Movies Like
Movies Like John Wick: Action You Can Actually See
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
The reason John Wick landed in 2014 was not the dog and it was not the mythology. It was that Chad Stahelski and his stunt team decided you should be able to see the fight. Wide shots. Full bodies in frame. Cuts that come after an action completes rather than in the middle of it. Reeves visibly doing the reload himself, which is why the camera can afford to hold.
That is the criterion for this list. Not "gun movie" and not "revenge plot", but violence staged so the craft is legible. Where each film streams changes constantly, so check the title page on BingeNext for current US options.
The purest examples
The Raid (2011), released in the US as The Raid: Redemption, is the film every action director has been quietly stealing from for a decade. Gareth Evans, a Welsh director working in Indonesia with Iko Uwais and the pencak silat community, shot a single-location siege with almost no coverage tricks. It shares the wide-frame discipline entirely. The difference is that it is martial arts rather than gunplay, and it is considerably more painful to watch. Choose it if the Wick fights were the reason you were there.
The Raid 2 (2014) is longer, messier and more ambitious, adding a crime saga structure and a car chase that stays inside the car. It shares the same team and the same principles. It is nearly two and a half hours, which is the main reason to start with the first one.
The Night Comes for Us (2018) is Timo Tjahjanto working with much of the same Indonesian talent pool, and it is the most extreme thing on this list by a distance. It shares the clarity. It does not share any restraint whatsoever. Recommended only if you already know that about yourself.
Hard Boiled (1992) is where the modern grammar starts. John Woo, Chow Yun-fat, a hospital shootout built around long takes and real geography. It shares the belief that an audience should always know where everyone is standing. It is thirty years older, so the pacing outside the set pieces is looser.
Same DNA, different flavour
Atomic Blonde (2017) was directed by David Leitch, who co-directed the first John Wick with Stahelski, so the lineage is literal. Charlize Theron in 1989 Berlin, and the stairwell fight is a long-take showcase built to show exhaustion rather than invincibility. It shares the choreography philosophy exactly. The difference is that the plot is a genuine spy puzzle and takes itself more seriously.
Nobody (2021) was written by Derek Kolstad, who created John Wick, and directed by Ilya Naishuller. Bob Odenkirk as a suburban dad with a history. It shares the premise and the deadpan. It is funnier and much smaller in scale, and the bus fight is deliberately ugly in a way Wick fights never are. Best entry point on this list.
Ballerina (2025) sits inside the John Wick series itself, between the third and fourth films, directed by Len Wiseman. Same world, same rules, same clean staging. Choose it if you want more of the actual thing rather than a cousin.
Extraction (2020) is Sam Hargrave, a stunt coordinator turned director, working with Chris Hemsworth. Its centrepiece is a long sequence built to look like one continuous take through a city. It shares the stuntman-first sensibility. It is more chaotic than Wick and the story is thin, which you will notice between the fights.
Choreography from elsewhere
Ip Man (2008) is a Hong Kong biographical martial arts film with Donnie Yen as the Wing Chun master who taught Bruce Lee. It shares the pleasure of watching a genuine expert move, and Yen's fights are shot to be admired rather than survived. It is far more sentimental than anything else here. Choose it if you want craft without nihilism.
The Villainess (2017) is Jung Byung-gil's South Korean action film, and it opens with an extended first-person sequence that is one of the most technically insane things ever attempted in the genre. It shares the willingness to build a whole film around a staging idea. The plot is a mess. Watch it for the set pieces.
Kill (2023) is an Indian Hindi-language action thriller from Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, set almost entirely on a moving train. It shares the confined-space discipline of The Raid and the escalating brutality. It is the most purely nasty film on this list and it is superbly staged.
Monkey Man (2024) is Dev Patel's directing debut, an Indian revenge story with a class-anger engine underneath. It shares the vengeance structure and the practical fighting. It is shakier and closer-in than Wick, which some people will find frustrating, and it has more on its mind than any other film here.
Two adjacent picks
Haywire (2011) is Steven Soderbergh casting mixed martial artist Gina Carano and shooting her fights with no score, no cutting and a locked-off camera. It shares the exact principle in its most stripped-down form. It is a cold, flat film by design and not everyone enjoys it.
Dredd (2012), written by Alex Garland and directed by Pete Travis, is a one-building siege with Karl Urban and a slow-motion visual conceit that is used for meaning rather than for cool. It shares the vertical siege structure with The Raid, which came out the same year and led to a lot of arguments.
Where to start
If you want the best-shot action film of the last twenty years, watch The Raid. If you want something that feels closest to Wick in tone and world, watch Ballerina, then Atomic Blonde. If you want to laugh, Nobody. If you want to watch a master at work with no cynicism attached, Ip Man. And if you want to see how far this can be pushed before it stops being fun, Kill.
If you would rather have the shortlist built for you, BingeNext for movies takes a couple of films you loved and returns a ranked set of picks, each with a one-line reason and where it streams. A run takes about a minute, and the first one a day needs no account.
Topics covered: action, thriller, stylish, choreography, neo-noir, blockbuster
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.