There's nothing like a good action flick to get your heart pumping. Whether you're a fan of
traditional action fare or you prefer to sprinkle your action cinema with elements of fantasy,
horror, or even comedy, there's a little something for everyone just waiting to be
added to your queue. Here's a look at some of the hidden action gems you won't want to miss.
There's no such thing as a miracle cure, and our protagonist in the sci-fi/action thriller
Self/Less finds that out the hard way. The 2015 film features Sir Ben Kingsley as Damian Hale,
a billionaire who is diagnosed with terminal cancer but is offered a whole new lease on life
when he learns of the so-called "shedding" treatment. This secret medical operation
transfers his mind into a newer, healthier body, so when Damian wakes up, he finds himself with an
all-new physique, with Ryan Reynolds now portraying the revitalized Damian Hale.
The trouble is, this perfect body was not created in a laboratory, as Damian previously believed,
but instead belonged to a man whose memories begin to resurface when Damian fails to take
his prescribed medications. Damian learns that his body once belonged to a man named Mark,
who has a loving wife and child who are very much still alive.
Damian must then race against the clock to find out the truth of this novel "shedding" procedure
before Mark's mind either takes over, or fades from his body
altogether. Get ready for some serious existential thrills when you queue up Self/Less.
"Death has some side effects."
If revenge is sweet, then Peppermint ought to satisfy your sugar quota for an entire week.
The 2018 film features Jennifer Garner as Riley North, a woman whose life is shattered
when her husband and child are killed by the hitmen of a vicious drug boss.
Once it becomes clear her family's deaths will not be avenged by the legal system,
Riley then goes on the run for several years and only returns when she's ready to deliver
some long overdue punishment with her own hands.
"Do I have your attention?"
As Riley serves up some cold hard justice to those who wronged her, Peppermint rolls
seamlessly into a stylish action extravaganza, anchored by a strong performance from Garner.
There's something especially unnerving about a disaster movie that's based on a true story,
and the 2018 film Adrift features one of the most terrifying ordeals of all - being
lost at sea with no hope of rescue. Adrift stars Shailene Woodley as Tami,
a young woman who joins Sam Claflin's Richard Sharp on a voyage from Tahiti to San Diego.
It's all smooth sailing - until Hurricane Raymond comes along.
Tami wakes up to find herself alone on a battered boat, with no hope of rescue in sight. Even though
Tami is a novice at sailing, she'll have to take a deep dive inside herself to find the will
and the way to survive. Prepare for heart-pounding action-adventure if you set sail with Adrift.
For audiences who enjoy a little rom-com flair with their action-adventure stories, Mr. Right
is the movie for you. The 2015 film features Anna Kendrick as Martha McKay, a woman who is unlucky
in love until she meets Sam Rockwell's Francis Munch. The two have an instant connection, and
they oddly bond over their similar precognitive gifts for catching flying knives. Martha thinks
she may have finally found the one - until she finds out he's actually a violent hitman.
But Munch isn't just any old hired gun. He just so happens to be an ex-CIA agent and an ex-mercenary,
and some violent people are after him. Soon both he and Martha find themselves on the defensive, as
they have to find out what their new relationship is made of - the hard way. Mr. Right gives all-new
meaning to "fight or flight," so don't miss out on this thriller with some humor and heart.
"Yeah I think I'm in love with him. Is that stupid?"
"Yes. Hard yes."
No one plays a man on a dangerous mission in Europe quite like Liam Neeson. The actor stars
in Unknown as Dr. Martin Harris, a scientist whose business trip to Berlin gets very bizarre
very quickly. After a taxi accident leaves him unconscious for several days, he wakes up to
discover his wife has cozied up to another man who claims to be the real Dr. Martin Harris. Pretty
soon, the situation escalates from an unusual case of identity theft into a full-on caper involving
everything from an assassination attempt on a prince to a deadly group of international
terrorists. Action fans will definitely want to catch this head-spinning adventure.
This 2020 adaptation of the popular Double World video game tells a story in which a
delicate peace agreement between the two regions of a reimagined ancient China
is coming to a bitter end. Three champions from each clan across the kingdom are summoned to
compete in a tournament for the chance to become the kingdom's Grand Field Martial.
The film, which was directed by Hong Kong's Teddy Chen, is multi-layered,
and tells a story of honor, friendship, and one's ability to shape his or her own destiny. It's also
teeming with stunning landscapes, remarkable visual effects, and riveting fight scenes.
