screen adaptation about a guy who knows more than anyone else in the room. John Krasinski plays the popular CIA analyst in this story about the early days of his career and transition from a desk jockey to a stud in the field, as he takes down threats to America around the world. This Jack isn't as jacked as Reacher 's Jack, but Jack Ryan has the same procedural investigation you loved in Reacher , just in a bigger, global scope. The show debuted in 2018 and was an immediate hit, and Amazon will keep making seasons as long as there are more bad guys to catch. - Tim Surette

Titus Welliver, Bosch

Amazon's becoming a real home to watch dad books, and the series that started it all was Bosch , a gritty cop show based on the works of author Michael Connelly. Titus Welliver stars as Harry Bosch, the titular troubled cop who, at the start of the series, is not only out to throw murderers in jail, but is also the subject of a murder investigation (a wrongful death suit) himself. (Hey, just like Reacher!) It's more of a straightforward cop show than a lone wolf doing good show like Reacher  is, but it's firmly centered on a main character who solves crimes his own way. It's also got a real sense of place, with Los Angeles serving as the backdrop for corruption and crime. - Tim Surette

Taveeta Szymanowicz and Marlo Kelly, Dare Me

What's a one-season drama about cheerleaders doing on a list of shows to watch if you like Reacher ? Well, before Jack Reacher joined the military, he was a cheerleader. Just kidding! But I would watch that. Dare Me makes the list because it shows off the talents of Willa Fitzgerald , whom you may have been introduced to in Reacher ; she plays Roscoe Conklin, Reacher's more-than-a-friend on the force. In Dare Me , Fitzgerald plays the new cheerleading coach — a mysterious character who is almost nothing like the sweet Roscoe — at a high school where the cheerleaders run things, but the show adds the extra drama of a murder mystery and a thriller as the cheerleaders investigate the sketchy past of Fitzgerald's character. It was canceled after one season, but it's one of those gems that never got its due. - Tim Surette

Blood Drive

Alan Ritchson, Blood Drive

Alan Ritchson's performance as Reacher carries most of Reacher , and if you're just meeting him for the first time, you're probably wondering where you can see more of him. The obvious answer is to watch the crude football comedy Blue Mountain State , which aired three seasons on Spike TV from 2010 to 2011 (it's streaming on Freevee ) and features Ritchson as a linebacker for a college football team, but we're going with something of a deeper cut. A leaner Ritchson was the star of Syfy's underrated 2017 series Blood Drive , a drive-in action show about a car race in an apocalyptic future where the cars run on... human blood. Each episode features a new grindhouse-style obstacle, like vampires, cannibals, or "sex plagues," and Blood Drive gleefully played up the campiness. It sounds silly, but it got great reviews and is a perfect escape. Ritchson plays a former cop forced into the race who teams up with a femme fatale ( Christina Ochoa ) to take down the evil master of ceremonies (a balls-to-the-wall Colin Cunningham ) and the corporation behind the games. - Tim Surette       

Jack Reacher

Rosamund Pike and Tom Cruise, Jack Reacher

If you're new to the Reacherverse but loved Amazon's take on Jack Reacher, you may as well see what all the fuss was about when Alan Ritchson was cast in the lead role. It's because the Jack Reacher in the 2012 film was played by 5'7"  Tom Cruise , who does not exactly fit the physical profile of the Reacher dreamed up by Lee Child. Still, the movie is a solid action film, and as usual, Cruise is good and does his own stunts. But it's also a good reminder of how great Ritchson is as Reacher and why we were all happy to see him fill up the TV screen and vacuum up plates of BBQ. -Tim Surette       

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Fearless, free and feminist: the enduring appeal of Jack Reacher

From Kate Atkinson to Haruki Murakami, the fast-paced Jack Reacher books have a host of obsessive fans. As a new thriller is released, we investigate the magnetism of Lee Child’s antihero

T his month, Lee Child’s latest novel – his 24th thriller featuring Jack Reacher, a 6ft 5in, 250lb former US army military policeman – will be at, or near, the top of the bestseller charts. The books have been a publishing phenomenon, a huge commercial fiction brand, since the Coventry-born author (real name Jim Grant) wrote the first, Killing Floor , in 1997, when he heard he was getting laid off from his job as a TV executive. The stories are, essentially, westerns. Reacher is a loner, a wanderer. He has never settled into a “normal” life after leaving the army. He travels the US, hitching or taking the bus: it’s a way of life he began as a means to explore the country, but by now, it’s a compulsion. He carries only a toothbrush. He buys new clothes when he needs them, junks the old ones. He doesn’t look for trouble, but trouble finds him. In each new town he solves the mystery, gets the bad guys and doles out rough justice. There’s a lot of violence: guns, or scrappy hand-to-hand fighting. Kicks in the groin, punches to the head, elbows scything ferociously into flanks.

For stories to be as successful as these, they need to be read by people who don’t generally read. But what makes Reacher so fascinating is the books’ appeal not only outside, but within the rarefied circles of the literati – unlike, say, the work of Dan Brown or EL James . Their success with the grandes dames of literature is especially striking. Antonia Fraser is a fan. Kate Atkinson is a fan. Margaret Drabble, asked earlier this year by the Guardian what book she wished she’d written, answered: “Anything by Lee Child. What page turners, what prose, what landscapes, what motorways and motels, what mythic dimensions! I read, awestruck, waiting impatiently for the next.”

Then there are the academics. Margaret MacMillan, the great authority on the first world war and a recent Reith lecturer, absolutely loves Child’s books. Jenny Davidson, professor of comparative literature at Columbia in New York, calls herself “an obsessive fan”. She regards them as the absolute apogee of light reading: they are, she says, like the exquisite versions of fast food prepared by Michelin-starred chefs.

I am no grande dame, but I love them too. I’ve read all 24. When finding a title for my last book (a non-fiction work about mazes and labyrinths) I thought to myself, “What would Lee Child do?” I called it Red Thread , which seemed to me to have a properly Reacher-esque pithiness. The new Lee Child, I am pleased to note, is called Blue Moon .

What is it about Jack Reacher and literary women? Part of the draw is purely formal. Take this passage from Blue Moon , selected more or less at random:

His limbs were slow because they were heavy, and they were heavy because they were not only thick but also long. In the case of his legs, very long. He drove hard off his left foot and kicked out with his right, stretching low, a huge vicious wingspan, aiming at anything, any part of the guy, any part of the swoop, any window of time, whatever came along.

Simple words, strung together with a real mastery of rhythm. Nothing fancy. Think of the simplicity of a Shakespeare sonnet, its preference for one- and two-syllable words (“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”). The repetition of “heavy” and “long”. The way the final sentence coils and stretches out, heavy and long itself, ready to deliver its killer kick. Child is a stickler for grammar. So is Reacher.

Then there are the landscapes that Child conjures: the dusty nowhere-towns of the American flyover states; their diners and pawnshops and hardware stores. All of this is summoned up with extreme economy, helped along by particularly resonant recurring words and phrases: “blacktop” (asphalt), “backhoe” (a digger), “cloverleaf” (a road-junction design). The place names themselves are resonant. Last year’s story, Past Tense , was set in Laconia, New Hampshire. The original Laconia was the territory in Greece occupied by the ancient Spartans, famously ruthless warriors, like Reacher. From Laconia we derive the word laconic, a reference to their severe, economic and sometimes dryly witty way with words – Reacher’s own verbal mode to a tee.

There is a mythic heft to all this. “Reacher is the archetypal hero – the stranger who walks into town and avenges its wrongs – the classic trope identified by Auden in ‘The Guilty Vicarage’, his essay on detective fiction,” says novelist Amanda Craig, another big fan. She calls him a “modern knight errant”. In myths and fairytales, we expect certain patterns. So it is with Reacher stories. Guardian writer Steven Poole once asked novelist Haruki Murakami why he liked the books. “Everything’s the same!” answered Murakami .

Of course, everything is not quite the same: Davidson points out how adept Child is at ringing the changes, writing flashback novels that deal with Reacher’s army career, or switching between first-person and third-person stories. But it’s true, on some fundamental level, that everything is the same. We know, more often than not, there will be a minor dust-up in the first 10 pages or so. We know that there will be a careful drip-feed of plot points and minor resolutions leading up to a climactic chapter of ferocious violence, where the bad guys will be dispatched. Resolution will come, and Reacher will ride out of town once more, taking absolutely nothing with him. The body count, 24 books in, is into the hundreds. Crime novelist Val McDermid writes a funny scene in her latest book, How the Dead Speak . Her character Carol Jordan, now an ex-cop herself, and suffering from PTSD, is on a stake out. She listens to a Lee Child on audiobook to help with the boredom. “Carol thought that if his hero was real, after what he’d been through in twenty-odd books, he’d be in dire need of [trauma therapist] Melissa Rintoul’s services.” He would. But the mythic, formulaic elements of Reacher books are crucial to their enjoyment, and mustn’t be tarnished with too much realism. No trauma therapy for Reacher.

