The 60 Best Action Movies of All Time, Ranked

When a global eco-terrorist tries to enact a plan that will wipe out humanity, Kingsman, a secret spy organization that deals with worldly threats, snaps into action. Gary “Eggsy” Unwin’s (Taron Egerton) is recruited into the group by the veteran agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth), learning how to use his weapons, wits, and brutality to take out his enemies. Matthew Vauhn’s violent and stylized direction makes the fight scenes top-notch, and the chemistry between Firth and Egerton makes this more than just a James Bond copycat.

All the John Wick sequels have their fair share of action, but with Chapter 4 being three hours long, you’d be hard-pressed to find more action compressed into a single movie. Keanu Reeves returns as the elite hitman, facing off against the High Table after another hit has been put out on him. John travels to Osaka, New York, and eventually Paris as he tries to evade the world’s top assassins coming after him, culminating in an intense battle up the stairs in front of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, before (spoiler alert) finishing off the Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård)—ending the hunt for Wick. The film also has an incredible one-shot overhead gunfight that’s one of the most incredible action scenes you’ll ever see.

In this sci-fi action thriller, director John Carpenter had a bit of a cynical view of what the future would hold, as his 1997 depicts Manhattan walled off as a maximum-security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes onto the island, the government enlists former soldier Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to rescue the president. If he can do it within 24 hours, he’ll be pardoned for his previous crime of robbing the Federal Reserve. After swooping onto the island, Plissken fights off all manner of criminals as he tries to locate and save the leader of the free world. 

It’s The Odd Couple, but with cops. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) gets assigned a new partner in Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), and the two couldn’t be more different. Murtaugh is a family man who plays things by the book, while Riggs is a former Special Forces operative still reeling from the death of his wife. The two soon discover a major criminal operation connected to the “Shadow Company,” a group of off-book former CIA operatives who are involved in the heroin trade. Every action flick with a dynamic duo is inspired in some way by Lethal Weapon, which ended up spawning three sequels over the years.

When a massive asteroid enters a trajectory with Earth, NASA discovers that the only way to ensure it won’t crash into the planet is to drill into it and split it in half. Since its astronauts aren’t contractors or miners, the team enlists the best deep core driller they can find in Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis). While Harry and his crew, including AJ (Ben Affleck), Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), and Bear (Michael Clarke Duncan), are rough around the edges, they’re sent into space with two crews of NASA astronauts to try and save the world. 

This gritty thriller stars Gene Hackman in an Oscar-winning role as NYPD detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, who investigates a drug ring from France that’s bringing millions of dollars of heroin into the city. The movie won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars and is now considered one of the greatest films of all time. The movie also has what many think is the best car chase ever filmed. Director William Friedkin didn’t get the permits to shoot the chase on NYC streets, but did it anyway, following Doyle as he tails a hitman trying to escape on the subway through Brooklyn.

Based on the true story of POWs who escaped from the Stalag Luft camp in World War II, this classic film features an all-star cast of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, David McCallum, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough. The story follows a group of soldiers as they plan a major escape from the camp by slowly—day by day—digging out a tunnel. McQueen stars as Captain Virgil Hilts, who frequently tries to escape while butting heads with the German soldiers, often ending up in solitary confinement. McQueen has a standout scene where he escapes and takes a big jump on a motorcycle before being captured again, with much of the stunt riding done by McQueen himself.

Tom Cruise embraces his villainous side in this Michael Mann film, playing a hitman named Vincent who forces a cab driver named Max (Jamie Foxx) to take him on a killing spree in one night. At first, Max thinks Vincent is just a regular fare, but when a dead body falls on top of his car from an apartment building, Max has to keep driving or Vincent will kill him, too. The tense film culminates with a thrilling chase on the L.A. subway system and features excellent performances from Cruise and Foxx, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.

Harrison Ford took over the role of Jack Ryan in this adaptation of Tom Clancy’s novel of the same name. With the backdrop of the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland playing out, Ryan gets himself targeted by a renegade faction of the IRA after he stops an assassination of a British official. Out for revenge, the group goes after Ryan and his family, culminating in a raid on his home back in the U.S.

