What makes an action movie great? The biggest explosions? The hardest punches? The most bullets fired? Those are all very fun, but in the end, it ultimately comes down to how a movie makes you feel, and these had us pumping our fists the most.
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00:00What makes an action movie great?
00:02The biggest explosions, the hardest punches, the most bullets fired.
00:07Those are all very fun, but in the end, it ultimately comes down to how a movie makes
00:10you feel, and these had us pumping our fists the most.
00:14If you've only ever seen the four movies, you might find it hard to believe that The
00:18Hunger Games was originally a trilogy of books aimed at kids.
00:21The first film released in 2012 is a particularly harsh, unpredictable, unsettling dystopian
00:26nightmare of an action movie, in which children are constantly in peril but clever and resourceful
00:31enough to fight off whatever comes at them.
00:33In a star-making turn, Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss Everdeen, a tribute from the poverty-stricken
00:38District 12.
00:39She goes to fight to the death against other teens and children from the various sectors
00:43of the totalitarian nation of Panem after stepping in to prevent her younger sister
00:48from having to go.
00:49I volunteer as tribute!
00:51The contestants face off inside an arena filled with traps and deadly creatures, which serves
00:56as a punishment for a long-ago rebel uprising.
00:59But Katniss is a hunter, and so not only does she know how to survive, she knows how to
01:03defend herself.
01:04But she can put off cracking under the pressure for only so long.
01:08It took nearly 40 years for Hollywood to deliver a sequel to probably the best movie ever made
01:12about aviation, The Cold War, naval camaraderie, and non-wartime military action, and somehow
01:18it was worth the wait.
01:19Top Gun Maverick is just as good as the original in terms of drama, thrills, character dynamics,
01:24and breathtaking aerial action sequences.
01:26The 2022 follow-up catches up with Tom Cruise's character from the first film, hotshot U.S.
01:31Navy pilot Pete Maverick Mitchell, still working and cheating death as a test pilot, avoiding
01:36promotion because it would keep him out of the air.
01:39He's enlisted to train a group of young and cocky pilots for an extremely dangerous mission,
01:44one of whom, played by Miles Teller, is the son of his late best friend.
01:47Really though, Top Gun Maverick is about the dogfights and the plane shots, and it's got
01:51plenty of unbelievable flying scenes.
01:54Steve McQueen was one of Hollywood's first major action stars, and a pioneer of the form.
01:58He even did as many of his own stunts as film studios would let him.
02:02For example, he did some of the driving for the landmark, on-location car chase scene
02:06in 1968's Bullet.
02:08That chase is a reason this movie is chiefly remembered today, and if Bullet consisted
02:12entirely of that scene, it would still make this list.
02:15It's just that good.
02:16The plot is loaded with twists and intrigue, about a politician, hitmen, and organized
02:21But the highlight is McQueen, as the explosively named Lieutenant Frank Bullet, chasing the
02:25bad guys in their Dodge Charger RT through the very real, very hilly streets of San Francisco.
02:31No standard-issue police cruiser for Bullet, he's got a sweet Ford Mustang GT.
02:35The long and deliberately paced high-speed pursuit ends the only way it could, and in
02:39the best possible way, with a gas station explosion.
02:43Drive is a film that made romantic hero and teen idol Ryan Gosling into a serious actor,
02:47by presenting him as a character so stoic that he's almost inscrutable.
02:51He doesn't even get a name, just Driver.
02:53This movie also made millions of fans want to rock a sweet satin jacket with a scorpion
02:58on the back.
02:59Gosling spends a lot of the 2011 neo-noir silently brooding, and the rest of it defying
03:03death and evading trouble, both as a movie stuntman and a getaway driver for hire.
03:08He's also developed a crush on Irene, a married neighbor played by Carey Mulligan.
03:12Her recently paroled husband asks Driver to help him out on a heist, but it all goes awry,
03:17leaving Gosling's character to use his driving, survival, and tough-guy skills to protect
03:21Irene.
03:22I don't carry a gun, I drive.
03:26Duel is the kind of movie you either can't look away from, or hide your eyes in fear.
03:30That's because it's grounded in realism, depicting a frightening moment that could feasibly happen
03:35to any random person.
03:36A few things make this 1971 card-shade thriller notable.
03:39One, it was a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC, and two, it's the feature-length debut
03:44of superstar director Steven Spielberg.
03:47It's about a normal, average working man played by Dennis Weaver driving his Plymouth to a
03:51meeting with a client.
03:52Seemingly unprovoked, he arouses the ire of a big-rig trucker that doggedly follows David,
03:57attempting to run him off the road and kill him in any number of ways.
04:01We never get a good look at the person driving the truck, making it even more unsettling.
04:05David is naturally unnerved, and it takes more than defensive driving to save himself.
04:11Diminishing Returns is generally the name of the game with long-running film franchises,
04:15but according to critics, 2015's Furious 7 is the most critically acclaimed entry in
04:20the entire Fast & Furious series.
04:22By that point, the series' architects had stopped taking the movie so seriously, totally
04:26embracing the chaos and action-packed silliness that made the first few entries critical duds.
04:31That has gotta go to work.
04:37This time around, the found family of drag racers and international criminal masterminds
04:41must reconvene to rescue a kidnapped and powerful hacker while also dealing with a British mercenary
04:46looking for revenge.
04:47This, of course, involves a lot of physics-defying car chases, car leaps, car stunts, and car
04:53crashes.
04:54The movie also marked the last appearance of series stalwart Paul Walker, who died in
04:57a tragic car accident just before filming was completed.
05:01It's never quite clear which story being told in Atomic Blonde is the true one or where
05:05intentions or loyalties really lie, which makes sense given that it's about secret identities
05:10and double agents.
05:11But the fact remains that this 2017 shoot-'em-up directed by John Wick veteran David Leitch
05:16is one of the most captivating and compelling action movies of the last decade.
05:20It stars Charlize Theron as the British spy agency MI6's top agent.
05:24Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he's sent into a dreary, intimidating, communist-run
05:29East Berlin to obtain a dossier listing all known secret agents and their identities.
05:34Along the way, she has to shoot a lot of people, get out of several almost assuredly deadly
05:39traps, and even get herself out of a speeding car while attempting to kill the driver.
05:44It doesn't seem like a cross between Groundhog Day and Independence Day would work, but director
05:49Doug Liman crafted 2014's Edge of Tomorrow into one of the most creative action sci-fi
05:54movies in years.
05:55In this smart and chaotic military caper, seemingly indestructible aliens called Mimics
05:59terrorize Earth until they have to square off against Major William Cage, played by
06:03Tom Cruise.
