With Ryan Gosling’s new stunts-driven extravaganza The Fall Guy opening this weekend, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the best action films of the decade so far.
While, yes, it’s only the beginning of May 2024 and we’ve literally got a George Miller Mad Max movie coming in a couple of weeks, it’s still fun to take account of how action movies are faring in this decade, one that’s closer to being halfway over than you’d expect.
When making this list, we’ve decided to focus on films completely centered on their action, rather than films of other genres that feature stellar action sequences (like the excellent Dune films and the spectacular Avatar: The Way of Water).
While this is never a perfect process, we hope this represents a look at some of the best action movies of our decade so far.
10. Prey
Dan Trachtenberg’s exciting entry into the Predator series stripped down all the nostalgic jargon that can typically plague a franchise rebirth of this magnitude and plotted a refreshingly lean, tactically thrilling predator versus prey action film with lots of invention and gritty determination.
9. Monkey Man
Dev Patel’s loving, full-forced tribute to the action movies that he loved growing up is one of the most striking directorial debuts in the genre in some time. It’s just relentless like succeeding punches to the face, but with all the fun of only being on the sideline for the brouhaha. The stylistic comparisons to John Wick are apt, but the headrush of passion is uniquely Patel’s.
8. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Tom Cruise doing Mission: Impossible movies will never get old, and this high-flying latest installment was such a great distillation of why these movies (like their star) just don’t age. We could watch 100 more Ethan Hunt adventures, as long as Chris McQuarrie is directing them.
7. Ambulance
Michael Bay delivered one of the best movies of his career two years ago with Ambulance, a thrill ride of muscle and mayhem (ahem, Bayhem) that keeps your heart pounding and your senses ablaze with all the shocking fun that Bay can bring to the table when working within his element. It’s perhaps the most purely exciting “this vehicle isn’t stopping; great actors are on board; and wacky things are about to happen” movie since Speed.
6. Nobody
Bob Odenkirk: action star might not be the first thought that comes to your mind, but the impossibly fun Nobody puts the legendary comedic actor in full John Wick-mode for one of the biggest surprises of the decade so far in action. You will not believe how smooth and just flat-out joyous a movie like this is with Odenkirk doling out the punishment. It’s just a delight.
5. No Time to Die
The grand finale to Daniel Craig’s James Bond tenure was exactly what it needed to be, as it packed in as many mind-blowing action sequences and sheer 007 spectacle as one can hope for with a movie starring the greatest British MI6 agent of all time.
4. John Wick: Chapter 4
The most influential action series of the last decade gave John Wick his proper sendoff (?) with what was easily the strongest installment in the franchise since the original. Wick has come a long way since the days of defending his poor dog’s death, and director Chad Stahelski basically perfected the John Wick model with this gripping fourth film that boasted some of the series’ best action sequences yet. The big Sacré Coeur stairs fight in Paris, France, is something else.
3. Top Gun: Maverick
There’s not much else left to say about what’s probably the biggest non-Barbenheimer movie of the decade so far other than the adrenaline-fueled, high-five-the-person-next-to-you genius of Cruise’s grand return to the cockpit in Top Gun: Maverick just hit different. It’s a singular spectacle.
2. The Northman
Robert Eggers’ brash, skull-crushing Viking epic The Northman is one of the most impressive action films of the decade. This blistering revenge epic just never lets up, leaving your jaw agape at just how far Eggers is willing to push the boundaries of the genre to new heights.
1. Tenet
Christopher Nolan’s criminally underappreciated mind-bender Tenet gets better and better as time goes on, and hopefully, some metaphorical inversion will let audiences catch up with just how truly great this is and always has been over time. However, for action movies this decade, this movie is the standard. There is just nothing as stunning as Nolan in his zone plotting big-scale action.
