Top 20 action films

by JoelDunn | created - 13 Jan 2014 | updated - 13 Jan 2014 | Public
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1. Die Hard (1988)

R | 132 min | Action, Thriller

72 Metascore

A New York City police officer tries to save his estranged wife and several others taken hostage by terrorists during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.

Director: John McTiernan | Stars: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson

Votes: 945,748 | Gross: $83.01M

2. Speed (1994)

R | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

78 Metascore

A young police officer must prevent a bomb exploding aboard a city bus by keeping its speed above 50 mph.

Director: Jan de Bont | Stars: Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton

Votes: 392,016 | Gross: $121.25M

3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

75 Metascore

A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her ten year old son John from an even more advanced and powerful cyborg.

Director: James Cameron | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick

Votes: 1,174,306 | Gross: $204.84M

4. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

R | 96 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

77 Metascore

In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline-rich community escape a horde of bandits.

Director: George Miller | Stars: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Max Phipps

Votes: 193,756 | Gross: $12.47M

5. First Blood (1982)

R | 93 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

61 Metascore

A veteran Green Beret is forced by a cruel Sheriff and his deputies to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.

Director: Ted Kotcheff | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, Richard Crenna, Bill McKinney

Votes: 275,643 | Gross: $47.21M

6. Aliens (1986)

R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

84 Metascore

Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.

Director: James Cameron | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser

Votes: 763,252 | Gross: $85.16M

7. Predator (1987)

R | 107 min | Action, Adventure, Horror

47 Metascore

A team of commandos on a mission in a Central American jungle find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior.

Director: John McTiernan | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Kevin Peter Hall, Elpidia Carrillo

Votes: 454,987 | Gross: $59.74M

8. RoboCop (1987)

R | 102 min | Action, Crime, Sci-Fi

70 Metascore

In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories.

Director: Paul Verhoeven | Stars: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox

Votes: 283,189 | Gross: $53.42M

9. The Rock (1996)

R | 136 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

58 Metascore

A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.

Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, John Spencer

Votes: 358,217 | Gross: $134.07M

10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

PG | 115 min | Action, Adventure

86 Metascore

In 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies

Votes: 1,037,034 | Gross: $248.16M

11. Mission: Impossible (1996)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

59 Metascore

An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization.

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart, Henry Czerny

Votes: 470,382 | Gross: $180.98M

12. Enter the Dragon (1973)

R | 102 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

83 Metascore

A Shaolin martial artist travels to an island fortress to spy on an opium lord - who is also a former monk from his temple - under the guise of attending a fighting tournament.

Director: Robert Clouse | Stars: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly, Ahna Capri

Votes: 113,011 | Gross: $25.00M

13. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

R | 111 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

69 Metascore

After awakening from a four-year coma, a former assassin wreaks vengeance on the team of assassins who betrayed her.

Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen

Votes: 1,194,271 | Gross: $70.10M

14. Lethal Weapon (1987)

R | 109 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

68 Metascore

Two newly paired cops who are complete opposites must put aside their differences in order to catch a gang of drug smugglers.

Director: Richard Donner | Stars: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan

Votes: 276,426 | Gross: $65.21M

15. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

PG-13 | 115 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller

85 Metascore

Jason Bourne dodges a ruthless C.I.A. official and his Agents from a new assassination program while searching for the origins of his life as a trained killer.

Director: Paul Greengrass | Stars: Matt Damon, Edgar Ramírez, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles

Votes: 658,327 | Gross: $227.47M

16. Face/Off (1997)

R | 138 min | Action, Crime, Sci-Fi

82 Metascore

To foil a terrorist plot, FBI agent Sean Archer assumes the identity of the criminal Castor Troy who murdered his son through facial transplant surgery, but the crook wakes up prematurely and vows revenge.

Director: John Woo | Stars: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola

Votes: 400,982 | Gross: $112.23M

17. Hard Boiled (1992)

R | 128 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

A tough-as-nails cop teams up with an undercover agent to shut down a sinister mobster and his crew.

Director: John Woo | Stars: Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Teresa Mo, Philip Chan

Votes: 54,032

18. The Matrix (1999)

R | 136 min | Action, Sci-Fi

73 Metascore

When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.

Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski | Stars: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving

Votes: 2,053,654 | Gross: $171.48M

19. Where Eagles Dare (1968)

M | 158 min | Action, Adventure, War

63 Metascore

Allied agents stage a daring raid on a castle where the Nazis are holding American brigadier general George Carnaby prisoner, but that's not all that's really going on.

Director: Brian G. Hutton | Stars: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Patrick Wymark

Votes: 62,922

20. Point Break (1991)

R | 122 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

59 Metascore

An F.B.I. Agent goes undercover to catch a gang of surfers who may be bank robbers.

Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, Lori Petty

Votes: 202,345 | Gross: $43.22M



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