10 Best TV Shows Like SEAL Team

When it comes to military action thrillers on television, few shows did it as consistently well as “SEAL Team.” Running for seven seasons from 2017 to 2024, the show follows an elite Navy SEAL team deployed on high-stakes missions around the world. Between these explosive assignments, the series explores the impact of the team’s work on their personal lives back home. Nearly two years after its conclusion on Paramount+, “SEAL Team” has reached new audiences on Netflix, giving the military action show something of a resurgence.

For those who have binged all of “SEAL Team” and are looking for something similar, there are plenty of military and espionage thrillers that scratch the same itch. Many feature missions at home and abroad, tactical action, and characters balancing dangerous work with complicated domestic lives. Others approach the genre from different angles while delivering the same kind of high-stakes suspense. These are the 10 best TV shows like “SEAL Team,” each bringing its own brand of high-octane action to television.

“24” helped set the bar for modern action thrillers on television, thanks in large part to its no-nonsense protagonist Jack Bauer. Played by Kiefer Sutherland, Bauer is a counterterrorism specialist who finds himself taking point on resolving crises that involve national security. The show’s titular gimmick is that each season unfolds over the course of a 24-hour period, with each episode playing out in real time. While the early seasons devote considerable attention to the impact of Bauer’s career on his personal life, the series increasingly emphasizes the conspiracies and counterterrorism crises surrounding him.

Sutherland brings a gravelly voice and steely intensity to Bauer, while the show’s real-time format gives virtually every crisis a built-in sense of urgency. Those qualities make “24” an easy recommendation for “SEAL Team” fans looking for another action thriller driven by high-pressure missions and personal stakes. In late 2025, Kiefer Sutherland shared an update on a potential “24” revival, keeping alive the possibility that he could return as Jack Bauer once again.

After working together on “The Wire,” David Simon and Ed Burns teamed up with author Evan Wright for the 2008 HBO limited series “Generation Kill.” The seven-episode series adapts Wright’s experiences working as an embedded journalist with U.S. Marines during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Lee Tergesen plays Wright, who accompanies First Recon’s Bravo Company and rides in a lead vehicle with Sergeant Brad Colbert (Alexander Skarsgård) as the Marines advance from Kuwait into Iraq. The story culminates as the unit reaches Baghdad and confronts the scale of the challenges facing both the Marines and the Iraqi population.

True to its source material, “Generation Kill” isn’t flashy in its presentation of modern warfare but is much more frank in its depiction of life on the front. Its Marines aren’t presented as cinematic action heroes with impossibly perfect accuracy and well-timed one-liners, but as soldiers dealing with combat, confusion, and the realities of their assignment. That gives the entire series a documentary-like immediacy at times, favoring grounded realism while still featuring wartime violence. One of the best war shows in TV history, “Generation Kill” places audiences right in the thick of things alongside Wright.

“The Unit” deserves more recognition for what it brought to the modern military-action genre. Premiering in 2006, the show centers on a top-secret Army special operations team led in the field by Jonas Blane (Dennis Haysbert). Like “SEAL Team,” the show alternates between high-stakes missions around the globe and the impact that dangerous work has on its characters’ lives back home. Haysbert anchors the military ensemble throughout the series, which came to a close with its fourth season in 2009.

Other than the obvious military branch differences, “The Unit” distinguishes itself from “SEAL Team” in how it handles its action set pieces. Whereas there’s a greater emphasis on tactical authenticity in “SEAL Team,” “The Unit” leans more into cinematic action, more in line with contemporaries like “24.” But differences in how it stages its thrilling moments aside, the 2006 series strikes a similar balance between the team’s dangerous assignments and the challenges awaiting them at home. With that combination of covert operations, globe-spanning stakes, and domestic drama, “The Unit” should be an easy addition to any “SEAL Team” fan’s watchlist.

For a British twist on the military action thriller genre, the 2010 series “Strike Back” entertained fans for eight seasons. The show centers on Section 20, a top-secret British intelligence unit conducting missions in crisis zones around the world. The series doesn’t downplay the danger and unpredictability of its premise, with main characters getting killed off and the cast rotating accordingly. The action is appropriately explosive, mixing conventional tactical set pieces with more overtly high-octane spectacle reminiscent of pulse-pounding ’80s fare.

“Strike Back” knows exactly what it is, following gruff and good-looking people into one dangerous situation after another. There’s plenty of violence and personal drama to keep viewers invested between missions. Where the show excels, both on the battlefield and in its quieter moments, is the camaraderie among the members of Section 20. A series that gets down to bullet-fueled business, “Strike Back” knows how to deliver the fast-paced action its audience came for.

Few espionage thrillers have matched “Homeland” when it comes to labyrinthine plotting and major twists. The show has CIA counterterrorism specialist Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) suspect Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) of being turned by al-Qaeda while held in captivity. As Carrie investigates Brody, she finds herself getting too personally close to the case, putting her increasingly in harm’s way. More than just a backroom political thriller, the show also puts its main characters in global hotspots as the scope of Carrie’s work changes across the series.

