Emily Blunt in 'Sicario'Image via Lionsgate
By
William Smith
Published
1 hour ago
William Smith is a flesh and blood writer who hasn't seen natural sunlight in months. He spends every waking hour at his laptop producing content to satisfy the cruel algorithm and to give those who spend their time in the comments section something to criticize.
Sign in to your Collider account
Add Us On
follow
Follow
followed
Followed
Like
Like
Thread
Log in
Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:
Try something different:
Show me the facts
Explain it like I’m 5
Give me a lighthearted recap
Action movies come in all shapes and sizes. There are action epics that bring scope and scale to the genre, often in the form of gigantic battle sequences. Action-adventure puts the emphasis on escapism with elements of globe-trotting or mystery. The genre has also been mashed up with horror and science fiction for high-tech or gory pulp. If you want to strip the genre down to its bare bones for maximum effectiveness, though, look no further than the action-thriller.
These are movies designed to get pulses pounding, and knuckles whitened with propulsive plots that put their protagonists up against insurmountable odds. Whether it's a chase thriller or one contained to a singular location, they all focus their efforts on maximum thrill-seeking. Every decade in the last 50 years has featured multiple masterpieces within the action-thriller genre, each elevating it to new, nerve-wracking heights. Of all those great films, these ten are the greatest.
10 'Assault on Precinct 13' (1976)
Image via The CKK Corporation
The second film directed by John Carpenter, between his expanded student film Dark Star and genre-defining slasher Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13 was the director's modern-day update on Rio Bravo. Putting a dilapidated police station run by a skeleton crew up against a gang of violent criminals intent on destruction, the film makes the most out of its limited budget to deliver, as the tagline promises, a white-hot night of hate.
Set and shot in Los Angeles, Carpenter makes great use of the less-inhabited areas that were more common in the city during the '70s, adding that distinct Western flavor to his stylized thriller. He also pulls influence from horror movies such as Night of the Living Dead in depicting the villainous gang. Assault on Precinct 13 is the ultimate siege movie that shows it doesn't take a budget of millions to make an action classic.
9 'Sicario' (2015)
Emily Blunt as Kate in SicarioImage via Lionsgate
Before Denis Villeneuve was directing space epics on Arrakis, and writer Taylor Sheridan became Paramount's biggest cash cow thanks to Yellowstone and its myriad spin-offs, they collaborated on this tense south-of-the-border action-thriller that puts the war in the war on drugs. Emily Blunt plays an idealistic FBI agent who joins a violent task force who take a blunt force approach against the Mexican cartels.
With an outstanding cast, featuring strong supporting turns from Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro, dominating visuals by Roger Deakins and sweat-inducing action sequences, Sicario is a modern thriller with characters that operate exclusively in grey shades of morality. Villeneuve shows perfect command of tension and release in the standout standoffs in the film, often using silence to much greater effect than explosive force.
8 'One Battle After Another' (2025)
One of the undisputed masterpieces of 2025, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another is also a banger of an action-thriller, with scenes that build unbearable tension through momentum. The percussive sequences of social unrest have only become more unsettling in the wake of increasing real-world tensions between institutions and individuals, making it evermore urgent and relevant.
Sparking between black comedy and thrills as Leonardo DiCaprio's burnt-out revolutionary tries to track down his daughter after Sean Penn's square-jawed military man puts her in his crosshairs, the movie puts its foot on the gas pedal and only hits the brakes to allow us to laugh at the absurdity of its situations. It all culminates with one of the most uniquely designed car chases through the rolling desert roads of California that should be studied in film classes for years to come.
7 'The Bourne Ultimatum' (2007)
Matt Damon as Jason Bourne riding a motorcycle in The Bourne UltimatumImage via Universal Pictures
Born (Bourne?) out of a need for more grounded action heroes in the 2000s after characters like James Bond had devolved into cartoonish excess, the original trilogy of Jason Bourne films, inspired by the novels by Robert Ludlum, were some of the best and most influential action films of the decade. Following Matt Damon's amnesiac CIA asset as he pieces together the puzzle of his past while eluding waves of assassins sent after him by his former employers, the entire trilogy is one long chase, and it all culminates in The Bourne Ultimatum.
As the final film before an unnecessary spin-off and belated sequel, Ultimatum benefits from two films spent perfecting the formula, with Paul Greengrass returning after taking over directing duties from Doug Liman for the second film. The action is all immaculate, and while some criticize the series for popularizing the shaky-cam action aesthetic, it only takes a cursory viewing to understand how these films use it to better, more immersive effect than any of their imitators.
6 'The Raid' (2011)
Image via PT Merantau Films
For decades, Hollywood action movies have been perpetually playing catch-up to their international counterparts, whether it's the over-the-top efforts made by Bollywood, gun-fu classics from Hong Kong or, in the case of the action masterpiece The Raid, Indonesia. Starring Indonesian martial artist Iko Uwais and directed by Welshman Gareth Evans, this action-thriller takes a single apartment block and makes it the stage for some of the most bone-crunching action ever filmed.
After his SWAT team is slaughtered while attempting to raid the block controlled by a dangerous crime lord, Uwais has to fight his way floor by floor to survive, taking on wave after wave of criminals armed with all manner of melee weapons. It's bloody thrilling and brutally efficient, combining intense fight choreography with kinetic camerawork that put Hollywood action filmmakers on notice and paved the way for future action movies like John Wick, Dredd, and The Night Comes For Us.
