Loved Spider-Noir? 5 TV Shows to Watch Next

Since first appearing on screen in 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” the trench-coated, 1930s detective incarnation of Spider-Man has felt tailor-made for a live-action spotlight. That finally arrived this year with Prime Video’s “Spider-Noir,” which brings Nicolas Cage back to the role he voiced in the “Spider-Verse” films. The result is pretty much what fans would hope for: a superhero action series wrapped in a shadowy film noir mystery, steeped so deeply in old Hollywood style that the entire season can be viewed in black and white. If you’re choosing between the color and black-and-white versions, the latter is the better fit. The deliberately awkward “colorized” presentation may be period-accurate in spirit, but it is not nearly as pleasing to watch.

All eight episodes of “Spider-Noir” Season 1 arrived in May, and the show wasted no time making an impression. In its first week, it ranked as the third most-watched streaming series across all platforms. Even as other high-profile Prime Video titles — including “Off Campus,” “Every Year After,” and “Your Fault: London” — have generated plenty of conversation since then, “Spider-Noir” has remained a strong performer on the streamer’s charts. Viewers are clearly still finding it, while others may be going back for a second pass in whichever visual format they skipped the first time.

Of course, once you’ve burned through the season — maybe more than once — the question becomes what to watch while waiting for more. A second season of “Spider-Noir” has not yet been confirmed, so fans looking for a similar mood will have to turn elsewhere for now. The good news is that there are several shows that scratch a comparable itch, whether through crime-soaked atmosphere, pulp-inspired storytelling, or heroes who operate in the shadows.

“Batman: The Animated Series” may not be set in the 1930s, but it often feels like it could be. The landmark animated show leans heavily into noir imagery, from its nighttime cityscapes and dimly lit interiors to the fact that Batman is, at his core, a detective as much as a superhero. Its visual identity draws strongly from 1930s and 1940s film noir and art deco design, creating a timeless Gotham City where vintage architecture and modern technology sit side by side. That retro-futuristic quality gives the series a kinship with “Spider-Noir,” even though the two approach the style in different ways.

What makes that even more impressive is that “Batman: The Animated Series” was, technically, made for children — many of whom likely had little context for the classic cinema influences baked into its look and tone. Still, the show worked because it never relied on atmosphere alone. It was thrilling, stylish, and emotionally sharp, balancing comic book spectacle with a brooding sense of danger that made it stand out from nearly everything else in animated television at the time.

The series also gave the DC universe one of its most enduring creations: Harley Quinn, voiced by Arleen Sorkin, who made her debut here before becoming a pop culture fixture in her own right. And then there is Batman himself. Thanks in large part to the late Kevin Conroy’s definitive vocal performance, this version of the Dark Knight remains one of the greatest animated superheroes ever put on screen.

The 2020 version of “Perry Mason” is not the polished courtroom drama many viewers associate with the character. Oddly enough, that newer take is set further in the past than the classic 1957 series, which unfolded in its own then-contemporary era. HBO’s revival sends Mason back to his earlier roots as a private investigator in 1930s Los Angeles, using the period setting to craft a darker, rougher portrait of the famed legal mind. It is a long way from the near-untouchable attorney Raymond Burr played across decades of television.

That makes this “Perry Mason” especially appealing for viewers drawn to the hardboiled side of “Spider-Noir.” Matthew Rhys plays Mason as a recently divorced World War I veteran battling PTSD and trying to find his footing professionally. When a major case lands in his lap, it offers the possibility of a career-changing breakthrough — but the deeper he gets, the more dangerous and morally tangled the investigation becomes.

In an exclusive interview with Looper, the showrunners of “Perry Mason” told us that their version allowed viewers to know the character on a far more personal level than any previous adaptations. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) only got to spend his debut solo movie — “Captain America: The First Avenger” — in his own time, the 1940s. From then on, we’ve only seen him in the present (more or less), which is disappointing for those who enjoyed the uniqueness that the period brought to the MCU. Enter “Agent Carter,” which aired for two seasons on ABC and followed Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) as she continued to live and work in the 1940s after what she thought was Steve’s death.

Carter becomes a secret agent for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), the precursor to S.H.I.E.L.D. The show leans heavily into its time period setting, looking not unlike a mid-20th century spy show only with modern production values. “Agent Carter” was praised at the time for how much it felt like it was made on a movie budget rather than a TV budget, something we take for granted now as that applies to pretty much all superhero shows these days — “Spider-Noir” included.

Atwell has said she would love to make a Peggy Carter movie, and while that unfortunately doesn’t look likely at this point, she will at least finally bring the character back to the big screen later this year in “Avengers: Doomsday.”

As Marvel went all-in on epic, largely family-friendly adventures on the big screen in the mid-2010s, something very different was happening on Netflix. In 2015, “Daredevil” debuted, a TV show that followed Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), blind lawyer by day and blind vigilante by night. As the persona that would later become known as Daredevil, Matt spends his off hours using his fists to administer the justice that going through the proper channels of the legal system often fails to achieve.

“Daredevil” took full advantage of both being on Netflix and also not having to adhere to the same content guidelines as mainline MCU projects — there was blood, there was cursing, and there was very explicit death. The show eventually paved the way for the entire Defenders franchise, which included “Jessica Jones,” “Iron Fist,” “Luke Cage,” and “The Punisher.” But “Daredevil” is the most similar to “Spider-Noir” in that it’s about straddling that line between legal and not-so-legal methods of taking down criminals — with much of the latter also taking place in dark, rain-soaked urban alleyways.

In our review of Season 1 of “Daredevil: Born Again,” the revival series that came to Disney+ in 2025, we proclaimed that the character was “back and better than ever.” Definitely watch that series too, but start with the OG first. 

While Clive Owen used to do his best work on the big screen, television has been the more frequent recipient of his considerable talents in the 2010s and 2020s. From his Primetime Emmy-nominated performance in the HBO movie “Hemingway and Gellhorn” to starring in “The Knick” — one of the most rewatchable doctor shows of all time — Owen has really made a name for himself via prestige television. In 2025, he starred as legendary private eye Sam Spade in the miniseries “Monsieur Spade,” with critics on Rotten Tomatoes gushing, “Commanding the camera’s full attention amidst the French countryside, Clive Owen makes for a mesmerizingly craggy Sam Spade.”

Positioning itself as something of a sequel to the classic Sam Spade book and film “The Maltese Falcon,” “Monsieur Spade” picks things up about 20 years later in 1963, with Spade on vacation as he tries to enjoy a relaxing retirement. But when he hears that one of his old foes is back at it, Spade can’t help but don his detective hat and trench coat again in order to take him down.

Like the legendary movie it follows up, as well as all the other trailblazing noir films of the day, “Monsieur Spade” is a deliberate slow burn — like “Spider-Noir” — that takes its time and doesn’t dole out any more fights or car chases than it has to in telling its tightly-crafted mystery tale.