06:05Except, not really, because he gets caught in a time loop and keeps returning to the
06:09moment just before his death, becoming a better fighter each time.
06:13An adaptation of a popular Japanese light novel, Edge of Tomorrow is an action movie
06:17with a moral.
06:18If at first you don't succeed at killing aliens, try, try again to kill those aliens.
06:23Is the original 1987 robo-cop a sincere, violent, action-packed, futuristic cop movie, or a
06:28total satire of films from its era that are equally or more violent?
06:32Like any good send-up, and many of director Paul Verhoeven's other movies, it works on
06:36both levels.
06:38Robo-cop has a lot to say about the value of human life and the crime-ridden future
06:41of Detroit.
06:42For example, it's about a police officer, Murphy, played by Peter Weller, who falls
06:46dead to some pretty intense violence.
06:48The corporation that runs much of the city, Omni Consumer Products, resurrects him as
06:51a cyborg to summarily execute as many criminals as humanly possible.
06:56It's bloody, it's gory, it's full of gunplay, but it's also got some sweet robot action.
07:01And isn't that what really matters?
07:02Thank you for your cooperation.
07:04Good night."
07:06Decades before superhero movies took over cinemas, 1978's Superman essentially created
07:11the mold for the modern big-budget comic book adaptation.
07:14It's bursting with color, and as proudly goofy as it is strong-fisted, the filmmakers spared
07:18no expense and let their imaginations wander within the extremely familiar Superman mythos.
07:23Christopher Reeve plays Superman as the gee whiz boy scout that he is, and Clark Kent
07:27as a naive doofus.
07:29Part of what makes a movie work so well is Reeve's performance of the two, as distinct
07:33personas with entirely different body language.
07:35The Man of Steel squares off against Lex Luthor, played by Oscar winner Gene Hackman with charm,
07:40depth, and disarming humor.
07:42And then there are the action sequences, not the least of which feature Superman spinning
07:45the Earth backwards to reverse time.
07:47Up, up and away!
07:49After a deluge of comedic action films made him a massive international star, English-speaking
07:53audiences were finally formally introduced to the singular cinema of Jackie Chan, with
07:58Rumble in the Bronx.
07:59The 1995 Hong Kong-U.S. co-production was released in American theaters in early 1996,
08:05and it was quite representative of Chan's talents.
08:08The plot is pretty boilerplate good-guys-versus-bad-guys stuff, involving gangs and illegal diamond
08:13deals.
08:14But there's also romance, Chan's self-deprecating humor, and of course, stunts that look impossible
08:19— particularly some motorcycle acrobatics and a jaw-dropping closing sequence involving
08:23a hovercraft.
08:24Chan performed all those stunts for real, and as usual, they almost killed him.
08:29Adapting action video games into movies has always been a tricky proposition.
08:33Video games are an inherently different medium, where interactivity is what provides the thrill.
08:37It's almost no surprise, then, that the movie that best captures the feel of a beat-'em-up
08:41game isn't based on a game at all, but instead a beloved indie graphic novel series.
08:46Edgar Wright's 2010 adaptation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World captures all of the unique tropes,
08:51rules, and spectacle of video games in film form.
08:54Michael Cera plays the title character, a mild-mannered bassist in a garage band who,
08:58to win the heart of the captivating and mysterious Ramona Flowers, must defeat her seven evil
09:03exes in a series of showdowns.
09:05He does so in dazzling fashion, delivering massively heavy and cartoonish blows to the
09:09point where his vanquished enemies leave coins behind.
09:13The movie's cast went on to be a murderous row of superstars, including Aubrey Plaza,
09:19Brie Larson, Kieran Culkin, and Anna Kendrick.
09:22Action isn't usually the genre where the movies can tout that they're based on a true story,
09:27but every once in a while, they adapt what may seem like an unbelievable real-life tale
09:31for the screen.
09:32For one, 2008's Ip Man is a loosely biographical story of a Wing Chun grandmaster who famously
09:38trained the legendary film star Bruce Lee.
09:40The title hero, played by Donnie Yen, is the best martial artist and trainer in the
09:44Chinese city of Foshan.
09:46His low-key life and appreciation of martial arts for their own sake are tested after the
09:50Japanese invasion of 1937.
09:53He competes for bags of rice in fighting competitions against Japanese troops, and seeks revenge
09:57when his friend, Lin, disappears for good.
10:00At the heart of the movie are the high-stakes battles between Chinese and Japanese fighters,
10:04all against the chilling backdrop of war.
10:07Another war-focused action movie based in real-life history, director Christopher Nolan's
10:112017 Oscar-winner Dunkirk concerns a particularly difficult episode of combat during World War
10:17II.
10:18In May 1940, Germany's invasion of France trapped Allied troops in the French coastal
10:22city of Dunkirk.
10:23The film, with its casts of both up-and-coming and long-established British actors, dramatizes
10:28in realistic and flinching detail the novel, brave, and truly heroic efforts put forth
10:33by British and French forces to evacuate 330,000 soldiers.
10:38It's a tense but thrilling experience.
10:40The 2016 film Rogue One isn't the best Star Wars movie.
10:44It's a side story, an immediate prequel to A New Hope about a scrappy crew that comes
10:48together to take advantage of a fatal flaw in the Death Star by swiping the plans out
10:52of enemy hands.
10:53What director Gareth Edwards does bring to the table in Rogue One, though, is a type
10:57of action presentation other movies in the Star Wars franchise don't have.
11:01Those are space operas.
11:03This is a gritty heist movie that just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe.
11:07As the team comes together, plans the crime, pulls it off, and suffers the consequences
11:11of it all, the action is as unrelenting as it is eye-popping.
11:15If you were born after, say, 1980, you probably have a mental image of Sylvester Stallone
11:20as a late-'80s action star, all big muscles and guns blazing.
11:24But the Stallone of the 1970s and early-'80s went for a more thoughtful type of film.
11:28The first Rocky is a good example, particularly when you compare it to its sequels.
11:32But the even more stark comparison is between 1982's First Blood and the Rambo movies that
11:37followed it.
11:38The first film about John Rambo is a psychologically and physically realistic probe into the mind
11:43of a man with PTSD.
11:44He's a decade removed from the Vietnam War, but still fighting it internally, and he fights
11:49it externally.
11:50They drew First Blood, not me.
11:52After Rambo's mental break in Washington state, it's up to his old commanding officer to save
11:56the on-the-run former soldier from himself and authorities.
12:00It was only years later that Rambo would become the cartoonish action hero he became.
12:05Not only is it a great action movie, but Wonder Woman just might be the perfect blockbuster.
