Best action movies of all time

These are what make going to the cinema fun, exciting, and thrilling. These are the films that keep you at the edge of your seat and blow your damn socks off, These are the Certified Best of, the Action Movie Genre.

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon! By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions. Our newsletter hand-delivers the best bits to your inbox. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions. Because if the main point of film is to make you feel something, well, what produces more visceral feeling than a good action flick? The best action movies choreograph violence with almost balletic grace, and can karate kick your heart harder than any romantic drama.

Best action movies of all time

By David Fear. All you need to make a movie, a wise French man once said, is a girl and a gun. It helps, of course, if you throw in a few explosions, several car chases, some knockdown mano a mano fistfights, a smattering of kung fu and any number of swordfights as well. The holy trinity of cinema, i. These are the films we go to when we want an uncut dose of that kinetic-cinema rush. Strap yourself in. Henry Cavill is Napoleon Solo, the C. Eventually, the three of them team up to fight a common enemy. Taking a break from his Sherlock Holmes and King Arthur franchises, Guy Ritchie reminds you that he can put together some mean fights scenes and chase scenes — several, in fact — and make the sight of Cavill casually eating a sandwich before driving a cargo truck off a ramp and landing on top of a boat seem like the most natural thing in the world. No one has ever rocked an eyepatch onscreen better. No one.

The killer scene: So many to choose from, but the surreal crop-duster chase is an essential sequence from the Master of Suspense.

While we love all types of movies here at IGN, we're especially fond of action films. That's what we were weaned on, both the good and the bad. As fondly as we recall the mindless slaughterfests that powered the Saturday evenings and lazy Sunday afternoons of the '80s and '90s, the term "action movie" means more than just camp B-movie schlock. So along with the classic action fare, we've tried to invigorate this list with the best action anywhere you can find it. Our list was compiled by and voted on by IGN's biggest action fans, where we took into account a variety of factors, including quality of action, amount of thrills, and overall legacy of the film in question. The action scenes, vehicle demolition, and fight choreography were in top form here as Steve threw down against his past, both professionally and personally.

By David Fear. All you need to make a movie, a wise French man once said, is a girl and a gun. It helps, of course, if you throw in a few explosions, several car chases, some knockdown mano a mano fistfights, a smattering of kung fu and any number of swordfights as well. The holy trinity of cinema, i. These are the films we go to when we want an uncut dose of that kinetic-cinema rush.

Best action movies of all time

Action has been part of cinema ever since the days of The Great Train Robbery more than a century ago. But somewhere along the way filmmakers started realizing that they didn't necessarily have to couch their car chases , fight scenes, gun battles, and explosions within the confines of another genre. The action didn't need to be part of a Western or a swashbuckling historical adventure or a sci-fi extravaganza; the action could actually be the point. So by the late 20th century, a whole new genre was booming in Hollywood. Combining the precision of the best stunt and visual effects work with the emotional resonance of the best dramas and comedy, a truly great action film feels like something that really does have it all, even when the focus is tight and the set pieces are unquestionably over-the-top. There are plenty of masterpieces in the genre, but here are 30 of our absolute favorites in chronological order. Note: For the purposes of this list, to try to keep things concise, we chose, for the most part, to focus on films in which "action" is the primary genre associated with the story, which is why you won't see much in the way of Westerns, superhero films, and other genres among these choices. We also, apart from a few precursors, primarily stuck to films made after , in order to focus on the decades when action cinema as a standalone genre really blossomed. The Wages of Fear would not necessarily play as an action film in the eyes of a modern audience, but if you watch enough action movies and understand the vocabulary of their pacing, and the ways in which directors build modern action set pieces, then Henri-Georges Clouzot's thriller about four men transporting extremely volatile nitroglycerine across perilous terrain becomes an invaluable precursor in the construction of action movie grammar. From the way he uses close-ups and editing to build tension in key sequences to the construction of elaborate set pieces built around two trucks and four characters, The Wages of Fear remains a uniquely taut viewing experience, and a tremendous influence on the action genre that developed later.

Topslip hotels

And sure, his best efforts were probably from the s looking at you, The French Connection and The Exorcist , but beyond that decade, his best single film might well be that of To Live and Die in L. Synopsis: In B. Synopsis: Ito, a gangland enforcer, is caught amidst a treacherous and violent insurrection within his Triad crime family The Adventures of Robin Hood Once the competition begins between Judah Ben-Hur Charlton Heston and Messala Stephen Boyd , spokes rattle and kick up dirt during the life-or-death turns, as Messala tries to take Ben-Hur down with a blade on his wheel. Synopsis: A half-mortal, half-immortal is out to avenge his mother's death and rid the world of vampires. Sean Connery rampages through the streets of San Francisco in a Hummer. The Matrix's slow-motion combat ballet inspired legions of imitators, but none have lived up to the original, not even the three Matrix sequels. Directed By: Michael Mann. Read Empire's Inception review. Critics Consensus: Boasting enough intelligence to bolster its darkly violent thrills, The Guest offers another treat for genre fans from director Adam Wingard. Synopsis: Nada Roddy Piper , a wanderer without meaning in his life, discovers a pair of sunglasses capable of showing the world It helps make Speed one of the best movies of , with its cast - including Keanu Reeves , Sandra Bullock , and Dennis Hopper - enhancing things further. Henry Jones Sr.

Richard Kimble, a man falsely accused of killing his wife. This dusty, greasy classic follows the revved-up adventures of Kowalski Barry Newman , a delivery driver amped on speed, racing the police and everyone else on the road to get a Dodge Challenger from Colorado to San Francisco in record time. Filled with wild stunts, colorful characters, crushed chassis and fearless camerawork, director Richard C.

R min Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi. Come back, Shane! Thor's arrival to start laying the smack down that ends with our heroes soundly defeated. The perma-sweaty, muscle-bound Sly grunts and grimaces his way through a string of violent set pieces, mercilessly slaying faceless villains with whichever tools are lying around: fishing lines, bazookas, or, in one memorable scene, an exploding arrowhead. Critics Consensus: Brotherhood of the Wolf mixes its genres with little logic, but the end result is wildly entertaining. Later John Woo movies might deliver even more wild action set pieces, but few action movies hit as hard as The Killer does when it comes to the emotional content of the stories they tell. Critics Consensus: Lean, taut and compellingly gritty, John Carpenter's loose update of Rio Bravo ranks as a cult action classic and one of the filmmaker's best. Directed By: Prachya Pinkaew. Theron takes to the rough-and-tumble world like a pro, dealing out elbows and taking her lumps. Viscerally, narratively and thematically rich, Cameron raised the bar to a level the series would always henceforth chase, but never quite reach. Photographed on pore-enhancing digital cameras that lend a strikingly antiseptic sheen to daylight scenes and a gorgeously pixelated humidity to night shots, the film follows Crockett and Tubbs as they attempt to infiltrate the empire of South American drug lord Montoya Luis Tosar. But all is not as it seems, and the narrative surprises keep coming with the same fast-and-furious momentum with which Lee and Statham take down anyone in their way. The tale of four hopeless losers forced by poverty and desperation to take a job driving trucks filled with nitroglycerine dynamite across the worst roads in the Amazon jungle, this is an unrelentingly sweaty, grimy, dread-filled experience. Shiri