Following a career in the Special Forces, Frank Martin is now a top-tier driver, working jobs and transporting goods for money. Whether it’s something criminal or otherwise, Frank lives by a code: No names, and he never looks at what the package he’s delivering is. When he realizes his latest transport is a young woman (Shu Qi), he finds himself in the crosshairs of a dangerous trafficker. Many car chases and fights between Statham and bad guys follow.

Zack Snyder’s stylized historical epic might have more muscles per actor than any action movie ever made. Adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name, the film follows a group of 300 Spartan soldiers, led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), as they go to battle against an invading army of more than 300,000. The action is bloody and graphic and Butler brings the energy throughout, doing some of his own stunts and uttering the now-iconic line, “This is Sparta.”

In the near-future, humanity is fighting a war against an alien race of Mimics and planning a major offensive to try and end the war. After butting heads with a general, public relations officer Bill Cage is charged as a deserter and forced to take part in the invasion. Fitted in a high-tech mech suit, Cage is covered in alien blood and discovers he’s gained a power the other species has: the ability to reset the day every time he dies. Using his knowledge of the battle, he teams with soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) to try and find a way to win the war.

After spending 15 years in a hotel room-like prison, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is let out without warning or any idea why he was locked up. As he unravels the mystery, he finds his captor has held a grudge against him for a decade and wants revenge. This film has one of the most incredible fight scenes in recent years, with Oh Dae-su fighting against dozens of gangsters in a hallway, only armed with a hammer and his fists. It’s brutal, violent, and feels completely grounded in reality.

Based on the novel of the same name, the film is set during 19th-century Qing Dynasty in China, following a legendary warrior (Chow Yun-Fat) and what happens when his legendary Green Destiny sword is stolen. The film features some incredible sword fighting and martial arts choreography, including a fight scene atop a forest of bamboo trees. The film became a cultural phenomenon and made over $200 million at the box office. It also received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.

The seventh installment of the Mission: Impossible series might have Tom Cruise’s most incredible stunt yet. That’s saying something when Cruise has already hung off a flying plane, climbed Burj Khalifa, and HALO jumped out of a plane. This time, Cruise rides a motorcycle off a cliff before parachuting down into a valley, a stunt he performed over 50 times—and yes, we promise it makes sense in the plot, which finds Ethan Hunt and his team fighting against the “Entity,” an AI-like program that threatens the top powers of the world. Elsewhere, enjoy a car chase through Rome, a fight through the streets of Venice, and a thrilling climax on a train that dangles off a blown-up bridge. 

Daniel Craig’s third film as James Bond finds the secret agent going up against dangerous cyberterrorist Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who threatens to reveal MI6’s darkest secrets. Bond travels from London to Shanghai on Silvia’s trail, finding out he’s a former MI6 operative looking to get revenge on the agency that turned its back on him, leaving him to be tortured by Britain’s enemies years ago. This film has some incredible set pieces, including a firefight in a Shanghai high-rise and the thrilling finale in the Scottish Highlands.

When Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) decides he wants to defect to the United States, the Cold War is put on a track that could turn very hot. The submarine is ballistic missile-capable and the U.S. Navy isn’t sure of the captain’s true motives, so they enlist CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) to prove his intentions before going to all-out war. This is the first-ever feature film with Tom Clancy’s iconic character, who would later be played by a number of different actors, including Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and John Krasinski. Die Hard director John McTiernan uses the tight spaces of submarines and Navy destroyers to make an action thriller for the ages.

Based on stories that director Sam Mendes’s grandfather told him, the film follows two young British soldiers during World War I, played by George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, as they cross the dangerous no man’s land to deliver an important message. Mendes follows the soldiers through trenches and across dangerous terrain, with the standout shot coming as MacKay’s character runs across a field in the middle of battle, avoiding explosions at every turn. What makes this war film so unique is that the entire film is presented in two long shots with only one cut, coming around the 65-minute mark of the movie. The production team used seamless editing and hidden match cuts to present the film as if it were continuous. Mendes wanted the audience to feel like they were right there with the characters, and all the action takes place over real time during the story.

This was the mission that started it all. The multibillion-dollar franchise’s first installment was the introduction to Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team. Directed by Brian De Palma, the film has a conspiracy thriller vibe to it as Hunt unravels the mystery of who betrayed and killed his squad after a mission goes wrong in Prague. This movie has all the hallmarks of what would come after it: incredible action, face mask tricks, train explosions, and double crosses. Even after all these years, it absolutely holds up.

