Top 15 Action Movies of 2023 (So Far): Since the advent of cinema and swashbuckling pirates or Robin Hood during the Golden Age of Hollywood, action and adventure filmmaking has always been one of those go-to genre pictures to watch and experience because of the sheer visceral thrill and dopamine rush a viewer experiences. The best action movies also follow the axiom of giving the audience exactly what they desire but made exponentially better or giving the audience an experience they have never seen before.
In the modern blockbuster era, though, with the advent of CGI, the overworking of special effects artists, and the under-reliance on actual stunt work or wire work in favor of green screen, action movies are harder to experience. The mid-budget action movies are now being sold as original streaming films. This list will try to encompass the length and breadth of action movies as a large umbrella with all of the subgenres it can cover. The criteria would be how much of the movie relies on action set-pieces, whether the action and the drama work well together and inform each other in the film, and most importantly, how “cool” the movie looks. Because sometimes that primal instinct is what viewers desire.
Honourable Mentions:
Thunivu | Director – H. Vinoth
Pathaan | Director – Siddharth Anand
Mother’s Day | Director – Mateusz Rakowicz
The above movies are still enjoyable from the perspective of an action movie, but making a list of action movies that rely on the concept of elimination, these movies, unfortunately, meet the short end of the straw. You can watch those movies if you are an action movie fan.
15. Kandahar | Director – Ric Roman Waugh
After the media expose his top-secret mission, an undercover CIA operative stuck in Afghanistan in deep hostile territory must fight his way out, along with his Afghan translator in tow, to an extraction area in Kandahar. All the while, foreign spies and enemy forces are hunting them down. When even direct-to-video B-movie Gerard Butler-led action films are trying to acknowledge the tricky nature of geopolitics in the Middle East, it is a sign that some American filmmakers are cognizant of the recent events occurring in the Middle East and are discarding the jingoism or nationalism of American exceptionalism.
While Kandahar doesn’t completely succeed, it is a good enough try. It takes a while to get going, but it is very well-edited and shot as an action movie. The shootouts against a helicopter using night-vision goggles are sequences not yet seen in action films and, thus, very effective—more than Butler, the supporting cast, especially Ali Fazal and Travis Fimmel, excel. Fazal is good enough as a Pakistani version of James Bond to warrant his spinoffs or even an action movie vehicle of his own. Butler, too, is very low-key in this film, which lends credence to the seriousness of the stakes and a semblance of authenticity.
14. Fist of the Condor | Director – Ernesto Diaz Espinoza
The movie follows twin brothers (Marko Zaror) as they search for a manual containing the ancient secrets behind their deadly fighting techniques, which have been passed down through generations since the Incas. “Fist of the Condor” feels like a love letter to the Shaw Brothers’ films, with a definite smattering of Spaghetti Western added for good measure. But the closest analog would be a true modern rendition of David Carradine’s Kung-Fu TV series. Espinoza and Zaror are hearkening back to those films along with the outputs of “Golden Harvest,” with numerous fight sequences showcasing taekwondo, kickboxing, and other aspects of martial arts.
Zaror himself is breathtaking in those sequences, his speed and agility contrasting his bruiser body type. It manages to impart the philosophical musings of Kung-fu and Eastern mythology expected from the Wuxia film of the 1960s, mixed with Incan mythology. The dedication to crafting the action sequences and the fight choreography cannot be denied. Similarly, the cinematography must be appreciated for grounding the movie and giving it a conscious Chilean identity. But what is most impressive is the sincerity of the storytelling and the approach to embracing the silliness of the pulpy premise.
13. Polite Society | Director – Nida Manzoor
Martial artist-in-training Ria Khan dreams of being a stuntwoman. But when the Indian-American woman finds out that her elder sister Lena is getting married, she hatches a plan with her best friends to “save” her sister by executing a very ambitious wedding heist. It is perhaps telling that Manzoor’s aesthetic or tonal choices concerning masala filmmaking owe more to Telugu or Kannada industries films than to “Bend it like Beckham.”
She isn’t short of references or inspirations here (Edgar Wright films, to name one), but “Polite Society” stands out because of its sincerity and magnanimity in tone. The exploration of the strong bonds of sisterhood and the general perspectives of women could be depicted with the necessary level of nuance, raunchiness, or even flippancy only by a female voice at the helm.
