Here we’ve preserved Daniel Rutledge’s short and sweet reviews of action movies that have been moved from their original streaming platforms. You can find their current streaming homes by clicking each title.
Avengement (2019)
The best movie in years from the undisputed king of modern B-grade action, Scott Adkins. In this he plays a bulky, ugly Cockney thug who beats the shit out of couple hundred guys in prison in the lead-up to one of the all-time greatest British pub fight scenes. Thankfully Netflix has a bunch of Adkins movies on it, but this is the one you should start with.
Baby Driver (2017)
This 2017 Edgar Wright flick has about as much infectious, gleeful fun as a modern action possibly can without getting too silly. It encapsulates that feeling of grooving along to music by yourself better perfectly while also delivering mint car chase action, super cool shootouts, a stellar foot chase, a supremely kick arse soundtrack and loads of hilarious, quotable dialogue.
Bad Boys II (2003)
If you want a fix of classic Bayhem action you can’t go past the brainless fun of this 2003 sequel. It’s packed with so much shooting, explosions and expertly crafted real destruction it makes you rue the day CGI was invented. The scene with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence shooting the shit out of a bunch of Ku Klux Klan bozos is particularly cathartic too.
Batman (1989)
We’ve had a lot of great Batman movies with amazing action in the last 20 years, but the one that started it all in way back in 1989 sure does hold its own in terms of sheer entertainment. Jack Nicholson has never been about subtlety and he chews the scenery intensely here, but that’s part of the fun and Michael Keaton remains one of the finest Caped Crusaders we’ve ever gotten.
Bullitt (1968)
Action movies aren’t just about fists, bullets and blades; they’re also about car chases. The ground-breaking vehicular action in this 1968 classic is as mint today as it was when first released. Many folks say the main car chase in this still hasn’t been bettered and it’s hard to argue they’re wrong. Also Steve McQueen is firing on all cylinders in this one as pretty much the coolest dude of all time.
Cobra (1986)
Rambo imitating Dirty Harry and driving a modified 1950 Mercury Monterrey? Yes please! It’s one of those good old cop movies with the renegade maverick officer doing whatever it takes to waste the bad guys even after the grumpy captain has taken their badge and their gun. The obligatory over-the-top killing of the final bad guy is particularly good in this one, right up there with Bennett letting off steam in Commando.
Collateral Damage (2002)
Definitely not one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s greatest movies, but we watch those over and over so dipping into the shittier ones should feel fresher, right? Plus, this has New Zealand’s Cliff Curtis as a corny bad guy modelled on Carlos the Jackal to enjoy, as well as Arnie playing a firefighter who is somehow a highly skilled killing machine that lays waste to dozens of terrorists.
Dirty Harry (1971)
The quintessential old school action flick from a much simpler, much more casually bigoted time when cops just enjoyed slaying thugs and hoods, caring not for bleeding-heart liberals whining about civil rights and all that. Pro-police brutality films may be harder to enjoy these days, but this Clint Eastwood original was quoted by every dad for a few generations for a reason. It’s truly iconic.
District 9 (2009)
The visual effects have aged and the social allegory is about as subtle as a wrecking ball but there is still a lot that makes this 2009 debut from Neill Blomkamp enjoyable, especially as it almost unbelievably remains his only good movie to this day. It’s worth sitting through for one sequence alone: the one where Sharlto Copley gets in a mech suit and uses it to obliterate a bunch of nasty mercenaries.
Crank
Wildly over the top, stylised as if by a videogame addict with ADHD and dumb to the point of being braindead, this frenetic 2006 Jason Statham vehicle is super gratuitous B-movie goodness. Thanks to a cartoonish villain’s dastardly ways, the beefy Brit has to keep his adrenaline cranking to stay alive—sort of like Speed but with his body instead of a bus. Cue hilarious sex scenes, gratuitous drug use and lots and lots of violence. It’s also aggressively anti-politically correct in the sort of way where it probably couldn’t be made today.
