Looking for the best action movie out there? Look no further, because Fresh Tomatoes has put together a list of the 10 best action movies available to watch right now, ranked according to the Tomatometer.
Michael Bay's first action movie is free of the bloated excess
and undisciplined pacing from most of his later output -- we're
looking at you, Every. Single. Transformers. Movie. The goal
here is to mainline to the audience straight-up action movie
thrills and two charismatic AF performances from Will Smith and
Martin Lawrence.
The stars play two Miami police officers involved in a case that
requires slick cars, lots of slow-motion shots, and explosions
to solve. While Independence Day is often credited with making
Will Smith, well, Will Smith, Bad Boys put him on the launch pad
for leading man status.
The best of the Die Hard sequels, With a Vengeance teams Bruce
Willis' permanently hung-over cop John McClane with law-abiding
citizen Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) as they try to stop a thug
(Jeremy Irons) from blowing up New York City on his way to
stealing a ton of gold from the Federal Reserve. This threequel
retrofitted a then-popular spec script, "Simon Says," into a Die
Hard movie -- bringing back the original's director, John
McTiernan, to help ground the proceedings in some sense of
believability.
Gone are the "bad things going down on Christmas" trappings, as
McClane and Zeus race through NYC streets during a blistering
summer heat wave. The end result is a sure-plotted actioner that
marks the last time John McClane appeared in anything resembling
a good movie.
Robert Rodriguez's scrappy El Mariachi earned him a chance to
upgrade that film's story to fit a decent-ish Hollywood budget.
Casting then-white hot Antonio Banderas as a guitar player with
a case full of guns and a vendetta to collect, Rodriguez set out
to make his mark on the genre and in studio-filmmaking. The
final product is a mixed bag; Desperado has inventive gun fights
to spare, but the character development hits the same one or two
notes throughout.
That it succeeds at all is a testament to Banderas' charisma,
for any scene that lacks enough emotional weight to hold up, he
more than makes up for with a look or gesture. And score bonus
for this movie introducing us to Salma Hayek -- who would go on
to reprise a version of this role in the pseudo-sequel Once Upon
a Time In Mexico.
22 years after Ethan Hunt iconically suspended himself above the
NOC-List vault, Tom Cruise reached a franchise-high with Summer
2018's hit, Fallout. That film's exceptional success owes it all
to the first film, one of the series' best. That summer, and for
years after, it was almost Hollywood Law that every show or
movie HAD to parody the aforementioned vault sequence. Like, it
was everywhere.
Its longevity is a testament to director Brian De Palma's
assured hand bringing co-writer David Koepp's twisty plot to the
screen. Also, Tom Cruise's star power. This guy can sell
thinking on-screen like no one else, which explains in part why
Ethan Hunt has endured as a super spy that's neither Bond nor
Bourne. He's just a good try trying to stop the bad ones,
working very hard not to kill anyone in order to do it.
Michael Bay's follow-up to Bad Boys is arguably his best action
movie of the '90s -- if not his best movie, period. The Rock...
it's like one of Stefon's clubs. It has everything: A
long-haired Sean Connery, fireballs, exploding San Francisco
trolly cars, and a scary-good Nicolas Cage.
The Oscar-winner's take on FBI specialist Stanley Goodspeed is
an engaging mix of "aw, shucks" fish-out-of-water likability and
bursts of badassness, like when the least-likely action hero
turns his love for music -- especially his affinity for Elton
John's "Rocket Man" -- into a prelude to justifiably kill a bad
guy with a missile. (Oh, '90s action movies. How we miss you.)
The plot is the perfect Elevator Pitch: A veteran of the U.S.
Armed Forces (Ed Harris) takes tourists hostage at Alcatraz, and
the only way to get in and save them is to employ the services
of the only person (Connery) to ever break out of the prison and
survive. Connery and Cage's dynamic is one of the most
entertaining two-handers the genre has ever produced, which is
why fans keep revisiting this movie annually.
"Die Hard on the President's plane? Die Hard on the President's
plane." This concept is a no-brainer, it's also an
audience-pleaser -- one of star Harrison Ford's biggest hits.
