2) Tripple Threat Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais. Are you not sold yet? It features just the sort of mercenary-trying-to-protect-important-female-character-from-assassins storyline to make your eyes roll (the plots for most of these films are, to be honest pretty dumb), but thats not the point. The point is it stars freaking Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa and is a great action movie. IMDB
3) The Night Comes for Us Ito, a brutal enforcer for the Six Seas Triad, turns on his gangster bosses in order to protect Reina, an innocent girl who was orphaned when the Triad killed her family. Ito spirits her away to his hometown of Jakarta, and as he tries desperately to acquire a new passport for Reina and move her to safety, his former employers close in, leading to a series of bloody, bone-cracking confrontations with figures from his past. Netflix
4) Ip Man 1, 2, and 3 In case it isnt clear, Ip Man 1, 2, and 3 isnt the name of one horribly-titled film, but is rather a trio of biopics based extremely loosely on the life of Ip Man, a famed martial artist who actually happened to train Bruce Lee. The best of the bunch is the first. The second one is about his move to Hong Kong. And the third one has Mike Tyson playing the role of a street fighter. It's worth watching for that reason alone. Oh and Donnie Yen. You watch this movie for the master. Well Go USA
5) The Matrix The Wachowski siblings Matrix trilogy is unquestionably one of the most influential sci-fi franchises of the past 25 years. Loosely inspired by Masamune Shirows manga Ghost in the Shell, the Matrix was a pre-millennium, thinking-mans action movie that sent shockwaves through Hollywood, academia, and any project now graced by the indelible talent that is Keanue Reeves. IMDB
6) Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Ang Lees Crouching Tiger is the sensational martial arts movie that Netflix keeps infuriatingly swapping out. It leaves the streaming service next month, so commit to watching it now. Its a damn classic. IMDB
7) Inception Just about any recent film by director Christopher Nolan deserves to be on this list, and Nolans high-concept and technically masterful film (he literally built a hallway shaped like a giant centrifuge to shoot Inceptions hotel fight) never disappoints. Endlessly rewatchable and with maybe the most iconic final shots in the history of film. IMDB
8) Snowpiercer Post-apocalyptic thrillers featuring dystopian societies might be a dime a dozen these days, but few manage to infuse their premise with as much originality as Snowpiercer. In a future where the planet is in the middle of a second ice age, the surviving remnants of humanity live aboard a giant train where first class is taken literally: the wealthiest live in luxury at the front of the locomotive, while the poor live in squalid darkness at the back. Naturally, a rebellion forms, led by a grizzled Chris Evans who spends the movie fighting his way to the front of the train to confront his oppressors. Barrandov Studios
9) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Yes, theyre calling it Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, but thats an absurd title change and is not to be taken seriously.) There is still, to this day, nothing quite like this one despite the sequels and the imitators. Harrison Fords first outing as daring archeologist Indiana Jones, in which he races against the Nazis in an effort to unearth the Ark of the Covenant, is still one of the all-time greatest action movies, a relentless chase flick that offers up one eye-popping sequence after another, each more heart-stoppingly entertaining than the last. Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
10) Drive Nicolas Winding Refn s Drive strikes that perfect balance between traditional action and art house originality. Its car chases with mood. Ryan Gosling plays a near expressionless Driver (the no-name straight out of Clint Eastwood), a get-away driver who takes on one assignment the doesnt turn as planned. You know the drill: its not about the story; its about the way its told. IMDB
11) Beasts of No Nation Based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation follows a boy constricted to serve a West African warlord. The film is brutal in almost every way and features one of Idris Elbas most terrifying characters (as if Stringer Bell merged with Omar and left his code behind). Director Carry Fukunaga (True Detective) utilizes many of the same battlefield-sweeping tracking shots that made the first season of True Detective so mesmerizing. Its beautiful and awful in equal measure. IMDB
12) Blade Runner Calling Blade Runner an action film might be selling it a bit short. While there are plenty of chase and fight scenes, Blade Runner (based on the novel by Philip K. Dick ) has always been notable for its quieter moments when the camera lingers, when it lets its universe simply exhale. In that way, Blade Runner was a genre defining sci-fi experience. But it also made the moments of action that much more intense. IMDB
13) Avengers: Infinity War Two and a half hours never went by so fast. The penultimate chapter of one phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was basically just one long series of superhero fights, which somehow never gets tiring. The Russo brothers manage to juggle almost a dozen characters spread across space and land and make every victory and every defeat more than just a bunch of spandex boredom. IMDB