Crank: High Voltage (2009)
The original film’s absurdity and crassness are ramped up to an even more insane level in this 2009 sequel. It kicks off with Statham inexplicably surviving falling out of a helicopter and landing on a city street before being promptly carted off by Chinese gangsters for organ harvesting. Then we get an extremely gross and obscene heart surgery scene, two or three dick jokes, some bare boobs, a strangulation, murder via syringe stab, groin trauma, four dudes shot to bits and a shotgun rammed way the hell up another guy’s arse. That’s all within the first ten minutes, I shit you not.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Christopher Nolan’s best Batman film is one of the finest action films of the 2000s, working as both a fantastic superhero movie as well as a great, dark crime saga. The opening bank heist sets the tone brilliantly, creating awesome tension and hammering home how different this is from the campy Batman your dad enjoyed in the old days. Then it just never lets up, with Heath Ledger delivering one of the all-time great performances.
Django Unchained (2012)
Quentin Tarantino’s first western is an amazing slavery revenge pic that’s wildly entertaining. Being a Tarantino flick it of course offers brilliant actors giving superb performances and is about as richly cinematic as movies get. It might not be as clever as most of Tarantino’s films, but damn it delivers cathartic, bloody as hell action thrills oh so sublimely.
Dunkirk (2017)
When Christopher Nolan decided to make a war movie, he of course made one of the most ambitious war movies we’ve ever gotten. It’s one of the most spectacular films of the last few decades depicting one of Britain’s most incredible modern military feats from a filmmaker at the top of his game. It’s also got one of Hans Zimmer’s very best scores and yes, it’s time you rewatched it.
Eraser (1996)
There aren’t a lot of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies on Neon which is good as it means checking back in with his other movies. You know, the ones you’ve seen less than 50 times and can’t quote every line of. This 1996 one has rail guns, a mad plane scene and James Caan to enjoy as well as the great man himself. It’s also the one where Arnie shoots an alligator through the head before slyly telling it: “you’re luggage.”
Executive Decision (1996)
A very solid mid-90s action thriller that excellently uses both its confined setting and familiar plot. Although it relies on suspense and tension rather than action set pieces for most of the running time, it still delivers thrills, especially with the awesome plane-to-plane midair boarding scene. This is also a great example of Steven Seagal being used well as a side character, a job he does really bloody well.
Faster
Dwayne Johnson almost became a great modern action movie icon but instead has just made a whole bunch of exceedingly average, mildly entertaining bits of trash. Faster isn’t great, but it is a great glimpse at what we could have had if The Rock had gone harder-edged. In it he’s mostly silent, always angry and fun to watch dishing out virtuous vengeance. The opening 10 minutes in particular kick arse.
Hard Target
John Woo’s first American film remains his best—sorry Face/Off fanatics, but it’s true. This follow-up to Hard Boiled shares more DNA with Woo’s earlier Hong Kong films than anything the legend has since made in Hollywood. It’s packed with his amazing, trademark gun ballet sequences, nice big explosions and insane motorbike stunts. The action is so over-the-top it’s as comedic as it is thrilling, and even though many considered it disappointing upon release, it’s aged like a fine wine since and is a film I cherish a lot.
Heat
Michael Mann’s 1995 cult classic is remembered by many as the first film to feature Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on-screen together, but by many more for evolving the action genre with its legendary bank heist scene. This changed the game with as an incredibly well-staged shootout put together with sound military supervision and a supreme attention to detail, down to how many bullets each magazine takes before needing to be reloaded to accurate discharge sounds for each of the firearms used. The whole film is great, but that scene in particular is absolutely jaw-dropping.
Ip Man (2008)
Quite possibly the very best kung fu film of the 2000s, this original went on to spawn a vast number of sequels and spin-offs and rip-offs. The exhilarating central fight is Ip Man taking on a whole dojo of Japanese martial artists and brutally smashing them all, echoing the iconic scene in Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury and later Jet Li’s Fist of Legend. It’s amazing.
