What to Watch After The Boys Finale: 7 Shows & Movies to Fill Your Brutal Superhero Void

Billy Butcher is not the first role in which Karl Urban has played a gruff and gritty vigilante looking to take justice into his own hands. Before The Boys, Urban played the titular character in 2012’s Dredd, and while he didn’t really speak much, he nailed the physicality of this no-nonsense, highly-skilled lawman.

The film is set in a disgusting dystopian future, where drugs and crime are more prevalent than ever, while martial law is essentially in effect, leading to an ongoing and incredibly violent conflict between The Judges protecting the streets, and the criminals exploiting the chaos. It’s a slick and stylish film that’s well worth the £2.49 rental fee you’ll need to pay on YouTube.

I’ll always go to bat for Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen. It’s astounding that he was even able to produce a coherent movie from Alan Moore’s source material, given the immense scale and absurdity of the story at hand, but somehow, it works. It’s bold, brash, graphic, and goes balls to the wall to achieve Moore’s vision.

As a film full of superheroes behaving badly, it’s very much in line with The Boys. And, if you watch the movie and feel like you need more, there’s also a Watchmen TV show for you to invest your time into, which is equally as interesting.

Just as violent, but ever-so-slightly less adult in its themes, Kick-Ass is the ideal replacement for The Boys if you’re not looking for anything too heavy. It’s a great coming-of-age story wrapped in vigilantism and crimefighting, with superbly choreographed action sequences and fun, original characters.

With the flair of Matthew Vaughn’s directorial style, and stars like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nic Cage, and a young Chloe Grace Moretz in front of the camera, this film is effortlessly engaging,  drawing on recognised tropes without ever feeling tired or cliché. There’s also a second movie, Kick-Ass 2, which is just as entertaining.

Same year, same vibe: Super is the sophomore movie from James Gunn, proving early on that he had what it takes to craft a compelling, comedic, yet hard-hitting superhero movie. Starring Rainn Wilson as an unorthodox and very unprepared vigilante, this is a heartwarming story of revenge and justice that still has a ton of incredibly violent moments.

You’ll also find a bunch of Gunn favourites, like Michael Rooker, Kevin Bacon, and Nathan Fillion, so it’s perfect for anyone who’s a fan of his Guardians of the Galaxy movies. You can catch this film on Rakuten TV for free.

If you’ve been watching The Boys, it’s safe to assume that you have a Prime Video subscription, so you may as well move on to Invincible next anyway. Thanks to it being animated, this show can take the gore and brutality to the next level – just wait until you get to the Season 1 finale if you don’t believe me.

There are four seasons of Invincible out so far, with lots of intersecting storylines to get stuck into, from the trials and tribulations of a teenage superhero (think Spider-Man but more complex) to intergalactic warlords trying to take over Earth. You’ll have to be ready to get into this show for the long haul, but it’s totally worth the investment of time.

Almost 40 years ago, Paul Verhoeven delivered a startlingly prescient study of what happens when law enforcement goes too far. RoboCop addresses lots of similar themes to The Boys, like the idea of unchecked power and corporate malfeasance, and it’s just as horrifyingly brutal, if not more so.

I watched this movie for the first time just a couple of years ago, and it genuinely blew me away. Not only is it relentless in terms of intensity and narrative flow, but it’s also got some really cool practical effects that hold up to this day.

If you’re tuned into superhero content right now, I’m sure you’ll be well aware of Daredevil: Born Again, which has just wrapped up a fantastic second season on Disney+. With the corrupt Mayor Wilson Fisk operating on a similar wavelength to Homelander in this new series, The Boys fans will get a lot of what they’re now missing out on.

If you want the more hard-hitting, brutal, and slick version of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, though, you need to tune into Marvel’s Daredevil instead, which originally streamed on Netflix in 2015. Free from the constraints of Disney’s slightly more family-friendly approach, this show left nothing on the table, delivering heavy blow after heavy blow in raw, unrelenting fight scenes episode after episode.