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[Kabuki Waq]

so I take it none of you guys have seen hardboiled?

in terms of pure action it can't be beat.

 

[T Dollarz]

Die Hard, Aliens, Terminator 2, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Matrix sounds like the right top five for me.

I'd have Raiders up there, but I think that's more of an adventure movie than straight up action.


Edit: Fuck, The Raid 1&2 should probably be up there as well.

 

[Data West]

Police Story

 

[davidwhangchoi]

no demolition man love?
Wesley Snipes was a perfect villain

 

[Carlius]

last action here....hands down.

 

[VeryGooster]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkmSNWHX2-o

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

My philosophy is actually the opposite. Characters in action films don't matter unless they can deliver great action scenes. For me, action films are all about action and pacing.

Yeah, same here. Action movies don't need complex plots or characters.

 

[Bold One]

The Matrix changed action Cinema forever

so it gets my Vote

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I'd have Raiders up there, but I think that's more of an adventure movie than straight up action.

From the GAF poll thread:

Before the late 80s, there wasn't really a separate conception of "action" and "Adventure" within the genre. Action/Adventure was just what it was called. And then after a glut of Schwarzenegger and Schwarzenegger knockoffs started hitting shelves, people began to segregate the two much more cleanly, when they didn't really need to. And at some point in the late 90s, it was pretty much done: There was now a big wall between "Action" and "Adventure"

If anything, it's the film equivalent of people who try to say "rap" is differen't than "hip-hop."

There's more action in any given 20 minutes of Raiders than there is in most of Robocop, for example.

 

[The Lamonster]

The Matrix or Terminator 2.

If we're talking best action movie of all time, it'd better have all the pillars of action - vehicle stunts and combat, explosions, ranged and melee weapons, hand to hand combat, amazing stunts in general, and efficient use of CGI. The Raid and Die Hard do not have all of the pillars.

*honorable mention goes to True Lies.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

Probably Raiders.

Also love Die Hard, The Matrix, Starship Troopers and Hard Boiled.

 

[GravityInsanity]

Any movie Keanu Reeves was in. My favorite actor.

 

[Currygan]

Hard Boiled

 

[Skulduggery]

Tie between Die Hard & Lethal Weapon

 

[AlphaDump]

Predator.


It is both a top notch action and horror movie.

It is timeless due to the setting since there is no modern technology within the jungle, and the commando unit uses basic weaponry that would still make sense to this day. Even the predator's technology and special effects still hold up.

It is one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's best roles and movies. and captures him right as he was hitting his prime. The cast and characters also are pretty convincing playing an old team of commandos who all have certain specializations that match their personalities.

It also has held up waaaay better than terminator 1/2 and alien/s imo.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

I really love Jet Li's Fist of Legend.

Its one of my personal favorite Kung Fu flicks of all time.

Its hard to say which I think is the greatest action movie of all time. I love Ip Man as well. Die hard and Terminator and The Matrix are all great picks. The Raid 2 is amazing. They are all definitely up there.

 

[QualityPixel]

Best action and best war movie.

 

[Llyranor]

so I take it none of you guys have seen hardboiled?

in terms of pure action it can't be beat.

The sets are the real stars of Hardboiled. Love seeing stuff blow up in the movie so much.

 

[Cromat]

For cheesy action movies, True Lies is the best.

 

[ironcreed]

T2, Die Hard, Predator, Braveheart, The Matrix and the Lethal Weapon series.

I would probably throw Conan the Barbarian in there as well. There are so many.

 

[blazenumb1]

Die Hard(also the best Christmas movie ever)

 

[The Lamonster]

For cheesy action movies, True Lies is the best.

yeah - the scenes with the horse, or the helicopter were amazing

 

[Agraavan]

That would be Terminator 2.

Die Hard

First and second post. I think that's a wrap.

I don't know if it will survive the test of time (I think it will), but Mad Max: Fury Road deserves a mention.

 

[TheDinoman]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Spoiler

/s

Real answer would probably be Terminator 2 or something.

 

[injurai]

John Wick and Predator

 

[massoluk]

For cheesy action movies, True Lies is the best.

Best film with horse. Greatest horse film ever made.

 

[nomster]

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Die Hard
4. Aliens
5. Predator

Great top five

 

[ironcreed]

Road House and Young Guns are also a couple of favorites.

 

[onepiecefan]

I've always considered Die Hard, T2, Raiders & Aliens (in no particular order) as the ultimate action films, there are tons of other amazing action films which cut it close though.

 

[cloud_sleep]

For me it's Terminator 2, Aliens or Die Hard. The classics. recent movies I highly rate include John Wick and Fury Road. Casino Royale's parkour chase is also great.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

It's probably Die Hard or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens, Casino Royale, The Matrix, Fury Road, etc, are all good choices too.

I'll never understand mentions of films like The Raid - the action itself means nothing if you aren't invested in the characters. It's just meaningless choreography.

I'll never understand why people list movies with mediocre to solid action/choreography for best action movie of all time, but I just let it slide like many mentions in these lists.

 

[generic_username]

The GOAT safely sits at no 1

The greatest set piece in an action movie

Followed by no 2.