Indiana Jones has become an icon in Hollywood history, from the fedora to the whip to the instantly recognizable score from John Williams. All that started with Raiders of the Lost Ark, which finds Harrison Ford’s adventurer traveling around the globe to thwart the Nazis as they search for the powerful Ark of the Covenant. There’s no shortage of iconic action scenes in this film, including the opening when Indiana has to outrun a massive boulder and a fight on the tarmac that ends with a little help from a plane propeller. Nominated for Best Picture, this film launched the franchise and has made its way into the National Film Registry.

Before it spawned one of the best video games of all time, GoldenEye was Pierce Brosnan’s first time stepping into James Bond’s tuxedo, taking over from Timothy Dalton. Bond faces off with a former MI6 agent, Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), who was left for dead in a mission the two went on early in his career. Nearly a decade later, Trevelyan returns and is behind a plot to cause a global financial crisis by using a powerful satellite weapon called “GoldenEye.” Director Martin Campbell would later also direct the first appearance of another Bond: Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

The middle installment of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is the most action-packed of the bunch. Following the events of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) make their way closer to Mordor, crossing paths with Gollum (Andy Serkis), who once was the keeper of the ring. But it’s the Battle of Helm’s Deep that’s the highlight here, with Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gimli (John Rhys Davies), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and thousands of others fighting to defend the stronghold from orcs. Jackson filmed the battle over three months, shooting mostly at night and bringing in hundreds of extras to play the Orcs and other men in battle.

In the near-future, Tom Cruise is John Anderton, a “Precrime” police officer who leads a team in Washington, D.C., that stops murders before they occur. Using the psychic powers of three “precogs” that can predict crime before it happens, Anderton is framed and forced to go on the run from the very same police force he leads. He soon discovers a conspiracy and a deep secret that if uncovered, would stop Precime from going national. Director Steven Spielberg expanded on Philip K. Dick’s novel of the same name, creating a number of thrilling set pieces, including Anderton being chased by police in jetpacks and a car chase across a futuristic highway.

Taking place in Jakarta, the film follows an elite task force as they go after a drug lord hiding out in a high-rise. Iko Uwais plays one of the members of the team, who finds the building filled with assassins and armed criminals. The group has to fight their way up and through the building. These brutal fight scenes feel as gritty and realistic as any big-budget movie. The fight choreography is considered to be some of the best ever put to screen, designed in part by Uwais himself.

It took a simple premise and made it into one of the best action movies of the ’90s: There’s a bomb on a bus, and it’ll go off if the bus slows down to less than 50 miles per hour. Keanu Reeves stars as LAPD officer Jack Traven, who thwarts a bomb attack in downtown Los Angeles by Howard Payne (a perfectly menacing Dennis Hopper). To take revenge on Jack, and the LAPD itself, Howard rigs a bomb to a bus with a speed trigger, forcing Jack to literally chase down the bus and jump on in the middle of the freeway. With a passenger (Sandra Bullock) behind the wheel after the driver gets shot, Jack must find a way to keep the bus moving through LA traffic without it blowing up. The film is as well-regarded as action movies go: It won two Oscars, for Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Sound.

Daniel Craig’s first appearance as James Bond helped revitalize the franchise after the actor took over for Pierce Brosnan. This film follows a younger Bond, who earns his 00 status and becomes an elite agent, tasked with thwarting an attack by a secret terrorist organization. Along the way he falls in love with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and faces off against the villainous Le Chiffre in a high-stakes poker game. Director Martin Campbell returned to the series after previously shooting Golden Eye, but this time the action was focused on more grounded, realistic fight scenes that showed off Craig’s physicality. The opening scene also used parkour in a daring chase through Madagascar that saw Bond end up on top of a massive construction site.

Three decades after the original Top Gun became a cultural touchstone of the 1980s, Tom Cruise returned to the cockpit as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell for this sequel. For Maverick, not much has changed since he graduated from Top Gun, as he’s a test pilot and hasn’t been promoted in the ranks of the Navy. But when a top-secret mission arises and the Navy needs its best pilots to be trained in how to fly the mission, Maverick is brought back to Top Gun to teach, not fly the mission. Naturally, that all falls to the wayside by the time the mission comes. Maverick also crosses paths with Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of his deceased best friend, Goose (Anthony Edwards). Director Joseph Kosinski had Cruise and the cast actually fly alongside real Navy pilots, giving the film an edge of realism, and powering it to over $1 billion worldwide at the box office. 