12:09It's mind-blowing that it's director Patty Jenkins' first go at an action flick, because
12:12she perfectly balances so many tough elements.
12:15Wonder Woman is an origin story, a World War I movie, and a romance that even has some
12:19effective comic relief and a twist ending.
12:21This is to say nothing of Gal Gadot's revelatory performance as the title character, who so
12:26thoroughly and powerfully embodies heroism that you don't know whether to cry, cheer,
12:30or simply exhale when it's all over.
12:33By setting most of the movie inside dreams, director Christopher Nolan was really able
12:37to cut loose in his trippy 2010 sci-fi opus Inception.
12:40The movie follows Dom Kopp, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who's hired to plant an idea in
12:45someone's mind as part of an artful criminal undertaking.
12:48The audience learns about how Dom can enter dreams via Elliot Page's Ariadne, a graduate
12:52student who trains in dream architecture.
12:55Inception is visually stunning, with its physics-eschewing fight scenes and fluidity
12:59of time.
13:00Of course, it's a mind-bender, too.
13:02The viewers can never be quite sure if the action is taking place in waking life, a dream,
13:06or a dream inside of a dream, even up to the very end.
13:10A hugely influential film, 1973's Lady Snowblood is based on the classic manga series of the
13:15same name.
13:16It's as beautiful as it is violent and exciting, and among the directors it inspired was Quentin
13:21Tarantino, who pulled directly from it in his Kill Bill Revenge saga.
13:25Set in the 19th century, Lady Snowblood centers on Yuki, who was born in a women's prison
13:30to a dying mother during a snowstorm.
13:32Her mom was jailed for killing one of the men who assaulted her and murdered her husband
13:36and son.
13:37Yuki is taught from early childhood to be a deadly killer trained in many disciplines,
13:40with plans to use her skills to avenge the crimes committed against her family.
13:44When she turns 20, she does just that, carefully and deliberately hunting down and eliminating
13:49targets one by one.
13:51The original Alien from 1979 was a sci-fi horror masterpiece made on a modest budget.
13:56Seven years later, writer and director James Cameron made everything bigger, including
14:00the title.
14:01He expanded the mythology of the Xenomorph universe to envision a terrifying battle between
14:05humans and aliens, the outcome of which is never certain.
14:08It's claustrophobic like a thriller, but it's definitely an actioner, too, with all the
14:12space marines firing wildly into the darkness.
14:15Cameron's Aliens also transforms Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley from a final girl just
14:19trying to survive into the most butt-kicking action movie character of all time.
14:24"...get away from her, you b----."
14:26Weaver was even nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.
14:29Suddenly, the entire action drama wasn't just about angry fighting dudes anymore.
14:34Is Bullet Train the most coherent film on this list?
14:37Absolutely not, and there's an argument to be made that it's not really trying to be.
14:40David Leitch's smooth, breathlessly paced, and endlessly surprising action comedy revels
14:45in absurdity.
14:46Showcasing both the cruelness of fate and the bounty of good fortune through fight scenes
14:50so wonderfully chaotic, they list it as many laughs as they do gasps.
14:54Leitch brings his trademark glossy sense of style to the film, making two hours of nonstop
14:58violence feel almost as luxurious as the title vessel carrying the cast across Japan.
15:03For those who have yet to see it, try your best to go in without any spoilers.
15:06You'll never believe who boards the Bullet Train next.
15:09Sure, some action movies are thoughtful, serious affairs about real-world problems, but audiences
15:14often go to an action flick looking to have fun.
15:17In most cases, the name of the game is to pleasantly bewilder and excite moviegoers
15:21with some over-the-top fisticuffs and shootouts.
15:24The funny and often irreverent 2006 action movie Crank does exactly that, placing the
15:29usually calm, collected, and in-charge Jason Statham in a situation not unlike the one
15:34in Speed.
15:35But instead of a bus, it's his own body.
15:37Statham's character, Chep, is a professional killer planning to go legit after one last
15:41But then he botches it and receives a DVD telling him he's been poisoned and has an
15:45hour to live.
15:46So he only has 60 minutes, much of which plays out in real time to find the antidote.
15:50Plus, he can't let his adrenaline levels dip, or he'll die even sooner.
15:54It makes for one very busy and entertaining hour.
15:57Director John McTiernan mixed elements of war movies with horror and science fiction
16:01and wound up with 1987's Predator, one of the most rollicking, thrilling, and unpredictable
16:06action flicks ever made.
16:08The film also features one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most engaging performances, helping launch
16:12a franchise that's still going strong today without him.
16:15Run!
16:16Go!
16:17Get to the chopper!
16:21The film follows an elite military squad led by Arnold's Major Alan Dutch Schaefer as it's
16:26sent to track down a hostage kidnapped by rebels.
16:29Avoiding attacks from insurgents and the natural dangers of the jungle is enough to worry about,
16:33but the team also has to deal with something even nastier, the camouflaged Wile E. Alien
16:37that's tracking them for sport.
16:40Some viewers may quibble with this 2022 Best Picture Oscar winner being slotted into the
16:44action genre, but the title Everything Everywhere All at Once is accurate.
16:48It's a funny, giddy, eye-popping assault on the senses that combines classic sci-fi, action,
16:53and journey-of-the-soul movie tropes to create something wholly original.
16:57Star Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, a middle-aged Chinese immigrant living in the U.S.
17:01She's bored with her humdrum existence running a laundromat until she unlocks the power of
17:06daydreams.
17:07These fantasies aren't little mental escapes at all, but pathways to a multiverse where
17:11Evelyn jumps into the life of whatever other Evelyn she can imagine.
17:14In one, she's an action film star and martial arts master, leading to some eye-popping fights.
17:20Genius action movie director John Woo and star Chow Yun-fat grabbed everyone's attention
17:24when they teamed up for the enchanting yet hard-hitting 1989 crime epic The Killer.
17:29Chow plays a renowned assassin in the criminal underworld ruled by the Hong Kong Triad.
17:33He actually loves what he does, filling his chosen targets with lead for large sums of
17:37money.
17:38But he rejects his profession after an innocent nightclub singer becomes collateral damage
17:42in one of his hits.
17:43Jeffrey decides to take just one more job to pay for restorative eye surgery for the
17:48blinded singer, but then he's double-crossed and has to team up with a dirty cop to even
17:52the score, which means a lot of gun battles shot like they were scenes in a beautiful
17:56art film.
17:57Plenty of action movies end with the criminal court and headed to prison, but that's where
18:01director Luc Besson's 1990 breakout film La Femme Nikita begins.
18:06During a pharmacy robbery and shootout, troubled Parisian teenager Nikita kills a police officer.