“Homeland” builds much of its early suspense around whether Carrie’s suspicions about Brody are justified. The thrill is seeing her try to prove that he has been turned while her methods and judgment are repeatedly called into question. After the Brody story arc is resolved, the show pivots to other shadowy conspiracies, with some of the best “Homeland” seasons being in its later years. Easily one of the best Showtime shows of all time, “Homeland” gets viewers guessing how the story is going to unfold next, keeping them on the edge of their seats.

In regard to military action thrillers that deserve more attention, another series that should make that list is the short-lived “The Brave.” Airing on NBC for a single season after premiering in 2017, the show follows DIA Deputy Director Patricia Campbell (Anne Heche) and the elite Special Ops team she supports from Washington, D.C. Missions involve everything from the search and recovery of a crashed spy drone in China to a rescue operation in Syria.

Debuting in the same year as “SEAL Team” and “S.W.A.T.,” “The Brave” felt like the odd show out by comparison. Its premise juxtaposed battlefield action with intelligence-agency analysis, but the series never found the same staying power as its contemporaries. Unfortunately, “The Brave” was not renewed for a second season by NBC. But across the 13 episodes it did receive, “The Brave” knew how to weave compelling military thriller action within the bounds of network television.

Much more high-octane in its stakes than other police procedurals airing on network television, “S.W.A.T.” always put a bigger emphasis on action. The 2017 series centers on Hondo Harrelson (Shemar Moore), who leads a S.W.A.T. unit within the Los Angeles Police Department. The team handles violent crime situations around the City of Angels, while the ensemble’s complex personal lives are explored in their quieter moments. Right from the series’ start, the show has a clear social message, particularly in regard to ongoing tension between the police and the communities that they serve.

Moore brings plenty of intensity to his central performance as Hondo, handling both the show’s action sequences and its more dramatic moments. This, along with the series’ emphasis on action over standard procedural crime-solving, gives “S.W.A.T.” plenty in common with “SEAL Team” despite its law-enforcement setting. Following the conclusion of the main series in 2025, Hondo is set to return in “S.W.A.T.: Exiles” premiering on Starz on September 25, 2026. The spin-off has already been renewed for a second season ahead of its debut.

Tom Clancy’s most prolific literary hero Jack Ryan takes center stage in the Prime Video series bearing his name. Premiering in 2018, the show stars John Krasinski as Ryan, a veteran Marine and an analyst rising through the ranks of the CIA. More than just staying in the safety of a stuffy office, Ryan often finds himself in the field in hotspots around the globe. While the show does reposition Ryan as more of an action-oriented figure, it still retains his analytical approach to defusing international crises.

“Jack Ryan” leans into Krasinski’s everyman charms and wry sense of humor rather than turning him into a super-spy. The globe-trotting action is still definitely present, but the show keeps Ryan grounded even as he finds himself in high-octane scenarios. That evolution also informs Ryan’s arc across the four-season series, as he rises from an analyst to the CIA’s acting deputy director. A Prime Video series without a single bad season, “Jack Ryan” offers a well-rounded take on Tom Clancy’s fan-favorite protagonist.

Chris Pratt doubles down on his action hero fare with the 2022 Prime Video original series “The Terminal List.” Pratt plays James Reece, a Navy SEAL officer who barely survives a disastrous covert mission in Syria that results in an ambush that kills most of his team. As Reece tries to determine what actually happened, he finds himself targeted, with his family caught in the shadowy crossfire. This uncovers a whole conspiracy, with Pratt bringing a single-minded intensity to Reece as the soldier embarks on a one-man rampage against those who wronged him.

To date, “The Terminal List” is one of the grimmest projects that Pratt has headlined, really delving into unrelentingly dark territory. That also makes it one of the most action-heavy shows on this list, as Reece blasts, cuts, and maims his way to bloody vengeance. “The Terminal List” went on to receive a prequel series, “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf,” which follows Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch) before the events of the original show and also features Pratt as a younger Reece. A revenge thriller with an emphasis on military action and sinister conspiracies, “The Terminal List” thrives in its bleak violence.

Filling the military action void on Paramount+ left by the end of “SEAL Team” is “Lioness,” part of Taylor Sheridan’s growing line of TV shows. Debuting in 2023, the show stars Zoe Saldaña as Joe McNamara, a CIA case officer who oversees the Lioness program, placing female operatives undercover near high-value targets. Supporting the program are Joe’s CIA supervisor Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) and the agency’s deputy director Byron Westfield (Michael Kelly). In this series, the action set pieces are just as tautly staged as the backroom maneuvering within the government, effectively blending the two.

Saldaña brings considerable intensity to the role of McNamara, whether she is operating in the field or navigating the pressures of her life back home. The series pairs large-scale action with the intelligence gathering and maneuvering surrounding the Lioness program, a balance that only got stronger as it found its voice, with “Lioness” becoming one of the best shows of 2024. The series returned for Season 3 in August 2026, giving “SEAL Team” fans another ongoing source of military action on Paramount+.