Bruce Willis, playing John McClane, crawls through a duct with a lighter in Die Hard.Image via 20th Century Studios
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Jeremy Urquhart
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Jeremy has more than 2100 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He is also currently in the process of trying to become a Stephen King expert by reading all 2397 novels written by the author.
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Let's be honest: the best action movies are often better—or at least more entertaining—than the best movies from any other genre. Good action movies are worth celebrating, and that's what the following list of titles aims to do: show the action genre at its very best. Adrenaline junkies and action fans should make it a priority to check out all the following, as they comprise what can be definitively declared the best action movies of all time.
In celebration of what could be the most cinematic genre out there, here's an overview of the action genre throughout the decades, and the movies that represent it best. With a mix of classics and newer films, the following is an attempt to rank some of the greatest action-packed movies of all time, with all being essential viewing for fans of the action genre.
75 'The Crow' (1994)
Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) talks to a little girl in The Crow 1994Image via Dimension Films
Yes, there have been many superhero/comic book movies that have come out in the last few decades, but before things got a bit oversaturated, there was The Crow, and it was great. This one’s dark and focused enough on the supernatural to almost/occasionally feel like a horror movie, with the plot involving a murdered man (Brandon Lee) being brought back to life as an unstoppable being of vengeance.
He and his fiancée were murdered, and so his quest is one that’s mostly about revenge, though he does also try to help those who are still living and suffering in the world he thought he’d left behind. Even without taking into account what happened with Lee during the production of the film, The Crow is a deeply sad and heavy watch, but it’s powerful and also undeniably stylish in ways you don’t often get to see in superhero/comic book movies nowadays.
74 'Pacific Rim' (2013)
Rinko Kikuchi in Pacific RimImage via Warner Bros.
Perhaps the best movie out there that features giant robots and giant monsters (at least of the ones where none of the giant robots are called Mechagodzilla), Pacific Rim is a strangely inspiring movie about a world-ending threat. Just about everyone on Earth teams up to combat invading alien monsters, and the amount of teamwork between nations might well be even more fantastical than the sci-fi/fantasy-related stuff.
Still, Guillermo del Toro knows how to make a movie like this work, and he nails the tone here, ensuring Pacific Rim is silly, endearing, exciting, and a bit laughable, all at once, and always in the right ways. It’s a movie that had a sizable budget and actually put it to good use, since there’s an amazing world built here, and the biggest/most action-packed sequences still hold up immensely well on a technical front.
73 'Hundreds of Beavers' (2022)
A still from 'Hundreds of Beavers'Image via Cineverse
There are hundreds of beavers in Hundreds of Beavers, but not straight away. Much of this film plays out like a survival movie, albeit one without dialogue and a lot more comedy than you might see in other films with wilderness settings, like Jeremiah Johnson and The Revenant. One man (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) battles the elements and then realizes he can make money by hunting beavers and selling their fur.
This ends up building in ridiculous ways, with constant slapstick comedy and ridiculous costumes used to bring the beavers and other animals to life (so all the deaths played for laughs don’t feel too morbid). There is a bizarre energy here that’s hard to put into words, but Hundreds of Beavers is both one of the funniest movies in recent memory and one of the more exciting, so it’s absolutely worth one’s time, particularly if one is looking for something more than a little different.
72 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' (1963)
Image via United Artists
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is an old-school epic in terms of production, cast, and scope, but it’s also exceptionally silly and broadly comedic, keeping that energy up for about three hours. It’s exhausting, but also a ton of fun, and the premise is also rather simple, since it involves a dying man telling a group of strangers about a buried fortune many miles away.
A race then ensues, with countless selfish individuals wanting to beat everyone else to the destination, causing havoc all the while, and then Spencer Tracy is also there, following the chaos a little like Tommy Lee Jones’s character in (the tonally very different) No Country for Old Men. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a bit, bit, bit, bit much at times, but the excess is also funny, and it’s up there among the best gun-free action movies of all time, too.
71 'One Battle After Another' (2025)
Leonardo DiCaprio holding a weapon in the middle of a highway in One Battle After Another.Image via Warner Bros.
A recent film that achieved remarkable critical success (less so box office-wise, though it could’ve been worse), One Battle After Another saw Paul Thomas Anderson helming an action movie for the first time in his filmmaking career. Other films of his had been tense and exciting in other ways, but this one had a bigger budget and more set pieces, even if it was also concerned with being more than “just” an action movie.
Leonardo DiCaprio, as Bob, is kind of the lead here, but Sean Penn’s villainous turn often steals the show, and much of the film is spent shifting the focus to Bob’s daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), who emerges as the real protagonist. There are tons of great performances here, a surprising amount of offbeat humor, and then some chase sequences that really feel alive and demonstrate that Anderson, as it turns out, probably has it in him to make blockbusters if he wanted to continue doing so.