Followed by no 3

The GAF poll's already been linked in here, but I'm still amazed it didn't even make the top 5 there (despite only having one less #1 vote than T2), and that it missed the top 5 because a lot of people voting didn't even consider it an action film at all, much less the best one ever made.

That poll's also funny because people swear Fury Road got overrated, when I bet if you run it in another 6 months, T2 will drop beneath it.

As it should.

It wont and it should not. Also as an action movie fan Raiders does not belong in the top 3 action movie list IMO. I love Raiders but I just dont keep coming back because it has wonderfully directed action scenes ( opening is still GOAT though )

 

[Fug Slanderson]

T2

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

Definitely the matrix.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Road Warrior is also pretty classic and one of the greats IMO.

 

[Oersted]

s it was the first foreign film I have ever seen.

This just sad. Watch some HK cinema.

 

[Joyful]

if someone asked me this with a gun to my head id prolly say predator or die hard

 

[graffix13]

1. Die Hard
2. Die Hard
3. Die Hard
4. Die Hard
5. Die Hard

 

[Scotia]

Hard Boiled.

Die Hard doesn't even come close.

 

[Bishop89]

Die hard
Die hard with a Vengeance
Predator
Aliens
The Matrix
Fast five
Dredd
Terminator 2
Speed

 

[Robert-One-Oh-seven]

The Raid

And

The Raid 2

How can it be anything else?

 

[wanderingprostheyltite]

Lethal Weapon 5

 

[A Link to the Past]

Humm

Dredd

Oldboy

RoboCop

Aliens

Hot Fuzz

Die Hard

 

[spekkeh]

Should've been first post but #4 isn't too bad. Commando is perfection.

Commando

Commando.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkmSNWHX2-o

I like you guys.

That's why I'm going to kill you last.

The action isn't even all that good in Robocop. Or Commando.

It's always weird seeing those two pop up in these discussions.

There's an imdb review of over a decade ago that I found once and immediately saved because it explains succinctly and decisively why Commando is the greatest action movie of all time.

When I watch Commando, I am reminded of Entertainment Weekly's review of Uwe Boll's disastrous video game adaptation, Alone In The Dark:

"When the giant, intelligent bees of the future sift through the ashes of our civilization, they will find Alone in the Dark, and they will understand. It's so bad it's postmodern." - Scott Brown

We are the giant bees of the future sifting through the remains of the 1980s, and when we find Commando, we understand. Traditional boundaries between "good" and "bad" are demolished, and the concepts blur until they become one. Commando is good because it's bad, bad for exactly the reasons that make it so good.

Only in the 80s could a film like this have been taken at face value. In fact, the film acts as a sort of shadow play of the tackily neon, terribly hairstyled soul of 1980s American culture. In these more enlightened times, it's easy to laugh at Commando's 80s terribleness: the homoerotic undertones, the ridiculous dialogue, the implausible stunts, the comically excessive violence, the simple right-wing ideology underpinning the slaughter. But Commando transcends the tropes of the 80s action genre by embracing its own ludicrousness. It's almost as if the film-makers knew that the genre they were operating in was absurd, and decided to embrace the absurdity and push it to its very limits. They were making the film for the evolved future generations of movie fans.

Probably the biggest clue is in the film's plot, which I'll summarise: former commando John Matrix (!) has his daughter kidnapped by Arius, former dictator of a fictional Latin-American republic, who Matrix helped depose from his seat of power. In an ironic twist, Matrix is forced to assassinate the same president he helped to install, or his daughter dies. His character must struggle through an inner moral battle, with the life of his daughter weighed up against the freedom of a nation.

Except none of it ever happens. Arnie's character resolutely ignores the plot: he kills every bad guy who tries to talk to him, until they resort to strapping him down on a table just to tell him the plot essentials. Having been put on a plane to begin his mission, Arnie kills the goon watching over him and exits the aircraft mid-take-off in a scene that's completely implausible for at least three wonderful reasons. From there on, he spends the rest of the film murdering every bad guy in sight with a resolute lack of moral concern.

This is a film where the hero almost literally shoots the plot in the head until the film is over. It's as though another, much smarter film is in there, only for John Matrix, the essence of 80s action distilled and coalesced into one character, to symbolically shoot it in the head in favour of the quip-filled, hilarious, utterly stupid madness that actually makes it onto the screen.

The film acts out its generic meta-dialogue within its own screenplay. It becomes 80s action multiplied by 80s action. The 80s squared. The 6400s, if you will. This is why Commando isn't just an 80s action movie but THE 80s action movie, why the quips are funnier, the body-count higher, the bad guys more comical, the action more satisfying, the celebration of the hero's uber-manliness so over-zealous. The film-makers saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and it was the muzzle flare of a minigun.

 

[BossDarkseid]

Different kinds of action movies but I could be partial to Die Hard or Fury Road.

 

[Ultima_5]

Rumble in the Bronx
The matrix
Die hard
Double impact
Jackie chan who am I

 

[Stanng243]

Bunraku

 

[Toothless]

Raiders of the Lost Ark will always be my favorite. Top 5 goes:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
2. The Matrix
3. Casino Royale
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

 

[AxeMan]

In no particular order:

Die Hard
Commando
Predator

 

[Sub_Level]

Terminator 2 has an annoying child character.

Aliens has an annoying child character.

Predator has no child character. Therefore it is the victor.