Which brings me to the violence itself. What makes it palatable is its extreme stylisation. The fight scenes in Reacher novels remind me of arming and battle scenes in the Iliad , with their recurrent shapes and turns of phrase. This stylisation is rendered partly through a radical deceleration of pace. In Andy Martin’s book Reacher Said Nothing – for which Martin sat at Child’s elbow through the composition of the novel Make Me – Child said that he had one rule. “You should write the fast stuff slow and the slow stuff fast.” In Blue Moon , there are some prime examples. In one fight, eight blows in total are delivered by Reacher and his assailants – this takes four whole pages to describe, and is punctuated by a chapter break. Only very occasionally does Reacher fight women, and this is when the violence arguably tips over from enjoyably stylised to something more gratuitous. Gone Tomorrow , with its graphic account of a woman’s “flawless face” being “ruined” before her throat is cut “ear to ear” is pretty dreadful (I’ll spare you the details). But on the whole, he avoids the trope of exoticising or eroticising violence against women.

Reacher will often team up with an ally in his adventures. That ally will frequently be an attractive, competent woman employed in some branch of law enforcement, with whom he may have a brief, consensual, mutually satisfying affair. Which brings me to another fundamental part of the stories’ appeal to women, notwithstanding the example above: their understated feminism. Reacher respects and likes women. Finds them delightful, and sexy. But not in a creepy way. The female characters are invariably self-sufficient, neither needy nor tortured; it is surprisingly difficult to find such women in popular fiction written by men.

In some ways, Blue Moon might be read as a post‑#MeToo story. One of the injustices righted in this story turns on male aggression towards women, and sexual exploitation. has an especially grim denouement, bloody even by Child’s standards it is hard not to read it – on one level, at least – as female revenge drama.

There’s that. But do women fancy Jack Reacher? Do female readers fantasise about him? Well, some clearly do. That said, he is “a big ugly guy” built like “a brick outhouse”. Not my type. I think the real point is that women want to be him. That’s the fantasy: to abandon all responsibilities, to walk through the world with nothing. To be physically invincible. To be justifiably fearless.

• Kate Atkinson
• Haruki Murakami

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Itinerant former military policeman Jack Reacher solves crimes and metes out his own brand of street justice. Based on the novels by Lee Child. Itinerant former military policeman Jack Reacher solves crimes and metes out his own brand of street justice. Based on the novels by Lee Child. Itinerant former military policeman Jack Reacher solves crimes and metes out his own brand of street justice. Based on the novels by Lee Child.

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• 2.1K User reviews
• 90 Critic reviews
• 1 win & 6 nominations

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• Trivia Alan Ritchson read all 24 Jack Reacher novels in preparation for his role as Jack Reacher.
• Goofs The teenage Reacher's eye is brown color, but the adult Reacher's eye is bluish-greyish.
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• February 4, 2022 (United States)
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Want To Get Jacked Like ‘Reacher’ Star Alan Ritchson? Here’s A Good Place To Start

Has anyone asked Tom Cruise for his thoughts on Reacher ? Someone really should (and then ask him to send me a Christmas cake ). The actor played him in two movies, Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , and while they’re entertaining, the One True Reacher wasn’t found until Alan Ritchson was cast as the crowbar fighter in Amazon Prime Video’s Reacher .

If you’re interested in looking like Reacher, first off, good luck. You can add the muscles, but not the height ( sorry, Tom ). It’s also a lot of hard work: Ritchson told Men’s Journal that he was “grinding it out five days a week for the eight months that we had to prep.” But if you’re serious, F45 Mill Hill trainer and owner Reiss Mogilner gave some suggestions to GQ . There’s useful tips about sticking to a balanced, muscle-building diet (“Ensuring an ample supply of essential amino acids from protein sources is imperative for optimal muscle repair and growth”) and doing compound exercises, like squats and deadlift.

Mogilner (who hasn’t worked with Ritchson personally) also suggested a fitness routine. “Perform three to four sets of 8 to 12 reps of the exercises below twice a week, gradually increasing the weights to challenge the muscles over time,” he said. The exercises are deadlifts, bench press, overheard press, lateral pulldowns, and lateral raises. You can see the full conditioning here . Follow it, and before long, you’ll be fighting a guy named Sasquatch in a bar.

This video will help, too.

The latest episode of Reacher season two debuted on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, January 12th.

• Crime & Thrillers

Books to read if you love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series

If you can’t get enough of lee child’s gripping jack reacher series, discover the best books like jack reacher and authors similar to lee child. .

Lee Child’s ex-military policeman protagonist Jack Reacher has been solving mysteries and thrilling readers for over twenty years, with the ninth and eighteenth novels being adapted into two blockbusting films starring Tom Cruise. In 2020, it was announced that Lee’s brother Andrew, author of the David Trevellyan series , would be taking over writing the Jack Reacher books. Here, discover the first book in Andrew Grant’s David Trevellyan series, as well as more books like Jack Reacher and authors similar to Lee Child. 

For more explosive reads, don’t miss the best thrillers of 2021 and our edit of the best crime fiction books of all time.  

Books similar to Lee Child's Jack Reacher books

By andrew grant.

This pulse-racing spy thriller by Andrew Grant, Lee Child’s brother and now co-author of the Jack Reacher novels as Andrew Child, sees David Trevellyan, ex-Royal Navy Intelligence operative, fight for his life after he’s framed for murder. As he investigates who may have set him up, Trevellyan discovers a huge international conspiracy which goes straight to the heart of power in the US. 

Discover the second book in the series, Die Twice . 

If you’re looking for authors similar to Lee Child, don’t miss Adam Hamdy’s explosive debut thriller Black 13. Black 13 is the first spy thriller in the exhilarating Scott Pearce series. Radical extremists are rising and governments, the military and intelligence agencies are outmanoeuvred, borders are breaking down and the people in power are puppets. In this new world, one man will make a difference. That man is former MI6 agent-in-exile, Scott Pearce.

Raven Black

By ann cleeves.

Raven Black is the first novel in Ann Cleeves’ crime fiction series Shetland, which is now a hit TV series on BBC One starring Douglas Henshall as Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez.

In the first instalment in the series, the strangled body of a teenage girl is discovered by a neighbour on a bitterly cold January morning. The community are quick to suspect loner Magnus Tait, and suspicion and fear soon engulf the small island. Led by Detective Inspector Perez, the police must search out the killer before they strike again.

Discover all of Ann Cleeves' Shetland books in order, here.

Capture or Kill

By tom marcus.

Capture or Kill is the thrilling first novel in the Matt Logan series from former MI5 operative Tom Marcus. Matt Logan and his team are working to bring down two brothers who are orchestrating a major terrorist attack, but Logan is frustrated by the rules they’re forced to play by. When he’s offered the chance to join a new operation, ‘Blindeye’, it seems like his dreams have come true . . .

Dead Simple

By peter james.

Now a major ITV series, Dead Simple is the first novel in the number one bestselling Roy Grace series from award-winning author, Peter James.

As Detective Superintendent Roy Grace tackles his first major case, it soon becomes clear it is one he will never forget. After what was meant to be a harmless stag-night prank, the groom has disappeared and his friends are dead. With only three days to the wedding, Detective Superintendent Grace is contacted by the man’s distraught fiancée to unearth what happened on that fateful night.

The Roy Grace series has now become a worldwide phenomenon, translated into thirty-seven languages, with the eagerly-awaited seventeenth book, Left You Dead , now available. Praised as 'one of the best British crime authors' by fellow crime writer Lee Child, Peter James's Roy Grace series is not to be missed by those looking for a new detective book series.

See all Peter James' Roy Grace series here.

The Long Call

Now a major ITV series, The Long Call is the number one bestselling first novel in Ann Cleeves' Two Rivers series, which follows Detective Matthew Venn as he returns to his hometown in North Devon. 

The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too. Now he's back, not just to mourn his father at a distance but to investigate a body found on the beach: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. . . 

Discover Ann Cleeves' Two Rivers series books in order here .

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Books like Jack Reacher

Enjoyed jack reacher we’ve scoured the web for book blogs and looked at all of their recommendations for books that are similar to jack reacher. here are 26 books that you may like if you liked jack reacher..

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Reacher season 3: Everything we know so far

Get up to date on reacher season 3.

The era of Jack Ryan may be over, but Reacher is carrying on as one of the best shows on Amazon Prime Video . This action thriller is based upon Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, which previously featured Tom Cruise in the leading role of two different movies. But for Prime Video, Alan Ritchson has stepped into the role of Jack Reacher, a former member of the United States Army Military Police Corps who drifts from town to town and takes justice into his own hands when the local law enforcement isn’t enough.

Which Reacher novel will season 3 be based on?

Which cast members will return.

• Who’s joining the cast of Reacher season 3?

When will Reacher season 3 premiere?

Prime Video didn’t waste any time before renewing Reacher for a third season last year. And while new episodes are still several months away, we’re sharing everything we know about Reacher season 3.

Lee Childs has written 28 Reacher novels to date, with a 29th arriving later this year, so fans weren’t sure which book would be used for Reacher season 3’s storyline. Thankfully, Ritchson confirmed in January 2024 that the third season will be based on the seventh novel, Persuader .

