What shows are in The Boys universe? The complete list, in the order to watch them

Eric Kripke's superhero satire wrapped on 20 May 2026 after five seasons and 40 episodes. What it leaves behind is a small, oddly shaped franchise: three finished shows, two announced ones, and a running argument about which animated shorts count.

There are currently three released series — The Boys, The Boys Presents: Diabolical, and Gen V — plus two in the pipeline: the 1950s prequel Vought Rising, due 2027, and The Boys: Mexico, still in development. That's 64 released episodes in total.

The order to watch them

Release order and story order are almost the same thing here, with one wrinkle: Gen V slots between seasons of the parent show and feeds directly into them.

Read more: Which The Boys actors were in Supernatural? The list runs into double figures — and season 5 put three of them in one scene

• The Boys, seasons 1–2 (2019–2020) — 16 episodes. Start here. Season 1 landed on 26 July 2019.
• Diabolical (2022) — three of the eight shorts are canon. Watch them before season 3.
• The Boys, season 3 (2022) — Soldier Boy arrives, and Diabolical's finale has already done half the setup.
• Gen V, season 1 (September–November 2023) — 8 episodes, ending on a cliffhanger that season 4 picks up.
• The Boys, season 4 (June–July 2024) — Homelander consolidates power.
• Gen V, season 2 (17 September – 22 October 2025) — 8 episodes, and required reading for the final season.
• The Boys, season 5 (8 April – 20 May 2026) — 8 episodes, ending with the 65-minute finale "Blood and Bone", which also screened in 4DX cinemas the night before.

Diabolical, and the three shorts that count

The animated anthology dropped all eight episodes at once on 4 March 2022, each 13 to 15 minutes, each with a different animation style and writing team — Seth Rogen, Andy Samberg, Awkwafina, Aisha Tyler and Garth Ennis among them.

Kripke later confirmed on Twitter that only three are canon: "Nubian vs Nubian", "John and Sun-Hee", and the finale, "One Plus One Equals Two". The last is the one that matters — Homelander's first mission as a public hero, an accidental massacre, and the beginning of his arrangement with Black Noir. Elisabeth Shue and Giancarlo Esposito return to voice Madelyn Stillwell and Stan Edgar.

Five of the eight shorts are officially non-canon. Simon Pegg voices Hughie in one of them, a role he was too old to play in live action. Watch them anyway.

Gen V, cancelled with the story half-told

Set at Godolkin University, Vought's superhero-only college, Gen V ran two seasons and 16 episodes before Prime Video pulled the plug on 24 April 2026 — six months after the season 2 finale. Season 2's three-episode premiere pulled 424 million minutes viewed and reached number 8 on Nielsen's streaming originals chart, then dropped off sharply.

"While we wish we could keep the party going another season at Godolkin," Kripke and Evan Goldberg said in a statement to Variety in April 2026.

The characters were folded into The Boys season 5 instead, which is roughly where season 2's finale had left them anyway — expelled and recruited into the resistance.

Vought Rising and The Boys: Mexico

Vought Rising, announced on 26 July 2024, is a 1950s-set murder mystery about the company's origins, with Jensen Ackles back as Soldier Boy and Stormfront appearing under her earlier name, Clara Vought. Paul Grellong showruns. Filming began in August 2025 and wrapped by March 2026, with Mason Dye, Elizabeth Posey, Will Hochman, Cecily Strong and Mark Pellegrino attached. Prime Video is targeting 2027.

The Boys: Mexico was announced first, on 28 November 2023, with Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal executive producing and Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer scripting. It will shoot on location in Mexico. Beyond that, nothing — though Gen V season 2 did drop an Easter egg placing Thomas Godolkin at Vought's Mexico City office, which suggests somebody is still thinking about it.

Earlier we wrote: Spider-Noir got the axe — now four Spider-Man series are in the works