The Indo-American sentiments and the specificity of the conflicts mesh well with the overall universality of Ria’s insecurities. What also works well are the performances, especially by Priya Kansara as Ria and Ritu Arya as Lena. Kansara, especially, is a dynamite performer, with her comic timing and chemistry with Arya and the rest of her supporting ensemble almost impeccable.
The action choreography feels like it’s evoking a hand-to-hand scrappiness and a finesse to mark Ria’s efficiency. But it needs better editing to ensure the flow of the action feels less mechanical. It is, however, goofy enough and intends to lean into its love letter for Indian films and other genre fare that viewers can’t help but be swept away by.
12. Plane | Director – Jean Francois Richet
This movie is essentially two taut 90-minute thrillers smashed into one. The first 30–40 minutes are essentially a survivalist thriller about landing a plane through a terrifying storm over an unknown area, while the rest of the movie becomes a hostage situation in which Gerard Butler (the mascot of the Liam Neeson School of action movies) is joined by an ex-French legionnaire and current convict played by Mike Colter to protect themselves and fend off the militia. At the same time, Tony Goldwyn’s Scarsdale, back in America, hatches out a contingency plan to extract the crew of the plane.
It is impressive how much the movie’s name could be taken as the ultimate example of lazy writing, except that the titular vehicle becomes an integral part of the plot of the film. Butler is surprisingly low-key in this one; his character is given a semblance of character development, while Colter just coasts by on presence and “mysterious charm.”
It’s intriguing that even though the situations and conflicts escalate and become progressively more ridiculous, Richet’s direction never loses its gritty or quasi-realistic touch, allowing for a grounded flair and pockets of suspenseful moments to shine through. It is a throwback 80s thriller in the best ways imaginable and one of the better Gerard Butler-led B-movie action vehicles, with all the cliches of this movie working overtime.
11. The Roundup – No Way Out | Director – Lee Sang-Yong
The third installment in the Crime City film series follows Detective Ma Seok-Do (Don Lee) as he transfers from the Guemchon Police Station to the Metropolitan Investigation Team to deliver justice against a gang war between the Japanese drug Cartel and the corrupt police officers of the Narcotics Bureau in Korea. The notable markers of these films are all present: the banter between Lee and his immediate superior or subordinate, the cleaning of the room of truth, and course Lee’s punches, which hit harder than the biggest of bricks. Unlike the second film, this one feels slightly grounded in terms of the action sequences. Lee’s fight choreography focuses more on his boxing caliber.
Thus, when Munetaka Aoki’s Ricky comes to the forefront with a katana as his weapon, the inevitable confrontation becomes infinitely interesting to watch. This part also evokes the first installment in being more plot-driven in documenting a gang war over the shipment of a drug called Hiper. Lee Jun-Hyuk, as corrupt cop Joo Seeong-Cheol almost steals the movie with his intensity. He becomes a fantastic foil for Seok-Do, the brainy antagonist to his brawny fists. Of course, owing to the nature of the film, a certain amount of “copaganda” is expected, but the movie doesn’t shy away from lightly commenting on it.
10. Creed III | Director – Michael B. Jordan
In this installment of the Rocky/Creed franchise, Adonis Creed’s (Michael B. Jordan) thriving career (as a retired boxer and now head of Creed Athletics, one of the bigger boxing training schools) and personal life come to a crossroads when his childhood friend Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors) resurfaces after a long stint in prison. He is eager to prove himself, leading to a face-off between the two old friends in the ring, which threatens to unravel Adonis’ carefully constructed life.
Creed III has had one of the franchise’s most stylized action or boxing set pieces in recent years. From close zooms to the eyes to slow motion and focusing on Creed’s face while he is computing how to attack or how time stops when he is hit with a body shot (even the sweat seems to stand still), it is over the top and yet refreshingly open in an expression of emotion through physicality.
One of the unique ways in which Creed III tackles the montage sequences of the two fighters fighting through 12 or 13 rounds of boxing is by suddenly transposing the entire fight into a surreal dreamscape when the boxing ring changes shape and contours as the fight between Dame and Creed progresses. Creed III also hammers home its shonen anime influences in the rivalry between Dame and Adonis while focusing on Adonis’ family life and future generations. Unfortunately, it proves that this franchise can move forward without Sylvester Stallone’s influence, choosing to stand on its own.
