Sometimes, the finest action shows don’t always have the mainstream attention they deserve. Despite being quite underrated, these masterful action-filled watches are worth returning to over and over again. In fact, some of the best shows of the genre aren’t just fun because of the spectacle and violence; they work because their worlds and all it consists of make it rather easy to revisit.
Action shows like the often-overlooked gem Alice in Borderland, which transforms brutal survival games into something clever, emotionally gripping, and incredibly tense, and Banshee, a violent crime drama with a wild premise, fantastic intensity, painful fights, and nonstop consequences, are just two series in the genre that prove underrated action television can be just as rewatchable as anything circling mainstream channels. On this list are incredibly addictive action shows that are absolutely worth watching over and over again.
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8
‘Wayne’ (2019)
Mark McKenna in ‘Wayne’Image via YouTube Premium
Waynehastobeone ofthemostunderratedaction masterpieces that no one seems to know about. The clever teen action drama follows the young Wayne(Mark McKenna), who hits the road after his father’s death to reclaim a stolen Trans Am, dragging Del (Ciara Bravo) into an incredibly funny, violent, and heartwarmingly romantic fugitive trip.
Wayne is practically built to be rewatched by the lucky few who come across it. The series is creative and quite surprisingly deep. It’s a teen drama that’s so incredibly rewatchable because every episode feels extremely charged with promising momentum. Wayne, despite being criminally underrated, stands as the perfect series to revisit time and time again, as it moves with the confidence of a comic-book bruiser and wields the heart of a scrappy road romance. It’s a sweet, nasty, weirdly sincere, action-filled watch that is structurally tight and worthy of anyone’s time, making it a great addition to this list.
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7
‘Hanna’ (2019–2021)
Esmé Creed-Miles as Hanna in the Prime Video show Hanna.Image via Prime Video
This often-overlooked Prime Video thrill ride has quite the emotional hook. Hanna centers on the titular character, a young girl, ignorant of the normalcy of the world, due to being raised off-grid by her father to survive pursuit, only to find herself stalked by a powerful government organization as she begins uncovering the truth about her origins.
Hanna is the type of action series that definitely rewards rewatches, with its tense cat-and-mouse storytelling, carefully layered character development, and emotional detail that becomes more captivating on repeat viewings. Not only is the show’s action clean and purposeful, but the emotional hook is a young girl learning just how to be ordinary while, at the same time, she’s dismantling extraordinary organizations. Hanna is unique and worthwhile because of its compelling story, action, and deep emotional stakes, cementing it as a tense, stylish watch that’s far greater than it often gets credit for.
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6
‘Alice in Borderland’ (2020–2025)
Kento Yamazaki as Arisu and Tao Tsuchiya as Usagi in Alice in Borderland Season 2Image via Netflix
Alice in Borderland is an underrated sci-fi banger that is a rather addictive viewing experience. The action thriller focuses on the directionless gamer, Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), and his close friends as they’re dropped into an emptied-out Tokyo where survival depends on deadly games.
Alice in Borderland is quite a captivating series to indulge in, and only gets better for audiences on a second viewing. The series, unlike most survival thrillers, doesn’t entirely rely on shock value; instead, it leaves its mark because it depends on its action being tied to grief, tragedy, loyalty, and fear. Alice in Borderland is genuinely masterful, the perfect series to watch time and time again, because it never gets boring. Simply put, the sci-fi wonder’s mechanics are only half its appeal when it comes to replays. In fact, once viewers are aware of the rules, they are able to better appreciate the show’s foreshadowing, character work, and emotional decisions that make rewatches all the more enthralling.
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5
‘Nikita’ (2010–2013)
Nikita hanging off a rope and wearing all black in NikitaImage via The CW
This action dramais much too underrated, a genuine good time that deserves far more credit than it’s ever received. Nikita follows the assassin Nikita (Maggie Q), who returns to destroy Division, the covert program that turned her into the killer that she’s become.