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View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alan Ritchson (@alanritchson)

And if you need some story hints, this is the official synopsis for Persuader :

“Jack Reacher lives for the moment. Without a home. Without commitment. And with a burning desire to right wrongs—and rewrite his own agonizing past. DEA Susan Duffy is living for the future, knowing that she has made a terrible mistake by putting one of her own female agents into a death trap within a heavily guarded Maine mansion.

Staging a brilliant ruse, Reacher hurtles into the dark heart of a vast criminal enterprise. Trying to rescue an agent whose time is running out, Reacher enters a crime lord’s waterfront fortress. There, he will find a world of secrecy and violence—and confront some unfinished business from his own past.”

Of course, Alan Ritchson is back as Jack Reacher. There’s no show without him. So far, the only other cast member confirmed to return is Maria Sten as Frances Neagley. While there could potentially be more returning characters, the narrative of Reacher usually means that each season will feature an almost entirely new cast.

Who’s joining the cast of Reacher season 3?

Anthony Michael Hall’s Zachary Beck appears to be the primary villain of Reacher season 3. However, Beck may share that role with Francis Xavier Quinn, as played by Brian Tee. Quinn is a man whom Reacher believed to be dead, and the reveal that Quinn survived and escaped justice is what will push season 3’s story forward.

Sonya Cassidy is also joining the cast this season as DEA agent Susan Duffy, with Roberto Montesinos as DEA agent Guillermo Villanueva and Daniel David Stewart as DEA agent Steven Elliot. Johnny Berchtold will also play Richard Beck, the son of Zachary Beck.

The smart money has Reacher season 3 arriving in December 2024, roughly one year after season 2. However, since Ritchson said that production was almost finished in February, Prime Video could potentially release it sooner.

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It turns out that TV worked pretty well under its old model. According to a new report from Business Insider, Apple TV+ may be the latest streaming service that's set to introduce an ad-supported tier and charge those who don't stream with ads a premium fee to access their great shows and movies.

At this point, the report is still speculation, but Apple has made several recent hires in the advertising space that seem to suggest the direction they're planning to take. The company recently hired former NBCUniversal ad executive Joseph Cady to serve as executive vice president of advanced advertising and partnerships, a move that comes following the company's hiring of another former NBCUniversal executive, Jason Frum, who joined Apple's video ad sales team.

After making an Oscar-nominated turn as Ken in Barbie, Ryan Gosling is starring in one of this year's biggest action movies, The Fall Guy. The film is based on the 1981 TV series of the same name, which featured Lee Majors as Colt Seavers, an aging stuntman who worked on the side as a bounty hunter. Majors, who was best known at the time for his legendary five-season run as The Six Million Dollar Man, used The Fall Guy to reestablish himself as a leading man, and he even sang the show's theme song, Unknown Stuntman, which is incredibly catchy.

The Fall Guy intro (1982)

Fans of the hit series Yellowstone were less than pleased that the modern western is coming to a premature end with season 5. More importantly, series star Kevin Costner may not even return for the final episodes over an ongoing dispute with Paramount Network and Yellowstone showrunner Taylor Sheridan. One of the primary reasons behind Costner's exit is that he is laser-focused on his passion project, Horizon: An American Saga. It's the first movie that Costner has directed since 2003's Open Range and a return to the post-Civil War timeframe in his Oscar-winning movie, Dances With Wolves.

While Yellowstone fans would surely prefer to see Costner reprise his role as John Dutton one last time, there's a lot that they may like about Horizon. Costner's vision was too big for any single film to handle, which is why Horizon is planned to be a four-film series, and the first two movies have already been shot!

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16 Edgy Thriller Books to Read if You Like Jack Reacher

The law has limits, these characters do not.

• Photo Credit: IMDB

Lee Child’s infamous Jack Reacher series has been captivating mystery and thriller fans for over two decades. The series, named after the main character, follows ex-military policeman turned private investigator Jack Reacher on his never-ending adventures of near-death covert operations and suspenseful showdowns. Danger seems to follow him everywhere. And he does things his way according to his own rule of law, making him a sort of anti-hero that fans love. 

With the series' success, the ninth and eighteenth novels were adapted into two blockbuster films starring the enigmatic Tom Cruise. And if that wasn’t enough, Jack Reacher  took on a new form as an Amazon original series. One thing fans love about the Jack Reacher series is you don’t have to read the books in order. You can dip into the series at any stage because each edition features the same Jack Reacher on a different thrilling mission. 

If you like Jack Reacher and have already read all the books and watched all the media, don’t worry! There are a lot more anti-heroes like him, with their own dark pasts and moral codes. Many of these books are all a part of larger series, which—like Reacher—can be read in any order. These crime-fighting and mystery-solving people are sure to occupy the space Jack Reacher left in your reading life.

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War Against the Mafia

By Don Pendleton

This is the first book in Don Pendleton’s Executioner series. It introduces the vigilante action hero Mark Bolan when he's thrown into a mafia warzone. After spending a decade in the jungles of Asia taking out bad guys, Bolan heads back to his hometown in Massachusetts. But it’s not your average homecoming. He finds his family dead, victims of a mass murder/suicide acted out by Mafia thugs.

The death of his family is only the beginning of bloodshed at the hands of the Mafia. But Bolan is a cold-blooded killer without an ounce of remorse. This is a hero “who would make Jack Reacher think twice,” says Empire Online.

Sign up for the Murder & Mayhem newsletter and get the best mystery and thriller recommendations delivered straight to your inbox.

What Doesn't Kill Her

By Christina Dodd

"An unforgettable protagonist . . . who makes Jack Reacher look like a slacker," says Booklist  about main character Kellen Adams. This is a dark thriller that follows Adams on her road to recovery after a gunshot to the head ended in memory loss. She’s determined to find out what happened to her. 

Propelled into action, Adams is on the run with something precious she must protect at all costs. Leaving a trail of bodies behind, nothing will stand in her way of discovering the truth.

The Old Man

By Thomas Perry

Dan Chase has spent the last three decades on the run after a covert operation in Libya went wrong. Chase acted before considering the consequences and someone has wanted him dead ever since. He finally settles down in Vermont with two hound dogs by his side until the rug gets pulled from underneath him.

Someone has found him and wants to make him pay. He’ll have to confront the past mistakes he’s been trying to run from his whole life. Kirkus Reviews says author Thomas Perry "drives deep into Jack Reacher territory in this stand-alone [novel] . . . Swift, unsentimental, and deeply satisfying."

Shifty's Boys

By Chris Offutt

Mick Hardin is an army police officer home on leave after suffering an IED explosion. While on bed rest, a heroin dealer’s dead body is found in the town square. The sheriff, who also happens to be his sister chalks it up to an overdose, but Hardin and his mother aren’t so sure.

Instead of rehabilitating, Hardin goes undercover to find out what truly happened. When things go south and his cover is blown, Hardin will have to put his military skills to the test, and his well-being on pause. The Times Uk  says The Shifty Boys  is “what Jack Reacher wants to be when it grows up.”

The James Ryker Series is Rob Sinclair's Best Work Yet

The Red Cobra

By Rob Sinclair

Carl Logan spent twenty years working for the Joint Intelligence Agency. Now he’s in secret hiding, under the new name of James Ryker. Despite wanting nothing more than to live a peaceful private life, he’s thrown in the crosshairs of a murder investigation.

Ryker’s ex-boss at the JIA tracked him down to tell him that an infamous female assassin known as the Red Cobra was murdered. But Ryker knew the Red Cobra better than anyone, and when he saw the photos of her presumed corpse, he knew it wasn’t her. 

He can’t help but wonder who the dead woman is and where the real Red Cobra is hiding. Setting out on the mission of a lifetime, Rkyer is determined to find answers and reunite with the elusive Red Cobra.

Learn the Stories Behind Your Favorite Sleuths in the Mysterious Profiles Books

Rabbit Hole

By Mark Billingham

Alice Armitage was a police officer until a toxic mix of alcohol, drugs, and PTSD resulted in a psychotic breakdown, landing her in a psychiatric ward. But it doesn’t end up being the mental health break she needs. When her bedmate is murdered, Alice goes into full detective mode to catch the killer.

However, Alice’s investigation is thrown when the person she most suspected is murdered. With shocking twists and turns, she must put together the pieces to discover the true story. All while her mental state and medication play tricks on her.

Indecent Behavior

By Caryl Rivers

Crime reporter Sally Ellenberg teams up with science writer John Aiken to follow a trail of weird clues, from missing autopsy reports to cruel animal testing labs. They uncover a conspiracy that threatens the government and will heighten the war on terror. 

Facing a new series of attacks from terrorists, the military has been searching for advanced ways to gather information on its enemies. Sally and Jack try to share what they’ve learned but are discredited immediately. However, this doesn't stop them from finding out the truth, even if they have to go it alone.

By CJ Lyons

Lucy Guardino isn’t your average soccer mom. She’s also a crime-fighting federal agent and runs the FBI’s Sexual Assault Defense squad. Her upcoming mission is one she’ll never forget.

She must face a predator more violent and intelligent than she’s ever dealt with before. One who isn’t afraid to target Lucy’s family as pawns in his game. When she has to choose between the life of a young girl- she’s fighting to save and her own daughter’s… Lucy will have to get inside the mind of the predator to end him once and for all.

