Sometimes the best government operatives are the ones who initially seem ill-suited for the job. Such is the case in Netflix’s “The Recruit,” which sees rookie CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) get in way over his head when an asset from Eastern Europe threatens to go rogue.
The spy genre has a long history of bumbling agents, from “Get Smart” to “The Naked Gun,” and there’s something charming about someone who seems like they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time somehow managing to save the day. The first season of “The Recruit” was so popular on Netflix that it earned a second season almost immediately and it’s streaming now. After you’ve binged season 2, here are more shows like “The Recruit” you can stream.
‘Slow Horses’
Although “Slow Horses” takes place in the United Kingdom and involves members of MI-6 rather than their American CIA counterparts, there are still plenty of similarities to “The Recruit.” Its lead characters are not exactly MI5’s best and brightest — in fact, the show revolves around a sort of dumping ground for spies who have made major mistakes and need a little bit of a time-out to think about what they’ve done — like Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright — or those they deem too incompetent for proper espionage responsibilities. With Gary Oldman having the time of his life as the slovenly head of Slough House Jackson Lamb and intelligent writing that allows showrunners to churn out new seasons at a steady click without sacrificing quality, “Slow Horses” is one of the best shows currently on TV.
►Watch on Apple TV Plus
‘Black Doves’
Netflix may be churning out a lot of forgettable unscripted shows these days, but they’re also knocking it out of the park when it comes to binge-able thrillers. Case in point: “Black Doves.” Keira Knightley stars as Helen, a woman with connections high up in the British government whose position as an intelligence operative — and her family’s personal safety — is put in jeopardy after her lover is mysteriously killed. With Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire rounding out the main cast, “Black Doves” was always going to be a tremendously well-acted show, but it also captivates audiences with its considerable thrills. It was renewed for a second season in December 2024, before season 1 even premiered.
►Watch on Netflix
‘The Night Agent’
“The Night Agent” has a lot in common with “The Recruit”: its lead, Peter Sutherland, (Gabriel Basso) works at an intelligence agency, but isn’t the kind of person who you imagine ever getting mixed up in real spy work. But one night, while manning a top-secret emergency line, Peter gets a call that sucks him into a major international conspiracy, one that goes all the way to the top. As he carries out an assignment to protect a young woman (Luciane Buchanan) whose life is in danger, the web of deceit threatens to ensnare him, and it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust. With two seasons out and a third announced, it’s clear that Netflix has found a winner with “The Night Agent.”
►Watch on Netflix
‘Condor’
Just like Owen, Joe Turner (Max Irons) is a nameless, faceless grunt in the CIA whose day-to-day work as an analyst is as far from international espionage as any other 9-5 office drone. At least, until the day when he comes back to his office, finds all of his coworkers murdered, and has to go on the run to avoid getting whacked himself. Don’t you hate it when that happens? “Condor,” based on the same novel that inspired the 1975 film “Three Days of the Condor” starring Robert Redford, is a high-octane thriller that originally premiered on Audience, but was picked up by Epix (now MGM Plus) for its second and final season.
►Watch on MGM Plus
‘Bodyguard’
For some reason, there’s a really thin line between espionage thrillers and erotic thrillers, and “Bodyguard” stands right at the edge. Richard Madden, best known for his work as Robb Stark on “Game of Thrones,” stars as David, a soldier-turned-police-officer who is given the assignment of serving as bodyguard for Britain’s home secretary (Keeley Hawes). As terrorist plots intensify, so do their emotions. Although they have completely opposing political beliefs and kind of can’t stand each other, they’re also wildly attracted to one another. Which makes things … well, complicated. Although the series only ran for one season, it got plenty of awards attention: it was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series at the Emmys, and Richard Madden took home a Golden Globe for his captivating performance as David.
►Watch on Netflix
‘Treason’
“Treason” is pretty much the definition of a tangled web. Adam (Charlie Cox) is a high-ranking operative within British intelligence, whose experience and talent have his career rapidly on the rise. But his life becomes considerably more complicated when his boss is poisoned, he is temporarily placed in charge of MI-6, his Russian spy ex-lover turns up out of nowhere to reveal that she’s been engineering his precipitous career progression, and the CIA convinces his wife to start spying on him. Talk about a rough day at the office. Although “Treason” isn’t the sort of fast-paced action series that often goes hand-in-hand with spy drama, its slow-burn narrative will reward audiences who give it time to develop.
►Watch on Netflix
‘Chuck’
Before Zachary Levi was Shazam, he starred in the much-beloved spy comedy “Chuck.” Levi played a whip-smart but perpetually self-defeating computer expert whose life stalled after getting unjustly kicked out of Stanford. At the time the show begins, he’s just another member of the Nerd Herd at the Buy More computer goods store, saving the world one malfunctioning laptop at a time. But everything changes when he accidentally has the Intercept downloaded into his head, a repository of all top-secret government data that he sees in flashes whenever he comes across a name or image that triggers his programming. Over the course of five seasons, his journey from bumbling CIA asset to fully-fledged spy, alongside his government handlers played by Yvonne Strahovski and Adam Baldwin, won the hearts of fans — even if the finale was a masterclass in disappointment.
►Watch on Max
