Poster: Warner Bros. Pictures via TMDB
Top 10 Best Action Movies of All Time
George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road took home six Academy Awards and a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score built on two hours of near-continuous practical stunt work, while John McTiernan's Die Hard, released decades earlier, set the skyscraper-thriller template nearly every entry since has borrowed from. This countdown runs from Bruce Willis trapped in a Los Angeles high-rise to Tom Cruise's real HALO jump in Mission: Impossible — Fallout, tracing the genre from John Woo's Hong Kong gun-ballet through to Top Gun: Maverick's $1.49 billion worldwide haul.
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George Miller's relentless masterpiece won six Academy Awards and holds 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Two hours of virtually non-stop practical action.
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John McTiernan's skyscraper hostage thriller defined the modern action genre and established Bruce Willis as an action icon.
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Gareth Evans' Indonesian martial arts masterpiece features some of the most inventive and brutal fight choreography ever filmed.
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James Cameron's sci-fi action sequel pioneered CGI visual effects and set a new standard for blockbuster action filmmaking.
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Chad Stahelski's gun-fu thriller starring Keanu Reeves revitalized the action genre with its innovative "gun-fu" combat choreography, blending judo and firearms training into a single fluid style.
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Jan de Bont's bus-that-cannot-slow-down thriller is an exercise in pure escalating tension that made Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock stars.
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The sixth MI film holds 97% on Rotten Tomatoes thanks to Tom Cruise's jaw-dropping practical stunts including a HALO jump and helicopter chase.
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Michael Mann's crime epic featuring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro features one of cinema's greatest downtown LA shootout sequences.
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John Woo's Hong Kong masterpiece featuring Chow Yun-fat set the template for operatic gun-ballet action filmmaking worldwide.
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Joseph Kosinski's sequel earned 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and $1.49 billion worldwide, making it one of the most acclaimed blockbusters in years.
Image credits
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): Poster: Warner Bros. Pictures via TMDB
- Die Hard (1988): Poster: Gordon Company via TMDB
- The Raid: Redemption (2011): TMDB
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991): Poster: Carolco Pictures via TMDB
- John Wick (2014): Poster: 87Eleven via TMDB
- Speed (1994): Poster: 20th Century Fox via TMDB
- Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018): Poster: Paramount Pictures via TMDB
- Heat (1995): Poster: Warner Bros. Pictures via TMDB
- Hard Boiled (1992): Poster: Golden Princess Film Productions via TMDB
- Top Gun: Maverick (2022): Poster: Skydance Media via TMDB
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