Action movies have always been cinema’s staple. The movies in this genre have the power to entertain audiences from all around the world. The most memorable ones are those with spectacular set pieces that involve intricate action choreography, gun fights and explosions. In the mid to late 2000s, there were several influential action movies, such as Batman Begins, Casino Royaleand The Bourne Ultimatum, which changed the landscape forever.
Nevertheless, the innovation does not stop there. Since 2010, the genre has produced some remarkably polished films that combine thrilling action with great characters, sharp storytelling, inventive choreography, and confident direction. Here, we take a look at the action movies that we can call perfect, where every element works in harmony, creating a thoroughly exceptional actioner.
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6
‘Rurouni Kenshin’ (2012)
Still from the movie Rurouni Kenshin Part II- Kyoto InfernoImage via Warner Bros. Pictures
Rurouni Kenshin follows Himura Kenshin (Takeru Satoh), a former legendary assassin who has vowed not to kill anymore and now wanders the country as a swordsman determined to protect people. He arrives in Tokyo, and he meets Kaoru Kamiya (Emi Takei), owner of a struggling swordsmanship school. When a ruthless businessman tries to take over the city through an opium operation and an army of fighters, Kenshin’s promise is repeatedly tested.
Rurouni Kenshin is, almost without a doubt, the best live-action anime adaptation to date. It is also a criminally underseen action masterpiece. The film translates the over-the-top swordplay of its source material into spectacular action choreography that still feels grounded and physical. Kenshin’s movement is outrageously fast but with practical effects and wirework, they never feel weightless. Kenshin’s reversed-blade sword also adds to the thrills. Its period setting and dynamic camera work are additional points in this exceptional film. The success of this film spawned four sequels, and they all keep getting better with each film.
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5
‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022)
Maverick takes off from an aircraft carrierImage via Paramount Pictures
In Top Gun: Maverick, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is curiously still a test pilot after decades of a legendary career. He is brought back to Top Gun to train an elite group of young pilots for a seemingly impossible mission. Among the pilots is Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s late wingman, whom Maverick feels protective about.
The 2010s and 2020s have been inundated with so many legacy sequels, yet only a few actually justified their existence. One of them is this sequel to Tony Scott‘s Top Gun. The mixture of practical effects and CGI in the aerial sequences is widely praised. However, the real hero of the story is its plot and characters. The film spends considerable time establishing relationships and giving the mission emotional stakes before unleashing its action. The film do so with so much care that you know the characters even though you may not have seen the first movie. The film’s third act is a massive payoff for all the plotlines that came before. The action is thrilling and immersive, especially when seen in IMAX. The film became one of the few post-pandemic success stories, with its box office reaching the $1 billion mark.
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4
‘The Raid 2’ (2014)
Image via Sony Pictures Classics
Set just minutes after the first film, The Raid 2 follows Rama (Iko Uwais), who is given a new assignment to infiltrate the criminal underworld and get close to Uco (Arifin Putra), the ambitious son of a crime boss. After deliberately getting himself sent to prison, he enters the sprawling underworld of Jakarta and fights his way to finish his mission.
The Raid is an iconic action film, but The Raid 2 is a bigger and richer film. The plot of this film is more ambitious, with a boatload of characters surrounding Uwais’ Rama. Gareth Evans smartly levels up after the success of the first film. It’s a riskier film, but it still has all the elements of the first film. The fight sequences are extraordinary. With a clean presentation and minimal cuts, every fight becomes so memorable. The prison-yard sequence, the elaborate car chase, and the climactic confrontation all have completely different rhythms and visual identities. It’s a highly satisfying sequel, and it’s mind-boggling that we do not have a third film after this achievement.
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3
‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ (2018)
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible Fallout peering around a brick wallImage via Paramount Pictures
In Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his trusted team attempt to recover lost plutonium used by a radical group called the Apostles. Now operating under the watchful CIA operative August Walker (Henry Cavill), the team has to work with shadowy figures like The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) and their previous adversary Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) to stop The Apostles’ attack in major cities.
Often dubbed as the best entry in the eight-film Mission: Impossiblefranchise, the film fires on all cylinders in every aspects from production to its insane stunt design. At this point, if the film’s stunts do not endanger Tom Cruise’s life, it’s not a Mission: Impossible film. Thankfully, there are plenty of death-defying, practical stunts in this film, from the HALO jump, the Paris motorcycle chase, to the helicopter sequence in the climax. The ensemble cast that includes Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, all play pivotal parts in this film. Add all that with the film’s efficient pacing and surprises, Fallout is one of the best action blockbusters ever made.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
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Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
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🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
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02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
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04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
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05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
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07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
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08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
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09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
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10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
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Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
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Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
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John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
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Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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2
‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ (2023)
Keanu Reeves in the rain as John Wick in John Wick 4Image via Lionsgate
John Wick: Chapter 4 sees John Wick’s (Keanu Reeves) attempt to escape the High Table reach its final stage. Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) is given authority to eliminate the Baba Yaga once and for all. His journey takes him from New York to Osaka, Berlin, and eventually Paris, where he must survive waves of assassins, including his friend-turned-foe Caine (Donnie Yen), before earning his chance at a fateful duel.
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The first John Wick film changed the action genre when it was released in 2014. After two sequels that keep upping the ante, John Wick Chapter 4 ends the titular character’s journey with a bang. The action sequences in this film are different from one another, and that makes for an exciting action film. The Osaka Continental fight emphasizes martial arts and gunplay, the Berlin sequence is a neverending nightclub chaos, the Paris Arc de Triomphe set piece turns the iconic landmark into a dynamic battlefield, and the overhead action sequence brings a video-game-like sequence to life. At nearly three hours, the movie never feels like it is wasting time and that’s why it’s arguably the best action film of the 2020s.
1
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
The Doof Warrior playing his custom guitar in Mad Max: Fury Road – 2015Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
In Mad Max: Fury Road, drifter Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) is captured by warlord Immortan Joe’s (Hugh Keays-Byrne) fanatical minions and is kept alive as a blood bag. At the same time, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) rebels against Immortan by escaping with his five wives to find the fabled Green Place. Max becomes an unwilling participant in this conflict and eventually fights alongside Furiosa against the tyrants of the wasteland.
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Director George Miller returns to the world he created in 1979, and it feels like he left. The film’s deceptively simple premise packs an advanced level of filmmaking and control. The geography of each sequence is exceptionally clear, so even during the most chaotic moments, we understand what’s happening. The seamless mix of practical effects and CGI gives the film a tactile quality that modern blockbusters often struggle to replicate, and its effective editing enhances its pacing. More importantly, the action is inseparable from the characters, especially with Furiosa, who immediately becomes an icon. The film’s greatness is evidenced by its massive haul at the Oscars, winning seven trophies in the ceremony.
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