18:11She's arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
18:14Some time later, Nikita awakens in a strange room where she finds out her death has been
18:18faked and she's now under the employ of the Center, a government agency who wants to make
18:23her a contract killer.
18:24After some heavy-duty training in firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and hacking, as well
18:29as a makeover, Nikita becomes the deadliest assassin in Europe.
18:33For the better part of a decade, American audiences almost exclusively knew Chris Hemsworth
18:38as Thor, Marvel's God of Thunder, who could easily overpower any foe.
18:42So when Extraction arrived on Netflix in 2020, it didn't just entertain audiences with tense,
18:47carefully choreographed fight sequences, it reintroduced one of Hollywood's biggest superheroes
18:52as a serious action star.
18:53Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, an Australian Special Forces veteran who takes a mercenary
18:58contract to save the son of a powerful drug kingpin in Bangladesh.
19:02As the pair attempt to make it out of there in one piece, the lines between friend and
19:05foe become blurred beyond recognition, creating an edge-of-your-seat viewing experience rivaling
19:10most theatrical releases of the decade so far.
19:13Based on the classic graphic novels of the same name by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and
19:17with a script by the Wachowskis of The Matrix fame, 2006's V for Vendetta offers a chilling
19:22vision of the near future.
19:24Set in England under fascist rule, a vigilante known only as V, played by Hugo Weaving, fights
19:28back against the brutal police state, engaging in speedy hand-to-hand combat in the streets.
19:33He wears a cape and a creepy mask in the likeness of Guy Fawkes, who famously perpetuated a
19:38failed royal assassination attempt in 1605.
19:42After he rescues a state-run TV employee played by Natalie Portman from crooked, vicious cops,
19:47they team up to wage an all-out revolution against tyranny.
19:51While 2002's Die Another Day be as Brosnan's final film as super-spy James Bond, the 007
19:57franchise had descended into a checklist of the familiar.
20:00Tuxedos, gadgets, shake-and-not-stir martinis, and a pretty actress as a completely interchangeable
20:05Bond girl.
20:06It was time for a modern twist on the formula, and Casino Royale knocked it out of the park
20:10four years later.
20:12Yes.
20:13Considerably.
20:14Daniel Craig took over as a younger James Bond, and the movie took cues from other forward-thinking
20:20action films of the new millennium.
20:22It's gritty, intense, and completely lacking the usual James Bond silliness to deliver
20:26the best entry in the series since Sean Connery was creating action movie tropes back in the
20:3160s.
20:33Edgar Wright is best known for directing comedies with some action or horror elements, but with
20:36Baby Driver in 2017, he made the leap to full-blown action, and the result is as frenetic and
20:42assured as the lead character's driving.
20:44Ansel Elgort plays the titular baby.
20:46A young but very skilled driver recruits it to handle the getaway car for a heist squad.
20:50The real stunts in the film are deliriously fun, and the director's extensive movie knowledge
20:55and vocabulary inform his self-assured direction with a mishmash of homages to other films.
21:00It makes for a thoroughly satisfying assault on the senses.
21:03The end result is pretty much everything audiences could want out of a car-based action film.
21:081997's Face Off is such a preposterous concept that it would have been a ridiculous misfire
21:13had it been made by any one but Hong Kong action legend John Woo, who turns it into
21:17something unforgettable.
21:19The film also finds the perfect role for the idiosyncratic Nicolas Cage.
21:23Caster Troy, a giddily, crazed terrorist who tries to kill FBI agent Sean Archer, played
21:28by John Travolta at the height of his 90s career revival.
21:31To learn where Troy hid a massive bomb, Archer has his own face surgically replaced with
21:36Troy's, and then Troy gets his replaced with Archer's.
21:38It's like Freaky Friday, but with bizarre science, riots, boat chases, and some of the
21:43most epic shootout sequences ever caught on film.
21:47Sometimes, the problem with comic book movies is that they take themselves too seriously,
21:51forgetting the whole point of their source material.
21:53To be some fantastical fun, Guardians of the Galaxy embraced its DNA to deliver one of
21:57the most purely enjoyable comic book adaptations of all time.
22:01It's as much of a comedy as it is an action ride through outer space, with Chris Pratt
22:05perfectly cast as the funny and fearless Peter Quill, who ineffectively demands to
22:09be called Star-Lord.
22:10Star-Lord.
22:11Who?
22:12Star-Lord, man.
22:13Add in a space prison, a telepathic arrow, 70s rock classics, a foul-mouthed raccoon,
22:22a talking tree, and a cascading series of epic space battles and hand-to-hand bouts,
22:26and the end result is a joyous, self-conscious blast.
22:30In the years leading up to Prey, the Predator franchise had gotten stale.
22:33It had found itself stuck wading through increasingly tedious and needlessly overcomplicated
22:38sci-fi territory, rather than the lean, tense action of the original.
22:42Dan Trachtenberg's 2022 prequel did away with most of that, traveling back in time to 1719
22:47and pitting the series' central monster against a young Comanche warrior played by Amber Midthunder.
22:53Though it had a smaller budget than Shane Black's The Predator from two years earlier,
22:57Trachtenberg's presentation is so atmospheric, suspenseful, and clever that it feels far
23:01more immersive than that in most of the rest of the franchise.
23:04By 1994, the 1980s style of bombastic action movie, presided over by stone-faced bodybuilders,
23:10was coming to an end.
23:11But James Cameron teamed up with that generous poster boy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for one
23:15last audacious and over-the-top hurrah, turning out what was, at the time, the most expensive
23:20movie ever made.
23:21It's also a loving send-up of crowd-pleasing blockbusters of being one itself.
23:25Schwarzenegger plays Harry Tasker, supposedly a bland and timid traveling salesman except
23:31that he's actually a jet-set super-spy.
23:33He takes his eye off the prize on his latest mission to thwart a nuclear-armed terrorist.
23:37He finds out his bored wife is considering an affair with another salesman who claims
23:41to be a spy but isn't.
23:43Ultimately, Harry gets kidnapped, Helen has to help get him back, and there's a really
23:47cool scene where Arnold pilots a Harrier jet.
23:50The original Jurassic Park was a revelation in 1993, popularizing a subgenre known as
23:55the techno-thriller.
23:56Pioneered by author Michael Crichton, who wrote the novel the film was based on, these
24:00fables inevitably involve technology run amok to the shock and horror of the humans
24:04that created it.
24:05Of course, that's all a lot of fun to watch, especially when the technology is dinosaurs
24:10brought back to life via cloning.
24:12Said dinos are seen trying to kill people in a rainstorm, spitting venom in a bad guy's
24:16face, chasing kids, and ripping other dinosaurs to ribbons.