The Karate Kid
Cobra Kai is one of the best TV shows on Netflix and this 1984 classic is where the ‘Miagi-verse’ all started, so what better time to revisit it? It’s a beautifully quaint American take on a Japanese martial art as part of a quintessential ’80s coming-of-age high school tale. Unlike most of the films in this list, this one is refreshingly PG family entertainment, but it still kicks arse.
The Last Boy Scout
Tony Scott was at his nastiest in the early 90s and if you’re in the mood for a wildly un-PC action-comedy romp, this one is wonderfully entertaining. In it an ex secret service agent teams up with an ex pro quarterback to solve a murder and bring down a crime syndicate. Expect plenty of mean-spirited, hard-R rated violence that still packs a punch today, as does the sleazy, smarmy, grubby vibe of the whole thing.
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Kicking back with Riggs and Murtaugh never gets old, it’s just so damn fun. This is one of those classics that had a giddily great combination of all the right elements coming together, from Richard Donner’s rousing direction to Shane Black’s dynamite script to Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen’s super cool score to Mel Gibson with Danny Glover as leads with the most amazing chemistry—buddy action comedies do not get better.
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
This gets about as close as anything else ever did to Terminator 2 as a near-perfect action movie sequel. It ups the ante on the set pieces of the original, throws Joe Pesci into the mix, has a guy get a surfboard through his head and the best toilet explosion ever. Also, why don’t more movies have South African bad guys? It’s such a good accent with which villains can say stuff like “diplomatic immunity”.
The Matrix (1999)
The Wachowskis’ modern classic is one of the most truly iconic sci-fi/action films ever made. It combined spectacular action with a mind-bending plot, a super kick arse soundtrack and ground-breaking special effects, all adding up to a giddy result. Little wonder it’s still many people’s favourite movie ever. Those special effects have certainly aged now, but the undeniably kick arse feel you get while watching this never seems to weaken.
Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011)
The best franchise in the world for spectacular Hollywood stunt action is Mission: Impossible and perhaps the greatest sequence in the series so far is in this film. The whole movie is a wonderfully entertaining watch, but the Burj Khalifa scene is one of finest examples there is of what Mission: Impossible does best. It was best enjoyed in IMAX cinemas, for sure, but it still rules at home, especially if you’ve got a nice big screen.
The Nice Guys (2016)
This is exactly the sort of film Shane Black needs to make and make and make again. A glorious update on the 80s buddy action comedy formula, this is just such a blast to watch, no matter how many times you’ve already watched it. There’s a wild and sometimes mean-spirited feel to it all which really tickles me pink, as does the sizzling chemistry of leads Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe.
Nobody (2020)
This gleefully violent action comedy strikes a masterful tone and consistently delivers thrills for its lean 92 minute runtime. A deliciously over the top fist fight on a bus early on is a clear highlight, but there is a lot more to love after that. It gets very, very goofy by the final gun battle in a way some won’t like, but if you get onboard with it you’ll laugh your arse off right to the end. I sure did.
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Sometimes you just need to see a dumb movie with a hundred or so terrorists getting shot to smithereens and another hundred or so getting their skulls impaled with knives. In this jingoistic American tale, the terrorists are North Korean and they’re attacking the White House. Despite starring Gerard Butler in the lead, its hard R rating and very respectable on-screen kill count of 213 make it well worth a watch.
Pacific Rim (2013)
When Guillermo del Toro made this as a love letter to kaiju movies combined with his attempt at the ultimate mech suit movie, the end result was not nearly as awesome as it should have been. But it’s still a good time. If you’re in the mood for turning off your brain and enjoying huge monsters battling humans piloting enormous fighty robot things, this is what to look for on NEON.
Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)
Nicholas Cage and Sion Sono sounds like a match made in heaven and while the result isn’t as great as what that match-up suggests it should be, it’s still a delightful cross-cultural combo of cinema madmen having a shitload of fun together. There’s plenty of bloodshed and over the top action to enjoy, including some hilarious testicular trauma, in an “everything and the kitchen sink” sort of a mash-up movie with one of Cage’s craziest performances ever.