CJ Lyons is the Writer with a Series for Every Kind of Thriller Reader

By Cameron Bane

Former army ranger and ex-cop John Brenner has dedicated his sharp skills to private investigating. But this next mission may as well be his last. He’s hired to find Jacob Cahill’s missing daughter and bring her home. 

The task seems easy enough until he finds himself thrust into a terrifying world filled with organ stealing, torture, mutilation, and madness, along with a trail of dead bodies. As John uncovers more about the evil that holds the girl he’s promised to save captive, he finds his sanity slipping. But he never breaks a promise.

A Living Grave

By Robert E. Dunn

Ozarks sheriff detective Katarina Williams lives her life, solving low-profile cases and attending therapy sessions to treat the PTSD she got while in the army. Recovery is going well until Katarina finds she’s a suspect in a military investigation which brings up all kinds of memories from her painful past.

And to make matters worse, a local town girl is found dead, throwing her into a webby mess of teenagers, motorcycle clubs, damaged veterans, and personal demons. As she follows each thread, Katarina will have to confront her dark past to find the truth.

11 Contemporary Detective Novels You Need to Read

By Craig Thomas

The Soviets have built a new plane with an advanced weapons system that can be activated by sensors. This new invention will make the Soviets the strongest global power like never seen before. But British intelligence isn't ready to let that happen. With the help of the CIA, they craft a plan to steal the Soviet's prototype.

The man tasked with the job is U.S. pilot and Vietnam veteran Mitchell Grant. He’ll have to first successfully get into Russia. Then the airbase. Then onto the plane and in the air. All while the Soviets are hot on his trail and determined to stop him at any cost.

The Inside Ring

By Mike Lawson

After a failed assassination attempt aimed at the president, General Andrew Banks, Secretary of Homeland Security employs the help of two men, Speaker Mahoney, and Joe DeMarco. 

It turns out, Banks was given a note detailing that the president was in danger and the Secret Service agents guarding him had been compromised. Banks keeps the note from the FBI to protect the Secret Service’s reputation and hopes his guys find out it was all a hoax.

Speaker Mahoney and Joe Demarco must go undercover and sort out the truth behind the threats and assesses the danger.

Mike Lawson Political Thrillers That Explore D.C.'s Dark Side

Midnight Never Comes

By Jack Higgins

Paul Chevasse was once Britain’s most talented intelligence agent. But he was discharged from the agency after a failed mission in Albania resulted in a psychotic breakdown. 

To redeem his reputation, Chavasse trains under a Chinese martial arts master, gathering his strength and focusing his energy. And soon, he will face his deadliest assignment yet: stopping the Russians from stealing a highly advanced British missile.

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First Class Killing

By Lynne Heitman

After making it out of the corporate world unscathed, Alex Shanahan is up to putting her cutthroat nature to the test as a private investigator. Her first task is going undercover as a flight attendant to bust an elite prostitution ring working for first-class passengers. When her cover is blown, she’s stuck in the clouds with nowhere to run. Will she make it out alive? Or be stuck on the plane ride from hell forever?

The Apostrophe Thief

By Barbara Paul

In Marian Larch’s last week on the NYPD force, a strange Broadway theater robbery draws her back in. Over the next seven days, the backstage robbery turns into a high-stakes theatrical murder. Everyone in the musical cast is all considered a suspect. Larch will have to put her retirement on hold to get to the bottom of this drama-filled mystery. 

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Wolf Winter

By Clare Francis

Norwegian intelligence agent Jan Johansen was murdered in cold blood after he traveled over the Russian Border. 

To avenge his death, his good friend and explorer Halvard Starheim sets out in the Arctic winter to find out what went wrong. He gathers a team that includes Jan’s beautiful widow and a reporter, who is hiding a dangerous secret. Their journey will slowly reveal an international conspiracy and a faceoff between Europe and the USSR.

Featured still from "Jack Reacher" (2012) via IMDB

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Amazon’s ‘reacher’: tv review.

Alan Ritchson steps into Tom Cruise's uncomfortably small shoes as Lee Child's brilliant and brutal traveling ronin Jack Reacher in this new eight-episode adaptation.

By Daniel Fienberg

Daniel Fienberg

Chief Television Critic

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On social media, the only archetype more irritating — not “evil” or “obnoxious,” simply “irritating” — than “Here’s How to Get Into Cryptocurrency” Guy might be “But Jack Reacher Is Supposed to Be Tall, Actually” Guy.

I can say that, because I’m That Guy, or one of those guys. You know why?

Airdate: Friday, February 4 (Amazon)

Cast: Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald

Creator: Nick Santora, from the book series by Lee Child

Jack Reacher is supposed to be tall, actually. He’s not casually or incidentally tall. His being 6’5″, 250 pounds is a fact that comes up with some regularity in the books by Jim “Lee Child” Grant. But even that doesn’t do it justice. Jack Reacher is gravitationally huge. Yes, he’s military-honed, an expert marksman and a Sherlock Holmes-level investigator. But more than anything, Jack Reacher takes up space.

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Then they made two Jack Reacher-centric movies that starred Tom Cruise and people with no experience with the books were confused why “But Jack Reacher Is Supposed to Be Tall, Actually” Guy was so freaked out. Christopher McQuarrie and Ed Zwick made two perfectly OK action movies that gave zero indication that anybody involved actually liked the books they were adapting.

Amazon ‘s new Reacher TV show will not face that complaint. Series creator Nick Santora’s eight-episode series gives every indication of understanding the things that make Jack Reacher distinctive and entertaining as a character. Somewhat predictably, Santora’s hopelessly devoted approach to medium-jumping presents its own issues, underlining instead of correcting flaws from a franchise I adore even as I understand its myriad imperfections.

Jack Reacher describes himself as a hobo, but he’s much more of a ronin. He travels the country, by foot and by public transportation, based solely on whims and when he arrives in a town, you can guarantee that he’s going to stumble into a mid-level conspiracy. He’s perfectly tailored for television since Jack Reacher is basically a no-transformation-required combo of Bruce Banner/Hulk from The Incredible Hulk .

Santora has adapted Killing Floor , the first published Reacher novel, which begins with Reacher ( Alan Ritchson ) getting off a bus on the outskirts of Margrave, Georgia. In this case, his whim involves learning about mysterious bluesman Blind Blake, and the conspiracy kicks in almost immediately when Reacher is arrested for murder. Even when it becomes clear that he wasn’t the killer, Reacher sticks around in Margrave to help uptight detective Oscar (Malcolm Goodwin) and dogged cop Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald) solve what turns out to be a crime with very personal ties.

Santora and his writing team have captured many of Reacher’s eccentricities, from his no-frills approach to packing — a passport, small wad of cash and travel toothbrush — to his obsessive accumulation of roadside trivia to this gigantic man-of-few-words’ love of quippy rejoinders. The season balances Reacher’s brutal physicality — I don’t love anything as much as Jack Reacher loves using his forehead to break somebody’s nose — and his Holmesian deductive reasoning. It’s mostly a strict adaptation of Killing Floor — one of Reacher’s later recurring allies is added for fun — and I never doubted the creative team’s affection for the source material for a second.

But Child’s books are compulsively readable page-turners, not unimpeachable literature, and their flaws may be harder to ignore in this format.

To begin with, the Reacher novels really aren’t about individual plots. I’ve read 20-ish Reacher books and if you offered me only their titles — Child is awful at titles — I couldn’t tell you what any of them were about. And even if you told me, I could probably only offer specifics for half of them. Killing Floor , with its backdrop of financial crimes and livestock, is actually in that group of stories I remember, but when midseason episodes became almost nonstop clunky exposition, I kept thinking how much I was missing Reacher breaking people’s noses with his forehead. A six-episode season would have tightened the storytelling yet still wouldn’t have fixed an instigating event that is irritatingly coincidental even in a franchise that thrives on big coincidences.

I’m not sure how you could have enhanced the plausibility of that coincidence, nor am I sure how Reacher could have fixed the fact that I’ve never bought into a single one of the character’s sexual dalliances — one per book, like the impeccable internal clock in Reacher’s head. Sometimes there’s a disturbing age difference. Sometimes he hooks up with a more mature woman, with Child obsessively mentioning a streak of gray hair or a hint of crow’s feet as if Jack Reacher’s true triumph of justice was age-appropriate dating. They’re all contrived, and Fitzgerald’s convincingly hard-edged performance — complete with the show’s only respectable Southern accent — is powerless to help. Because Ritchson is playing a younger version of Reacher, all flirtation is merely perfunctory instead of irredeemably icky. So there’s that.

And that leads me, finally, to the biggest flaw that any Jack Reacher adaptation is going to face: I’ve been asked many times on Twitter who I’d want to play Jack Reacher if Tom Cruise wasn’t acceptable, and I’ve given an assortment of answers: Holt McCallany. Stephen Lang, but 25 years ago and only if nobody Googles his height. Burt Lancaster if this were 1965. Elizabeth Debicki as Jacqueline Reacher. But the answer might turn out to simply be, “Nobody. Lee Child has made a character who can’t be played by a real human.”