24:20Add in a majestic, unforgettable score by John Williams and enthusiastic direction by
24:24Steven Spielberg, and you've got a modern popcorn masterpiece.
24:28When Natalie Portman won her Best Actress Academy Award in 2011, plenty of action fans
24:33could plainly predict that it was going to happen because they had seen The Professional
24:3617 years earlier, when she was just 13.
24:39And it is a great performance.
24:41She elevates what could otherwise have been an average and rote action film about hitmen
24:45and revenge.
24:46Portman plays Matilda, whose family is killed by a seedy DEA agent.
24:50Desperate, she takes refuge in an unlikely place, the home of Leon, played by Jean Reno,
24:55a Tashiturn professional killer who lives in her apartment building.
24:58Leon shelters Matilda, but also pulls her deeper into the world of crime and violence
25:02as she seeks his help in avenging the deaths of her family.
25:06The medium of film was still in its infancy when King Kong hit theaters in 1933.
25:10It's one of the first-ever action movies and also one of the first big movies, greatly
25:14influencing the many spectacular blockbusters that would follow over the decades.
25:18The rudimentary special effects are still impressive in this ambitious story of a gigantic
25:23ape taken from his island home to be exploited as a curiosity.
25:27Kong gets angry, escapes, and climbs the Empire State Building, memorably swatting
25:31away at the tiny airplanes trying to dislodge him.
25:34Never has a fable about man's desire but inability to conquer nature been such a sensory overload.
25:391993's The Fugitive is way better than it has any right to be.
25:44Its source material, a dated TV series from the 60s about Dr. Richard Kimball, a man wrongly
25:49accused of killing his wife, was compelling.
25:51But in the hands of director Andrew Davis and star Harrison Ford, the story became one
25:55of the most thrilling chase movies of all time.
25:58I didn't kill my wife!
26:01I don't care!
26:02Nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, The Fugitive boasts two of the most
26:07famous set pieces in film history.
26:09First, there's the prisoner train crash that allows Ford's Kimball to escape.
26:13And then there's the sequence that ends when Kimball takes an extremely high dive off a
26:16dam to evade the U.S. Marshal, Sam Girard, played by Tommy Lee Jones.
26:20Jones won an Oscar for his performance, and it's quite the accomplishment to upstage Indiana
26:24Jones in an action movie.
26:26Top Gun just might be the ultimate dad movie and the ultimate 80s movie.
26:30The 1986 original is a mixture of era-appropriate, muscly American patriotism and cocksure guys
26:36flying jets, complete with smirks and self-congratulatory cheers the whole way through.
26:41Tom Cruise permanently put himself on the A-list as Maverick, a flight school attendee
26:45who thinks he's better than his superiors and classmates, who are all just as bold and
26:49brash as he is.
26:50Maverick proves his mettle when forced into an active and sensitive military skirmish
26:54with some tricky flight work involved.
26:56And that's why Top Gun is one of the best action movies ever made.
26:59The quick-cut, stunt-plane footage from director Tony Scott makes for some of the most exciting,
27:04seemingly impossibly captured scenes ever put on film.
27:08Not just another entertaining but vaguely predictable chapter in the slowly unfolding
27:12Marvel Cinematic Universe saga, Black Panther represented a completely different kind of
27:16comic book movie in 2018.
27:18It was revelatory for its stars and a watershed moment for mainstream American films, an industry
27:23that rarely celebrates Africa or makes movies with predominantly black cast.
27:27Chadwick Boseman portrayed the regal T'Challa, who returns to the utopian African kingdom
27:31of Wakanda to take the throne, against the wishes of Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger,
27:36the conflicted, complicated, and empathetic villain of the movie.
27:39To save his country and countrymen, T'Challa must come into his own as Black Panther, a
27:43superhero bestowed with unparalleled gifts.
27:47Reboots generally don't work.
27:49Even if they do, they're usually doomed to pale in comparison to the original.
27:52Not so with 2015's Mad Max Fury Road, which expands and improves on the Mad Max universe
27:57with a nonstop ride through the familiar, harrowing, post-apocalyptic wasteland on modified
28:02cars, tanks, and war machines piloted by crazed, survival-driven Nomad warriors.
28:07Oh, what a day!
28:09What a lovely day!
28:10Series creator George Miller returned to direct Fury Road, and his 35-plus years of experience
28:15as a filmmaker are on full display in an action movie that's both endlessly thrilling
28:19and emotionally compelling.
28:21It helps that master actors Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are along for the ride.
28:25To say nothing of Doof Warrior, a guy who stands on a moving vehicle and plays a fire-spewing
28:29electric guitar, who just might be dystopian cinema's most memorable character.
28:34Hollywood had churned out multiple big-budget Batman and Superman movies by 2002, the year
28:39a movie about the third member of the most famous superhero club finally got made.
28:43A Spider-Man movie had been in development hell for decades before director Sam Raimi
28:47finally got his hands on the web-slinger.
28:50Maybe that was a good thing, since CGI technology had advanced to the point where he could make
28:54a thrilling, delightful, and visceral Spider-Man flick.
28:57Star Tobey Maguire speedily soars around New York City's skyscrapers in such realistic,
29:02point-of-view fashion that the audience is dizzy, if not nauseated, afterwards.
29:06Spider-Man also fully embraces the title character's mild-mannered regular-guy persona, Peter Parker,
29:11as a geeky teenage photographer, making his transformation into Spider-Man, nemesis of
29:15Willem Dafoe's villainous Green Goblin, all the more impressive and satisfying.
29:20After their crime movie masterwork The Killer, director John Woo and star Chow Yun-Fat reconvened
29:25three years later to make Hard-Boiled in 1992.
29:29In this follow-up, Chow plays an impossibly awesome and artistically violent legend on
29:33the right side of the law, although Inspector Tequila Yuen isn't exactly by the book.
29:38Yuen goes undercover to bust illegal gun dealers and does whatever he needs to to get
29:42his man, but his skills are stretched to their limit when, after his partner is killed in
29:46a firefight with gun smugglers, he teams up with an undercover cop, and they infiltrate
29:50the very dangerous Hong Kong Triad.
29:52Hard-Boiled is exactly that, a slow-burning police drama with plenty of unpredictable
29:56turns and a spectacular climax.
29:59Jimmy Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman, just never stops running.
30:03Or driving.
30:04Or punching.
30:06Or knocking some thug to the ground in pursuit of his violent brand of justice.
30:09His methods may not be normal, or ethical, or legal, but that just reflects the unexpected
30:13and original, nearly verite, style of direction by William Friedkin.