Following their collaboration on Terminator 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron teamed up again for this action comedy, which follows spy Harry Tasker as he’s living a double life as a boring software salesman. Tasker’s wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) has no clue about her husband’s true career when the two accidentally get swept up in one of Harry’s missions and are kidnapped by terrorists. Cameron is obviously no stranger to large-scale productions, and True Lies has the distinction of being the first-ever Hollywood movie to cost $100 million to make.

The sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible series might be the best one yet. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt and leads his IMF team on a mission to recover stolen nuclear materials. Forced to partner with a CIA operative he doesn’t trust in August Walker (Henry Cavill), Hunt crosses paths with a rogue MI6 agent (Rebecca Ferguson) as he bounces around from Berlin to Paris to London before a final confrontation with the enemies behind the theft. The highlight stunt of this film is a HALO jump out of an airplane that Cruise actually performed over 50 times during the making of the movie.

Waking up with no clue who he is or how he ended up in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with multiple gunshot wounds, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) works to find out about his mysterious past. As he pieces together that he once was a CIA black ops agent, Bourne must stay ahead of the government agents trying to keep him from exposing their program while protecting Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente), a woman who helps him on his journey. Based on the book series by Robert Ludlum, the film led to three sequels with Damon starring. 

Director James Cameron conceived of The Terminator after having a wild dream earlier in his career, and he made that into reality with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. While he doesn’t have many lines, Schwarzenegger proved he could be an action leading man, playing a cyborg who is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of a revolutionary leader in the future. Connor is protected by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who follows the cyborg back to try and stop him before he fulfills his mission.

“Are you not entertained?” Russell Crowe’s General Maximus asks a roaring crowd this question after he is imprisoned and forced to fight as a gladiator in ancient Rome. Betrayed by the son of the Emperor (Joaquin Phoenix) and left alone after his family is murdered, Maximus becomes a popular figure among the people, winning battle after battle along the way until he gets the chance to face off against his true enemies. The film won Best Picture and Best Actor at the Oscars and was a massive success, grossing over $500 million worldwide.

Was it all a dream? Director Christopher Nolan made his version of a James Bond movie with this suspenseful thriller that takes place mostly in the dreams of various characters. When Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team are tasked with implanting an idea in the mind of a businessman (Cillian Murphy), the group delves deep into the layers of his subconscious, fighting in-mind security and enemies along the way. From time-shifting hallway fights to a climax on the side of a snow-covered mountain, Nolan is at the top of his action game in this one. 

Way before he was John Wick, Keanu Reeves was Johnny Utah, a former college quarterback-turned-FBI agent who is tasked with hunting down a dangerous gang of surf-loving bank robbers. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who would go on to win a Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker, the film follows Utah as he poses as a surfer and is initiated into the group—and eventually forced into taking down a bank along with them. From parachuting out of airplanes to surfing massive waves to shootouts at banks, Point Break is filled wall-to-wall with extreme action. 

When police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is killed in the line of duty in near-future Detroit, he is enlisted by Omni Consumer Products to become “RoboCop,” a reanimated, robotic version of himself who has no idea about his former life. When Murphy starts to remember the life and family he once had, he turns on his corporate overlords, who previously unleashed him on the criminals of the city with vengeance. With its sharp satire on technology, capitalism, corporate greed, and politics, the film has been regarded as an important cultural touchstone and one of the best action films of its era.

Director Michael Bay is known for his action movies, and The Rock is easily one of his best. Bay puts his own spin on The Odd Couple by pairing Nic Cage and Sean Connery as an FBI scientist and a former MI6 operative who team up when a group of angry Marines take tourists on Alcatraz hostage with deadly nerve gas. Connery does his best aging-James Bond as John Mason, who is the only inmate to ever escape from Alcatraz—meaning he’s the only one who knows how to break into it. All the Alcatraz action scenes are great, but another highlight is the staging of a thrilling car chase through the hills of San Francisco (no doubt influenced by Bullit, another movie on this list) with Connery in a Hummer and Cage chasing behind in a Ferrari.