Ritchson has some of the right physicality. At 6’2″, he’s too short, but the series directors have smartly shot him in ways that emphasize and embellish his size — low angles, frame-filling close-ups, etc. Care has been taken to surround Ritchson with conspicuously small co-stars, including Fitzgerald, the always solid Goodwin and Kristin Kreuk, playing the wife of a key suspect. Everybody in the show goes maybe to Ritchson’s mid-chest and it all points to how somebody like Peter Jackson could have used miniatures and forced perspective to actually sell a Cruise-as-Reacher vehicle.

That doesn’t mean Ritchson’s physicality is exactly right. Ritchson, like The Rock and John Cena and Dave Bautista and other size-appropriate people Twitter tends to suggest for a 6’5″ 250-pound character, looks like he spent nine months in a gym preparing for the role. He’s cut and the camera loves ogling his naked torso. But he, like The Rock, looks like something carved from granite. Jack Reacher should be a boulder. He’s never gone to the gym in his life, preferring a regimen of extensive walking and intermittent ass-kicking. No matter how fixated Ritchson’s Reacher may be on revenge, he primarily strides through town looking like he wants somebody to spot for him, bro.

This will bother fans of the books more than normal humans, who will be more likely to notice that Ritchson can’t make Reacher’s unique speech patterns work. Whether it’s the hamminess of the character’s quips and threats or his affectless recitation of the information behind his brilliant clue-following, Ritchson comes across as a condescending white knight out of a direct-to-video ’80s action movie. This may be a flawless execution of what he was asked to do, incidentally, illustrating how precariously small the gap is between what plays as gruffly badass on the page and flatly smug on-screen.

I wonder if this take would have played better if the series’ directors had gone with a look and pacing that was less TNT-friendly — minus some graphic nudity — procedural potboiler and more Banshee -style pulp. Why not steer into the craziness of a brilliant giant showing up in a small town and killing dozens of people instead of the formula of a former military policeman solving crimes? I’ll just go out on a limb and say that everything would have been improved if production could have taken place actually in Georgia as opposed to Ontario, which never finds an iota of regional authenticity here.

So now we’ve had Jack Reacher adaptations that have been annoyingly uninterested in the source material and frustratingly over-faithful to the source material. I prefer the Amazon version, and I wouldn’t mind another season, but I’d probably still rather read another book.

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12 Shows Like Reacher To Watch Next

If you haven't checked out "Reacher,"  stop what you're doing, head over to Prime Video, and stream every episode pronto. Seriously, this action-packed mystery thriller series checks all the right boxes for modern-day entertainment. Action? Check. Drama? Check. Romance? Check. A charismatic lead character? Double check . Carefully constructed narrative with shocking revelations around every corner? Check. "Reacher" has it all. 

Aside from a few missteps, the series expertly captures the tone and feel of Lee Child's violent, muscular hero who always wins thanks to his imposing stature, impeccable fighting abilities, and sharp investigative instincts. Starring Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher, an ex-Army investigator who spends his days wandering the Earth, dishing out justice for those in need, "Reacher" finds our hero tasked with taking down various evil plots and conspiracies, first using his brain, and then his fists.

Violent, bold, but always fun, "Reacher" pulls no punches. But if you've already binged the series, just know that there's more where that came from. These shows also provide violent, addictive thrills — and will keep you occupied until the Prime Video series returns with more episodes. 

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

Those looking for more kick-a** military action in the vein of "Reacher" should check out Amazon's other flagship series, "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan." John Krasinski stars as Clancy's iconic hero (previously played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine), who zips all over the globe in a bid to stop terrorists from committing atrocities on innocent civilians. Like Reacher, Ryan's brains match his brawn. The first three seasons continually pit him against dangerous enemies immune to reason. Lucky for us, that results in hard-hitting action sequences peppered with enough intelligence to make the endless explosions seem pertinent.

Unlike "Reacher," "Jack Ryan"  regrettably deviates from Clancy's novels, choosing instead to chart its own course. Too often, Ryan runs rampant in the field like a character ripped straight from the "Call of Duty" video game franchise, a far cry from the desk-riding analyst found in the novels. While purists may balk, "Jack Ryan" still offers high-quality entertainment and gives Krasinski plenty of room to flash his natural charisma. Don't think about it too much; you'll have a blast.

Nobody beats Jack Bauer. For eight seasons, Kiefer Sutherland's gritty, hard-nosed patriot won us over with his no-holds-barred approach to stopping enemies (foreign and domestic) in Fox's " 24 ." Sure, the twists became more ludicrous with every episode, but "24" practically wrote the book on binge-watching.

Despite the silly plot beats (everyone, at some point, turns out to be a mole), Sutherland's character is always watchable. Bauer's violent tendencies mirror Reacher's. Indeed, it's not hard to imagine the pair working side-by-side to take down corrupt government officials or seedy criminals with nothing to lose. The deeper Bauer digs into the vast conspiracies around him, the more dangers he uncovers, with numerous enemies sitting atop the political battlefield.

Comparatively, where Reacher's adventures are smaller in scale, Bauer rubs shoulders with the President of the United States and other government officials. He often goes rogue and must contend with powerful villains like Nina Myers, Habib Marwan, Charles Logan, and Cheng Zi, each with an eye on global chaos. It's all silly fun, and Sutherland's incredible award-winning performance grounds the insanity, even when the plot completely rolls off the tracks.

"24" is far from an artistic masterpiece, but it satisfies as easily digestible, incredibly addictive fast-food entertainment.

Speaking of "24," the creators of that popular series, Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, reteamed for Showtime's "Homeland"  with equally impressive results. Starring Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Mandy Patinkin, and Rupert Friend, this action-packed series chronicles the exploits of Carrie Mathison (Danes), a brilliant but troubled CIA agent, as she thwarts terrorists and other threats to global peace. 

In Season 1, Carrie believes that recently returned Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody (Lewis) has switched sides and plans to attack the U.S. Unfortunately, her bipolar condition and inability to control her emotional outbursts make the other agents, including her mentor, Saul (Patinkin), frequently question her conclusions. It's fascinating stuff, and it only gets better. People are tortured and executed gruesomely, bombs go off daily, characters fall in love, then break up dramatically, and Claire Danes cries — a lot. Like "Reacher," "Homeland" doesn't play nice and isn't afraid to toss its audience about on a wild rollercoaster of emotions. Sure, there are a few bumps along the way, but the strong performances, shocking twists, and carefully constructed characters ensure hours of thrilling entertainment.

Warning: Don't start "Homeland" unless you're ready to binge all eight seasons. Once you start, it's  really  hard to stop. Trust me.

On the surface, "Bosch"  looks like any other procedural cop drama. Look closer, and you'll find a complex character study of LAPD detective Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) and his attempts to circumvent the law to bring criminals to justice. Featuring a stellar cast that includes the late, great Lance Reddick, Jamie Hector, Madison Lintz, Amy Aquino, and Mimi Rogers, along with intense shootouts and thrilling fights scenes, "Bosch" has everything fans of "Reacher" could ask for.

That said, "Bosch" requires patience to appreciate fully. Each season sets up a captivating mystery and a handful of sprawling storylines that may be difficult to follow. Stick with it because the payoff is always worth it. Since "Bosch" is based on a popular book series written by Michael Connelly, you can head into the various seasons knowing the writers have a guideline to work from and aren't making up plot points on the spot (as was often the case with "24" and "Homeland"), leading to plenty of bizarre creative decisions. That's not to say "Bosch" sidesteps plot holes or contrivances. Sometimes, the show veers towards unbelievability, but that's part of the fun.

Ultimately, "Bosch" gives viewers an old-school detective thriller featuring a character who, like Reacher, seems to have magically appeared out of a bygone era.

At its core, "Reacher" is, ostensibly, a Western. A drifter wanders into a small town run by corrupt people, bringing with him swift justice. As such, it makes sense to include "Longmire" on this list, as it follows the same plot beats. Still, it sets its tale in the fictional town of Absaroka County, Wyoming. "Longmire" is very much a Western in the traditional sense. Our hero, the grizzled but honorable Sheriff Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor), wanders about solving mysteries alongside the locals. He runs into problems regarding the local casino, Native Americans, and the government. He struggles to maintain the peace while adhering to his moral code.

Like "Reacher," "Longmire" doesn't break new ground in the mystery department. You've seen much of this show before. Yet, where the series succeeds is in the handling of its central star. Longmire is a good man who values honor. Still, he's also flawed, particularly in how he consistently attacks his rival, Jacob Nighthorse (A Martinez). That means everyone, including Walt, Nighthorse, Victoria Moretti (Katie Sackhoff), and Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips), goes through complex psychological character arcs and arrives at a better point than when we first met them.

Endearing, gritty, but full of heart, "Longmire" is terrific television that will dazzle viewers the cows come home.

The Punisher

Remember when Marvel dominated Netflix with shows like "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones," "Iron Fist," and "Luke Cage?" While the MCU continues to show its dominance on Disney+, none of its recent offerings match the grittiness of these initial efforts. That's too bad because Marvel tapped into something unique with these entries, which functioned as comic books for grownups. 

