Grady Hendrix

Updated for 2026: A year ago, hardly anyone would imagine a Paul Thomas Anderson movie making this list. Now, it’s undeniable: One Battle After Another is absolutely elite, exhilarating filmmaking that slams on the gas and never lets up for close to three hours. Action movies get a bad rap. Not necessarily from the general public, of course. Audiences love ’em, for the most part. But for hardcore cinephiles, action is too often regarded as cinematic junk food, replacing all story and substance with eardrum-shattering explosions and mindless violence. Sure, you can enjoy one every now and then, but a steady diet of loud noises, death-defying stunts and one-liners? That’s for the normies. Here’s the thing, though: if the main point of any film is to make you feel something, what produces more visceral feeling than a good action flick? Anyone who’s ever had their senses rattled by a truly great action movie knows that there are few moviegoing experiences that can compare. Another thing: not all action movies are loud and dumb. Some are nearly operatic in scope and balletic in their grace – and sometimes, you might even actually care about the person dodging bullets and delivering throat chops. This list of the greatest action films ever made is proof that the genre is more versatile than it appears. Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time💥 The 18 greatest stunts in cinema (as picked by the greatest stunt people)🥋 The 25 best martial arts movies of all-time🌊 The 33 be

For the uninitiated, martial arts cinema can seem overwhelming. The starting points are well-known: Enter the Dragon; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Kill Bill; a handful of Jackie Chan flicks… or God help us, Steven Seagal. But delving deeper is an intimidating prospect. For decades, beginning in the 1970s, Hong Kong produced thousands of movies full of eye-popping, mind-blowing action scenes. Figuring out which are truly worth seeking out can require some guidance.  Consider this your road map. To help steer the kung-fu curious past the basics, we’ve ignored some of the more obvious choices to focus on the genre’s deeper cuts. Here are 25 of the most kick-ass martial arts movies ever made. Recommended: 💣 The 101 best action movies ever made😬 The 100 best thrillers of all-time🌏 The 50 best foreign films of all-time🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time

They get a bad rap from snobs, but don’t mess with action movies—they’re pumped up, loaded with ammo and in your face like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a bad day. Truth be told, no one can live solely on Woody Allen movies or animation alone. We need explosions periodically. Big ones. Preferably accompanied by catchphrases and squealing electric guitars. With crucial contributions from Hong Kong and France, the genre has a global richness that sneaks up on you like a swarthy henchman with a knife clenched between his teeth. And when we arrived at action’s ’80s movies heyday, when Hollywood stars ruled the roost, our research was euphoric. We’ve polled over 50 experts in the field, from essential directors like Die Hard’s John McTiernan to the actual folks in the line of fire, such as Machete himself, Danny Trejo. Critics and experts have weighed in, too. And if we’ve missed something, drop a bomb in our comments. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the 100 best movies of all time