30:18Despite being so frenetic, so tough, so new, and so very violent, 1971's The French Connection
30:24won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
30:26And if they had an Oscar for Best Car Chase — in this case, a harrowing, white-knuckle
30:30ride under a New York elevator train — it probably would have won that, too.
30:34International cinema didn't get a lot of attention in the English-speaking world in the 1950s,
30:39but Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa earned universal, well-deserved praise for his taut,
30:44haunting, lyrical, and beautifully shot films, and among his best works is the 1954 adventure
30:50epic Seven Samurai.
30:51In a rural, run-down Japanese village in the year 1586, the local farmers are threatened
30:56by vicious bandits who plan to attack and steal the entire harvest.
31:00Their way of life, if not lives, are in jeopardy, prompting elder Gasaku to suggest hiring seven
31:05samurai for protection and defense.
31:07The village is too poor to pay the warriors in anything other than food, so Gasaku suggests
31:11finding the hungriest samurai because they're the ones who will fight the hardest.
31:14As proven by Kurosawa's battle sequences, he is correct.
31:18You can expect a few things from just about any James Bond movie.
31:22Beautiful women, chases in exotic locales, fights in high locations, and daring gun battles.
31:27But that all had to start somewhere, and that place was in the swinging 60s.
31:31The series' third entry, 1964's Goldfinger, starring Sean Connery, established the franchise's
31:36best and most familiar tropes.
31:38One of those is a joyfully evil and hyper-smart villain, the title character played by Gerd
31:42Froeber.
31:43Goldfinger plans to break into Fort Knox and eradicate all the gold there to upend the
31:48world economy to his own financial benefit.
31:50Bond, always retaining his cool, tries every exciting and explosive trick in the book to
31:55stop him after nearly getting sliced in half by a laser.
31:58Do you expect me to talk?
32:00No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!
32:03Much of the conversation surrounding 2022's The Woman King concerned whether or not it
32:08was actually historically accurate.
32:10But all that really missed the point.
32:12Facts aren't the real draw here.
32:13It's a revival of the sword-and-sandal genre, seen through fresh eyes in a different perspective.
32:18Rarely has a filmmaker — in this case, director Gina Prince-Brythewood — been able to evoke
32:22the same sand-swept sense of adventure as Ben-Hur or Gladiator.
32:26Much less do so around grounded fight scenes so tightly choreographed and intricate, the
32:31film feels like a cousin to sleek, modern punch-em-ups like the John Wick series.
32:35It has the capability to win over even those averse to the historical action genre, especially
32:40with Viola Davis giving one of the best performances of her career.
32:44Westerns used to be thought of as kid stuff.
32:47Back in the 1930s and 40s, children loved Roy Rogers, Gene Archery, and other good guys
32:52in white hats singing along the trail as they foiled train bandits and horse thieves.
32:57The real Old West was nothing like that.
32:58It was probably more like to the absolutely gonzo, lawless nightmare world of Sam Peckinpah's
33:031969 border fight epic, The Wild Bunch.
33:06A huge influence on later filmmakers, The Wild Bunch embraced blood, violence, and moral
33:12ambiguity.
33:13At the time of its release, movies by and large did not show blood.
33:16People got shot and just fell down.
33:18But The Wild Bunch showed, and kind of celebrated, the real consequences of violence with its
33:22multiple never-ending shootouts.
33:25One guy's even got a machine gun that more properly belongs on a warship.
33:28Sometimes cowboys and gunslingers had to shoot each other, and that made the good guys a
33:32little bad, and the bad guys a little good.
33:35No one else has ever demonstrated a more impressive and enchanting mastery of on-screen martial
33:40arts than Bruce Lee.
33:41Consider how well he's still remembered, even though his screen career as an action star
33:45was really only a few short years in the late 1960s and early 70s.
33:49In 1973, he provided a glimpse of the wonderful and explosive new ways he could have lit up
33:54theaters with End of the Dragon, part martial arts movie and part spy movie, which meant
33:58double the action.
33:59Sadly, it was the last film Lee finished before his untimely death at the age of just 32.
34:04Bursting with charisma, Lee plays a kung fu master named Lee who's sent by a secret spy
34:09operation to infiltrate the inner circle of Han.
34:12A master criminal and martial artist who's trained at the same monastery, Lee and Han
34:16meet at a martial arts tournament, although Lee's mission takes a dark turn when he seeks
34:20revenge upon learning that Han's foot soldiers killed his sister.
34:23Yes, 2016's Train to Busan is a zombie movie, but it's not just horror.
34:28It's more of a chase movie, like so many great action movies.
34:31It's just that, in this case, the bad guys trying to defeat the good guys are flesh-hungry
34:35undead.
34:36Oh, and there's little to no escape for protagonist Seok-Woo, his daughter, or the many other characters
34:41on hand.
34:42Because Train to Busan is about the early stage of a zombie outbreak, and it almost
34:45entirely takes place in the cramped confines of the title train.
34:49That's a recipe for an intense, breathless action film.
34:53Ultra-violent revenge movies don't typically have plots hinging on an adorable puppy, but
34:57that's part of what makes 2014's John Wick so daringly different.
35:01After the death of his wife, Keanu Reeves' title assassin tries to fill the void in his
35:05life with his cute dog named Daisy, a gift from his dearly departed, and by riding around
35:09in his classic Ford Mustang.
35:11After he refuses to sell it to a Russian gangster, the spurned buyer and his cronies follow Wick
35:15home, knock him out, steal the car, and kill poor Daisy.
35:19Exacting his revenge pulls Wick back into the seedy underbelly of organized crime.
35:23"...people keep asking if I'm back, and I haven't really had an answer, but now, yeah,
35:30I'm thinking I'm back!"
35:32There are numerous atmospheric gun battles and fistfights across nightclubs, churches,
35:36safe houses, docks, and more.
35:38More than the plot, though, John Wick revolutionized the action genre by shooting the action in
35:43a clear, easy-to-follow way after years of shaky cameras gave audiences motion sickness.
35:48It's a revelation.
35:50In 2002, the James Bond franchise was slumping its way through an era of stale, lazily-delivered
35:55clichés.
35:56Thankfully, a refreshingly modern, wholly American spy movie reflected the current environment
36:00of post-911 geopolitics, the Bourne Identity.
36:04As Bond's Cold War era slipped into history, a sense of what now developed on the world
36:09As the War on Terror and Age of Surveillance emerged, Matt Damon's ultra-trained super-warrior
36:13who doesn't know his own name but is aware of his own incredible fighting abilities embodied
36:18that uncertainty.
36:19Thanks to the paranoid, groundbreaking-at-the-time shaky camerawork and urgent pace established
36:23by director Doug Liman, the audience rarely knows more than Jason Bond does.