The 2019 martial arts film Triple Threat is stacked with talent and amazingly choreographed
action sequences. The film features Tony Jaa and Tiger Chen as a pair of ex-special forces
operatives who are hired by Michael Jai White's Devereaux to complete a humanitarian mission.
However, the operation is actually just a cover, and the plot gets pretty wild,
pretty fast. Scott Adkins and Iko Uwais also star.
"You're up to something."
"If you have a point to make, make it."
"Oh, I will when the time comes."
With its all-star lineup and some very slick fight scenes,
Triple Threat is a must-see for martial arts movie fans.
Taking place five years after the events of Inside Man, the 2019 sequel Most Wanted
centers on a new bank heist of the New York Federal Reserve. Roxanne McKee
stars as Ariella Barash, the ringleader of the operation who is ostensibly after the
bank's stash of gold but has another motivation for committing this crime.
Aml Ameen stars in the film as Remy Darbonne, an NYPD hostage negotiator
who joins a joint task force run by Rhea Seehorn's Dr. Brynn Stewart to rescue the
hostages of Ariella's heist. Together, the two discover the truth behind Ariella's robbery:
She has a family connection to Clive Owen's Dalton Russell,
the criminal mastermind of the first film. With its tense storyline and intriguing cast,
Inside Man: Most Wanted is a stirring follow-up to the classic action of the original.
"Listen, I gotta call you something."
"Call me...Most Wanted."
Based on the book of the same name by CNN's Jake Tapper, the 2019 adaptation of The Outpost
centers on the true story of dozens of brave soldiers who were stationed at a
dangerous American Army outpost in Afghanistan during the Battle of Kamdesh. Scott Eastwood,
Caleb Landry Jones, and Orlando Bloom lead the cast as some of the key soldiers who
were deployed with the unit as they attempted to keep the peace with
the neighboring villagers by engaging in trade agreements with the Afghan elders.
However, just as the often-targeted outpost neared closure by the government,
the soldiers unexpectedly found themselves surrounded by hundreds of Taliban fighters
and insurgents who engaged the soldiers in a bloody firefight where many casualties were
suffered. The film offers a breathtaking depiction of this violent conflict,
refusing to flinch as it takes audiences through the true events of the harrowing
scenario these troops faced in their final hours at this beleaguered base.
"Our men are trapped out there. Let me do this, sir."
"You sure you can make it happen?"
"Yes."
The Tremors franchise gets a tropical makeover in its seventh and most recent installment,
2020's Shrieker Island. The film features the return of Michael Gross' iconic Burt Gummer
as he comes out of retirement to grapple with an all-new group of graboids and shriekers.
Jon Heder also stars as Jimmy, who steps up to help Burt to deal with this new danger.
"You ready for this?"
"Oh I am so ready I think."
They soon discover that these versions of graboids are smarter and more deadly than the ones Burt is
used to dealing with. As with all of the Tremors films before it, the pic is filled with campy
fun and action, and it's an especially important installment for Burt Gummer fans. Don't miss it.
The 2018 sci-fi/action-adventure film Prospect takes the fight for essential resources
straight into outer space, as excavators mine distant moons for precious resources. Pedro
Pascal stars in the film as Ezra, a prospector with questionable morals, who partners with Sophie
Thatcher's Cee after a robbery-gone-wrong leaves them both alone and in jeopardy on an alien moon.
In addition to being a tense and emotional thriller, Prospect also features the kind of
unique worldbuilding that truly transports audiences into the story, no matter how
far away it takes place. This is definitely a hidden gem to check out if you haven't already.
The 2018 action thriller Hold the Dark is an adaptation of the hit novel of the same name
by William Giraldi and was helmed by Jeremy Saulnier, the director of the critically
revered thrillers Green Room and Blue Ruin. Set in a fictional remote town in Alaska,
the film features Jeffrey Wright as Russell Core, an expert on wolves who is summoned
to study the local wildlife by Riley Keough's Medora Stone, a woman who claims the local wolf
population has resulted in three children's deaths, including that of her own young son.
But when Medora's husband Vernon, portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård,
returns to town after a difficult war tour and finds out what happened to his child, things
take a very violent turn. Fans of Saulnier's previous work will find some similarly gritty
and grisly moments in Hold the Dark, but the film digs even deeper into the concept of evil - and
how to stop it - with a high-stakes game of cat and mouse driving the action all the while.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and that's certainly the case for our hero
in 2019's Point Blank. The film features Anthony Mackie as Paul,
an unassuming emergency room nurse whose life is turned upside-down when his pregnant wife
Taryn is kidnapped. Paul also unwittingly becomes involved in a major underground coverup operation
because he was assigned to treat Frank Grillo's Abe Guevara, who was injured in
a firefight after trying to expose a group of crooked police officers in the city.