While known globally for his performance as the Marvel character Thor, Chris Hemsworth proved in the Extraction series that he is way more than just a superhero actor. Hemsworth plays special operative Tyler Rake, who is tasked with going into impossible situations to save people. In the first movie, he’s saving an Indian drug lord’s kidnapped son, while in the second, he’s securing the family of a sadistic Eastern European drug kingpin—who happens to be his ex-sister-in-law. Directed by Sam Hargrave, who has worked with the Russo brothers and on numerous Marvel films as a stunt coordinator, the films are a love letter to classic action cinema, putting together scene after scene of gun battles, hand-to-hand combat, and even a single-shot, 20-minute prison break scene that saw Hemsworth get lit on fire while battling his way through hundreds of rioting prisoners.

Legendary filmmaker John Woo brought his operatic action style to the U.S. with Face/Off, a darkly funny, somewhat sci-fi action thriller starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Travolta stars as FBI agent Sean Archer, who is dead set on catching his nemesis, Castor Troy (Cage), who killed his son in an assassination attempt gone wrong. Years later, when Troy is captured after hiding a bomb in Los Angeles, Archer undergoes a top-secret procedure where he swaps faces with Troy to find out from his brother where the bomb is. Watching Travolta and Cage playing each other’s characters is pure joy and gives this action movie a unique vibe that makes it one of the most entertaining of the ’90s.

While not an Avengers film by Marvel Cinematic Universe standards, this superhero film split the MCU into battling factions led by Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans). Following a rescue mission that leaves civilians dead, the U.S. government looks to register superhuman beings and dispatch them as needed. Rogers leads his own group of heroes who are against registration, culminating in all-out battle at an airport featuring over 10 MCU characters, including the first appearance from Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. The film was the highest-grossing of 2016 and directly set up the eventual reteaming of the Avengers in Avengers: Infinity War.

This alien invasion film brought back disaster blockbusters to the big screen, teaming up Will Smith’s Marine pilot and Jeff Goldlum’s tech expert to fight back and save Earth. When massive spaceships descend on some of the world’s biggest cities, nations from across the globe mobilize to defend the planet but are thwarted at every turn. It takes a stunning discovery by a group of scientists and secrets from Area 51 the U.S. has been hiding to find the weakness of the alien species. At the time, this film was the second-highest-grossing movie in history. One of the most memorable images is of course the White House being blown up by a spaceship.

This sequel came out 30 years after the previous Mad Max film, and it was certainly worth the wait. Centering on Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, stepping into Mel Gibson’s boots) after he is captured by warlord Immortan Joe, the film is basically one massive car chase across a postapocalyptic wasteland. Max joins forces with Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a metal-armed former lieutenant of Joe’s who has turned on him. If you wanted to argue that this movie is the greatest action film of all time, you probably could do it by showing just one of the many explosive car wrecks director George Miller conjured up, doing them for real in the Nairobi desert with minimal digital effects. It won six Oscars and while Hardy and Theron reportedly did not get along during the making of the film, the end result is sublime.

One of Hollywood legend Steve McQueen’s most well-known roles finds him playing detective Lieutenant Frank Bullitt as he gets embroiled in a mob-related case. When a senator tries to bring a mafia leader to justice by turning his brother against him, Bullitt and his team are brought in to keep the witness under protection. Things soon spiral out of hand and Bullitt is chased by hitmen and other criminals looking to thwart the investigation. The centerpiece of the film is a car chase where McQueen’s character is behind the wheel of a 1968 Ford Mustang GT, winding up, down, and around the hills of San Francisco. The chase is considered by many to be one of the best ever put on film. 

While not as critically acclaimed as the original film in the series, The Matrix Reloaded took the action up another notch. Neo (Keanu Reeves), Morpheus (Laurence Fisburne), and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) try to keep the last human city of Zion safe from the machines trying to eradicate mankind. The trio are forced to return to the Matrix to try and save their people, and some of the series’ most memorable set pieces are from this film, including a fight between Neo and hundreds of Agent Smiths (Hugo Weaving). The centerpiece is an incredible highway car chase that the Wachowskis filmed by building their own 1.5-mile freeway in the California desert to create the vehicular mayhem.