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 | Director – James Gunn
In the final installment of James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, Peter Quill must rally his ragtag team to search and rescue one of their team members, and when they inadvertently become involved in a machiavellian scheme of the High Evolutionary, the Guardians must again band to protect the universe. James Gunn’s aesthetic of filmmaking and tonality might be the closest the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has come to delivering an auteurist stamp that doesn’t destroy the verisimilitude of the universe created in the past decade. Gunn’s strengths also lie in his utmost sincerity and his ability to deliver that sincere, hokey messaging of love, friendship, and family in conjunction with some of the lowest-hanging fruit forms of humor.
Perhaps this is the closing chapter, but this feels like Gunn’s most personal character-focused chapter yet, due to which each character makes discoveries and realizations about themselves and each other that feel profound and yet inevitable. The sense of inevitability is a rarity in these gigantic superhero movies, and that might be Gunn’s biggest achievement. Gunn also delivers on the CGI spectacle and the large-scale battles, but there are enough colorful visual quirks and a sense of universe-spanning adventure. The battle with the scores of the High Evolutionary’s Ani-Men and his guards, utilizing 360-view camerawork hearkening back to Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman, is exhilarating, with Gunn’s esoteric soundtrack complementing a distinctive flavor in the movie.
8. Kill Boksoon | Director – Byun Sung-hyun
“Kill Boksoon” follows a renowned assassin who is also leading a double life as a single mother to a teenage daughter. And as the movie tries to show, raising a single daughter is far more difficult than killing targets. Director Byun Sung-hyun takes the concept of “renowned assassins trying to balance normal life with their work duties,” sprinkles the added pressure of single motherhood, but most importantly, manages to make the entire plotline not devolve into a complete comedy throughout.
The balance is maintained consistently, with equal effort given to both the assassin’s underworld (without feeling reductive as a John Wick analog), while also focusing on Boksoon’s struggles as a single mother. She is unable to understand the distance between herself and her teenage daughter as her daughter struggles with fitting in within society.
The action set pieces are fantastically done. Byun is great at dynamic camera angles and utilizing CGI very sparingly without losing the tactility of the set pieces. He cleverly takes the “mapping of all permutations of fight scenes in the mindscape” and utilizes that trope well enough that, as a viewer, you are surprised anyway. Jeon Do-Yeon is fantastic as a badass assassin and a worn-out mother. Her chemistry with actress Kim Si-A, who plays the daughter, works very well. “Kill Boksoon” definitely needed more streamlining in the runtime.
Read More: Kill Boksoon (2023) Movie Ending, Explained: What does Jae-young’s reaction to finding the truth mean exactly?
7. Extraction 2 | Director – Sam Hargrave
Follows mercenary Tyler Rake, who, having survived his previous adventure, is now tasked with extracting a family from a ruthless Georgian gangster. Rake has to infiltrate one of the world’s deadliest prisons, and it leads to a worldwide chase throughout the movie, compounded by Rake’s past connected to this mission, making the mission even more complicated. Fans of the extended action set-piece of the first movie should be pleased with the bigger extended action set-piece, which begins with a prison breakout, progresses into a riot, a car chase, a train hijack, and finally ends in a train crash. And that occurs in the first act itself, with this set-piece running for over 20 minutes.
Hargrave’s hand in creating these set pieces and ensuring the clear movement of the punches or the crisply edited gunfights helps the viewer be immersed. It also helps that Hemsworth as Rake, while very much an impenetrable badass in that action set-piece, still gets visibly overwhelmed.
Extraction 2, unlike most sequels, also takes copious amounts of time to flesh out Tyler Rake and his road to recovery following the events of the last film, re-establishing and reintroducing his friendship with fellow mercenaries, even giving them space to shine in action sequences. The narrative also explores the “personal connection” Rake has with the current target he has to extract. It’s a definite improvement from the first half, which only bodes potential for subsequent installments, as Hargrave’s hold on action set-pieces is above reproach.
