The 8 Most Thrilling Action Movies in Film History

Published Oct 31, 2026, 1:28 PM EDT

Marcel is a writer who is passionate about most movies and series. He will watch anything that's good. He is a content manager by day and a videographer when needed. Marcel used to work at a major streaming service based in Asia Pacific as a Content Specialist and was the Distribution Manager for a local movie distribution company.

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A good action movie brings you closer to the fights and explosions, yet a great and thrilling one makes you feel and experience the same things as the protagonists in the film. From explosive shootouts and heart-pounding car chases to jaw-dropping fight sequences and seemingly impossible stunts, the best action movies deliver the kind of adrenaline rush that makes you forget to breathe for a second.

In the history of films, there have been numerous beloved and successful action movies. However, only some of them are able to make a mark with audiences. Here, we take a look at some of those action movies that deliver thrills to the audience. These movies don't just have spectacular set pieces, but also memorable heroes to root for. Moreover, these movies are also foundational to the action genre that we know and love today.

8 Kill Bill: Vol. 1' (2003)

Image via Miramax Films

In Kill Bill Vol 1, a former assassin known as the Bride (Uma Thurman) awakens from a coma four years after being brutally attacked and left for dead during her wedding rehearsal. Now, she begins to track down the people responsible for her suffering, namely the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and the leader and her former lover, Bill (David Carradine).

Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill is akin to a mixtape of the greatest hits of action and genre films, while also boldly creating a revolutionary new work. Drawing heavily from anime, Hong Kong martial arts films, Spaghetti westerns and 70s grindhouse cinema, Kill Bill is a singular experience like no other. The film brings excitement from witnessing the Bride unleashing her skills to go on a revenge journey. Uma Thurman is simply electric in this iconic role, and Tarantino directs the action sequences with so much style, most memorably the Bride's showdown with the Crazy 88. While Volume 1 stands as one of the most thrilling films in the 21st century, the film is best seen in its entirety as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.

7 'Mission: Impossible – Fallout' (2018)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Mission: Impossible - Fallout follows Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team as they try to recover three stolen plutonium cores before they can be used for terrorist attacks. An extremist group named the Apostles plans to create chaos by using them. Under the scrutiny of the CIA, Ethan and his team must enlist the help of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) to find John Lark, the leader of the Apostles.

Unanimously agreed by the audience as the best entry in the franchise, Mission: Impossible - Fallout perfected the franchise's formula by marrying the high-stakes stunts with a character-driven high-stakes story as well. Audiences can clearly understand how Ethan Hunt operates: he puts the people he loves above all else. Tom Cruise's death-defying stunts are crazier than ever, he even sustained a serious injury when jumping off the rooftops of London. The cast, which includes franchise mainstays like Ving Rhames and Rebecca Ferguson, is joined by worthy additions such as Henry Cavill and Vanessa Kirby. With pure adrenaline thrills, it is one of the best action films in recent memory.

6 'The Matrix' (1999)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

The Matrix follows hacker Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) who becomes enlightened about the reality of his existence after encountering Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). The truth is that the world as he knows it is a simulated reality created by machines. Morpheus believes that Neo may be the One who can save humanity and end the war with the machines.

Directed by The Wachowskis, The Matrix stands as one of the quintessential pieces of cinema from the 1990s. The characters are unabashedly dripping in so much style and the filmmaking techniques are experimental, pushing the boundaries of what is possible during the time. In turn, it became influential to countless movies that followed. The marriage between wirework choreography, gun action and revolutionary visual effects elevates what could be easily dismissed as sci-fi mumbo jumbo into an action masterpiece. The film is packed with exemplary action sequences, so it's just difficult to pick one. The sequels ramp up the action, but without this first film, cinema wouldn't be what it is today.

5 'The Bourne Ultimatum' (2007)

Image via Universal Pictures

The Bourne Ultimatum follows Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) as he pieces the final puzzle about his identity. His investigation leads him to a deeper conspiracy at the CIA, where they have expanded the Treadstone program that created him into a new program named Blackbriar. After years on the run, Bourne now takes the fight to the US, and confronts his past once and for all.

The Bourne franchise is one of the most influential films in the action genre. Together with Batman Begins and Casino Royale, it is responsible for making action movies more gritty and grounded. Paul Greengrass utilizes his infamous shaky-cam technique to heighten the intensity of the fight sequences. Lesser movies copied this technique to hide cuts, but here the style is essential to the film. One of the film's incredible sequences is the thrilling set-piece set in Waterloo station. It's a masterclass in building tension and storytelling. The Bourne Ultimatum is not only the best film in the franchise, but also one of the finest action films of the 2000s.

Collider Exclusive · Action Franchise Quiz What Action Series Would You Thrive In? Wick · Fast · Mission · Die Hard

Four franchises. Four completely different ideas of what a hero is: the assassin with a code, the family that never leaves anyone behind, the man who does his own stunts, and the guy who simply refuses to die. Only one of them runs on your particular brand of trouble. Eight questions will tell you which one you would survive.