Inspired by his love of kung fu movies, director Quentin Tarantino created a unique world of samurai sword-wielding hitmen and criminals with the Bride (Uma Thurman) at the center. When she’s left for dead at her wedding after being double-crossed by her would-be husband Bill, the Bride wakes up from a years-long coma looking for revenge. The two-film story is filled with Tarantino regulars, including Michael Madsen as Bill’s brother, and has some of the most incredible fight choreography you’ll ever see—as well as some extremely bloody violence along the way. 

When a $100 million bust of heroin is stolen from a secure police vault, Miami PD detectives Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are put on the case to recover it. This action comedy sparked multiple sequels, but it all started here with director Michael Bay behind the camera. The cops discover that there is corruption in their department and go to whatever lengths they can to stop it and recover the stolen goods, using car chases, gunfights, and a few jokes at their disposal.

Michael Mann’s Los Angeles crime epic marked the first time that iconic actors Robert De Niro and Al Pacino appeared on the big screen together. De Niro’s Neal McCauley is a high-end thief with a top-notch crew that knocks over banks and armored cars. But when a robbery goes a little off the rails and multiple officers end up dead, Pacino’s LAPD detective Vincent Hanna is put on the case, and he’s as determined to catch McCauley as McCauley is to make one last score. The film climaxes with an epic shootout in downtown Los Angeles, which took Mann multiple weeks to shoot.

Taking inspiration from the “Old Man Logan” comic book storyline, the film takes place in a near-future where no mutants have been born for decades, and Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is now working as a limo driver and caretaker to Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart). But when a mysterious girl with powers similar to Logan crosses paths with him, he can’t help but try and protect her from the menacing cyborg assassin (Boyd Holbrook) chasing her. Director James Mangold opted for a rated-R film, ramping up the violence from past Wolverine appearances to great effect. While this was meant to be Jackman’s last appearance as Wolverine, fear not: He’ll be back alongside Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 3.

Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic follows a company of soldiers who are tasked with bringing home James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon) after three of his brothers are killed in action. Led by Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks), the group treks across the battlefields of Europe to locate Ryan and bring him home safely. The film has a sweeping opening depiction of the landing at Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion, which Spielberg shot in a documentary style to show the realistic nature of war.

While superhero movies are released almost weekly nowadays, the original X-Men film series basically had things all to itself alongside Spider-Man back in the early 2000s. The sequel to the 2000 hit X-Men took things to another level, introducing heroes to the big screen for the first time like Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), Pyro (Aaron Sanford), and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) to join Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Cyclops (James Marsden), Storm (Halle Berry), and Professor X (Patrick Stewart). The X-Men are hunted down by Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox), who wants to destroy all mutants on Earth, starting with Professor X and his School for Gifted Youngsters. The crew is forced to team up with Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his Brotherhood of Mutants, and we learn more about Wolverine’s mysterious past and how he gained his adamantium skeleton and claws.

The Fast & Furious movies have only gotten bigger (cars in space?!), but Fast Five is where the series found its almost perfect footing. Hailed by many fans as among, if not the best in the franchise, the story follows Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), and crew as they plan a major heist to steal $100 million from a villainous banker in Rio. One of the most thrilling sequences of the entire series is when the team drags a vault full of money on a car chase through the streets of Rio. This movie also marked the first appearance of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, who would be both a foil and an ally for the squad throughout the rest of the series.

After a career lull in the mid-2000s and early 2010s, Keanu Reeves proved why he was and is one of Hollywood’s best action stars with John Wick. Starring as the titular hitman, Wick is looking to stay settled down and retired after the death of his wife. But after he’s attacked by Russian gangsters who want to steal his Mustang, killing the cherished dog his wife gave him in the process, Wick goes on a rampage across New York City for revenge. The high-octane combination of gunfights and martial arts ushered in a new wave of action cinema in Hollywood and spawned a franchise that has grossed over $1 billion worldwide across four movies and has a TV show and prequel on the way.

Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo is one of action cinema’s most recognizable characters. Starting off as a returning U.S. Army veteran from Vietnam who is mistreated by small town police in First Blood, the elite Green Beret uses his various skills to survive in the woods, setting traps and fighting back against a group of people who can’t understand him. Things get bigger in the sequels, with Rambo traveling overseas to save POWs left back in Vietnam in First Blood Part II, and taking part in the Soviet-Afghan War in Rambo III.

