DO YOU NEED SOME ACTION IN YOUR LIFE. THAT WASN’T A QUESTION.
Do you think The Idol could have been better if it had more EXPLOSIONS? Do you think that The Bear‘s second season could have broken even more records if they all had BIG GUNS? These are rhetorical questions. You do believe these things. How do I know? Because you’re reading this motherf—king article.
You’re sick of the mundane, you want something mun-DANGEROUS. And I’ve got it for you. The best action movies that Netflix has to offer. NOW TAKE THESE TITLES ON THE CHIN LIKE THE ACTION STAR YOU ARE.
Extraction
You can’t spell Sam Hargrave’s Extraction without ACTION. Do you like Australians (Chris Hemsworth)? Do you like Australians with rippling biceps (again, Hemsworth)? Do you like Australian special forces soldiers with ripped biceps who are talked into doing “one last job” defending some poor drug kingpin’s son from getting merc’d by rival gangs from India’s criminal underbelly? Again, these are rhetorical questions. I know you do. This movie has one-take car chases and multiple takes of people EATING LEAD. You won’t be disappointed.
The Rush Hour trilogy
Do you like to LAUGH while you watch action (NOT A QUESTION). Well get ready to LAUGH at Rush Hour. A Chinese police officer played by Jackie Chan is forced to team up with a loose canon LAPD cop played by Chris Tucker. What do they have to do? In the first movie they have to save a kidnapped little girl from the Bad Guys. What more do you need to know?? Go watch it for the stunt scenes that almost killed Jackie Chan 1,000 different ways.
Kick-Ass
Do you like to laugh and feel a little BAD about it? That’s what black comedies are FOR. But this black comedy has enough action to PUNCH THOSE BAD FEELINGS AWAY. Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass is about young kid named Chris (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who decides his city has had ENOUGH crime and decides to get a superhero costume and fight criminals on the streets. He ends up getting stabbed. BUT his heroic actions bring him to the attention of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), two real-deal vigilantes who want to help him bring the PAIN to the crime bosses in the city.
Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2
To hell with Marvel movies. F—k the DC Universe. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man was the original superhero movie of our time. Where would the MCU, the DCU, and all the other CUs be without these films? NOWHERE. Spider-Man laid the GROUNDWORK for the modern superhero genre film, which, for better or worse, made all those other movies possible. What happens? It’s SPIDER-MAN. Tobey Maguire gets bitten by a spider. Uncle Ben says some stuff about responsibility and then dies. And then Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin and Doc Ock. THAT’S ALL YOU NEED. (Just don’t watch the third one, for the love of Stan Lee).
Heat
Everybody’s a gangster until Robert De Niro and Al Pacino walk on the scene-o. Michael Mann’s Heat is one of the greatest action titles OF ALL TIME. It tells the story of a crime boss and the cop who is obsessed with catching him. Who plays who? Doesn’t MATTER. THEY’RE THE SAME PERSON. NOT LITERALLY BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
RRR
People didn’t think that the Indian film industry could make a globally acclaimed action film capable of competing with Hollywood. PEOPLE WERE WRONG. S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR is going to go down as one of the GREATEST ACTION FILMS OF THE 21ST CENTURY. Set in a British-controlled India at the turn of the century, a young warrior (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.) has to rescue a kidnapped girl from the clutches of some English colonist assholes. And he’s gonna fall platonically in love with an undercover revolutionary fighter played by Ram Charan while doing it. AND THEN THEY’RE GONNA SING AND DANCE AND THROW MOTORCYCLES AT PEOPLE.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Arnold Schwarzenegger said he’d be back, and he WAS. Catapulting off the success of the first Terminator film, the franchise decided to ONE-UP ITSELF and make the villain of the first movie the hero of the second. Directed by James Cameron, Terminator 2: Judgement Day tells the story of an AI called Skynet that takes over the world and sends a terminator back in time to kill John Connor—the leader of the future human revolution—while he is still a child. But Connor’s comrades decide to send THEIR OWN reprogrammed terminator back to help him. Not even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator can rival the ferocity of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), John’s mom.
Skyfall
When a cyberterrorist named Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) targets MI6 and tries to kill M (Judi Dench), Daniel Craig—I mean, James Bond has to step up and defend his BOSS. NOW THAT’S THE EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH RIGHT THERE. Director Sam Mendes’ Skyfall is the crown jewel of the modern James Bond films; this movie might just be even better than Casino Royale. Guns! Car chases! Castles! British people! WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT.
The Raid: Redemption
Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption came out of NOWHERE and established lead actor Iko Uwais as one of the finest martial arts actors of the modern era. The premise of the film is as simple as a PUNCH IN THE FACE. A high-rise apartment building in Indonesia has become a hotspot of criminal activity, with a dangerous drug kingpin establishing himself on the top floor. A rookie SWAT officer named Rama is sent in with a team of 20 other operatives to clean the criminal element out of the place. It doesn’t go as planned. The SWAT team is all but wiped out in an ambush attack by the criminal gangs, and now Rama and a few other survivors have to fight for their… THEIR SURVIVAL.
Rocky
Director John G. Avildsen’s Rocky is one of of the GREATEST ACTION MOVIES OF ALL TIME. YES, SPORTS COUNT AS ACTION. ESPECIALLY THE SPORTS THAT INVOLVE FACE-PUNCHING. The concept behind Rocky was created by Sylvester Stallone, who also plays the main character, a blue collar boxing underdog who, through a training regimen of drinking raw eggs and pumping his fists on the steps of art museums, becomes ONE OF THE GREATEST BOXERS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. This movie swept the floor at the Academy Awards and inspired a SLEW of sequels and spinoffs that are still profitable TO THIS DAY. While most other films on this list are all brawn and no brain, Rocky is what smart people call a “cinematic masterpiece,” and will CAUSE YOUR EYES TO PUNCH YOUR FACE WITH TEARS.
(featured image: Warner Bros. / Paramount / Netflix / PT Merantau Films)