6. Eye for an Eye | Director – Yang Bingjia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s81Re9MGA2Q
The blind “Knife-Catcher” Blind Cheng, skilled despite his infirmity, meets Ni-Yan, a wine brewer and restaurant owner who is brutally abused. Initially planning not to intervene, he gradually becomes involved in a political power struggle, which forces him to embark on a violence-laden path to seek bloody revenge. At 74 minutes, this is one of the most economical stories in modern filmmaking that a viewer would have the pleasure of witnessing. It essentially takes the “blind swordsman and gambler” trope, which had been popularised by Shintaro Katsu’s portrayal of Zatoichi, and manages to make a modern iteration with perfectly paced, dense plotting evocative of those Zatoichi films.
However, it is significantly darker than those films, perhaps exploitatively. Still, for a movie made with a shoestring budget, it looks gorgeous. The action choreography drips with style and blood, and the final sequence almost becomes a black-and-white abstract stage play laden with snowfall. There are stylistically choreographed swordfights and hand-to-hand combat sequences, which contribute to some unique fight sequences. It also helps that the protagonist, played by actor Tse Miu, has a great screen presence, managing to evoke the brooding intensity of the blind swordsman and differentiating himself from his goofy inspiration.
5. The Covenant | Director – Guy Ritchie
During the war in Afghanistan, a local interpreter (Dar Salim) risks his own life to carry an injured Sergeant (Jake Gyllenhall) across miles of grueling and dangerous terrain. Due to the actions of the interpreter, the recovered Sergeant tries to hatch a rescue operation to extract the interpreter and his family from Afghanistan when they are in danger of reprisal from the Taliban. Guy Ritchie’s change of gear in directorial style always elicits interesting responses. While Wrath of Man is a completely stripped-down genre picture, “The Covenant” becomes a much more nuanced take on the war in Afghanistan while not betraying its action movie roots.
Ritchie truly tries to delve deeper into the psychological dissertation of the current geopolitical climate. And while he doesn’t entirely succeed in consistently showcasing the hollowness of American exceptionalism, the moments where he manages to highlight it are impactful. There is a sense of kinetic camerawork and a reliance on drone shots to enhance the establishing nature of the rugged terrain, which is equally balanced by Ritchie’s hold-on action set-pieces. What also helps The Covenant is a gorgeous soundtrack by Christopher Benestad, introducing a melancholic soundscape to the war on terror genre.
4. Batman – The Doom That Came to Gotham | Director – Sam Liu, Christopher Berkeley
Based on a graphic novel by Mike Mignola, explorer Bruce Wayne accidentally unleashes an ancient evil while on his journey with his assistants to the Arctic Circle. When he returns to Gotham after two decades, he has to battle supernatural forces, enemies, and allies within the DC Universe that Lovecraftian influences have suitably changed. The direct-to-video DC Animated movies might not have as much cultural cache as they did almost a decade ago. But there are instances of one of these movies coming out and surprising the viewers with its energy and kinetic style. This puts Batman in the 1940s and introduces Eldritch monsters and Lovecraftian horror. That theme is maintained such that it transcends through the past as well as the present and defines this version of Batman inextricably to the lore.
As a result, there are familiar faces and names associated with the iconography of Batman but tweaked to be monstrous, physically terrifying, and more magically based. The story feels overstuffed initially, but after a point, the violence, the visceral horror, and the general mystical approach give this film a far kookier and pulpier bent. The body count is fantastically high, with the kills as gnarly as the next (Killer Croc completely melted alive to the bone by concentrated chlorine comes to mind).
The animation is smoother, resembling the Bruce Timm era of DC animation. It deserved a bigger budget for the ideas introduced in this script, but it executes them to near perfection. The ending could be divisive, but it deserves credit for maintaining the vision of the source material throughout.
3. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One | Director – Christopher McQuarrie
In what is quite rightly described as one of the two best franchises of action cinema, the seventh installment of Mission Impossible follows Ethan Hunt and his IMF (Impossible Mission Force) team as they track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens the functionality of humanity’s present. A deadly race around the globe begins against a mysterious new enemy with deep connections to Ethan’s past.
