Jackie Chan posing on top of a skyscraper ready to fight in Who Am I? (1998)Image via Golden Harvest
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Jeremy Urquhart
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Jeremy has more than 2100 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He is also currently in the process of trying to become a Stephen King expert by reading all 2397 novels written by the author.
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It’s easy to round up the usual suspects when it comes to the action genre and recommend those, and indeed, you can’t really call yourself a fan of action movies unless you're caught up on the likes of Seven Samurai, Die Hard, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and then more recent films like The Raid and Mad Max: Fury Road, too. And these are all easy movies to enjoy, because they deliver uncomplicated spectacle, tension, and excitement, all the while being narratively and/or technically dazzling and complex.
Action movies have always been popular for obvious reasons, and this does mean certain titles aren’t as well-known as they perhaps deserve to be. If you're after some absolutely fantastic ones that sometimes go under the radar, then it’s worth checking out the following. Also, if you’ve heard of some or all of these before, congrats. You're very smart and you know movies and you must have like 1000 girlfriends and your father probably still talks to you and blah blah blah.
10 'Wing Chun' (1994)
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Image via Century Pacific
Yuen Woo-ping is probably better known for his work as a fight scene choreographer, being credited as such for films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the first three Matrix movies, and Kill Bill (both volumes), but he’s also a pretty accomplished filmmaker. Wing Chun is one of the best movies he’s ever helmed as director, and it’s one that features two legendary martial arts actors – Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen – at their respective bests.
The action is pretty much all hand-to-hand (sometimes with appropriate weapons), and while a lot of it’s also comedic, the fight scenes deliver as more than just comedy, with the stunt work and choreography being genuinely impressive. The plot of Wing Chun isn't much to write home about, but it doesn’t need to be when its stars are so great, and the action so undeniably satisfying.
9 'Black Sunday' (1977)
Image via Paramount Pictures
Perhaps more of a thriller for most of its runtime, Black Sunday does eventually become an action movie of sorts in its final act, though it could also be classified as a disaster movie, too (and one that did… well, not disastrously, but not very well at the box office). It’s about foiling a planned terrorist attack on the Super Bowl, but Black Sunday takes its time getting there, being very methodical and doing a surprisingly good job at building tension.
It's all very paranoid and unsettling in the most ‘70s of ways, and aside from a few wonky special effects shots, a lot of the action and spectacle here still holds up. Black Sunday was overlooked upon release, and still isn't talked about a ton today, but it’s worth checking out, being overall better than its reputation (or lack thereof) might lead you to believe.
8 'Who Am I?' (1998)
Image via Orange Sky Golden Harvest
Since Who Am I? is a Jackie Chan movie, you can expect incredible stunts and some great action sce- oh, wait, this is a late-era Jackie Chan movie. Well, not super late. But it came at a time in his career when he seemed like he was slowing down on the really wild stuff, since he was in his mid-40s by the time the 1990s were wrapping up, and he’d also started to find some success in comparatively less intense Hollywood movies around this time, so…
Who Am I? is high-energy and genuinely spectacular when it comes to action and stunt work, feeling pretty in line with the style and feel of Jackie Chan’s sometimes more celebrated 1980s films.
Yeah, that means you might go into Who Am I? expecting something a little more restrained. But that’s thankfully not really the case, because this is high-energy and genuinely spectacular when it comes to action and stunt work, feeling pretty in line with the style and feel of Jackie Chan’s sometimes more celebrated 1980s films. It’s especially great in its second half, because, like a lot of Hong Kong martial arts films, it does indeed save the best for last.
7 'Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril' (1972)
Image via Toho
One part of a lengthy and action-packed revenge epic (that is admittedly quite episodic, but not in a bad way), Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril is a highlight of the Lone Wolf and Cub series. The first two movies are typically thought of as being the best, and it’s those that were re-edited into the English-dubbed Shogun Assassin, but this fourth movie is also awesome and shouldn’t be overlooked.
Baby Cart in Peril feels the most B-movie-esque of the bunch, or maybe linking it to grindhouse/exploitation cinema might be more accurate. It would feel trashy if it weren’t also genuinely impressive and oddly beautiful (as well as violent and kind of sleazy) as an actually great samurai film. Those who don’t like supremely bloody violence might want to steer clear, though.
6 'Ruben Brandt, Collector' (2018)
Image via Mozinet
Sure, it’s an animated film, and some people get a bit weird when you compare animated movies to live-action ones for whatever reason, but whatever. Ruben Brandt, Collector is very exciting, entertaining, and stylish, and it’s not the sort of animated movie made for kids, nor would it be particularly appealing for most younger viewers, since it’s a bit offbeat and somewhat mature.