Of course, the most prominent example remains "The Punisher," which didn't shy away from bloody violence or hard-hitting chaos. Our hero revels in bloodshed, blasting enemies to bits with his guns or beating them to a pulp with his fists. Here is a man with zero tolerance for tomfoolery who would rather go out in a blaze of glory than see a criminal saved by the law. Star Jon Bernthal infuses the iconic comic book anti-hero with ferocity. Like Reacher, the Punisher yearns for peace and solidarity but knows that our world doesn't provide such gifts without a fight. 

Sadly, "The Punisher" lasted just two seasons, but there are rumors of a revival on Disney+. Fingers crossed because we all need a little more Frank Castle mayhem in our lives.  

Before he was Homelander on "The Boys," Antony Starr was racking up kills as Lucas Hood in "Banshee," perhaps the most extreme entry on this list. When I say extreme, I mean  extreme.  Brace yourselves for gruesome action during which people get their windpipes pulled from their throats, shotguns blow holes through bodies, and heads explode like watermelons. If that weren't enough, "Banshee" features sex scenes shocking enough to ensure your viewing experience rises to optimum levels of awkwardness. 

That said, "Banshee" works even without the needless excess. "Banshee" is about a man with no name who assumes the identity of the recently deceased town sheriff, a title that allows him to use his unethical practices to keep the town of Banshee, Pennsylvania, at bay. From the brilliant cast to the multilayered storylines and eye-popping action, "Banshee" sticks with you long after the credits roll. 

Be forewarned. This show is not for the faint of heart. Characters die in creative, always disgusting ways, while the humor is often pitch black. Yet, you come to care about these people and cheer when they win and mourn when they die. Honestly, the best advice I can give anyone who sets out to watch "Banshee" is to buckle up because you're in for a ride! Think of it as "Reacher" multiplied by about 50, and you might know what to expect.

Are you noticing a pattern here? The shows on this list feature compelling heroes who operate within that thin gray line between right and wrong and are often forced to make difficult choices to stop evil people from achieving their goals. "Justified," the brilliant series based on stories written by Elmore Leonard that ran for six seasons on FX, is no exception.

"Justified" follows Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a man who lives by his own ethical code and is quick to draw his gun to protect the innocent. Naturally, his actions draw the attention of local bad guys, notably crime families, drug traders, corrupt cops, and the like, resulting in showdowns ripped straight from the legendary films of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. 

Olyphant slips into Givens' trademark cowboy hat with aplomb, delivering a show-stopping performance that rivals his best work on "Deadwood." Couple that with a delectable cast of memorable side characters, witty dialogue, and some fairly shocking violence, and you have a perfect dish to feast on over a week or two while you wait for Reacher's return. 

The Terminal List

Count me among those who believe Chris Pratt is a legit superstar. Whether on the big or small screen, the actor has charisma to spare and enough presence to turn even the blandest material into something worth watching. That's essentially the case with "The Terminal List," a dour, bleak, moody affair full of bone-crunching action, sweat-inducing suspense, muscle-bound heroes, and not much else. The plot concerns Pratt's attempts to clear his name for the murder of his wife and daughter, a mission that requires putting together a team consisting of Taylor Kitsch, Constance Wu, and Jai Courtney. Plot twists abound, as are the customary fight sequences, explosions, and do-or-die missions.

While the middling material doesn't offer anything new, Pratt's star power shines through. You like the guy and cheer the moment he slowly removes a bad guy's intestines. This ain't your typical action series. "The Terminal List" wants you to feel every gunshot and think about the lives lost during this operation. To a certain extent, it works, but mostly, this is just another revenge story touched up with a new coat of paint.

So why place it on this list? While a far cry from the more laid-back tone of "Reacher," "The Terminal List" still hits the same notes, albeit with more dramatic force. If you're looking for a revenge series that takes its storyline a little more seriously — almost to a fault — you might wanna give "The Terminal List" a whirl.

We take Maggie Q for granted. The talented actor from such films as "Mission: Impossible III" and "Live Free or Die Hard" makes for a credible action star, which is probably why the producers at the CW decided to give her a run with the short-lived but very entertaining "Nikita." Based on the French film "La Femme Nikita," directed by Luc Besson, and the memorable late '90s TV show "Nikita," follows a spy named Nikita Mears (Q) whose objective is to bring down Division, a powerful agency she escaped from that recruits and trains assassins.

Lasting only four seasons, "Nikita" nonetheless tells a gripping tale that should delight fans of the original material. Maggie Q is cool and sexy as the lead, kicking the snot out of hundreds of faceless baddies without breaking a sweat. Also in tow are Shane West and Lyndsy Fonseca as Nikita's closest acquaintances and Xander Berkeley as the show's token villain.

Sleek, stylish, and fun to watch, "Nikita" is an entertaining distraction for those needing a little more vengeance-fueled madness.

"Luther" takes place on the other side of the pond from "Reacher" but carries the same DNA. Admittedly, I found the series only recently, so I had plenty of catching up to do — five seasons  and  a film! So let me say, whatever you've heard about "Luther," it's even better. 

Idris Elba stars as the titular Detective Chief Inspector Luther, who spends his days solving crimes and evading/pursuing the criminal mastermind Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson). Yeah, it's complicated — like, "Hannibal" levels of complicated — but that's part and parcel of Luther's fascinating story. Here is a man with an incredible gift for detective work, prone to violence and obsessed with his cases to an unhealthy degree. How ironic that his one chance at happiness lies in the hands of a criminal who is very much his opposite in every way imaginable. 

More psychological than action-packed, "Luther" still lets Elba flex his stuff against the scum of society. When tasked with acquiring DNA from a police officer, Luther puts on a hat, sunglasses, and plastic gloves, walks up to the man, and punches him square in the nose. Blood oozes all over Luther's plastic gloves. Unorthodox, sure, but hey, he gets the job done.  

Okay, before you judge, let me explain. "Shooter," the 2007 film starring Mark Wahlberg as a former sniper who goes on the run after being framed for murder, sucks . However, the short-lived television series starring Ryan Phillippe is actually pretty great. Both film and series utilize elements of Stephen Hunter's novels, but where the movie seemed more like a dumbed-down remake of "The Fugitive," the small-screen adaptation has plenty to offer those searching for a quick thrill.

Don't misunderstand. This isn't benchmark TV. In fact, its unwillingness to venture into uncharted territory keeps "Shooter" from ascending to even greater heights and probably led to its abrupt cancellation after just three seasons. Regardless, the star-studded affair, featuring Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, and Beverly D'Angelo, among others, brings the heat and carries itself well despite fairly rudimentary production standards.

Phillippe's red-blooded assassin matches Reacher in terms of combat skills. He's a man unafraid to get his hands dirty, though he mainly demonstrates his prowess by looking through a scope miles away from harm. Regardless, "Shooter" satisfied my action lust for a spell and is a worthy follow-up for those needing more blood-soaked carnage in their lives.

12 Must-Read Books In 2024 If You Can't Stop Watching Reacher

If you've been hooked on the Reacher TV series and read all the novels, head to this list of books with similar compelling characters and action!

Jack Reacher has to be mentioned when talking about intelligent, just, resilient characters and stories full of high-octane action. Starting as a novel-based character, the franchise has become one of the staples of its genre and Reacher himself has even achieved a certain level of cultural recognition. Over time, his character has progressed, taking fans through several adventures that commonly involve crime, mystery, and action, most recently via the hit Reacher TV series.

Even by Andrew Grant

Capture or kill by tom marcus, the drifter by nicholas petrie, no man's land by david baldacci, black 13 adam hamdy, point of impact by stephen hunter, the innocent by david baldacci, the black echo by michael connelly, hard road j.b. turner, terminal list by jack carr, the hunt for red october by tom clancy, lethal target by janice cantore, 16 best 4k uhd movie & tv releases to buy in 2024, so far.

But what do you do when you've consumed everything Jack Reacher across the franchise? Here's an organized list of 12 must-read books that vow to capture the essence of Jack Reacher's world. These books offer heart-pounding suspense, intriguing characters, and plot twists that keep you awake at night. If you're looking to recapture the intense drama and edge-of-your-seat scenes that have made the Reacher series so successful, these books will do just that.

Capture Or Kill by Tom Marcus

Hard road by j.b. turner, the terminal list by jack carr, the hunt for red october by tom clancy, lethal target, plenty to read for reacher fans.

These captivating reads feature bestsellers and the most compelling works from great authors. There are a few themes to expect—intense action, gripping suspense, compelling protagonists, and engaging narratives. Our top recommendation is The Terminal List by Jack Carr. There is a lot of similarity between the main character, James Reece, and Jack Reacher in their stance on justice and fairness. Another promising element is James Reece's military background . If it's hard to choose what book to pick first, start with this.

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Our second-best recommendation is Even by Andrew Grant. Some men must fight for justice, but what about those whose lives depend on that justice? David Trevellyan has been set up, and now he's caught up in this ugly situation. There's only one thing that keeps him going. He doesn't want to get mad—but get EVEN.

Who is the author of the Jack Reacher series?

Lee Child is the author of the Jack Reacher novel series.

Are there any other movies about Jack Reacher apart from the Reacher series?

Yes. There is a movie, Jack Reacher , and a sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back .

How many Jack Reacher books exist?

There are 28 novels and some short stories.

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Screen Rant

10 shows to watch if you like reacher.