Nikita is a true network TV action staple. The series is exactly what spy thriller fans want, from undercover missions and sleek action to heartbreaking betrayals and a strong kickbutt heroine. Nikita can admittedly be a bit pulpy, but even the most outrageous turns feel earned. The show’s attack-defense rhythm makes it extremely bingeable as every setback, victory, and countermove naturally pushes viewers into the next installment, ensuring repeat viewings feel quite rewarding. Nikita is an underrated work of perfection that wields its stylish and intense action narrative with remarkable confidence, delivering the kind of gripping espionage drama that stands as a strong pick for action fans looking for something overlooked.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
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Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
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🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
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02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
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04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
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05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
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07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
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08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
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09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
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10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
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Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
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Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
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John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
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Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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‘Black Sails’ (2014–2017)
Black Sailsmay be awoefully overlooked series,but it’s definitely a cult favorite that is remembered by its most loyal fans as one of the greatest action TV watches ever created. The thrilling pirate action show centers on Captain Flint (Toby Stephens), who tries to transform Nassau from pirate chaos into something sustainable, while characters like John Silver (Luke Arnold) evolve alongside him, going from opportunistic survivors into some of the most captivatingly complex figures of the story.
Black Sails does indeed start off as a captivating pirate drama, but it then gradually transforms into something far richer, rife with naval battles, politics, betrayals, and character work that genuinely rewards audiences who come back for more than one viewing. With each season, the show gets stronger, and by the end of the addictive series, it has evolved into a sweeping legend filled with tons of emotional payoffs and layered motivations.Black Sails has definitely earned itself endless rewatches as it only gets better once audiences know where it’s heading.
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3
‘Into the Badlands’ (2015–2019)
The finale of ‘Into the Badlands’, featuring the majority of the cast.Image via AMC
This fantastic action spectacle is an exceptional series that spurs rewatches because of its brutal world that is less gun-heavy and much more martial arts-dominated. Set in a post-apocalyptic society ruled by feudal barons, Into the Badlands focuses on the lethal regent Sunny (Daniel Wu), who is desperately searching for a way out of the violent system he lives in.
Into the Badlands is a criminally underrated series that wields extraordinary action. It’s actually quite a rewatchable series, simply because of its intense combat sequences. Into the Badlands‘ story may be quite entertaining, but most viewers tend to stick around for the sword-wielding, almost too absurd fight scenes. Those moments are incredibly addictive and genuinely remain some of the most inventive and stylish action moments television has ever produced, cementing the series as a consistently overlooked yet incredibly fantastic gem that is rather easy to resist over and over again.
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2
‘Banshee’ (2013–2016)
Ivana Milicevic and Antony Starr stealing money in BansheeImage via Cinemax
Few underrated action greats are as unapologetically intense as Banshee. The series centers around an ex-con who steals the identity of a dead sheriff named Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), and lands himself in Banshee, Pennsylvania, where he collides with his former partner and lover Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Miličević).
With the impact of a brawler and the energy of a crime thriller, Banshee is incredibly easy to keep watching. It’s actually so rewatchable because it understands exactly what kind of show it is. Banshee is hardly a subtle watch, but it is enticingly consumable, with every episode pushing the intense chaos further. The series is quality revisiting material that never apologizes for its excess, marking it as a hidden action gem that stands as a great addition to this list of criminally underrated hits in the genre.
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‘Warrior’ (2019–2023)
Andrew Koji and Joe Taslim fighting in Warrior Season 3Image via HBO Max
Warrior is genuinely one of the strongest hidden gems in the action genre of the last several years. Set during the Tong Wars in late 1800s San Francisco, the series follows the martial artist Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji), who is in search of his sister, only for him to somehow become entangled in the violent power struggles of Chinatown.
Warrior wields a cinematic quality that makes it the perfect action series, one that is definitely well worth watching more than once. It isn’t too well-known, making it a woefully underrated beauty that most action lovers tend to miss out on. For dedicated action fans who have stumbled across the well-hidden gem, they have lauded Warrior as an addictive, almost impossible to ignore show, once started. The series is truly the complete package with its vivid setting, incredible fight choreography, and intense drama, cementing its place as the greatest underrated action series that is definitely worth watching over and over again.
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