11 Crime Thrillers Like The Blacklist to Watch While You Wait for Season 10

NBC's kooky crime drama The Blacklist will return for Season 10, which puts it among the longest-running shows on TV right now. It will hit its milestone 200th episode early in the season. Unfortunately for fans of the series, it won't be back this fall; it's going to premiere at midseason. That extended offseason means viewers will have to find other shows that satisfy that Blacklist craving until new episodes drop. The good news is that even though there's nothing exactly like The Blacklist, because only The Blacklist has James Spader as enigmatic criminal mastermind Raymond "Red" Reddington, there are plenty of shows kind of like The Blacklist.

Fans keep coming back year after year for the show's endless intriguing twists, its pulse-pounding action, and its charismatic characters we've come to care about over the course of the better part of a decade. It's the kind of addictive show that makes you want to watch more shows like it. Fortunately, there are a lot of shows like The Blacklist — and we've rounded them up for your streaming pleasure. The series below include action shows with a combination of serialized and purely episodic storytelling, a dynamic like the one between Red and Liz Keen (Megan Boone), a task force with funny sidekicks, and The Blacklist's most important ingredient, James Spader himself. 

The Blacklist Watch Season 9 on Peacock

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The Blacklist: Redemption

You may have forgotten by now, but The Blacklist briefly got a spin-off. The Blacklist: Redemption ran for one season in 2017. It followed Tom Keen (Ryan Eggold), shadowy covert operative and Liz's husband, as he teamed up with fellow Blacklisters Susan Hargrave (Famke Janssen), his mother who runs a mercenary business, and Matias Solomon (Edi Gathegi), as they take on cases where they're on the right side of the law. They're trying to get redemption for the bad things they did in their previous lives as career criminals. Redemption lacks the thing that made The Blacklist a success — James Spader — but it's still a fun thriller with a similar format to The Blacklist, and worth watching if you're a fan.

The Endgame

The Endgame and The Blacklist have nearly identical premises. On The Endgame, the head of a global criminal empire named Elena Federova (Morena Baccarin) turns herself in to the FBI in order to get closer to Agent Val Turner (Ryan Michelle Bathe), a morally and ethically upstanding agent to whom Federova has a mysterious connection. Federova and Turner work together to root out corrupt officials, while Turner tries to figure out what Federova really wants from her. Sounds like Red Reddington and Liz Keen (Megan Boone), doesn't it? The Endgame was canceled after one season, but it's still available on Peacock for Blacklist fans to check out. 

Blindspot

If you like The Blacklist, chances are you watched Blindspot, too, but if you didn't, it's definitely worth checking out. It's one of the shows most like The Blacklist on this list, in terms of overall vibe (and title). It was even paired with The Blacklist on NBC's schedule on several occasions throughout both shows' runs (Blindspot ended in 2020 after 100 episodes). Like The Blacklist, it's a show about an improbable ally helping the FBI solve crimes, in this case a tattooed amnesiac ass-kicker known only as Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander), who was found in a duffel bag in Times Square. Like The Blacklist and the "Who is Red Reddington?" question, the show gets a lot of mileage out of untangling Jane's mysterious identity. It's a twisty and action-packed conspiracy thriller with a quirky sense of humor.

Person of Interest

The Blacklist's core idea of a new bad guy each episode is shared by CBS' very underrated Person of Interest, in which an advanced artificial intelligence spits out the social security number of a person predicted to commit or be involved in a crime to a pair of dudes who investigate the situation and then act accordingly. Those two dudes are the Odd Couple pairing of computer nerd Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) and former secret op John Reese (Jim Caviezel), who forge one of TV's best bromances as the seasons go on. But beyond the basic procedural format, Person of Interest, from Westworld creator Jonathan Nolan, explores artificial intelligence and government corruption better than just about anything else. It's also disarmingly funny, features a great LGBTQ storyline, and features an adorable dog named Bear who will rip your throat out. 

