When it comes to thrilling theatrical experiences, there's nothing quite like a good action movie.
Between fast pacing, epic moments of suspense, deep-seated drama between the heroes and villains,
and, of course, tons of stunts, the genre has a lot to offer audiences.
Here are some of the high octane movies you'll definitely want to sit through before it's
all said and done to get your cinematic adrenaline rush.
Face/Off
This film has such a preposterous concept that would have been a ridiculous misfire
had it been made by anybody but legendary Hong Kong auteur John Woo, director of classics
like Hard Boiled and The Killer.
But Face/Off might just be his best.
The film also finds the perfect role for Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy, a giddy, crazed terrorist
who tries to kill FBI agent Sean Archer, portrayed by John Travolta.
In order to learn where Castor hid a massive bomb, Archer has his own face surgically replaced
with Castor's…and then Castor gets his replaced with Archer's, which is an absolutely terrible
idea.
"It's like looking in a mirror, only not."
Add in a few plane chases and some epic shootout sequences, and you've got yourself a wild
ride at the movies.
The Raid
Gareth Evans' The Raid is a claustrophobic police thriller that hits the ground running
almost immediately.
A young police officer named Rama heads off to join his armed-to-the-teeth S.W.A.T. team
taking down a run-down Jakarta apartment building.
The goal is to eliminate a crime lord and his top associates who run the block and allow
criminals sanctuary.
The movie plays out like a real-life video game.
The elite police squad clears the lower floors and handles various thugs until they realize
they've been trapped and are being hunted by a gaggle of ticked-off criminals.
This changes everything for Rama and his squad, as they'll now have to fight their way out
of the situation and hope to walk away with their lives.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Imagine a sweeping war drama and epic romance like Gone With the Wind…but everybody in
it has supernatural martial arts fighting abilities, and the way they fight is more
technically perfect and beautiful than the greatest ballet company.
That may sound ridiculous, but in the able hands of director Ang Lee and cast members
Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh , Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen, the result is one of the most
stunningly beautiful and deeply moving films ever made.
There are also many iconic martial arts sequences in the film, such as the near wordless battle
in the sky, on the fragile tips of trees.
While action movies often rely on special effects to do all of the heavy lifting, in
Crouching Tiger, they merely enhance or flavor the actors' abilities already captured on
film.
John Wick
Ultra-violent revenge movies generally don't have plots hinging on an adorable puppy, but
that's part of what makes John Wick so delightfully different.
After the loss of his wife, the title assassin, played by Keanu Reeves, tries to fill the
void in his life by adopting a cute dog named Daisy and riding around in his classic Ford
Mustang.
After he refuses to sell it to a Russian gangster, the spurned buyer and his cronies follow Wick
home, knock him out, steal the car, and even take out their payback on the poor dog.
Exacting his revenge pulls Wick back into the seedy underbelly of organized crime.
"People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer.
But now yeah, I'm thinking I'm back!"
And that spawns numerous atmospheric gun battles and fistfights across nightclubs, churches,
safe houses, docks, and more.
This is exactly the kind of action movie that's perfect for watching with friends, rewinding
and replaying favorite moments because they're just too good to be believed.
Baby Driver
Edgar Wright is best known for directing Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim vs.
the World, and those are all predominantly comedies laced with some innovative action
sequences.
With Baby Driver, however, he makes the leap to full-blown action fare, and the result
is as frenetic and assured as Baby's driving.
Ansel Elgort plays the title character, a young but very skilled driver recruited to
handle the getaway car for a heist squad.
The unreal stunts in Baby Driver make the movie deliriously fun, and the filmmaker's
extensive movie knowledge and vocabulary make for a mishmash of satisfying homages and techniques
gleaned from other films.
The end result is pretty much everything audiences could want out of an action film.
Rogue One
It would be both sacrilegious and inaccurate to say that Rogue One is the best Star Wars
movie.
It's not even part of the main storyline—it's a side story about a scrappy crew that comes
together to steal the Death Star's plans and find its weakness.
Therein lies the reason why Rogue One is great—it's less a space opera or sci-fi movie and more
a heist movie that just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe.
As the team comes together, plans the crime, and pulls it off -- although not without severe
consequences -- the action is as unrelenting as it is eye-popping.
Edge of Tomorrow
A cross between Groundhog Day and Independence Day might not work for everyone, but director
Doug Liman crafted Edge of Tomorrow into one of the most innovative action-adventure movies
in years.
In this smart and chaotic sci-fi/military adventure, seemingly indestructible aliens
called Mimics terrorize Earth until they have to square off against Tom Cruise's Major William
Craig.
They take him out too— but Craig gets caught in a time loop and keeps returning to the
moment just before his demise to fight and fail again and again until he can figure out
a way to defeat them.
Edge of Tomorrow is a video game-inspired action movie with something of a moral lesson:
If at first you don't succeed at destroying aliens, try, try again.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Sometimes the problem with comic book movies is that they take themselves way too seriously
and forget the whole point of their source material—they're supposed to be fun, and
also a little ridiculous.
But Guardians of the Galaxy embraces its own DNA to deliver one of the most purely enjoyable
comic book-based movies of all time.
It's as much a comedy as it is an outer-space action ride, with Chris Pratt perfectly cast
as the funny and fearless Peter Quill, the so-called "Star-Lord."
Add in a space prison, a telepathic arrow, some sublime '70s rock classics, a foul-mouthed
raccoon, a talking tree, and one epic space battle, and the end result is a joyous blast.
"And bring it down hard!"
"What are you doing?"
"Dance-off, bro!
Me and you!"
District 13
In the early 2000s, parkour, the sport of ignoring the laws of physics to walk up walls
and jump from one thing to another, was a minor fad in the United States.