14) Kung Fu Hustle While you await the return of Shaolin Soccer to Netflix, check out Stephen Chows other work of zany kung-fu mayhem. You might laugh at first, but trust us, youll realize the fight choreography (employing more than a couple wires) is actually really awesome. IMDB
15) The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Lets jump into some westerns now. And why not start with one of the most refined of the form. Sergio Leone is the king, Clint Eastwood the other king? and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is basically as royally famous as the genre comes. And for good reason. Great gunplay. Great directing. Great music. Great everything. IMDB
16) Hostiles If youve already seen all of Leone and are insulted wed suggest otherwise, check out Hostiles. Christian Bale stars in this slower, more meditative take on the western. Cue long shots of unforgiving frontier and random horseback attacks to make even Cormack McCarthy grimace a little bit. Max Richter provides a score youll want to Spotify later. IMDB
17) Hell or High Water How about more brooding, unconventional western-inspired cinema? Hell or High Water is great everything: great heist movie, great western movie, great cop movie. It also somehow became an image of economic ruin and left-behind America. The themes run deep. IMDB
18) Outlaw King Missing the grimy, bloody battles of Game of Thrones? Chris Pine dons the chainmail (and a Scottish-ish accent) to play Robert the Bruce, the real life 14th Century king who revolted against the rule of Edward I and led fifty soldiers in a guerrilla war against the vast English army. And if the medieval warfare isnt enough of a GoT connection for you, Stephan Dillane, aka Stannis Baratheon, plays Edward, the English king. Netflix
19) The King The other Netflix sword-crossing original is The King, based on the various historical plays contained within the Henriad. Timothe Chalamet plays a young Henry V in maybe the best Shakespeare-inspired film in recent memory. It captures the muddy terror of 15th century warfare and features a fiery night-time siege that has to be seen. IMDB
20) Polar When are highly-trained assassins going to learn that retirement rarely lasts very long? Mads Mikkelsen stars in this pulpy comic book adaptation as Duncan Vizla, a.k.a. the Black Kaiser, a contract killer who works for the shady Damocles corporation. Retiring from the hitman game, Vizla moves to snowy Montana to live in quiet seclusion. He strikes up a friendship with his shy young neighbor Camille (Vanessa Hudgens), just in time for his former colleagues to come after him. Netflix
21) Blue Ruin For something that leans more art house, theres Jeremy Saulniers Blue Ruin, a bloody revenge thriller that manages to not be like every other bloody revenge thriller. IMDB
22) Triple Frontier Santiago Pope Garcia (Oscar Isaac), a private military adviser in Colombia, recruits a team of former Delta Force soldiers from his special ops days (Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Pedro Pascal and Garrett Hedlund) to pull off a heist at the home of a filthy rich drug lord. But when did a movie heist ever go to plan? Pretty soon everything hits the fan, and the group find themselves facing a series of increasingly dire obstacles as they try to make their getaway. Netflix
23) Kickboxer: Vengeance Jean-Claude Van Damme might appear in this 2016 reboot of the original Kickboxer franchise, but this time around hes playing the mentor, while the main character of Kurt Sloane is played by Alain Moussi. After his brother Eric, a world karate champion, is murdered by the villainous Tong Po, Kurt travels to Thailand in search of revenge. And if you enjoy this take on the Kickboxer movies, youll be glad to know it spawned a sequel, Kickboxer: Retaliation, which is also on Netflix. RLJ Entertainment
24) Burn Out Adrenaline junkie Tony (French newcomer Franois Civil) spends all of his time on his bike, and dreams of one day becoming a professional motorcycle racer. But when the mother of his child reveals that she owes a huge sum of money to the mob, he has to use his skills in another way: moonlighting as a courier for dangerous drug dealers until her debt has been cleared. Netflix
25) Revenger In the near future, the worlds most dangerous criminals are imprisoned on a remote, hellish island. Bruce Khan plays husband and father Yool in this South Korean revenge story: when his entire family is murdered, Yool purposely gets himself arrested and sent to the prison island to exact brutal, bloody retribution on the criminals who took his loved ones from him. Little Big Pictures
26) Close Personal bodyguard Sam Carlson takes what is supposed to be a simple job watching Zoe, the heiress to a mining fortune, while on a visit to Morocco. When they are attacked by masked intruders, Sam is forced to take Zoe on the run and teach the young woman how to defend herself. Noomi Rapace stars as Sam, who is based on real-life close protection officer Jacquie Davis. Netflix
27) Wheelman He might still be best known as one of the bad guys in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Frank Grillo has been building a steady resume as an action star over the last few years, including a recurring role as Sergeant Leo Barnes in The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year. In Wheelman, Grillo takes center stage as the getaway driver in a botched bank robbery. Instead of going down the Fast & Furious route of shiny car chases, Wheelman keeps the camera largely inside the car and places the viewer very much in the passenger seat. Netflix
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