5 'Sorcerer' (1977)
The bridge sequence in William Friedkin's 'Sorcerer'Image via Paramount Pictures
Sorcerer, William Friedkin's harrowing remake of the classic French thriller The Wages of Fear, amps up the action but keeps the white-knuckle tension and character-driven stakes. Following four desperate men who are tasked with transporting trucks of volatile nitroglycerin across the jungles of South America, there's barely a moment to catch your breath in the film as it pummels your senses by putting you in the passenger seat with the characters.
The film should've been another massive success for Friedkin, who was coming off the back-to-back successes of The French Connection and The Exorcist, but it had the misfortune of releasing near the pop culture juggernaut of Star Wars and was promptly buried. It has since been reclaimed by cinephiles and action aficionados alike as the masterpiece of tension it is.
4 'The Fugitive' (1993)
Tommy Lee Jones points a gun at Harrison Ford in 'The Fugitive'Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
An iconic action film of the '90s, The Fugitive is a crackling man-on-the-run thriller that focuses on the premise of the original television series and expands it with blockbuster action set pieces. Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Kimble, framed for the murder of his wife, who escapes after his prison transport bus crashes and goes on the run to clear his name. Hot on his heels is Tommy Lee Jones, in an Oscar-winning performance, as the U.S. Marshal determined to bring him in.
Andrew Davis uses his keen sense of pacing, honed in action movies starring Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris, and the Chicago setting to deliver a thriller driven by its characters. It's just as fun and thrilling to watch Ford use his intellect and cunning to unravel the mystery behind his wife's murder as it is to see him perform death-defying acts, such as the iconic nosedive off a dam.
3 'Heat' (1995)
Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer as Neil McCauley and Chris Shiherlis running with weapons down the middle of a street in Michael Mann's HeatImage via Warner Bros. Pictures
Michael Mann's sprawling crime-action-thriller Heat changed the game for heist movies, moving the genre away from the slickly plotted thrillers featuring clever thieves with quick wits to more muscular action where bullets play just as big a part as brains. Robert De Niro leads a team of well-armed robbers while Al Pacino is the cop in charge of taking them down, which all leads to inevitable explosive conflict.
Subscribe for Deeper Action-Thriller Picks & Analysis
Gain deeper context on action-thriller cinema when you subscribe to the newsletter: curated must-watch lists, scene-by-scene breakdowns, director spotlights and viewing guides that sharpen your film knowledge and taste. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.It's an epic crime film, spread across a near-three-hour runtime, but it's punctuated by some of the best action sequences ever constructed, with the shootout in downtown Los Angeles still unmatched for its gritty authenticity. Like all of Mann's films, Heat was meticulously researched, and that bears out in its head-on collision of professionals operating on opposite sides of the law, as played by two of the greatest actors of all time.
2 'Hard Boiled' (1992)
Inspector Tequila sliding across a table while firing a gun in Hard-BoiledImage via Golden Princess Film Production
Few action directors can compare to John Woo, and while his career in Hollywood gave us some solid cult classics like Face/Off and Hard Target, nothing beats his Hong Kong classics, and Hard Boiled was his action magnum opus. Starring Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung as two cops trying to take down the Triads from the outside and inside, respectively, the movie is all pretext for three of the most explosive action sequences ever filmed.
From its opening teahouse shootout to its warehouse gun battle to the extended climax in a hospital, few action films have ever captured the level of destruction on display in Hard Boiled. Even more modern action movies, like the John Wick franchise, that pride themselves on balletic action, can't compare to Woo's masterpiece, which was accomplished entirely in camera and without the benefit of any visual effects, giving it a visceral impact that simply can't be replicated.
1 'Die Hard' (1988)
Bruce Willis as John McClane in the air duct in 'Die Hard'.Image via 20th Century Studios
While the '80s were a decade known for their action films, many of them traded realistic thrills and gritty heroes in favor of bombastic action and musclebound supermen. The thrill was in seeing how high a body count action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone could rack up, rather than whether they would survive until the end. There were still several solid thrillers with flesh-and-blood heroes, like Lethal Weapon or First Blood, which had a much more fragile John Rambo before he became a steroid-enhanced representation of America's insecurities over the Vietnam War, but if there's one film that really brought the genre back down to earth with a relatable everyman lead, it's Die Hard.
John McClane, as played to perfection by Bruce Willis, is far from indestructible or infallible. He's the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, and half of the time, he only survives because of dumb luck. Stuck in a high-rise that's been taken over by trigger-happy thieves, led by the inimitable Alan Rickman, it's 40 stories of sheer adventure as we watch him do his level best to save his wife and the other hostages, all without the benefit of shoes. Die Hard is action movie perfection, and its thrills are unparalleled.
Die Hard
R
Action
Thriller
Release Date
July 15, 1988
Cast
Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, De'voreaux White, William Atherton, Hart Bochner, James Shigeta, Bruno Doyon, Andreas Wisniewski, Clarence Gilyard Jr., Joey Plewa, Lorenzo Caccialanza, Dennis Hayden, Al Leong, Gary Roberts, Hans Buhringer, Wilhelm von Homburg, Robert Davi, Grand L. Bush, Bill Marcus, Rick Ducommun, Matt Landers
Runtime
132 minutes
Director
John McTiernan
Writers
Jeb Stuart, Steven E. de Souza
Powered by
Expand
Collapse
-
Movie
What To Watch
July 20, 2025
The 72 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now
Trending Now
1:51
30 Steamy Movies to Get You in the Mood on Date Night
'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die' Review: Sam Rockwell Is Electric in Gore Verbinski's Bonkers Sci-Fi Satire
The 10 Greatest Thrillers of 2025, Ranked