Reacher brought Lee Child's character to life on the small screen, and fans who loved this show should also find joy in several other streaming shows.

Reacher brought the Lee Child character to the small screen in a streaming series on Prime Video. While there were two movies based on the same character with Tom Cruise in the lead, they were not as accepted by fans of the novel because Cruise didn't fit the role of Jack Reacher. However, the streaming series has almost universal acclaim.

RELATED:  Reacher - 10 Predictions For Season 2

For fans who love the series, as Reacher fights for people who can't fight for themselves, and does it brilliantly and tactically, there are plenty of other shows on TV that play along the same lines. Whether fans are wanting big action, strong characters, or just a great time with a fun series,  Reacher fans have plenty of options.

Jack Ryan — Stream On Prime Video

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan is different from Jack Reacher in several ways, but he also shares some strong similarities. Both men are brilliant and can figure out what is going on before most of the characters surrounding them. While Reacher is pure muscle, Ryan mostly gets by with his brains and a gun when needed.

However,  Jack Ryan is similar to  Reacher in that both men are trying to help people who can't help themselves. It also helps that both shows are on Prime Video, so  Reacher fans can flip right over to watch Ryan in action without changing services.

Bosch — Stream On Prime Video

Just like  Reacher , the Prime Video series Bosch is also based on a popular novel series, this one by Michael Connelly. Movie fans might know Connelly better for his Lincoln Lawyer movies, but that character is a spin-off from the Bosch nooks.

Titus Welliver stars as Bosch, a Los Angeles police homicide detective named Harry Bosch who has little regard for authority and even more trouble staying out of trouble himself.

The Outsider — Stream On HBO Max

The Outsider is a different look and feel, but it still offers a story that fans of  Reacher might enjoy. This show is based on a novel by Stephen King . While it has horror elements and a monster as the villain, it is at heart a mystery story with a detective at its center.

A family man is accused of the murder of a child and the entire community turns on him. However, when evidence proves he is innocent, a local detective starts looking into it and calls in a PI named Holly Gibney to help him solve the case. This is very similar to Reacher calling out to his PI friend, Frances.

Luther — Stream On Netflix

Jack Reacher shares a bit in common with John Luther. Both men are big and willing to get their hands dirty if it means helping someone. In  Luther , it is Idris Elba as the Detective Chief Inspector for the Serious Crimes department.

RELATED:  Luther - 10 Scenes Even Fans Didn't See Coming

In the series, which originally aired on BBC, Luther has to solve murder cases while realizing that one specific murderer has his eye on him for complicated reasons. Like Reacher, Luther is impulsive and violent, but also brilliant and deductive.

Justified — Stream On Hulu

One thing that Reacher is known for is dealing with problems in smaller American cities. In  Reacher , he was in a small town in Georgia that had a corrupt mayor and sheriff, and a wealthy man running things in the town. In  Justified , the small town is even smaller.

Based on the novel series by Elmore Leonard,  Justified is about a lawman named Raylan Givens who will resort to violence when needed to stop criminals. However, his life is complicated by his relationship with a local criminal named Boyd Crowder.

Titans — Stream On HBO Max

Fans will find more in common than they might have expected between Reacher and the DC Comics series on HBO Max, Titans . This is not the Teen Titans that parents watched with their kids for the last two decades. This is a violent and brutal look at vigilantism.

However, there is one other reason fans of Reacher might love  Titans . Jack Reacher himself, Alan Ritchson plays Hawk in Titans , one of Robin's old allies and one of the main characters in this comic book world.

Mayor Of Kingstown — Stream On Paramount+

Mayor of Kingstown   is a new series that premiered on Paramount+ in 2021. It also has some very familiar faces in the lead roles, with the MCU's Jeremy Renner, Kyle Chandler, and Dianne Wiest. This show will remind everyone of the politics of a corrupt town.

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Here, it is one powerful family in Kingstown, Michigan, who controls everything because they control the only profitable business keeping the town alive. It is the same dilemma from  Reacher , and as in that series, it is all about bringing this family down without destroying the community.

Sneaky Pete — Stream On Prime Video

Sneaky Pete   is another Prime Video series, this one following a released convict who takes over the identity of his cellmate to avoid returning to the life that he left behind. However, once he arrives in the town of that man, he learns that he is now possibly in worse trouble than ever before.

Giovanni Ribisi starred as Pete Murphy, the con-man who took the other man's identity. He then tricks the other man's family into believing it is him and then puts everyone else in danger when his past catches up with him over the three seasons of the show.

The Following — Buy On Prime Video

Kevin Bacon starred in The Following , a network mystery thriller from Fox about a former FBI agent who wants to recapture a serial killer who escaped from prison. The problem is that the two men know each other two well since it was Bacon's Ryan that put James Purefoy's Joe away, to begin with.

When Joe starts a cult that brings together like-minded killers, it makes the police's job even harder. There was also a second season that kept the idea of a cult of killers that want to lure Joe out of hiding, while a third season ties the entire story up.

Shooter — Stream On Netflix

Shooter shares more than one similarity with Reacher and is a very comparable show for fans. In  Reacher , Jack Reacher is a former military man who left with honor and has chosen to walk the country, where he often ends up in trouble. It is then that he uses his specialized military training to solve his problems.

In  Shooter , Ryan Phillippe stars as Bob Lee Swagger in a show based on the novel Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter. Here, he is a retired Marine Corps sniper living in seclusion who is called in to help stop an assassination attempt on the president but finds himself framed for the murder of the Ukrainian president. He then has to use his military training to clear his name and save himself.

NEXT:  10 Best Jack Reacher Quotes From The Show

‘Tracker’ Might Not Be ‘Reacher,’ But It Does This Well

This Jeffrey Deaver adaptation does more than just follow the books, and that's a good thing.

The Big Picture

• CBS's Tracker distinguishes itself from Reacher with its focus on compassion and character development.
• Tracker' s Colter Shaw is portrayed as a nomadic 'rewardist' with a team dynamic, unlike Jack Reacher.
• Tracker is better suited for network audiences with its procedural format and self-contained stories.

From the moment Tracker first premiered on CBS earlier this year, there were immediate comparisons to the Prime Video series Reacher . Aside from the phonetic connection, both of these shows are based on thriller novels, and each of them follows a "lone wolf" type lead who often rescues people from impossible (and usually dangerous) situations. But there's one thing that really separates Tracker and Reacher ––besides the obvious gap between their respective budgets––and that's the genuine compassion that Colter Shaw ( Justin Hartley ) has for every one of his clients. Not that Jack Reacher ( Alan Ritchson ) can't be that way himself, but the way Tracker frames each episode only helps us to see Colter as the better guy ––even if Reacher would easily win in a fight.

Colter Shaw travels the country in his old-school RV to help police and private citizens solve crimes and locate missing persons until his latest case changes everything.

'Tracker' Isn't 'Reacher,' and That's Actually a Good Thing

The truth is, comparisons aside, Tracker isn't Reacher . Sure, these two shows share a lot of the similarities mentioned above, as well as a small batch of supporting characters that help the leading men on their latest adventures. But aside from that, these shows couldn't be more different. While each new season of Reacher takes place in a brand-new location, each new episode of Tracker covers a different town across America. In fact, each episode title derives from wherever Colter Shaw has parked his camper this week, and that's part of the show's charm. A roadshow at heart, Colter doesn't spend enough time in any one place to get to know it more than he has to, making him almost more of a nomad than Jack Reacher is ––at least on television.

Reacher also relies more on action spectacle than Tracker does. While that works wonders for the Lee Child adaptation , it wouldn't fit so well into the world that Tracker has created. Yes, Colter Shaw can fight. He may even be able to go toe-to-toe against the massive force that is Jack Reacher (though he probably wouldn't win). But that's not what Tracker is about. Each episode takes the time to get to know Colter's latest client, and, in return, Colter offers some of his own past or experience so that we might better get to know him. There's a human connection to Tracker that's generally absent from Reacher . Not that Reacher 's point of view is a bad thing. Shoot-'em-up action mysteries certainly have their place (and we love them for being what they are), but that's just not the type of show Tracker is. No doubt, future episodes (and hopefully future seasons) will continue to explore Colter's fight style and physique, but even if and when it does, the show will continue to use its time to dive into the latest job (and new set of characters) our hero has undertaken.

'Tracker' Gives Colter Shaw More Room to Develop

But what Tracker lacks in action, it makes up for in a long-form arc involving the mystery of Colter Shaw. Jack Reacher himself is something of a mystery , which audiences continue to unravel more of every season, but Colter Shaw isn't a former member of the U.S. Army like Reacher was. Rather, his complicated upbringing with a survivalist father was what made him who he is, and the secrets that his backstory holds have yet to be revealed on screen. Because of the nature of Tracker 's week-by-week mysteries, we learn more about Colter every episode , even if it's just in the little things he says to make sure that those around him feel seen, heard, and safe. Unlike Reacher, he doesn't take odd jobs (unless you count the fact that all his jobs are kind of odd) and instead holds to a consistent, albeit strange, career.