70 'A Better Tomorrow' (1986)
Two men in a Mexican standoff in A Better TomorrowImage via Cinema City
The first of a handful of John Woo movies worth talking about for present purposes, A Better Tomorrow was one of his earliest films to attain a certain level of popularity and acclaim, putting him further on track to be one of the all-time great action movie directors. His name’s going to pop up a further four times below this (spoilers?), which should say a lot about how great he is at making this kind of movie.
A Better Tomorrow was his earliest borderline perfect heroic bloodshed movie, with its plot pitting two brothers against each other in a complicated test of loyalty, as one is an ex-gangster who wants to break free of that sort of life, and the other is a police officer. It’s more of a melodrama for a good chunk of its runtime (not that there’s anything wrong with that), saving its best action sequences for the final act, but when they hit, they hit uncompromisingly hard.
69 'Braveheart' (1995)
Image via Paramount Pictures
Braveheart is probably more definable as a historical epic (albeit one that’s more set in historical times rather than going for historical accuracy) than an action movie, but there’s still quite a lot of action. It’s about William Wallace (Mel Gibson) seeking revenge for the murder of the woman he loved, but then this act of revenge snowballs into a full-on rebellion against English rule in Scotland.
It's a little like Spartacus in terms of its premise and structure, but it feels bloodier and more brutal than that film and the other epics of old. Braveheart scarcely holds back and might well be a little too over-the-top at times, but it’s also easy to get swept up in the film, even with it being as broad, bombastic, unsubtle, and historically shaky as it is. There’s a good story here bolstered by compelling battle sequences, and that ends up being more than enough.
68 'Battle Royale' (2000)
A girl with blood on her face trying to touch something in front of her with a bloody fingerImage via Toei
The premise of Battle Royale is instantly horrifying and successfully stomach-churning, given that it’s about a class of teenage students being sent to an island and told they have to kill each other. It’s established early on that the people behind this are not messing around in the slightest, and that it really will be a “last person standing” sort of competition, with only one student allowed to live, once all others are dead.
It's heavy stuff, but Battle Royale is also quite exciting and has a ton of action alongside all the depressing drama. It’s the sort of thing that could’ve really gone wrong, but it’s pulled off well here. It’s also a must-watch for anyone who was intrigued by the premise of The Hunger Games but wanted to see it executed in a rawer and (mostly) more realistic way.
67 'The Dirty Dozen' (1967)
Image via MGM
Even if The Dirty Dozen disappointed when it came to its action scenes, it would still be worth checking out for how ridiculously great its cast was. This World War II action/adventure movie stars the likes of Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, and Donald Sutherland, and has a super enticing and well-executed premise, too.
Essentially, The Dirty Dozen is about assembling a group of military prisoners and training them for a hugely dangerous mission, one in which their survival (though unlikely) will be rewarded by their crimes being pardoned. It’s got a very straightforward three-act structure, but it’s also very satisfying to watch play out nonetheless, with the performances and the memorable characters also going a long way toward making The Dirty Dozen a classic.
66 'Sholay' (1975)
Two men firing guns in the Indian action movie Sholay (1975)Image via Sippy Films
Functioning as both a great epic movie and an over-the-top action flick, Sholay runs for well over three hours yet stays entertaining for pretty much every minute of its runtime. Broadly, it’s about one man seeking revenge against a notorious criminal for the murder of his family, and the way he seeks the help of two slightly less notorious outlaws to carry out his plan.
Also, if that doesn’t sound like enough, Sholay is also a musical, sort of a Western, and it balances its dramatic moments with the more buddy comedy-style moments surprisingly well. It’s a maximalist film that, on the surface, might look like it’s overstuffed, but everything just comes together somehow, and it ends up being a blast. If you're not too familiar with Indian cinema and want to get acquainted with it, so to speak, then this is honestly a pretty good starting point.
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Imo the raid and hot fuzz should be much higher to effortlessly entertaining and very fun movies to boot!
2025-02-04 21:10:30 Upvote Downvote Reply Copy35-70 is very questionable with many weak recommendations
1-35 pretty solid
60 of the movies are worth watching
2025-07-24 09:27:24 Upvote Downvote Reply CopyBest one
2024-08-05 22:39:26 Upvote Downvote Reply CopyShould rename this, the bottom 36 of the best Action movies of all time... jesus.
2024-09-05 07:51:37 Upvote Downvote Reply Copy7 good movies out of this whole list
2025-02-19 09:59:59 Upvote Downvote Reply CopyComplete the list bro
2024-08-07 14:41:36 Upvote Downvote Reply CopyI love this site. It's awesome!
2024-11-02 15:47:53 Upvote Downvote Reply Copy