36:27As a result, they never quite get to take a breath, either.
36:31When it was announced that director George Miller would be returning to the wastelands
36:34after the universally acclaimed Mad Max Fury Road, he had an almost impossibly high bar
36:39to clear.
36:40Astonishingly, the 2024 prequel Furiosa, with Anya Taylor-Joy playing a younger version
36:45of the title heroine instead of Charlize Theron, was every bit as ambitious as Fury Road in
36:50terms of narrative scope, character development, and action set pieces.
36:53From the motorbike race out of the Green Place to the assault on Gastown, each explosive
36:57conflict is so imaginative and mythological that the film often feels like a fairy tale
37:02for adults — and an incredibly violent one at that.
37:05The 1998 German suspense film Run Lola Run delivers exactly what the title promises — running.
37:12Star Franca Patenta keeps those legs pumping through most of the film's 80 minutes, much
37:16of which unfolds in real time.
37:18Lola's criminal boyfriend, Manny, has really messed up a large cash delivery, leaving it
37:22on the subway in a moment of panic.
37:24His boss will kill him if he doesn't replace the money in 20 minutes, and so Lola is off
37:28and running, trying every scheme she can think of to get the money to Manny.
37:32Some of those schemes don't work out, and Lola winds up dead, sending the action right
37:36back to the beginning where Lola gets another chance, just like in a video game.
37:40The original film essentially defined the popular action genre of the late 2010s and
37:44early 2020s.
37:45The release of John Wick Chapter 4, the finale of director Chad Stahelski's fourth film saga,
37:49felt like the end of an era in multiple significant ways.
37:52What started as a simple revenge story about a retired assassin, a career-reviving role
37:57for Keanu Reeves, killing his way through his grief, sprawled into an intercontinental
38:01— no pun intended — epic of conspiracy, survival, death, and rebirth, culminating
38:06in a no-holds-barred last stand in Paris, France.
38:09John's final trek to Sacré-Cœur is one of the most technically spectacular action sequences
38:13ever put on film, and could easily be considered the peak of a series with almost no valleys.
38:19Yes, director Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill is technically two movies from 2003 and 2004,
38:24but we're counting it as one epic tale of revenge centered on a hero of near-superhuman
38:29abilities and unrelenting focus, but with enough vulnerability and human motivation
38:34to make audiences root for her.
38:36Uma Thurman's The Bride goes on a quest to locate and take down every member of the deadly
38:40Viper assassination squad that left her for dead in a coma years earlier.
38:44The trail ultimately leads to the gang's leader, her ex-lover Bill, played by David Kerridine.
38:49Along the way, The Bride must subdue each of her enemies in wildly choreographed fight
38:53sequences — any number of which would be the centerpiece of a good action movie.
38:56Kill Bill is loaded with them.
38:58Even the suburban home battle with Vanita Green, to an acrobatic melee with gangsters
39:02in Japan for the final showdown with Bill.
39:06Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs and Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh are mismatched cops, with the
39:10former being a loose cannon who doesn't play by the rules, and the other a by-the-books
39:14guy who is…
39:15"...too old for this s—t."
39:181987's Lethal Weapon created the formula for dozens of buddy cop action comedies to come,
39:23but the original actually makes it work.
39:25The chemistry between Gibson's unpredictable wild man and Glover's put-upon audience surrogate
39:30is a truly winning combination.
39:32Plus, the darkly funny plot never quite goes where the audience thinks it will.
39:36Riggs just doesn't care that he's gonna get caught in the crossfire when he orders cops
39:40to unload on a drug bust he's in the middle of, nor does he worry about maiming himself
39:43by jumping off a ledge with a guy instead of talking him down.
39:47Many action films are described as epic, but few deserve that descriptor as much as 2022's
39:52Ah!
39:53Ah!
39:54Ah!
39:55Already a cultural phenomenon in India, the movie became an international sensation when
39:58it hit Netflix, sweeping audiences around the world into its story of unbreakable brotherhood
40:03shared between two real Indian revolutionary figures rising up against the British Empire.
40:07Sure, there's no evidence the two real men ever met, but historical accuracy is far from
40:12the point.
40:13About every five minutes, something absolutely unimaginable happens on screen.
40:17Whether it's a man fighting a tiger with his bare hands, one soldier punching his way through
40:22a hundred men, or two men reviving a dead party for British aristocrats by performing
40:26one of the most infectious musical numbers ever seen on film, it's truly an epic in every
40:31sense of the word.
40:33Not many action movies about a citywide gang war evoke memories of Greek epics read in
40:37high school literature classes, but director Walter Hill's 1979 classic The Warriors confidently
40:43straddles the world of fight films and literary allusions.
40:46Told over the course of one harrowing night, The Warriors is about a Coney Island gang
40:50who travel to a huge, middle-of-the-night criminal summit, which ends in chaos when
40:54a messianic gang leader is killed.
40:56Mistakenly identified as the culprits, The Warriors have to find their way back home,
41:01negotiating enemy territory that's aggressively defended by New York's many other gangs, including
41:06the leather-clad Rogues, the purple vests and fedora-wearing Boppers, and the clown
41:10makeup and pinstripe-sporting Baseball Furies.
41:14Director and star Stephen Chow's 2004 martial arts extravaganza Kung Fu Hustle plays like
41:19a hilarious live-action cartoon in the best possible way.
41:22There are many nonstop, intricately choreographed fight scenes that it's hard to even figure
41:26out how they were filmed.
41:27In this dazzling, dizzying action epic set in China in the 1940s, Chow plays Sing, a
41:32down-on-his-luck guy who's desperate to join the scary, cool Axe Gang.
41:36He's willing to fight and kill to do it, but things get interesting when he attempts a
41:40heist of an apartment complex where a remarkable number of the residents are quite adept at
41:44aerial Kung Fu.
41:45Fortunately for the audience, at least, Sing's group is equally skilled at axe-based fighting
41:50and other martial arts, leading to some spectacular showdowns.
41:54Director James Cameron's name has popped up several times on this list for his technical
41:58wizardry and eye for spectacle.
42:00But the movie that put him on the map, 1984's The Terminator, is an old-fashioned, violence-driven,
42:05gritty 80s action flick.
42:06The movie was also the breakout role for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays the title antagonist
42:11in the days before he was always a hero.
42:13For the first of several times, Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg pretending to be a human.
42:17Here, he's sent from 2029 back to mid-'80s to kill Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor before
42:22her son, John, the future leader of the human resistance to an A.I. uprising, can even be
42:26born.