One of the most influential action movies of all time, The Matrix asks the question: What if everything you knew was a simulation? Keanu Reeves stars as Thomas Anderson, a hacker who learns that the world he inhabits is a ruse controlled by machines to extract energy from humans in an apocalyptic future. After the world is revealed to him, he joins Morpheus (Laurence Fisburne), Trinity (Carrie Anne Moss), and their group of rebels as they fight back against the machines. This wouldn’t be the first or last time Reeves helped start a major action franchise, with John Wick later becoming a major success in his career. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger was at the peak of his action star powers in the 1980s, illustrated by his work in Commando. Playing the perfectly named John Matrix, the retired leader of an elite military unit, he is pulled back to action after his entire former team is killed by mercenaries. After his daughter is kidnapped from his secluded home in the mountains, he is forced into carrying out an assassination in Val Verde, screenwriter Steven E. de Souza’s favorite fictional location (also mentioned in Die Hard 2). Laced with sharp humor and some incredible action set pieces, Commando was one of Schwarzenegger’s best hits, grossing nearly $60 million on a $9 million budget.

Bruce Willis became one of Hollywood’s biggest action stars off the success of Die Hard. Known more for his comedic work on television, Willis steps into the role of John McClane, an NYPD detective who is visiting California to see his estranged wife and family. When McClane arrives at her office at Nakatomi Plaza for a Christmas Party, little does he know a group of criminals is planning to rob hundreds of millions of dollars in bearer bonds from the office’s safe. McClane is forced to improvise (barefoot, no less) and fight back against the criminals using his wits, the building itself, and any other weapon he can find along the way.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) started with Iron Man and really got big with The Avengers, but the MCU reaching 30-plus films never would have happened without Captain America: Winter Soldier. The film proved that a solo character’s film could be as integral as a team-up, and the action-packed sequences are still considered some of the best in the entire MCU, including the highway fight between Captain America (Chris Evans) and the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and the Helicarrier assault. The conspiracy-laden thriller is narratively sharp, and introduced directors Anthony and Joe Russo to the blockbuster game, after which they would go on to helm Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, two of the highest-grossing movies of all time.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been in shape for every single movie he’s ever made, but he took it to another level in Predator. The film follows a military unit dispatched to a South American jungle on a rescue mission, but the crew ends up encountering a dangerous alien that’s tracking them like prey. The movie was filmed in Mexico, and so to keep muscular playing the military soldier Dutch, Schwarzenegger woke up at the crack of dawn almost every single day and worked out before shooting his scenes. Director John McTiernan stages a number of great action set pieces, but it’s the smaller battles between Dutch and the Predator itself that are the highlight of this one.

Ridley Scott made you afraid so James Cameron could make you go “hoo-rah,” just like the Marines in Aliens. This sequel was a completely different kind of film from Alien, with Cameron going from space horror to an all-out war movie. The story picks up over 50 years after the original film when Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is found as the lone survivor after an alien creature killed her crew. She finds out that the moon her team previously landed on is now a colony and her employers, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, want to send a team there after losing contact with everyone. Teaming up with a ship full of trigger-happy Marines, Ripley finds an abandoned colony and a base crawling with multiple dangerous aliens, including a massive queen. This film also has the distinction of being the first science-fiction movie to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and it took home two wins with Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.

Since its release, director Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to Batman Begins has broken free of being called a superhero film and is simply considered to be one of the best movies ever made in the action genre. Pulling influences from Heat, The Godfather, and comic book writer Frank Miller, Nolan follows a fully established Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) as he faces off with his most dangerous foe yet: the Joker (Heath Ledger). Ledger gives an incredible, Oscar-winning performance as he menaces Batman by going after those closest to him, including his childhood friend Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Faced with the ultimate choice, Batman has to juggle saving Gotham and its District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) or lose someone he loves. Nolan’s attention to the action is immaculate, and the bank heist by the Joker and his crew is one of the best opening scenes you’ll ever find.

As he’s proved through his entire career, director James Cameron knows a thing or two about action. To follow up his science-fiction classic, Cameron went even bigger with the action in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, making what was the most expensive film ever produced at the time (another theme in his career). This time around, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 cyborg goes from being the villain to the hero: Instead of killing someone in the past, he must now save future revolutionary leader John Connor from a stronger, more advanced T-1000 assassin (Robert Patrick).