Reacher, on the other hand, develops its title character a bit differently. He's a man who can be on trial for murder one season and then reunite with his old unit to avenge a different murder in the next. We learn more about Jack Reacher in broad strokes while each episode of Tracker offers us new intel on Colter Shaw. Likewise, because of Colter's recurring castmates (although he usually doesn't interact with them in person), there's a consistent dynamic here that the CBS series offers us that's absent from Reacher . Sure, Malcolm Goodwin returns for a time as Oscar Finlay in Reacher Season 2, but otherwise, the title hero is on his own with a new set of supporting characters every season. Tracker instead opts to give Colter a genuine team that always has his back, even if he prefers to generally work alone.

'Reacher' Benefits From Directly Adapting the Novels, While 'Tracker' Is Better as a Procedural

Additionally, Tracker is designed for more network-based audiences rather than avid streamers. The show isn't meant to be binged the same way, and more than that, it tells self-contained stories that don't need any additional follow-up . This format has become something of a lost art in the streaming world we currently find ourselves in, but it used to be the norm back in the day of procedural television. Yet, unlike most procedurals, Tracker makes every episode compelling and often avoids the usual tropes that law enforcement-based shows fall into . It will take a while before Tracker gets repetitive simply because of the variety and spontaneity that Colter's life as a "rewardist" (his term) offers him. To be fair, it'll take some time before Reacher gets repetitive too, especially since there are so many Lee Child novels to work through.

That's another thing that separates the televised adventures of Colter Shaw from those of Jack Reacher. Each season of Reacher takes a new Child novel and adapts it to the screen . Season 1 adapted the very first novel Killing Floor , while Season 2 brought the eleventh book, Bad Luck and Trouble , to life. The upcoming third season is set to adapt the seventh adventure, Persuader . Tracker on the other hand takes the Colter Shaw character and concept from Jeffrey Deaver 's novels, but without adapting any in particular. When the series was originally announced, it was supposed to be called The Never Game , after the first novel in the currently four-part series . This isn't uncommon in book-to-screen adaptations. While C.J. Box 's Joe Pickett novels were directly adapted for the Joe Pickett series, Craig Johnson 's Walt Longmire mysteries only served as the basis for the series Longmire , with only a handful of episodes directly adapting a book . This happens all the time. Because Tracker is a loose adaptation rather than a direct one, it has to capture the spirit of Deaver's character while developing a world of its own.

Justin Hartley and Alan Ritchson Are Connected by Another Series, Too

What's funny about all the comparisons between Tracker and Reacher is that the lead stars in both series have actually worked together previously. Before his time on This Is Us , Justin Hartley was a recurring and later main cast member on the CW series Smallville , where he played Oliver Queen aka the Green Arrow. No doubt, his action-packed role there helped prime him for a character like Colter Shaw, and we can see the occasional similarities between the DC Comics vigilante and the lone wolf "rewardist." But guesting in a handful of episodes (three times with Hartley as his co-star) was Alan Ritchson, who played Arthur "A.C." Curry on the series , a character who would eventually be known as Aquaman.

To make things even funnier, after Ritchson's first appearance as A.C. in the Smallville episode "Aqua" (which predated Hartley's first appearance the following season), series creators Al Gough and Miles Miller developed an Aquaman television series for the WB (before it merged with the UPN to become the CW). Though Ritchson was considered at first, they ultimately decided to recast with Hartley in the title role. After shooting the pilot and hoping for a series pickup, the WB dissolved into the CW, and the series was canceled before it even started. Since Gough and Miller liked Hartley, they brought him onto Smallville as the Green Arrow instead, which allowed both him and Ritchson ( Smallville 's Aquaman) to appear alongside each other beginning in the episode "Justice." Having seen them work together in the past, thinking about two playing opposite the other again (now as Colter Shaw and Jack Reacher) sounds amazing, and now we just want a crossover. Get Alan Ritchson on Tracker, guys!

Tracker airs on Sundays on CBS and is available for streaming on Paramount+.

Watch on Paramount+

"American James Bond": Reacher Star's Criticism Exposes Bond 26's Biggest Challenge

• Ritchson's comments on Bond 26 highlight a need to shake off the perception of dated misogyny in the 007 series.
• Ritchson's comparison of Reacher to Bond may overlook the unique qualities of Lee Child's character, impacting public perception.
• Despite strides in representation, Bond 26 faces the challenge of changing the negative perception of misogyny and dated tropes in the franchise.

Recent comments made by Reacher star Alan Ritchson about the 007 franchise highlight the biggest challenge Bond 26 has to overcome. Ritchson, who plays the titular hero Jack Reacher in the Amazon Prime Video show, has given his honest thoughts about the James Bond movies. Among his comments, Ritchson referred to Reacher as the "American James Bond" . Though his criticisms weren't entirely constructive, Ritchson's remarks reinforce a perception about the 007 series that Bond 26 must strive to shake off.

Alan Ritchson has starred as Jack Reacher in two seasons of the hit action show. The actor has won acclaim for his work on the series, and in doing so, Ritchson has proven he's the perfect Jack Reacher . Similarities have been noted between the characters of Reacher and James Bond and, as such, Ritchson's name is one of several that have been mentioned in association with the role of 007. Now Ritchson has given his own thoughts on the comparison, and they demonstrate a problem with the Bond franchise that Bond 26 must resolve .

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Alan ritchson's james bond criticism is wrong - but shows bond 26's challenge, there's a certain perception regarding 007 that needs to be changed.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly , Ritchson said of the Bond films, " I love Bond, but I feel like it's a little misogynistic and predictable at this point ." While these comments are brutally honest and clear, it's not Ritchson's criticism itself that is an issue for Bond 26 . After all, anyone who has seen Daniel Craig's Bond films will know that the series is far less misogynistic and predictable than it used to be. However, Ritchson's comments demonstrate that t here's still a perception among the general public of James Bond movies being dated and formulaic , rightly or wrongly.

Though the Bond movies have come a long way, the franchise's history of misogyny and dated tropes means that its reputation has been somewhat tarnished.

It's hardly surprising that general audiences hold this opinion. The Bond franchise has been around for over six decades and for much of that time, the series was undeniably misogynistic. The movies of the 60s and 70s were synonymous with traditional British values and the Bond girls of those eras were often reduced to damsels in distress who provided a certain degree of eye candy. Though the Bond movies have come a long way, the franchise's history of misogyny and dated tropes means that its reputation has been somewhat tarnished. This is an issue that Bond 26 needs to fix.

Is Reacher Really America's Answer To James Bond?

Jason bourne and ethan hunt might have something to say about that.

When asked if he has any desire to play James Bond, Ritchson told Entertainment Weekly that he considers Reacher to be " like the American Bond ." A comparison between the two is understandable. After all, both are heroic figures who ultimately save the day, both are loners with no attachments, and both are highly skilled marksmen and combatants who are not afraid to kill. However, the title of "American James Bond" is probably better suited to characters like Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt than Jack Reacher.

The character of Jack Reacher first appeared in Lee Child's 1997 debut novel, Killing Floor.

Furthermore, by making the comparison, Ritchson is almost doing a disservice Lee Child's original character . Describing Jack Reacher as the American equivalent of James Bond almost dismisses the character's uniqueness. Unlike Bond, Reacher is a drifter rather than a secret agent and, as such, is not affiliated with any organization. He helps people because he wants to, as opposed to doing it because it's his job. And, rather importantly, Reacher doesn't indulge in the same levels of womanizing as Bond does.

Reacher Season 3 Will Have Lower Stakes Adapting Persuader (But That's A Good Thing)

Alan ritchson's bond comments prove the daniel craig era didn't do enough for representation, the most recent 007 era certainly updated bond, but perhaps not enough.

Daniel Craig's tenure as Bond was a vast improvement over the James Bond eras that came before it in terms of representation and moving away from the dated 007 model. Nevertheless, Alan Ritchson's remarks make it clear that Craig's era didn't do enough to completely alter public perception, despite its attempts. It's possible that one Bond era isn't enough to change the tide, not when 40 years of misogyny and dated tropes have done damage to the brand. Breaking the negative perception will need to be a priority for Bond 26 and future films in the series.

Interestingly, while Ritchson professes to love Bond, it's unclear exactly how familiar with the franchise he is. It's possible he hasn't seen a 007 movie since the Roger Moore years. What's also striking is that, while Reacher has never stooped to the same levels of misogyny as Bond, he's also not much better. The knight-in-shining-armor nature of the character means that Reacher also relies on there being damsels in distress for him to save , which ultimately isn't very progressive. Whatever the case, Bond 26 has a lot of work to do to change both Ritchson's and the public's opinions.

Produced by Amazon Prime Video, Reacher adapts Lee Child's Jack Reacher book series to live-action. The series follows veteran Military Police Officer Jack Reacher as he unravels a dangerous conspiracy in the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia. Played by the towering Alan Ritchson, the titular hero collaborates with officer Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) and Chief Detective Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) to clean his name and save Margrave from crime and corruption.

Cast Johnny Berchtold, Daniel David Stewart, Chris Webster, Willa Fitzgerald, Brian Tee, Malcolm Goodwin, Alan Ritchson, Maria Sten, Anthony Michael Hall, Bruce McGill

Genres Drama, Action, Crime

Franchise(s) Jack Reacher

Showrunner Nick Santora