Action movies tend to be excluded from discussions of great, artistic movies, but there are a few exceptions to this rule. Some people look down on the action genre due to the perception that action offers little more than cheap thrills. While action movies are consistently big box-office juggernauts, their general appeal shouldn’t exclude them from being appreciated for their filmmaking guile and their aesthetic design.
Many action movies are happy to be dismissed by critics, as long as they find their audience. However, there are some action movies which should also be considered works of great artistry. By questioning the tropes of the genre and crafting their stories with as much care as a prestige drama, filmmakers can make action movies which appeal to audiences and critics beyond the usual adrenaline-fuelled thrills of the genre.
Related 10 Great Action Movies That Are Based On True Stories
Some of the best action movies of all time are based on true stories. They include sports biopics, war films, personal biographies, and more.
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10 Drive (2011)
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Atmospheric Crime Drama Brings The Best Out Of Ryan Gosling
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9/10 10/10 Drive
Director Nicolas Winding Refn Release Date September 16, 2011 Cast Ryan Gosling , Albert Brooks , Bryan Cranston , Carey Mulligan , Oscar Isaac , Ron Perlman , Christina Hendricks
Nicolas Winding Refn’s shot compositions fill every frame of Drive with layers upon layers of meaning, and it looks beautiful too. Drive stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver who gets some extra money moonlighting as a getaway driver for bank robbers. Drive doesn’t conform to the tropes of the heist genre. It may be gloriously stylish, but Drive is also grounded in a peculiar way.
Drive‘s action scenes are remarkably naturalistic, and this makes them feel heart-poundingly real. While other movies which focus on getaway drivers – like Baby Driver and The Italian Job – use choreography to make their chase scenes seem fanciful and almost balletic, Drive cuts the music and listens to the anxious breath of the thieves instead. Drive‘s portrait of a dark Los Angeles underworld is captivating from beginning to end.
9 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
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9.5/10 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Director Ang Lee Release Date December 8, 2000 Cast Chow Yun-Fat , Michelle Yeoh , Zhang Ziyi , Chang Chen , Lang Sihung , Cheng Pei-pei
19 years before the release of Parasite, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon nearly became the first non-English language movie to win Best Picture. This is especially impressive when considering that the martial arts genre has historically been passed over by critics and awards shows. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four Oscars, including Best Foreign Language Film, and became the first non-English language film to gross over $100 million in the United States.
Ang Lee presents an image of China which doesn’t quite fit into any particular time period. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seems to take place in a fantasy realm at times, with lush green forests and wide open deserts which resemble Lawrence of Arabia. This sets the stage for a gripping melodrama that’s easy to get wrapped up in. Lee paints in broad brushstrokes, and the finished portrait is a gorgeous ahistorical epic.
8 Kill Bill (2003 & 2004)
Quentin Tarantino’s Tribute To The Action Genre
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9/10 10/10 Kill Bill
Director Quentin Tarantino Release Date October 10, 2003 Cast David Carradine , Michael Madsen , Uma Thurman , Daryl Hannah , Lucy Liu , Vivica A. Fox
In the same way that Pulp Fiction deconstructs the crime genre and Inglourious Basterds is a fanciful take on war movies, Kill Bill can be viewed as a love letter to the action genre. Quentin Tarantino counts Kill Bill as one movie split into two parts. Viewing them back to back reveals the many ways that Tarantino piles up and remixes his esoteric concoction of influences. Kill Bill is inspired by many action classics, but it never feels derivative.
In some ways, Kill Bill is a revenge western, like a precursor to Django Unchained, but the influence of martial arts movies is even stronger. As the Bride embarks on her blood-soaked rampage, she gets into some fights which mirror the highly stylized violence of old Hong Kong martial arts classics. Kill Bill is gorgeously shot throughout, and the set design, costumes and music choices each make it a unique treat for action fans.
7 Akira (1988)
Akira Is A Masterpiece Of Japanese Animation
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Akira
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*Availability in US Director Katsuhiro Otomo Release Date July 16, 1988 Cast Mitsuo Iwata , Nozomu Sasaki , Mami Koyama , Taro Ishida , Tesshô Genda , Mizuho Suzuki , Tatsuhiko Nakamura , Fukue Itō , Kazuhiro Shindō
Akira is one of the best animated action movies of all time, but its influence reaches into live-action. At a time when American animation was severely lagging behind Japan in terms of creativity and visual flair, Akira still managed to stand out as one of the finest animated exports of the 1980s. Animation doesn’t often deliver the kinds of kinetic thrills that can be achieved in live-action. Akira bucks this trend.
Akira is based on an equally influential manga series. The filmmakers already had years of manga to work with, and the vision of Neo-Tokyo arrives on screen feeling lived-in and complete. Akira‘s legacy has grown ever since its release, and it is now considered one of the key movies which convinced people of the merits of adult-oriented animation. Decades later, it still holds up as a beautifully rendered action thriller.
6 Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
George Miller Revives The Mad Max Franchise In Style
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9/10 16 9.4/10 Mad Max: Fury Road
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*Availability in US Director George Miller Release Date May 14, 2015 Cast Tom Hardy , Charlize Theron , Nicholas Hoult , Zoe Kravitz , Hugh Keays-Byrne , Riley Keough , Courtney Eaton , Abbey Lee , Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
In an era when action and sci-fi movies have been taken over by CGI, Mad Max: Fury Road represents a breath of fresh air. George Miller’s commitment to practical effects creates some of the most viscerally effective big-screen thrills of the 21st century, as a throwback to the origins of the franchise in the 1970s and 1980s. However, Mad Max: Fury Road is worth far more than its explosive stunts and chase scenes.