In Europe, the practice is a way of life.
The craze gave the world at least one great parkour-themed movie: District 13.
The title is a nod to the poverty-ridden and overcrowded Paris suburb where the film takes
place, and the film is set in the not-too-distant future wherein the government keeps the area
in check by surrounding it with high walls topped with razor wire.
Gangs control the lawless prison colony and make their living running drugs.
A man -- played by David Belle, a creator of parkour -- tries to fight the gangs, which
he does with his wits as well as his gravity-defying parkour skills, executed without wires or
CGI.
Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior
This low-budget martial arts adventure from Thailand more than makes up for its simple
plot and straightforward presentation with the sheer force of its unbelievable star,
Tony Jaa.
In the film, a rural village is distraught after thugs from Bangkok steal the head of
the town's cherished Buddha statue.
Jaa plays Ting, the brave local who ventures into the city to retrieve the head, with only
his Muay Thai fighting skills to protect himself.
Fortunately, Jaa is one of the most agile and adept martial artists in the world, which
he proves during some brutal underground fights.
Rumble in the Bronx
After decades of comedy-laced action films made him a massive star around the world,
English-speaking audiences were finally introduced to the singular cinema of Jackie Chan with
Rumble in the Bronx, and it was very representative of Chan's talents.
The simple plot is about good guys versus bad guys involved in illegal diamond deals,
but there's also a romance, Chan's self-deprecating humor, and, of course, stunts that look impossible
but aren't because Jackie Chan never fakes it.
Casino Royale
By the time Pierce Brosnan's tenure as 007 was done, the James Bond franchise had descended
into a checklist of the familiar: tuxedos, gadgets, shaken-not-stirred martinis, and,
of course, all the Bond girls.
So, when Daniel Craig suited up for the super spy, it was time for a modern twist on the
formula, and Casino Royale knocked it out of the park.
Craig took over as a younger version of James Bond, and the movie took cues from other forward-thinking
action films.
It's gritty, intense, and completely lacking the usual James Bond smirkiness, delivering
the best entry in the series since Sean Connery was creating action movie tropes back in the
'60s.
Ip Man
Action movies are usually over-the-top, absurdly fun cinematic roller coasters, but every now
and then, one of them is actually a true story.
Ip Man is the loosely biographical story of a Wing Chun grandmaster who famously trained
the all-time greatest martial arts film star, Bruce Lee.
In Ip Man, the title character is the best martial artist and fighting trainer in the
Chinese city of Foshan.
His low-key life and appreciation of martial arts are tested after the Japanese invasion
of 1937.
He competes for bags of rice in fighting competitions against Japanese troops, and he seeks revenge
when his friend Lin disappears for good after a bout.
At the heart of the movie, however, are the high-stakes battles between Chinese and Japanese
fighters, all under the backdrop of war.
Dredd
The 1995 version of Judge Dredd was merely an action vehicle for Sylvester Stallone in
the waning years of his tenure as an action star.
As such, it was an endlessly violent shoot-'em-up that lacked the humor, irony, and satire of
its source comics.
"I. Am.
The.
LAW."
But Dredd is the rare case of Hollywood getting a remake right.
The exceptionally violent but cheeky action extravaganza features Karl Urban as the title
character.
And this time, Dredd is the most fearsome of the judge-jury-executioners that stalk
around the futuristic, radiation-soaked wasteland that is Mega City.
Dredd maims his way through his days as he tries to eradicate a new drug that's threatening
the innocents around town.
"I advise you to hold your breath."
Kung Fu Hustle
What if they made a movie that played like a hilarious, live-action cartoon, but it also
had non-stop kicking, punching, and intricately choreographed fight scenes?
Well, that would be an irresistible movie called Kung Fu Hustle.
Chinese superstar Stephen Chow directs, co-writes, and stars in this dazzling and dizzying action
epic set in China in the 1940s.
Chow plays a guy named Sing who's desperate to join the scary, cool Axe Gang, and willing
to engage in criminal behavior to do so.
Problem is, he picks on the wrong apartment community, and Sing's ability to fight is
severely tested by some outrageously awesome characters.
First Blood
Who would have thought that Sylvester Stallone could make a tragic, thought-provoking movie
about the dangers of violence and how war destroys a man?
This psychologically and physically realistic action movie centers on a man a decade removed
from the Vietnam War, but still fighting it.
After a mental break in Washington, it's up to John Rambo's old commanding officer to
save the on-the-run ex-soldier from himself and authorities.
The Purge: Election Year
The Purge movies have gotten a surprising amount of mileage out of an implausible premise.
In the near future, crime has been almost completely eliminated in the U.S. thanks to
occasional "purges"—set periods of time in which violence is permissible, allowing
people to get all their bad impulses out of their systems.
The third film in the series, The Purge: Election Year, imagines the political and electoral
implications for a country that "purges."
Elizabeth Mitchell plays Senator Charlie Roan, the sole survivor of a "Purge Night" family
massacre, who's running for president on a promise to end purges.
Of course, she has to survive even more sinister behavior and coordinated attacks by her political
opposition in her attempt to find safety, and then she has to win the election on top
of that, so the odds are stacked against her.
The Equalizer
Technically speaking, The Equalizer is a remake of a vaguely remembered action TV series from
the '80s.
But it's such an elegantly-made, fast-paced flick that it's hard to fathom that it began
life as a cheesy CBS show.
The spry and charismatic Denzel Washington stars as Robert McCall, an ex-government man
trying to balance out the horrible things he did by now helping people who really need
his unique set of skills.
This time, it's McCall against some truly frightening Russian mobsters, and, as the
title indicates, he has an uncanny ability to even out the playing field no matter who's
standing against him.
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