Alias

If you're looking for another show with Russian spies, a shadowy criminal empire, and a complicated father/daughter dynamic, look no further than Alias. This action classic was created by J.J. Abrams and ran for five seasons between 2001 and 2006. It stars Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a CIA agent working undercover as a member of an elite criminal organization called SD-6. Her father, Jack (Victor Garber, one of the only actors who can match James Spader for idiosyncratic charisma), is also a CIA agent who's infiltrated SD-6, so espionage becomes a family affair. Along the way, Sydney falls in love with her handler Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan) and wears many, many wigs.

White Collar

Like The Blacklist, this is a "crook helps law enforcement" show. FBI Special Agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) makes a deal with con man Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer), a brilliant con artist the agent put behind bars, to do a sort of work-release program to help Burke and his team catch other white collar criminals. The six-season USA series has a similarly fun tone, a mix of standalone case-of-the-week episodes and season-long arcs, great guest stars, and a crack team helping the two main guys (shout-out to Mozzie [Willie Garson], Neal's partner in crime and law enforcement). 

Elementary

If you love watching a quirky guy be one step ahead of everybody all over New York (The Blacklist barely pretends that it's in D.C., where it's set, and not NYC, where it actually films), tuning in to this show should be Elementary. Jonny Lee Miller stars as a modern version of Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant but addiction-plagued English police consultant who offers his expertise to the NYPD alongside Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), who's originally hired to be his sober companion but eventually becomes his apprentice as it becomes clear her medical knowledge is useful and she has a talent for investigation. Their mentor-mentee relationship is sort of like Red and Liz's, without all the parent/child complications. It ran for seven seasons on CBS and wrapped up in 2019. 

Burn Notice

USA's breezy seven-season action drama has a lot in common with The Blacklist. It has an episodic case-of-the-week format and a quippy sense of humor, as well as broader season-long arcs about conspiracies that will be easily digestible for any Blacklist fan. The charming Jeffrey Donovan stars as Michael Westen, a CIA operative who is suddenly and without explanation blacklisted from the agency and sent home to Miami, where he has to work as an unlicensed private investigator to make ends meet while trying to figure out who burned him and why. It boasts arguably the most entertaining supporting character of any show on this list, Bruce Campbell's well-connected, wisecracking intelligence operative Sam Axe.

Boston Legal

The best part of The Blacklist is James Spader's performance as Raymond Reddington. He has a magnetic energy that's completely unique, and it's impossible to imagine the show without him. Boston Legal, the legal dramedy he led before The Blacklist, is very different than our beloved Blacklist, but no less Spaderific. He plays Alan Shore, a brilliant lawyer working for Denny Crane (William Shatner), the firm's founder and his best friend. Spader won three Emmys for playing Alan Shore -- once for The Practice, from which Boston Legal spun off, and twice for Boston Legal, which ultimately ran for five seasons on ABC.

Billions

Billions, Showtime's drama series about the ongoing personal and professional conflicts of attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and hedge fund titan Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), is the show least like The Blacklist on this list. It's hard to compare them on a plot level, but there's definitely a certain feeling both shows have. There are a few things contributing to that vibe, like the New York filming locations, the color palettes, the use of a lot of the same actors (at least seven people have appeared on both shows, including Amir Arison and Harry Lennix), and the unpredictable sense of double-crossy fun the shows share. Red Reddington just kinda feels like he could be a character on Billions. Like Bobby Axelrod, he sees and knows all, he just happens to do violent crimes in addition to white collar ones.

Shades of Blue

Jennifer Lopez and the late, great Ray Liotta starred in this NBC crime drama about corrupt NYPD cops that ran for three seasons from 2016 to 2018. It's much more grounded and gritty than the crazy adventures of Red Reddington, but the thing that makes it like The Blacklist is significant — the complicated surrogate father-daughter relationship between Harlee Santos (Lopez), a crooked detective who's become an FBI agent working undercover against her superior officer and beloved mentor, Lt. Matt Wozniak (Liotta). In the wake of Liotta's recent passing, it's worth revisiting this solid series. 

The Blacklist Seasons 1-8 are available on Netflix. Season 9 episodes are available to stream on Peacock.