🐕Wick

🏁Fast

🧨Mission

🎄Die Hard

FIND YOUR FRANCHISE →

01

How does a room know you've walked into it? Every action hero arrives differently. Some of them arrive before they arrive.

ASomeone recognises me, and the temperature in the room drops without a single word being said. BLoudly and warmly. I arrive with my people, and we're already laughing about something. CI'm the one who told everybody where to stand. I walked this room twice before anyone else arrived. DBy accident. I wasn't supposed to be here, and now I'm the only one who can do anything about it.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

It turns physical. What does your fighting actually look like? Choreography is character. Yours says something about you.

AEconomical and devastating. Trained technique, no wasted motion, finished before most people notice it started. BLoud, heavy and weirdly joyful. I'm not elegant, I hit like a truck, and I always have backup. CTo plan, until the plan breaks. Then I improvise at full sprint and refuse to stop moving. DBadly, honestly, and with a lot of swearing. I take more damage than I deal and I still don't go down.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

Who is standing beside you when it starts? Some franchises are built on a team. Others are built on one person walking in alone.

ANobody. I have contacts, favours and people who owe me, but when it begins I work alone. BEveryone. My people are the entire point, and I'd trade the whole mission for any one of them. CA small hand-picked team I trust completely, and I'd still take the worst part of the job myself. DA voice on the other end of a radio and a building full of people who don't know I exist.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

It has gone badly wrong. What keeps you upright? Act two exists to find out what you're actually made of.

AFocus, commitment and sheer will. Grief is fuel if you point it in the right direction. BThe people counting on me. I don't appear to have a limit when it's family on the line. CRefusing to accept the odds. Somebody has to do the impossible part, and it's going to be me. DSpite, mostly. And a growing sense that these people picked the wrong building.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

There's a vehicle. What are you driving, and how? No action franchise has ever survived without a car chase. This one is yours.

AA black muscle car I am unreasonably attached to, and I will dismantle an entire empire over it. BSomething impossibly modified, at impossible speed, off an impossible ramp. Physics is a suggestion. CA motorbike at full throttle through a city I memorised last night. And then off a cliff. DA borrowed car, badly, while somebody in the passenger seat politely asks me to slow down.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

How do you feel about the people giving the orders? There is always an institution. There is rarely a good one.

AThere are rules and I respect them absolutely, right up until somebody breaks one against me. BI don't take orders. I take care of people, and everything else tends to sort itself out. CI serve the mission, not the memo. If my people are in danger, the orders come second. DThey're in a van outside telling me what I'm doing wrong while I'm the one bleeding on broken glass.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

Underneath all of it, what are you actually doing this for? The stunts are the reason people come. This is the reason they stay.

ASomething was taken from me that can't be replaced, and I've been settling that account ever since. BBelonging. I built a family out of people who had nowhere else, and I'll defend it with everything. CThe conviction that if I stop, people die. I don't know how to hand that to anyone else. DI just wanted to get through the holidays with my family. Everything after that was self-defence.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

When the credits roll, what do people say about you? Every franchise is really an argument about what makes someone worth watching.

AThat I was a myth people warned each other about in whispers, and that they were right to. BThat I never left anyone behind, the door was always open, and there was always a place at the table. CThat I did the impossible part myself, every single time, and never asked anyone to risk it for me. DThat I was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, who turned out to be very hard to kill.

REVEAL MY FRANCHISE →

Casting Has Been Completed Your Franchise Is…

Four action series. One of them is built around exactly the way you handle pressure, people, and a room that has just gone very quiet. Here is where you would survive the trilogy, and probably headline it.

John Wick

You are precision with a grudge. You don't posture, you don't escalate, and you don't warn anybody twice. That is exactly why the people who know you are so careful never to be the reason you start.

• The Wick films run on discipline: an underworld with actual etiquette, a hero who honours every rule of it, and a world that unravels the instant someone breaks one against him.
• You share that quality. You are extraordinarily reasonable right up to the line, and then completely immovable past it.
• Focus, commitment and sheer will. You'd be the one carrying grief through three sequels and turning it into technique rather than noise.
• People wouldn't call you dangerous. They'd say your name quietly and let that do the work.

Fast & Furious

You understand the thing the whole franchise is secretly about: the cars are spectacular, but the crew is the point. You collect people, you keep them, and you'd drive through a building for any one of them.

• This series went from street racing to orbit without ever changing its actual subject, because loyalty scales and plot doesn't have to.
• You have the same instinct. You build a family out of whoever turns up, and then you defend it past the point of reason.
• You'd thrive here because the franchise rewards exactly your strengths: warmth, nerve, an absolute refusal to leave anyone behind, and a relaxed relationship with physics.
• The mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.

