Top 10 Best Action Movies of All Time

Bruce Willis's John McClane set the template for the everyman action hero trapped in an impossible situation. Its Nakatomi Plaza setting and Alan Rickman's iconic Hans Gruber made it the most influential action film of the late 20th century.

Gareth Evans's Indonesian martial arts masterpiece features the most brutal and technically accomplished fight choreography ever filmed. Iko Uwais and the silat fighting style introduced Western audiences to a new echelon of combat filmmaking.

Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves revived the action genre with meticulous gun-fu choreography and impeccable world-building. Its influence spawned a franchise and forced Hollywood to raise its standards for action filmmaking.

John Woo's Hong Kong bullet ballet features a legendary hospital shootout filmed in a single unbroken take. Chow Yun-fat's dual-pistol heroics and Woo's operatic slow-motion gunplay defined heroic bloodshed cinema.

John McTiernan's jungle thriller starts as a macho military action film before transforming into a tense survival horror. Arnold Schwarzenegger versus an alien hunter remains one of cinema's most perfectly constructed genre hybrids.

Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise pushed practical stunt work to insane new limits with a HALO jump, helicopter chase, and cliff-hanging finale. Cruise's commitment to performing his own stunts at age 56 is unmatched in film history.

Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked revenge epic pays homage to samurai cinema, Shaw Brothers kung fu, and spaghetti westerns. The Crazy 88 fight sequence and Uma Thurman's Bride became instant action icons.

Jackie Chan's magnum opus features stunts so dangerous that multiple crew members were hospitalized during production. The shopping mall finale, where Chan slides down a pole through exploding light fixtures, remains the most jaw-dropping practical stunt ever filmed.

Kathryn Bigelow's surf-and-heist thriller blends extreme sports with undercover tension. Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's chemistry and the skydiving sequences without a parachute proved Bigelow was one of Hollywood's finest action directors.

Bruce Willis's John McClane set the template for the everyman action hero trapped in an impossible situation. Its Nakatomi Plaza setting and Alan Rickman's iconic Hans Gruber made it the most influential action film of the late 20th century.

Gareth Evans's Indonesian martial arts masterpiece features the most brutal and technically accomplished fight choreography ever filmed. Iko Uwais and the silat fighting style introduced Western audiences to a new echelon of combat filmmaking.

Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves revived the action genre with meticulous gun-fu choreography and impeccable world-building. Its influence spawned a franchise and forced Hollywood to raise its standards for action filmmaking.

John Woo's Hong Kong bullet ballet features a legendary hospital shootout filmed in a single unbroken take. Chow Yun-fat's dual-pistol heroics and Woo's operatic slow-motion gunplay defined heroic bloodshed cinema.

John McTiernan's jungle thriller starts as a macho military action film before transforming into a tense survival horror. Arnold Schwarzenegger versus an alien hunter remains one of cinema's most perfectly constructed genre hybrids.

Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise pushed practical stunt work to insane new limits with a HALO jump, helicopter chase, and cliff-hanging finale. Cruise's commitment to performing his own stunts at age 56 is unmatched in film history.

Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked revenge epic pays homage to samurai cinema, Shaw Brothers kung fu, and spaghetti westerns. The Crazy 88 fight sequence and Uma Thurman's Bride became instant action icons.

Jackie Chan's magnum opus features stunts so dangerous that multiple crew members were hospitalized during production. The shopping mall finale, where Chan slides down a pole through exploding light fixtures, remains the most jaw-dropping practical stunt ever filmed.

Kathryn Bigelow's surf-and-heist thriller blends extreme sports with undercover tension. Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's chemistry and the skydiving sequences without a parachute proved Bigelow was one of Hollywood's finest action directors.