The 8 Most Fun Action Movies of the 1990s, Ranked
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Every decade has its own unique brand of action movie. The 70s were gritty and cynical, the 80s were bombastic and musclebound. The 2000s started with martial arts and bullet time and ended with a more grounded realism that led directly into the brutal and bloody 2010s. Of course, there are plenty of action movie exceptions that prove the rule for each decade, but the trends are indisputable.
There are a lot of labels that could be applied to the action movies of the 90s. They continued some of the trends of the 80s and carried over influence from some major filmmakers. The concepts got higher and the budgets got bigger, with CGI paving the way for even more outrageous scenarios. Satirical, over-the-top, old fashioned, hard boiled, action-packed and out of this world are all terms that can be applied to some of the best action movies of the 90s, but a better descriptor would be fun. These are the eight most fun action movies of the 90s, ranked.
8 'Last Action Hero' (1993)
Arnold Schwarzenegger's action star developed over time. He started with monosyllabic barbarians and cybernetic organisms that relied more on his physicality. Then he branched out with badasses who spoke mostly in one-liners. Finally, directors began to harness his natural charisma and his star reached nuclear fusion. In the 90s, he bid a bloody farewell to his ultraviolent past with Total Recall, brought a bit of his action persona to the family comedy Kindergarten Cop and upgraded his ultimate villain to the ultimate hero in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Great action movies all of them, but he had the most fun as the Last Action Hero.
Reteaming with Predator director John McTiernan, Schwarzenegger took a swing at parody by poking fun at the action movie tropes he had helped establish in the 80s. Last Action Hero features the Austrian Oak playing himself as fictional movie cop Jack Slater, who gets teamed up with a kid sidekick when he's magically transported into the movie world. Last Action Hero isn't as sharp of a satire as it should be, and its PG-13 rating didn't appeal to many viewers who had grown up with Schwarzenegger's R-rated filmography. The movie bombed hard at the box office, and Schwarzenegger would return to strictly adult fare with his subsequent action movies. Over time, Last Action Hero has gained a cult following for its self-aware approach, and it still stands out in Schwarzenegger's career.
7 'Demolition Man' (1993)
The same year Schwarzenegger was trying on satire, so was his biggest action movie rival, Sylvester Stallone. The Italian Stallion's film, Demolition Man, was a much bigger success, likely because it kept the R-rating and instead of taking aim at action movies, it set its sights on political correctness. The film's depiction of an overly sanitized "utopian" future, where all language is policed and the police themselves have all become non-violent, is certainly a mixed bag when it comes to its prescience. Some bits are very incisive, while others look downright comical in comparison to the reality of 2026. The movie isn't meant to be taken seriously, though, and it's really just a big, fun action comedy that's got just a little bit more on its mind than the average Stallone movie.
Stallone plays 90s cop John Spartan, known for his destructive methods, who is blamed for the deaths of hostages while apprehending the violent criminal Simon Phoenix, played by Wesley Snipes, and sent to a cryogenic prison. After Phoenix is woken up in the future, where he shocks the overly polite society with his penchants for ultra-violence, Spartan is unfrozen to take him down. Demolition Man is filled with fun gags, from Taco Bell being the only remaining restaurant chain to the three seashells (if you know, you know), and Stallone and Snipes are having a ton of fun in their roles. Of all Stallone's action movies, Demolition Man still ranks highly, and it's a blast to the future.
6 'Face/Off' (1997)
John Woo made a major impact on Hollywood action movies in the 90s. The influence of his stylish gun-fu action was apparent in films throughout the decade, while Woo himself made his entrance into the studio system. After bidding farewell to his Heroic Bloodshed genre with Hard Boiled, he teamed up with Jean Claud Van Damme for his American debut Hard Target. That movie is a lot of slick, silly fun, moreso than Woo's follow-up Broken Arrow, which saw him collaborate with John Travolta for the first time. Those two would team up once again for Woo's best American action movie, Face/Off. In addition to Travolta, the film brought on Nicolas Cage, who himself was having a lot of fun with action in the 90s with movies like The Rock and Con Air.
The beauty of the convoluted set-up of Face/Off, where Travolta plays an FBI agent who swaps faces with Cage's terrorist in order to impersonate him, is that it allows both actors to compete in a contest of who can go more over-the-top. There isn't a piece of scenery that is unchewed by the end of it, and Woo complements the performances with his slow-motion action stylings, complete with white doves. Face/Off is an outrageous action movie in everything from its premise to its acting to its gunfights. Cage and Travolta are dialed in, and Woo's sincere approach to the dramatic material makes it all the more ridiculous and fun.
5 'The Mummy' (1999)
With a good dose of old-fashioned adventure, Stephen Sommers turned the Universal Monster horror classic The Mummy into an Indiana Jones-style supernatural action movie. The genre switch-up worked, and the movie was a massive blockbuster, spawning several sequels and spin-offs. The film's success is due to its light tone, which is handled superbly by its perfect cast, and Sommers relative restraint in using CGI, which would swallow up all the action movies he would make after it. Of all the movies inspired by Indiana Jones, The Mummy is often ranked as the best, and it nails the vibes, humor and memorable set pieces.