Mission: Impossible

You over-prepare and then take the dangerous part yourself anyway. It looks like control, but it's really responsibility. You have never worked out how to ask somebody else to carry the risk.

• This is the franchise of the plan that collapses on schedule: the team, the mask, the rooftop, and the one person sprinting flat out because sprinting is all that's left.
• You share that refusal to accept an outcome. Told the odds, you treat them as an administrative error.
• You'd thrive here because these films reward competence and loyalty in equal measure. The mission matters, but nobody on the team gets left on the wrong side of a door.
• Some people delegate the cliff. You have never once been that person.

Die Hard

You are not the most trained person in the building, the best equipped, or the one anybody would have picked. You are simply the one still standing at the end, which turns out to be the only qualification that matters.

• Die Hard invented the modern action hero by making him mortal: outgunned, out-planned, bleeding, and extremely funny about it.
• You share that stubbornness. Adversity doesn't make you noble, it makes you sarcastic, and then it makes you unstoppable.
• You'd thrive here because these films reward improvisation and nerve over preparation, and you've never had the luxury of preparing anyway.
• You didn't want any of this. You just declined to be the person who let it happen.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

4 'The Raid' (2011)

Image via PT Merantau Films

Taking place in Jakarta, The Raid follows an elite tactical police squad that launches a high-risk operation to raid an apartment complex controlled by a ruthless crime lord. Among the officers is Rama (Iko Uwais), a young and highly skilled member of the team who also has a personal connection because his brother is part of the crime lord's operation. However, the simple mission becomes a hellish maze as every floor is packed with brutal henchmen.

The Raid distills the genre into its core, which is the fight sequences. The film is practically packed with combat sequences of various styles, utilizing various weapons, from guns to machetes. These sequences are depicted clearly and inventively that audiences do not get tired of its endless mayhem. Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim and Yayan Ruhian all have martial arts backgrounds, which help sell the authenticity of the fights. It is one of the finest Indonesian exports to cinema and it has become a blueprint for subsequent action films. The film is followed by a bigger sequel that expands the world, but still delivers the same goods.

3 'Hard Boiled' (1992)

Image via Golden Princess Film Production

Hard Boiled follows Hong Kong police inspector Tequila Yuen (Chow Yun-fat) who is trying to take down a Triad network who killed his partner. His investigation leads him to Alan (Tony Leung), an officer deep undercover in the organization. While they initially find themselves hard to trust one another, the two eventually make an uneasy alliance to expose the criminal network.

One of the best films directed by the master of heroic bloodshed films, John Woo, Hard Boiled is a spectacular and intense cinematic experience. It has all the hallmarks of a John Woo film, from the operatic violence, slow-motion, to the dramatic editing. The film's action sequences are extraordinary in their ambition, with Woo frequently staging elaborate shootouts in complicated environments and situations. The lead duo is also joined by a memorable villain in Anthony Wong's crime boss. Hard Boiled represents Hong Kong action filmmaking at its most ambitious, showing how a crime thriller can become a breathtaking visual experience through the combination of technical precision and pure style.

2 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' (1991)

Image via Tri-Star Pictures

Years after the events of the first film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day sees Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) being held in a psychiatric hospital while her son, John Connor (Edward Furlong), who is destined to lead humanity's resistance against the machines, is targeted by Skynet, which sends an advanced Terminator model, T-1000 (Robert Patrick) to kill him. The resistance also sends back a reprogrammed T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to save Sarah and John.

Terminator 2 is one of the best sequels ever made for how it expands the universe and also reestablishes Schwarzenegger's T-800. James Cameron delivers spectacular action on a scale that was groundbreaking for its time and still looks great today. The film also seamlessly blends its technical ambitions with its storytelling. The T-1000's liquid metal effects were revolutionary at its time. The cast all deliver superb performances, with Linda Hamilton giving Sarah Connor a layered, Oscar-worthy performance. This film is one of the main reasons that the franchise is still going today, as new entries try to capture the same energy.

1 'Die Hard' (1988)

Image via 20th Century Studios

Die Hard follows New York City police detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) who travels to Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged wife during her company's Christmas party. However, their reunion is cut short when a group of heavily armed criminals led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) takes the building hostage. McClane becomes the only person in the building equipped to take a stand against the terrorists.

Die Hard has a deceptively simple premise, as evidenced by other imitators that try to emulate its formula. However, the premise is not everything as Die Hard also has a robust, character-driven screenplay that is filled with relentless suspense, memorable characters, and ingenious action sequences. Die Hard works because it has an emotional center: a flawed man who must confront his own shortcomings while trying to save someone he loves. Bruce Willis' McClane is key to the film's success, while Alan Rickman's Gruber provides the protagonist with a formidable foe. Its blend of action, humor, and suspense has rarely been matched ever since, making this arguably the most thrilling and entertaining action movie ever made.

Die Hard