After Kevin Costner passed on and recommended Ford for the role
of President Marshall, audiences were guaranteed an action flick
powered by Ford's brand of likable and vulnerable heroics. Gary
Oldman chews up nearly all the scenery as one very loud and
angry Russian thug hellbent on hijacking Air Force One in an
effort to force the U.S. to free his former leader.
Lots of kick-punching ensues, obvi, with the movie giving Ford
some of the best fisticuffs of his career -- especially a fight
in the bowels of his plane. The action and performances hold up
for the most part, but, sadly, that very bad CG-finale involving
the crashing plane still does not.
Blame this half-human, half-vampire for why we're all living in
a Marvel Cinematic Universe. This R-rated comic book adaptation
from Marvel helped light the fuse on over two decades of content
from the comics company. Wesley Snipes absolutely owns the
character, entering his first scene with the titular vampire
hunter fully formed. The plot finds Blade trying to stop Deacon
"Best Villain Name Ever" Frost from resurrecting the Blood God
to do, well, very obvious and evil things to those who aren't
explosively allergic to sunlight.
Stephen Norrington's direction indulges in the filmmaker's music
video roots to present a gritty, gun-metal blue aesthetic that
contrasts shockingly sometimes with the movie's generous helping
of bloody spurts. Horror and action are tricky tones to mesh
together, but Blade pulls it off in spades. This, and its
Guillermo del Toro-directed sequel, are still two of the best
Marvel movies ever released.
This Robert De Niro-led spy thriller is famous for its gritty,
done-for-real car chases. They don't so much pad the story as
they do inform it, providing audiences with legit moments of
"holy sh**, how did they pull that off?!" -- especially the
movie's last big set piece featuring a car chase against traffic
through a tunnel.
Based on a script rewritten by David Mamet (who uses a pen name
here), Ronin centers on an De Niro's ex-CIA (or is he?)
operative who joins a group of individuals with similar skill
sets to steal a case. Its contents intentionally mysterious --
as all great movie MacGuffins are -- and the stakes surrounding
the acquiring of it are of the "failure is not an option"
variety. Given the recent emphasis on gritty espionage on the
big screen, thanks to Bourne movies and recent Bond adventures,
Ronin has aged well as sort of a precursor to the current
climate. And who knew De Niro could pull off being a gun-toting
action hero so well?
Pound for pound, dollars-to-donuts, this 1998 hit is arguably
Will Smith's most underrated Hollywood effort. It is also one of
the most underrated movies on late director Tony Scott's resume.
The still-timely plot involving government surveillance on
private citizens, including Smith's on-the-run lawyer fighting
to stay one step ahead of a conspiracy closing in on him, feels
more relevant now than it did 21 years ago.
Scott borrows loosely from similar paranoid thrillers like The
Conversation and The Parallax View, delivering a surprisingly
restrained (for him) exercise in maximum tension grounded by a
very likable and relatable lead performance from Smith. Enemy of
the State was the type of movie perfect for rainy day video
store rentals or for watching on TNT. If you haven't seen this
movie ever, or have been eager to revisit it, seek it out. Come
for the Will Smith, stay for cranky Gene Hackman!
Warner Bros. had no idea they would have a zeitgeist-making
franchise on their hands, let alone a runaway box office hit,
when they all but dumped The Matrix into theaters during the
spring of 1999. Word-of-mouth quickly spread, sending people
into theaters for the third or fourth time to watch Keanu Reeves
give birth to his signature character. As Neo, Reeves'
low-wattage is an asset, especially as we uncover that his
office drone is trapped inside a computer simulation because
machines have destroyed and taken over the world.
What ensues is both visual feast (yay, Bullet Time!) and
thematically rich, there are as many action scenes as their are
textual and subtextual philosophical debates regarding the cost
of simulacra and the allure of real-life. As cool as it is to
"know Kung Fu" via brain download, or battle Agents inside the
gravity-be-damned Matrix, it's even cooler to revisit this
landmark film if you haven't watched it in a while. This is one
first-time we wish we could get back.
