Television series

Constantine

Name: Constantine
Genre: Drama, Action, Horror
Released: 2014
Cast: Matt Ryan, Angélica Celaya, Charles Halford, Harold Perrineau, Lucy Griffiths

Other titles called Constantine: the 2005 film.

John Constantine is a demon-haunted exorcist with a cigarette habit and a gallows sense of humour, forced back into supernatural combat despite having written off his chances at redemption. This is moody, bloody procedural horror with genuine dread underneath the wisecracks—a show that understands that the worst monsters are sometimes the ones you make deals with. For fans of dark magic and anti-heroes who've earned their cynicism.

TVMaze rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy supernatural case-of-the-week stories powered by a cynical, foul-mouthed antihero who lies to everyone, including himself, and still gets the job done.

Skip it if the monster-of-the-week structure feels familiar and its tone swings between wry and bleak, so if you want a tightly plotted mythology with big stakes, it may feel thin.

What it asks of you: Thirteen hour-long episodes in a single season, a brisk pace and dread that leans on atmosphere more than gore; it binges easily across a couple of evenings.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Supernatural2005

Twenty-plus seasons of monster-of-the-week cases building into mythic stakes. The same DNA: brotherhood, damnation, sarcasm as a defence mechanism, and the question of whether you can save anyone if you can't save yourself.

But It's exhaustingly long and wildly uneven. The tone swings between camp and tragedy, and not always intentionally.

The Witcher2019

A witcher takes jobs nobody else will, morally compromised and weary. Henry Cavill carries a similar weight of exhaustion and dark humour, monster-slaying that circles back to bigger cosmic questions about choice and curse.

But The narrative structure is deliberately fractured in season one, and some find the tone inconsistent or the pacing slack.

Grimm2011

A detective discovers a hidden supernatural world layered beneath Portland. Like Constantine, it balances procedural casework with creeping dread, mixing folklore with real consequences, and stars an actor who can play bone-tired and sardonic.

But Earlier seasons can feel like standard police procedural beats. The mythology takes time to properly build.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Constantine

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Preacher2016

Both are protagonists whose damnation is personal and specific, not abstract. Both push through endless cosmic grotesquerie with sarcasm as ballast. Both ask if a damned man can still do good.

A twisted road-trip across America with a man bearing an impossible curse, chased by literal hell itself. Like Constantine, it's irreverent and violent and deeply concerned with damnation, faith, and whether you're worth saving. It swings wilder tonally—part grotesque comedy, part visceral horror—but the core obsession is identical.

But It's transgressive by design: graphic violence, crude humour, religious blasphemy. If Constantine felt too dark, this will feel exploitative. Some seasons lose focus.

Hellboy2004

Guillermo del Toro's adaptation captures that same occult aesthetic—a demon-blooded antihero in a shadowy agency fighting cosmic horror. Ron Perlman's weary charm and the visual grotesquerie will feel familiar.

But It's an older film with a different visual language. Some CGI has aged, and the humour is more overt.

The Invisible Man2020

Atmospheric, inventive horror about being hunted by something you can't see or fight conventionally. Like Constantine, it understands that true terror often has mundane human roots, and isolation is the sharpest blade.

But It's a slow-burn thriller, not action-packed. The confined spaces and silence might feel claustrophobic rather than gripping.

Midnight Mass2021

A miniseries of supernatural dread and genuine theological unease. It shares Constantine's interest in faith tested against darkness, faith weaponized, and whether redemption is even possible. Beautifully shot and genuinely unsettling.

But It's dialogue-heavy and philosophical rather than action-driven. Some will find it slow; others will find it pretentious.

The Magicians2015

Dark academia collides with high fantasy horror. It has Constantine's irreverent tone and refusal to make magic clean or safe—consequences are real, gods are real, and they don't care about your morality.

But The show can be tonally inconsistent, lurching between comedy and tragedy. Character arcs sometimes circle without progressing.

Penny Dreadful2014

Gothic horror built from literary monsters and real dread. Like Constantine, it treats the supernatural as genuinely dangerous, casts damaged people into impossible situations, and finds dark humour in hopelessness.

But It's deliberately slow and relies on mood over plot momentum. Some find it overwrought or repetitive across its seasons.

The Conjuring2013

A focused, taut haunting story with real craft behind the scares. The paranormal investigators feel lived-in and weary in ways that echo Constantine's exhaustion with the endless parade of darkness.

But It's mainstream horror rather than occult-focused, and more concerned with jump-scares than mythology or philosophical weight.

The Lighthouse2019

Both use the occult not for spectacle but as a lens on men broken by knowledge they can't unknow. Constantine's struggle with his soul has the same structure as the lighthouse keeper's descent: inevitable, inescapable, poisoning everything.

Two men trapped in cosmic isolation, one of them descending into obsession and madness, wrestling with something older and meaner than themselves. It's black-and-white, claustrophobic, hallucinatory horror built on dread and despair—no action sequences, just the weight of being unmade by forces you can't fight. Thematically it's about damnation as a state of mind.

But It's a two-character chamber piece in harsh monochrome. If you want plot or straightforward narrative, this is incomprehensible. It's mood as content.