It’s a heist movie, in essence, with the titular character being someone who works as a psychologist as his day job, and an art thief for fun, or for some extra cash/excitement in his life, or all of the above. No one really talks about Ruben Brandt, Collector, so it turns out lots of people are just missing out. It moves at a mean pace, has a unique style of animation, and also proves surprisingly thrilling throughout.
5 'Godzilla: Final Wars' (2004)
Godzilla in Godzilla: Final WarsImage via Toho
Not every entry in the long-running Godzilla series counts as an action movie, but Godzilla: Final Wars sure as hell does. This one is positively ridiculous and intentionally non-stop, with its premise involving most of the monsters from past movies returning in some capacity and wreaking havoc all around the Earth, thanks to alien invaders using them to conquer humanity.
Godzilla is released to fight all these monsters, and then the alien race is also pretty combative themselves, as are the human characters, who do a whole lot less standing around and talking than most human characters from other Godzilla movies. Godzilla: Final Wars is pretty goofy for something that also wants to be a (potentially?) sincere celebration of 50 years of Godzilla, but if you like ridiculous and over-the-top action thrown at you for a bit over two hours with very little substance or coherence, this is a must-watch.
4 'The In-Laws' (1979)
Image via Warner Bros.
Don’t mix it up with the 2003 remake, since that one pales in comparison to 1979’s The In-Laws. This is probably a comedy first, and an action/thriller movie second, but it still thrives across all those genres with a great farcical premise and two excellent lead performances (courtesy of Peter Falk and Alan Arkin) at its center.
Falk’s the unpredictable one, and Arkin plays the straight man, with the former’s character being someone who claims to be a government agent, and he ends up taking the latter with him on a series of crazy events, all of them escalating and becoming gradually more high-stakes. Describing the story here doesn’t really do The In-Laws justice, because it’s all in the execution – and the balancing of genres/tones – where it succeeds as an action/thriller film for those who don’t mind such movies being on the sillier side of things.
3 'The Professional' (1981)
Image via Gaumont
While it doesn’t do much narratively that you haven’t seen before, The Professional is very slick, entertaining, and underrated as a fairly action-packed spy movie. At the center of it is a Secret Service agent who gets betrayed by the government he’s spent so long working for, and that leads to him getting imprisoned before breaking out and then setting out to clear his name, or maybe just get revenge.
It's like a nastier (and French!) James Bond movie, and maybe “fun” isn't the right word, but it is engrossing, not to mention quite visceral when it comes to action. It gets the job done and then some, to a greater extent – and with more skill – than you might expect, so sure, The Professional is indeed professionally made (see also The Incredibles being incredible and Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master being… very good).
2 'Last Hurrah for Chivalry' (1979)
Before he had a reputation for being the king of the heroic bloodshed sub-genre, John Woo demonstrated he also had a knack for directing martial arts movies with the surprisingly excellent Last Hurrah for Chivalry. Though, truth be told, you could argue this is like proto-heroic bloodshed, but with swords instead of guns, since the story is melodramatic and bold, the narrative unpacks themes of loyalty and sacrifice, and the body count is ultimately incredibly high.
Last Hurrah for Chivalry starts out moving at a pretty quick pace, enough so that you're worried early on that it might run out of steam at a point, but then it thankfully never does. It feels like most of this movie is action, and it succeeds in escalating and gradually making said action feel a little bigger and more impressive with every new one. As a martial arts movie, it really is something special.
1 'The Man Who Stole the Sun' (1979)
Image via Toho
A movie called The Man Who Stole the Sun has a lot to live up to, sure, but this one is indeed as bold and gonzo as such a title kind of makes it sound. It’s about a high school teacher who snaps and starts to construct an atomic bomb in his home, and then he uses that atomic bomb to get what he wants from the government, through threats, and all the while, a detective tries to track him down and stop him.
It's reminiscent of lots of things that were made well after 1979, scratching the same itch as Falling Down and even Breaking Bad, but with more action and (debatably) more style. The Man Who Stole the Sun is pretty weird, but it’s paced so relentlessly and proves so unusually exciting that even with its weirdness, it should be tracked down and watched, since even if you can compare parts of it to other things, there really isn't anything else entirely quite like it.
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Release Date
October 6, 1979
Runtime
147 minutes
Director
Kazuhiko Hasegawa
Writers
Leonard Schrader, Kazuhiko Hasegawa
Cast
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Kenji Sawada
Makoto Kido
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Bunta Sugawara
Inspector Yamashita
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The Man Who Stole the Sun
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