Shows Like The Equalizer
If you loved The Equalizer's Action & Adventure and Crime storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks

Burn Notice
A formerly blacklisted spy uses his unique skills and training to help people in desperate situations.

The Old Man
Dan Chase absconded from the CIA decades ago and now lives off the grid. When an assassin arrives and tries to take Chase out, the old operative learns that to ensure his future he now must reconcile his past.

Stingray
Ray is an enigmatic adventurer with no traceable past who travels from place to place fighting crime and helping people in trouble. He refuses to be paid for his services; however, those seeking his assistance must promise him a favor.

Covert Affairs
A young CIA operative, Annie Walker, is mysteriously summoned to headquarters for duty as a field operative. While Annie believes she's been promoted for her exceptional linguistic skills, there may be something or someone from her past that her CIA bosses are really after. Auggie Anderson is a CIA military intelligence agent who was blinded while on assignment and is Annie's guide in this world of bureaucracy, excitement and intrigue.

The Sweeney
Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

Starsky & Hutch
Streetwise Detective David Starsky partners up with a more intellectual partner, Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson, to protect citizens and patrol the streets of Bay City.

Danger Man
Danger Man is a British television series which was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the programme and wrote many of the scripts. Danger Man was financed by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.

Human Target
It takes a brave, selfless man to make himself a "human target" in order to save the lives of those in danger. Based on the popular DC Comics comic book and graphic novel, Human Target is a full-throttle action drama centered on Christopher Chance, a unique private contractor/security expert/bodyguard hired to protect.
More Shows Like The Equalizer

Banshee: Origins
Banshee: Origins is a series of webisodes based on the American drama television series produced by Cinemax called Banshee. The series offers flashbacks in-between the time where Lucas Hood was arrested and when Sheriff Lucas Hood first arrived in Banshee.

Transporter: The Series
The adventures of professional transporter Frank Martin, who can always be counted on to get the job done—discreetly. Operating in a seedy underworld of dangerous criminals and desperate players, his three rules are: Never change the deal, no names, and never open the package. Occasionally, complications arise and rules get broken.

Cannon
Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976. The primary protagonist is the title character, private detective Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad. He also appeared on two episodes of Barnaby Jones. Cannon is the first Quinn Martin-produced series to be aired on a network other than ABC. A "revival" television film, The Return of Frank Cannon, was aired on November 1, 1980. In total, there were 124 episodes.

The New Avengers
The New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.

Reacher
Jack Reacher, a veteran military police investigator, has just recently entered civilian life. Reacher is a drifter, carrying no phone and the barest of essentials as he travels the country and explores the nation he once served.

Breakout Kings
Driven by the fact that there are few things more dangerous than a prisoner who has just escaped, and tired of following protocol and resorting to outdated methods of law enforcement, veteran U.S. Marshals Charlie Duchamp and Ray Zancanelli are taking an unorthodox approach to their work: using former fugitives to catch fugitives.

Taken
The origin story of younger, hungrier, former Green Beret Bryan Mills as he deals with a personal tragedy that shakes his world. As he fights to overcome the incident and exact revenge, Mills is pulled into a career as a deadly CIA operative, a job that awakens his very particular, and very dangerous, set of skills.

Almost Paradise
A former DEA agent forced into early retirement runs a gift shop in in the Philippines. Despite his best efforts to begin a tranquil new life, he’s pulled back into a world of dangerous people and deadly situations, either through his friends in the local police department or running into people from his old life. And the problem is: he likes it.

Dark Blue
Wandering in and out of he underbelly of Los Angeles, where criminals roam free under the veil of night or hide in the shadows of day, is routine for Lieutenant Carter Shaw and his special undercover task force. This team understands that to bring down a criminal, one must first get on their level.

Alex Rider
Alex Rider is an ordinary teenager enlisted to work on behalf of MI6, where he uses skills he didn't know he had to become an extraordinary spy.

Agent X
Hidden from the view of the public - and even from the President - there is a top secret agent who is trained and ready to serve, deployed only at the careful discretion of the Vice President.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with The Equalizer (1985): Action & Adventure and Crime themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of The Equalizer.
See full details for The Equalizer (1985)
