10 Great Action Films To Watch Now
Extraction
Released in the middle of lockdown, Extraction’s record-breaking viewership might have been boosted by the captivity of its audience, but it deserves to be seen nonetheless. Chris Hemsworth is brilliant, troubled mercenary Tyler Rake, who is enlisted to rescue the kidnapped son of a drug lord. With nothing left to lose, Rake embarks on the deadly mission to Bangladesh. What follows is a journey into the underbelly of Dhaka that starts to get a little personal for the usually closed-off Rake. A sequel has already been confirmed.
Watch it on Netflix
John Wick
The first instalment of the greatest action film series out there right now, John Wick stars Keanu Reeves as a retired hitman mourning the death of his wife. When the lowlife son of a Russian mobster then kills his puppy and steals his vintage Mustang, Wick gets angry – and not even the full force of a vast criminal network can stop him exacting revenge. Director Chad Stahelski is a former stuntman who makes the fighting the star of the show. Catch up with the first three films in the series before the fourth comes out in 2022.
Watch it on Amazon
Snowpiercer
Director Bong Joon-ho came to the world’s attention earlier this year as the director of surprise Oscar winner Parasite. His 2013 dystopian sci-fi thriller Snowpiercer also deserves a global audience. Set in the near future, it imagines a post-apocalyptic Earth, where a global ice age has all but wiped out the human population. Survivors are condemned to live in the confines of a self-sufficient train, on which those in first class indulge in endless luxuries, while those in its rear carriages barely have enough to survive. Keen to overthrow the system, the enigmatic Curtis (Chris Evans) leads his fellow passengers on a crusade which sees them fight their way through every level of the train to reach the all-important engine.
Watch it on Amazon
Mission: Impossible – Fallout
If it weren’t for a slight dip in its standards in the early noughties, the six-strong M:I series might have pipped John Wick for that title of greatest current action film series. This latest instalment sees Tom Cruise’s IMF agent Ethan Hunt taking on a group of super-terrorists known as the Apostles. The failure of his first attempt to keep some weapons-grade plutonium out of their hands means Hunt himself is under suspicion from the CIA. Thank goodness he can count on the loyalty of IMF stalwarts Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg. Among the many daring stunts, look out for the one in which Cruise really did break his ankle jumping off a rooftop in Blackfriars.
Watch it on Netflix
Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino’s noughties martial arts films are a pair of modern classics. Across two volumes, Kill Bill follows Uma Thurman as The Bride. A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, she falls pregnant and opts to abandon the group of elite killers, settling down to a quiet life. When her ex-associates descend upon her wedding day, the ensuing massacre leaves her critically wounded. When she wakes up from a four-year coma, The Bride sets out on a quest to wreak revenge on all those who betrayed her – with ex-boss Bill at the top of her hit list.
Watch Volume 1 and Volume 2 on Amazon
Mad Max: Fury Road
In a barren post-apocalyptic wasteland of the not-too-distant future, Max Rockatansy (Tom Hardy) reluctantly joins forces with the Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a rebel fleeing the tyrannical Immortan Joe and his fanatical army of War Boys. Teeming with rusty tanker trucks and alive with sand storms, the ten-time Oscar-nominated film is a non-stop adrenaline-fuelled adventure for the ages. For a different take, check out the ‘Chrome Edition’, which sees the film drained of colour in a beautifully gritty black-and-white version – exactly how director George Miller had originally intended it to look.
Watch it on YouTube
The Terminator
In 2029, AI has wrested control of the world from humanity and intends to obliterate us entirely. Faced with a burgeoning resistance movement, the machines hit upon a way to erase chief rebel John Connor from existence. Co-written and directed by Hollywood powerhouse James Cameron, this is the film that introduces Arnold Schwarzenegger in his iconic role as the cyborg assassin sent from the future to Los Angeles 1984 to kill the woman destined to be Connor’s mother. When human soldier Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back with orders to stop the Terminator, the scene is set for an all-time great chase movie.
Watch it on Netflix
The Raid
This is the film with which Gangs of London showrunner Gareth Evans made his name. Back in 2012, the Welsh director was living in Indonesia and found some local inspiration. Jakarta’s most infamous criminal boss is holed up at the top of a 30-storey tower block in the middle of one of the capital’s most deprived slums. Police wouldn’t normally dare go anywhere near it, but things are getting desperate and a SWAT team is sent in to apprehend him. That, in a nutshell, is the entire film: special forces try to clear the building, floor by floor. What makes The Raid stand out is the martial arts and the visionary way in which Evans harnesses their balletic power. The similarly excellent sequel, which sees special forces officer Rama working undercover behind bars, is currently on Netflix.
Watch it on YouTube
Die Hard
Bruce Willis redefined what it was to be an action hero in this 1988 classic. Steroidal muscles were out; sardonic wisecracks were in. Willis is John McClane, a New York detective who reunites with his estranged wife at her office Christmas party in a new LA skyscraper. Unfortunately for them both, a heavily armed German terrorist group – led by Alan Rickman’s chilling Hans Gruber – happens to be targeting the building that night. It falls to McClane to deal with them, while also keeping the largely unhelpful LAPD off his back.
Watch it on Amazon
Oldboy
Re-released last year, this singular 2003 film from South Korean director Park Chan-wook tracks an ordinary man who has spent 15 years being held in a room by a captor he doesn’t know and for reasons he doesn’t understand. When he’s released, he sets out for revenge. Along the way, he falls in love and eats a live octopus. Brutality and black humour are both here, as well as a must-see single-shot fight sequence.
Watch it on Amazon
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