Punisher: War Zone (2008)
If you’ve ever wanted to see a dork get taken out with a rocket launcher mid-flip as he’s parkouring through a city, this is the movie for you. The best screen version yet of The Punisher, this is hilariously over the top, gleefully gory and quite possibly the most violent comic book movie ever made. It’s absolutely packed with bloody kills, many of which are delivered in devilishly comedic ways.
Rambo (2008)
The most insane Rambo movie with by far the franchise’s highest kill count, this is one of the most excessively violent action flicks ever made. In it John Rambo slays a few hundred Burmese soldiers with a variety of weapons including a mounted .50 cal machine gun which just absolutely obliterates. He also cuts off a head, rips out a throat and otherwise regulates in innumerable glorious ways that make this worth infinite rewatches.
Sudden Death
Of all the Die Hard knockoffs—of which there were a lot—this is probably the best. Jean Claude Van Damme has to stop terrorists led by Powers Boothe from mass murder and extortion by beating them all to death, one by one, as the powerless authorities can’t save anyone. Van Damme’s kitchen fight with a woman in a mascot suit is particularly great.
Sudden Impact (1983)
The fourth Dirty Harry movie is arguably the most interesting with definitely the most interesting villain and a meaner tone than most of them. But don’t worry, Clint Eastwood still blows the brains out of a whole bunch of crims while spitting out sly one-liners. As well as the classics he also tells a couple of blokes to “go and suck some fish heads” before punching them. Swell!
The Suicide Squad (2021)
This is what you get when you give post-Guardians of the Galaxy James Gunn the freedom to push hard R-rated violence in a superhero ensemble movie but also don’t skimp on the Hollywood blockbuster budget. It’s delightfully over the top, relentlessly silly and excessive, often hilarious and frequently very gory. It’s also an improvement on the first Suicide Squad movie in every way.
Top Gun
When you have the need for a certain type of Hollywood blockbuster action there is nothing that delivers quite as well this one. Well, there wasn’t until the unimaginably great sequel was released, but god damn the original is fun. It’s got Tom Cruise at the very top of his game, famously thrilling set pieces, loads of awesome military and machinery porn and exquisite levels of sizzling hot homoeroticism. An absolute all-timer.
Triple Threat
A B-grade reply to The Expendables starring Scott Adkins, Iko Uwais, Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen and Michael Jai White, amongst others. Like its Stallone-produced big budget cousin, this one also fails to deliver on the promise of its line-up, with generally underwhelming face-offs. But the gun battles are sweet and it’s still an exciting watch, just don’t get too excited by the potential of that amazing cast.
Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)
This B-grade 2006 prison fight movie must always be appreciated as the movie that put Scott Adkins on the map, opening the doors to all the glory and joy he brought us since. As Russian gangster Boyka, he’s the villain fighting Michael Jai White’s protagonist, of course showing off many incredible Guyver kicks and acrobatic brawling skills that make it crystal clear why he quickly became a cult favourite.
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
A rather weird, very dark, super-duper violent modern cult classic, this film has an army of passionate fans for a very good reason. There are several incredible fight scenes, including a oner in which Scott Adkins wastes a dozen or so bad guys that is just exhilarating. The whole thing is held together with a really sinister, trippy feel that’s clearly influenced by Gaspar Noé and the story makes for a great conclusion to the Universal Soldier franchise.
Wrath of Man (2021)
The best thing Guy Ritchie has done in decades, this has a series of armoured security truck heists leading up to a truly awesome climactic heist that just bloody rules. The unusual way the narrative unfurls elevates the simple story to something much greater and Jason Statham is brilliantly used, going for the quiet, menacing thing rather than the goofy meathead he often does instead. But it’s that dope final heist scene that really made this a winner for me.