Unlike its predecessor, which had intricately designed set-pieces connected by tendrils of plot, this installment is more plot-driven, with far more focus on spycraft, circuitous schemes, cloak and dagger wordplay, and even thievery and pickpocketing, along with globetrotting through European vistas. One of MI films’ strengths has always been character development sprinkles within sustained adrenaline rushes of glorious action set-pieces. But when the film frontloads its star attraction at the end, it is truly glorious.
There is very much a heavy homage to Brian De Palma’s progenitor of this franchise, but it also definitely has shades of homage to the Buster Keaton school of conducting dangerous stunts in the interests of visceral thrill and entertainment for the audience. You take that into account, along with the screwball comedy chemistry of Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and Hayley Atwell’s Grace, and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is a crackerjack affair. It might not be as evenly paced as its direct predecessor, but when your movie ends with consequent train carriages falling and the protagonists trying to avoid obstacles and hanging on for dear life, that dopamine rush is exquisite, befitting of the pure distillation of an action movie.
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse | Director – Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers
The sequel to 2018’s Oscar-nominated animated juggernaut “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Across the Spider-Verse,” follows Miles Morales as his universe’s only Spider-Man. When he reunites with his friend and potential love interest, Gwen Stacy, he is catapulted across the multiverse and meets the Spider-Society, a group of alternate Spider-people from across the multiverse charged with protecting its very existence.
However, Miles soon clashes with the head of the Spider-Society, Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099), regarding the very existence of his tenure as Spider-Man and what that entails, and soon the movie becomes a race against time with Miles running against the Spider-Society to protect the people he loves. Even if you look at Across the Spider-Verse from an action movie perspective, the sheer amount of details in the artwork and the differing animation styles colliding together are mind-boggling.
The battle in the museum between the three Spider-people and the Renaissance Vulture is a clear example of how completely different styles of animation can coalesce, with the chaos depicting the action in all its intricacy. It becomes even more interesting if you remember the smaller panels as explanation intertitles or comic book panels when Vulture throws a bomb, and the panels show how the bomb is activated and explodes. The hybrid form of animation almost brings a new dimension, different aspects, and range of coverage to the depiction of action set-pieces, making chase scenes as dynamite as any live-action ones.
One would need to remember Miles being chased by Miguel and the Spider-Society throughout Nueva York to realize how the speed of the chase through ongoing traffic is depicted via heavy lines, automatically evoking tension and thrill. Across the Spider-Verse is a triumph of imagination, animation skills, and the storytelling form itself.
1. John Wick – Chapter 4 | Director – Chad Stahelski
Opening almost immediately after the end of its predecessor, John Wick Chapter 4 follows the titular character trying to uncover a way to defeat the High Table, with the price on his head already increasing. Now the High Table’s newest leader launches an attack on Wick and his allies, forcing Wick to bring the fight to them as well as navigate through shifting alliances. Stahelski’s latest installment in this saga is the purest distillation of what an action movie should be. It also becomes a description of what an action movie is if taken through the lens of derision. But what Stahelski does in John Wick: Chapter 4 is craft a single long movie filled with action set-pieces and elevate every section of those set-pieces.
This runs the risk of creating a movie with only flash and no substance and also relying on emotional perspectives that have evolved over previous films. This movie would indeed be understood from a plot perspective only after having watched the previous three films, but being the supposed final chapter allows a definite space for emotional closure. But John Wick: Chapter 4 is ultimately about the intricacy and beauty of action films.
With practical stunt work and long, extended takes allowing viewers to bask in the hand-to-hand combat and watch essentially video-game cutscenes replicated by actual stunt crews, you realize that there are very few successors to the Buster Keaton mantra of entertainment. Stahelski, like Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible films, manages to encapsulate that mantra.
How he executes that film to near perfection, with the action scenes lit and depicted with a painterly beauty and bone-crunching brutality, pushes this movie above the rest of the pack. John Wick: Chapter 4 is both a blessing and a curse for the action movie genre as a whole. It brings added appreciation and attention to the films being released, but due to the sheer level of craftsmanship here, expectations also become astronomical. John Wick: Chapter 4 also proves the axiom: it is never about the runtime; it is always about the pacing and how much the scenes occurring on the screen engage you. With Chapter 4 running for over 170 minutes, there is an argument that the film can become tiring. Here’s the counterargument: when an action film looks this gorgeous and provides such a dopamine rush, who cares?
