2024 action movies: A guide to the year’s most explosive releases (and where to stream them)

It is a rainy weekend here in New York City. That means it is the perfect time to sit back, turn on the TV, and get lost in a great show. While there are hundreds of newer series you could jump into on Netflix, Prime, Paramount, Hulu, Max, Apple TV, etc., I think it is more appropriate to look at the show that paved the way for all of them: 24. And let’s not forget the main character, who created the on-screen template for characters like Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan, and James Reece, Jack Bauer.

Is it a little overdramatic to say that 24 and Jack Bauer paved the way, or built the template, for the series we love today? Maybe. Is it entirely appropriate to attribute that overdramatic thought to a show that is by and large overdramatic? Absolutely. But here is the truth that any 24 fan will tell you: there are a handful of things commonplace today in the television landscape that weren’t that way until this series did them. And there was never a television character like Jack Bauer, until Jack Bauer made everyone want more characters like Jack Bauer. Do you see what I am saying? No? Ok, fine, here are four ways the series and its lead changed TV forever.

Guys need to read more. Every time I start doomscrolling on TikTok or Instagram, the BookTok world is almost exclusively curated for women. That is why we need to start pushing our love for the bang-bang shoot-’em-ups. The debonair spy. The man on his own, cut off from all help, with only his skills and his wits to help him overcome the obstacles between him and his mission. As men, we love these escapes from the mundane lives and diving into the hero fantasy we all have. When women talk about the mental load they carry every day, men are usually creating our own mental load with safety and security: “What would I do if someone attacked from here? Or there?” Really, what we’re asking is, “What would Jason Bourne do?”

I tend to live in this place in my head when I need to escape from the world, but it is more fun to read about it. As the weather begins to turn and our evenings and weekends are colder and darker, we need something to occupy our time to get us from now until we can escape to the great outdoors in the spring. Here are some action and adventure book recommendations to get your heart going and quench that hero fantasy without doing anything dangerous.

This is not a knock on public school. I went to public school. I liked public school. There is a system of life training built into the social fabric of school where we learn a lot about ourselves and the lives we are about to live. But the truth is we don’t learn a lot about life from the actual curriculum in the classroom. We learn that Paul Revere rode through the streets to alarm everyone that the British were coming. We learned that A squared plus B squared equals C squared. We even learned what an electron is. But there are precious little practical life lessons you can take with you. For me, I picked a lot of those through movies (a lot of parents are shaking their heads right now, but don’t knock it completely; there is a lot you can learn from movie perspectives) and my time in the United States Army.

The military teaches you a ton of practical life skills that will elevate your life when applied to your day-to-day. Here are five of them with a couple bonuses at the end.