One thing that stands out in Mad Max: Fury Road is Miller’s inspired approach to worldbuilding. Strange stilted figures stalk the land, Immortan Joe’s petrolheaded cult bursts into the world fully-formed, and Furiosa feels like a character who has been around for years. This means that Fury Road can be enjoyed by people who have never seen a Mad Max movie, but it hides plenty of intriguing details for the most dedicated fans of the franchise.
5 Enter The Dragon (1973)
Bruce Lee Reinvents The Martial Arts Genre
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10/10 Enter the Dragon
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*Availability in US Director Robert Clouse Release Date August 19, 1973 Cast Bruce Lee , John Saxon , Ahna Capri , Bob Wall , Shih Kien , Jim Kelly
Enter the Dragon was released just a few days after Bruce Lee’s untimely death, and his final masterpiece still ranks as one of the greatest martial arts movies of all time. It perfectly captures Lee’s talents, not just as a fighter but as a movie star. Enter the Dragon is the kind of martial arts movie that could only be made in America, as it mixes its Asian filmmaking influences with tropes of spy movies and even Westerns. In particular, Enter the Dragon feels like it could be a James Bond movie.
Enter the Dragon‘s fight scenes are some of the most exciting ever filmed, especially because the stunts are all practical. There are some moves which Lee pulls off which seem to stretch the laws of physics, but they’re filmed in a way that shows there are no strings attached, no generous cuts and no other movie tricks. Enter the Dragon‘s iconic mirror scene creates a visually dazzling finale to cap a hugely influential action movie.
4 Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
The Daniels Blend Action With Sci-Fi And Comedy
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8/10 9.3/10 Everything Everywhere All at Once
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*Availability in US Director Daniel Kwan , Daniel Scheinert Release Date March 25, 2022 Cast Jenny Slate , Ke Huy Quan , Stephanie Hsu , Harry Shum Jr. , Jamie Lee Curtis , James Hong , Michelle Yeoh
It’s incredibly rare for an action movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture, but this is precisely the feat that Everything Everywhere All at Once managed to pull off. It’s not an out-and-out action movie, but the fight scenes are an essential element in Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s multifaceted appeal. It also incorporates some dizzying sci-fi concepts and plenty of fast-paced humor.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a philosophical sci-fi movie most of the time, using the concept of the multiverse to ruminate about determinism and the endless possibilities of life. However, casting Michelle Yeoh as the star allows it to create some inventive fight scenes. Ke Huy Quan also gets a chance to wade into the fight with a weaponized fanny pack. The absurdity of the fights reinforces the movie’s themes.
3 Run Lola Run (1998)
Run Lola Run Uses A Groundbreaking Narrative Structure
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Run Lola Run
Director Tom Tykwer Release Date March 3, 1998 Cast Franka Potente , Moritz Bleibtreu , Herbert Knaup , Nina Petri , Armin Rohde
Run Lola Run is a German action thriller that uses a branched narrative. When Lola is given just 20 minutes to gather a large sum of money to save her boyfriend’s life, she envisions the different paths she could take. Each of the scenarios play out in real-time, ending with Lola back at the beginning. Run Lola Run‘s unconventional plot structure gradually gets even weirder as the movie progresses, as the different timelines become tangled together.
There are moments in Run Lola Run when characters seem to possess knowledge of the other timelines, and the overall structure of the movie. By drawing attention to its central conceit rather than playing it out in a more natural way, Run Lola Run adds another layer to its discussion of determinism. The fourth-wall breaking also means that Run Lola Run portrays the fracturing of Lola’s mind as her muddled thoughts start to run into each other.
2 The Matrix (1999)
The Wachowskis Use Action To Interrogate The Nature Of Reality
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9/10 9.3/10 The Matrix
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*Availability in US Director Lana Wachowski , Lilly Wachowski Release Date March 31, 1999 Cast Keanu Reeves , Laurence Fishburne , Carrie-Anne Moss , Hugo Weaving , Gloria Foster , Joe Pantoliano
The Wachowski sisters created one of the most original action movies of all time with The Matrix, using a unique sci-fi concept to invent an entirely new style of fighting. The Matrix‘s wire-fu is obviously influenced by martial arts movies and the wuxia genre, but the sci-fi twist generates even more possibilities, as Neo is trained to bend reality around him to his will. The Matrix constantly tries to one-up its own inventive fight scenes.
The impressive thing about The Matrix is that it delivers plenty of incredible action sequences, but it would still be fascinating without them. There’s definitely a version of The Matrix that works just as well as a philosophical sci-fi movie about the nature of existence and the tension between personal experience and objective truth without having Neo facing off against an army of clones. The Matrix franchise reached its peak at the very beginning.
1 Seven Samurai (1954)
Akira Kurosawa Helped Shape The Action Genre
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10/10 9/10 Seven Samurai
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*Availability in US Director Akira Kurosawa Release Date April 26, 1954 Cast Toshiro Mifune , Takashi Shimura , Kamatari Fujiwara , Daisuke Katô , Yukiko Shimazaki , Isao Kimura , Minoru Chiaki
Seven Samurai isn’t just one of Akira Kurosawa’s best movies; it’s also one of the greatest films ever made. The samurai classic has helped shape the action genre in many ways for decades. One vital component of Seven Samurai is the perfectly scripted character building. Aided by some superb performances, Kurosawa is able to create layered characters who are easy to connect with, and this lends extra weight to the action scenes.
Seven Samurai constantly performs a balancing act between thrilling action and moments of fascinating character development. Often, these two elements combine to create meaningful fight scenes, such as the epic finale. Seven Samurai rewards audiences who can stick with it through its mammoth runtime. It’s the kind of movie that lives long in the memory, as evidenced by the countless filmmakers who have been inspired to reference it in their own works.