42:27Sarah and her human protector, Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn, are thus on the run
42:31from a seemingly unstoppable killing machine.
42:33While the first movie was a great example of effective sci-fi action on a budget, Terminator
42:402 Judgment Day, released seven years later in 1991, was one of the most expensive movies
42:45ever made to that point.
42:46But the money is all up there on the screen, which suits the plot, involving highly advanced
42:50robots traveling through time to ultimately kill and rescue the future savior of the human
42:55race and now-preteen John Connor, played by Edward Furlong.
42:58"...Come with me if you want to live."
43:00Especially well-executed is the motorcycle sequence, which involves a high-speed chase,
43:04a semi-truck, and shotguns.
43:06And every time a puddle of liquid metal reshapes itself into that evil Terminator, it's still
43:11impressive, even after 30 years.
43:13People that don't even like action movies can appreciate this one, thanks to the stellar
43:16pacing of director James Cameron.
43:18That, combined with the high stakes of the plot and the fact that by the end, we're all
43:21somehow crying over the friendship between a boy and a robot with sunglasses, makes for
43:25a blockbuster for the ages.
43:28Released in June 1975, Jaws was arguably the first summer blockbuster, and it was definitely
43:33the movie that made Steven Spielberg into a household name.
43:36For a while, it was the highest-grossing movie of all time, and for good reason.
43:40The shark attack sequences are expertly shot, utterly terrifying, and completely surprising.
43:45That's quite a feat, because the parts of Jaws where the shark isn't attacking beachgoers
43:49or grizzled boat-borne shark hunters are loaded with almost overwhelming dread, helped greatly
43:53by composer John Williams' simple yet iconic score.
43:57Viewers are at full attention throughout the film, whether there's blood in the water,
44:00an animal tearing through ships, or a foolish mare telling beachgoers that they don't have
44:05anything to worry about.
44:07Our college-level philosophy class was never so eye-popping.
44:09The Matrix kind of blew everybody's minds in 1999, with its central conceit, that there's
44:14no point to human life beyond their bodies being bags of exploitable energy.
44:18Keanu Reeves and assuming hacker Thomas Anderson is told he's really humanity's savior, Neo,
44:23and is given a choice.
44:24Be cool with living in a false reality, or exist on a higher plane where he can exert
44:28his own free will.
44:30Pretty heady stuff for the multiplex, but fortunately, Wachowski's breakout film features
44:34a lot of bells and whistles, such as the subway kung fu battle between Neo and Hugo
44:39Weaving's villainous Agent Smith, as well as that innovative bullet-time sequence, which
44:43seems to bend the very nature of time itself.
44:45Not only did it look incredibly cool to watch somebody contort their body around bullets
44:49or even stop them, but it complemented the movie's heady themes.
44:53Director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is really more like one long movie, but the
44:57second installment, 2008's The Dark Knight, is definitely the best chapter, showing the
45:01results of Bruce Wayne's rise in training in Batman Begins and hinting at how it will
45:05all play out in The Dark Knight Rises.
45:07Honestly, The Dark Knight is arguably the best superhero movie of all time, with a tone
45:11that reflects the character and shows faithfulness to the spirit of the comic's source material.
45:16One could argue that it's a psychological drama first and a superhero movie second,
45:20as Christian Bale does a lot of brooding and quiet acting in between unbelievable, high-speed
45:24Batmobile chase sequences.
45:26Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent goes off the rails in his journey to becoming Two-Face, and Heath
45:30Ledger gives a chilling and unforgettable performance as the alternately funny and scary
45:34Joker.
45:36Raiders of the Lost Ark is meant to be an homage to the action-adventure serials that
45:40director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas grew up watching in the 1950s.
45:44But the thing is, those often weren't very good movies, so Raiders completely overshadows
45:49its source material.
45:50It's pretty much a perfect film.
45:51Every scene of this 1981 masterpiece feels as if it was scientifically created to be
45:56crowd-pleasing, particularly the action sequences, the iconic boulder chase, the sword-versus-gun
46:01fight, and the airplane fight sequence.
46:03Plus, a guy's face melts off.
46:05Raiders is pure fun, beginning to end, even after dozens of viewings.
46:09By the 90s, action movies were dying under their own weight.
46:12Huge budgets meant lots of explosions, but not much depth or character.
46:16Then came Along Speed in 1994.
46:18Its director Jan de Bont's all-killer, no-filler thrill ride couched in a simple premise.
46:23If a Los Angeles city bus slows to under 50 miles per hour, a bomb on board explodes.
46:28Speed breaks the formula to make for lots of surprises, like when a lead actor dies
46:31early in the film.
46:32The plot necessitates absolutely nonstop action, but there's also a lot of humanity.
46:37Everyday people from many different walks of life are thrust together onto the city
46:40bus, and they come together as a team to rise up and meet the challenge.
46:44Of course, there are also plenty of explosions, buses jumping over chasms, and death-defying
46:49along with Keanu Reeves as a newly-minted action hero and a star-making performance
46:53by Sandra Bullock.
46:55Gone with the Wind is a pretty good sweeping war epic, sure, but wouldn't it be better
46:58if everybody in it had supernatural martial arts fighting abilities, and the fighting
47:02was more technically perfect and beautiful than the greatest performance by the greatest
47:06ballet company?
47:07It would be, and that movie pretty much exists — 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — in
47:12the able hands of director Aang Lee and an absolutely stellar cast.
47:15The result is one of the most stunningly gorgeous and deeply moving films ever made.
47:19Right, sure, but what about the action?
47:21There are so many amazing martial arts sequences in the film, such as the gang of fighters
47:25meeting their end against one young woman in a restaurant, as well as the near-wordless
47:29battle in the sky on the fragile tips of trees.
47:32While action movies often rely on special effects to do all the heavy lifting, in Crouching
47:36Tiger they merely enhance the incredible ability of the actors and stunt performers already
47:40captured on film.
47:42Part of the reason Die Hard works so well is its cinematic context.
47:45When it was released in 1988, action movies all tended to feature stoic dudes with huge
47:50muscles, laying waste with boulder-sized fists and machine guns, never doubting their dominant
47:55masculinity and barely cracking a smile.
47:57But then comes along Bruce Willis as John McClane, a relatively average-sized normal
48:01guy who cracks wise and expresses fear and self-doubt as he almost single-handedly beats
48:05back terrorists.
48:06He literally saves Christmas.
48:08Welcome to the party, pal!"
48:10It helps that Willis, best known at the time for the TV dramedy Moonlighting, was incredibly
48:14charismatic.
48:15But the villain is important, too, and Die Hard also gave us a breakout performance from
48:19the beloved Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, one of the all-time great movie bad guys.