But that's just the start of the brutal journey as Paul and Abe
join forces to save Taryn and finish what Abe started.
"Where you going?"
"I'm going to kill them. All of them."
"And what about my wife?"
"Pick up a weapon, man."
With compelling action sequences and an unlikely alliance at the center of the story,
Point Blank is an action feature that'll have you hooked from start to finish.
If you thought Game of Thrones was the only place you'd get to see Kit Harington fight a dragon,
well, you might have overlooked the 2014 fantasy-action film Seventh Son. The film features
Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin, a witch who is imprisoned by the Falcon knight Master Gregory,
portrayed by Jeff Bridges, but regains her power as a result of the centennial blood moon.
Harington appears in the film as Gregory's apprentice William Bradley who, unfortunately,
has to grapple with the new and improved Malkin. And that's just the beginning...
With a veritable who's who of acting all-stars and fantastic visuals,
Seventh Son is a fun fantasy romp that fans of the genre won't want to miss.
Most movie fans don't need to be told that it's pretty unwise to pick a fight with
any character portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen, but that's especially true in Polar. In this
gritty action flick, Mikkelsen stars as Duncan, a world-class assassin known as the Black Kaiser,
who's now attempting to retire to a quiet life in the snowy wilderness of Montana.
However, Duncan is brought back into the business for one final contract
overseas - and finds out that it's actually a setup. But the Black Kaiser isn't going to make
it easy for his former colleagues to take him out, and the elaborate sequences of events that follow
make for a rip-roaring good time to watch.
The 2018 action thriller The Outsider features Jared Leto as Nick Lowell,
a former World War II Marine who, while serving time in a Japanese prison,
saves and befriends a man named Kiyoshi. As it turns out, the man Nick saves is an influential
member of the yakuza criminal clan Shiromatsu, so his friends spring Nick from jail, and he then
decides to join forces with the clan and proves to be quite a prolific enforcer for the group.
As the Shiromatsu grapple with opposition from a rival clan,
Nick finds that his own allies may have questionable loyalties to their patriarch. The
increasingly bloody series of confrontations that follow will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Set in the year 2092, Space Sweepers takes place in an era when Earth is no longer habitable.
People have moved into outer space to live in a new orbiting epicenter for humanity
that's very selective about which members can become citizens.
The film centers on a group of misfits on the spaceship Victory who scour space for
debris they can salvage and sell to the new corporate colony to make ends meet.
The crew get much more than they bargained for when they snag a defunct shuttle and find a
small child onboard. But this tot is much more interesting than these space pirates initially
expected; they soon discover that the girl is a deadly robot that's very valuable to
the organization at the center of life in space - and she's loaded with explosives.
"The robot is highly lethal, extremely dangerous, and poses a great danger."
With stellar landscapes and sprinkles of humor,
Space Sweepers is the sweeping new space western you've been waiting for.
Based on the true story of Mississippi revolutionaries
who fought back against the encroachment of the Confederate army amid the Civil War,
the 2016 action-drama Free State of Jones is a breathtaking production.
Matthew McConaughey portrays the historical figure Newton Knight,
a southern farmer who opposed slavery and deserted his post as a medic for the Confederate army.
Along with like-minded ex-soldiers, he worked with enslaved people who were fleeing for their lives.
With tense fight sequences and genuinely emotional character development,
the film's depiction of these real-life events is invigorating, showing a group
of ordinary folks risking it all to stand by their morals and dedication to liberty.
Dylan O'Brien stars in the 2017 action-thriller American Assassin as Mitch Rapp,
a young man who loses his fiancée during a terrorist attack in Spain.
Mitch then devotes his life to getting revenge against the cell responsible for the violence,
but along the way Mitch accidentally attracts the attention of the U.S. special forces.
Instead of finding himself in trouble, Mitch's passions earn him an invitation to join the CIA.
"That stink coming out of you that you like to call revenge, the rest of us call shit. And as
soon as it starts to feel good, that's when you stop being a professional. Then where are you?"
From there, Mitch is trained to become an elite enforcer for the government,
signing on to the cause of course-correcting the world in secret. This tight,
well-acted thriller breathes new life into the international espionage thriller sub-genre.
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