Brendan Fraser is his own kind of action hero, distinct from Harrison Ford's fedora-wearing archaeologist. Rick O'Connell is a bit of a himbo, but he's got charm to spare, which he used on the equally disarming Evelyn, played by Rachel Weisz. Their chemistry is as hot as the Sahara Desert, where they unwittingly unleash the vengeful mummy Imhotep, played by Arnold Vosloo. The plot is as full of holes as Imhotep's desiccated corpse, but this is not a movie designed for deep thoughts. It's two-fisted pulp fun with a side of haunted house (or pyramid) frights. The Mummy is fun, funny, charming and the only time Hollywood successfully packed action into the classic movie monster template.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
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
🎭Ethan Hunt
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.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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.
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.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
4 'The Last Boy Scout' (1991)
Tango & Cash is often considered the last true 80s action movie, but it's only representative of the roided-out muscle mass slaughter fests. There was another brand of action that was prevalent in the 80s, personified by bantering buddies and often featuring a heavy noir influence. 48 Hrs., Lethal Weapon, Running Scared, and Midnight Run were this brand's best. The buddy action movie would continue well through the 90s, and the perfect pivot point between that decade and the 80s is hinged on The Last Boy Scout. Starring Bruce Willis, directed by Tony Scott, produced by Joel Silver and written by Shane Black, the movie is a murderer's row of 80s and 90s action power players, and it lives up to that pedigree.
Willis plays a Shane Black special, a washed-up private detective. He teams up with a washed-up NFL player, played by Damon Wayans, to find out why a woman they both knew was killed and uncover a sports world conspiracy in the process. Willis was in the middle of his action run, and he's never been more delightfully disheveled than in this role. Scott's directorial style, which he honed in the 80s on Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II, basically defined the 90s action aesthetic, and Black's script is his most arch of the era. The clashing egos of these action titans apparently made the film's production a nightmare, but the result is a sleazy, indulgent, ridiculous action ride.
3 'Police Story 3: Supercop' (1992)
Jackie Chan finally broke into Hollywood in the 90s, after several false starts in the prior decade. He found success in North America with films like Rumble in the Bronx and Rush Hour, but his most fun film of the decade was the action comedy threequel Police Story 3: Supercop. Chan teamed up with Michelle Yeoh for the third installment, which only doubled the amount of incredible stunts and fight sequences. The film was an international success, and remains one of Chan's best. Supercop is supersized entertainment that could only have come from a unique action star like Chan.
Returning to his role of Inspector Ka-Kui, Chan joins forces with Yeoh as an Interpol agent to take down a dangerous drug smuggler. That plot provides more than enoguh of a framework to build some spectacular action scenes around. Chan dangles from helicopter while Yeoh jumps a motorcycle on to a moving train. It's the kind of action that puts Hollywood stars to shame, with martial artists putting their bodies on the line for the sake of entertainment. Thankfully, they both survived, and the movie is fast-paced fun.
2 'Speed' (1994)
Keanu Reeves would become a bona fide action star in the 90s thanks to three seminal films. He began the decade with Kathryn Bigelow's wild surfer heist thriller Point Break, and he would end it with the kung fu cyberpunk sci-fi classic The Matrix. In between those two, he would make what is often the best movie to be inspired by Die Hard. Speed combines the propulsive thrills of Runaway Train with the hero-villain antagonism of the Bruce Willis classic. It's Reeves' most normal action hero he ever played, but he still has lots to play off of with an incredible supporting cast that includes Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper and Jeff Daniels.
Reeves plays bomb disposal expert Jack Traven, who outwits a mad bomber, played by Hopper, in the film's intense opening sequence on an elevator. That causes the madman to take revenge by planting a bomb on a city bus that will explode if it drops below 50 mph. That perfect premise gives the movie a relentless pace that director Jan de Bont, who was the cinematographer on Die Hard, never lets wane. Speed was a massive success that solidified Reeves as an action star and led to a ridiculous sequel set on a cruise ship, but most of all it is perfect 90s action popcorn entertainment.
1 'Men in Black' (1997)
Despite being a huge blockbuster that spawned an entire franchise, the action sci-fi comedy Men in Black still seems slightly underrated. It's never given its full due in retrospectives covering any of the three genres it occupies, but it succeeds in all of them. The movie elevates the buddy cop formula to an intergalactic level, with director Barry Sonnenfeld adapting the Malibu Comics series with his energetic visual style. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones make for an unexpectedly perfect duo, the supporting cast is stellar, and the film is filled with a solid mix of digital and practical effects. It's everything you could possibly want out of a crowdpleasing action blockbuster.
Smith gets to play the wisecracking rookie to Jones' salty veteran, as the newest recruit into the alien policing Men in Black. They're faced with a big, bad buggy threat that wears the skin of a farmer, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, who gives an Oscar-worthy performance. Add in Linda Fiorentino and a talking pug, and it's impossible not to watch Men in Black without cracking a wide smile. Its combination of genres makes it stand out against its action contemporaries; the script by Ed Solomon is far more clever than it has any right to be; and the alien designs by Rick Baker are fun and unique. Men in Black is the ideal blockbuster, but somehow it hasn't become the standard for Hollywood to follow.
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