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The 8 best action movies of the 21st century
Thrills come in many forms, from assassins and spies to regular people fighting for justice
The delights of the action movie continue to thrill audiences around the world, often transcending linguistic barriers with their sparring dialogue and universal themes of heroism, vengeance and justice. And while many other genres feature thrilling action sequences, including science fiction, horror and fantasy, these are among our new quarter-century’s best action films set in the real world.
‘The Bourne Identity’ (2002)
The Bourne Identity Official Trailer #1 - Brian Cox Movie (2002) HD - YouTube
Director Doug Liman’s genre-redefining action masterpiece stars Matt Damon as an amnesia-riddled CIA agent named Jason Bourne. When the movie begins, Bourne is gravely wounded, adrift in the Mediterranean with no memory of his identity or how he was injured when he is rescued by Italian fishermen.
He does, however, seem to possess advanced martial arts, language and espionage talents, and as he gallavants around Europe with his new friend Marie (Franka Potente) trying to figure out who he is, he is hunted by the CIA at the behest of Alexander Conklin (Chris Cooper). “The Bourne Identity” remains a “film that would so heavily influence the future of action film-making that it doesn’t feel the least bit dated today,” said Noah Gittell at The Guardian.(Prime)
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When businessman Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is released after 15 years of horrific, solitary and mysterious confinement in a greasy hotel room that drove him mad, he sets about exacting revenge on his tormentors. During his ordeal, he discovers that his wife was murdered and that he has been framed for the job.
His first stop is a sushi restaurant, where he meets Mi-Do (Kang Hye-jeong) and begins to unravel the mystery of his kidnapping enacted by Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae). The plot machinations are too complex to relay in a capsule but suffice it to say that you won’t see a lot of the twists coming. Director Park Chan-wook’s film is not for the squeamish and “features virtuoso direction and editing, mesmerising performances and a relentlessly creative exploration of the revenge motif,” said Liese Spencer at Sight and Sound. (Prime)
‘District B13 (2004)’
District B13 (2004) Official Trailer #1 - Luc Besson Action Movie HD - YouTube
Remembered in part as the movie that introduced broad audiences to the jaw-dropping art of parkour, director Pierre Morel’s fast-paced thriller is set in a near-future Paris in which the government has walled off a troubled district, Banlieue 13. Bibi Naceri is Taha Bemamud, a scenery-chewing drug lord who snatches a nuclear weapon from the French government and threatens to detonate it in Paris unless his ransom is met.
The police send Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) undercover to foil the plot, where he teams up with Leito (David Belle), a nemesis of Taha’s. “District B13” succeeds as an action film because it “features tremendous tricks that thrill not only because they’re fast and smart and acutely choreographed but also because they put real bodies at stake,” said Cynthia Fuchs at PopMatters. (Fubo)
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‘Hanna’ (2011)
Adolescent Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) lives clandestinely and alone with her father, Erik (Eric Bana), in the Finnish wilderness, where he schools her in the art of assassination as she trains for a confrontation with CIA honcho Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). With a plan to meet Erik in Berlin, she summons Wiegler and gets captured, later escaping from a CIA black site in Morocco.
She gloms on to a vacationing family, befriending Sophie (Jessica Barden), in a sequence that highlights how “unfamiliar she is with the quotidian aspects of teenage life,” said Adesola Thomas at Paste Magazine. It’s one of many moments that “refreshingly undercut the otherwise well-choreographed tension” of this propulsive thriller. (Prime)
‘Blue Ruin’ (2013)
IFFR (2014) - Blue Ruin Official Trailer - Devin Ratray Thriller HD - YouTube
Director Jeremy Saulnier’s atmospheric revenge story is more than a straightforward “dig two graves” story. Dwight (Macon Blair) is living on the margins of society when he discovers that the man who killed his parents, Wade Cleland, Jr. (Sandy Barnett), is set to be released from prison.
He kills Wade in a bar bathroom after his release, setting off a chain of events that claims one life after another. The movie finds poignance in the way that Dwight’s love for his parents inadvertently draws new innocents into violence, including his sister Sam (Amy Hargreaves) and her young children. A movie that “contains more incompetence in the pursuit of violence than you’d normally find outside a Coen Bros.” film, it is an “intriguingly nervous piece of pulp noir,” said Jonathan Romney at Film Comment. (Starz)
‘John Wick’ (2014)
John Wick Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Keanu Reeves, Willem Dafoe Movie HD - YouTube
Keanu Reeves plays the title character, an aging (and feared) hitman who extracted himself from organized crime and now lives mournfully in a house fit for an oligarch along with the puppy his late wife bought him as a gift before she passed. But when a gang of Russian gangsters led by unstable failson Iosef (Alfie Allen) breaks into Wick’s house, beats him savagely, and kills the extremely cute dog, he embarks on an odyssey of revenge that threatens the criminal underworld’s hierarchy, especially the empire of Iosef’s father, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), who is also Wick’s former employer. A movie whose “ambitions are aesthetic, not moral,” it relentlessly ‘commits to its defiant unreality, giving us a fantastical underworld of ritual, mythic figures,” said Bilge Ebiri at Vulture. (Disney+)
Some movies are as simple as several hours of pure fun, and director Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver” falls into that category. Ansel Elgort is “Baby,” a perpetually earbuds-clad and extremely talented Atlanta getaway driver for crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey) and his rotating crew of robbers.
The catch is that Baby is only participating in these schemes to pay off a debt to Doc, and he desperately wants out of the crime world to start a new life with his girlfriend, Debora (Lily James). He just needs to pull off one more heist, and when Doc gives him an erratic and unstable crew consisting of Buddy (Jon Hamm), his wife, Darling (Eiza González), and Bats (Jamie Foxx), things go from bad to worse. Baby’s “music is simpatico with seemingly every nook of the movie’s style,” leading to a movie that is a “gust of fresh air,” said K. Austin Collins at The Ringer. (Prime)
‘Rebel Ridge’ (2024)
Rebel Ridge | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube
Perhaps the only action film ever to revolve around civil asset forfeiture, director Jeremy Saulnier’s “Rebel Ridge” is an immensely satisfying cinematic parable. Aaron Pierre is Terry Richmond, who opens the film on a bike with a backpack full of $36,000 to pay his cousin’s bail.
When two cops (David Denman and Emory Cohen) knock him over with their car and seize the cash, it becomes clear that the town’s chief of police, Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson), is corrupt. Terry, determined to retrieve his money and save his cousin, goes to battle with Johnson’s gang with the help of courthouse clerk Summer (AnnaSophia Robb). The film’s action sequences are “beautifully structured, always keeping us aware of the geography, akin to how a great Western uses a saloon or rooftops above a dusty road to put us in the heart of the combat,” said Brian Tallerico at Roger Ebert. (Netflix)
David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of "It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics." He's a frequent contributor to Newsweek and Slate, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic and The Nation, among others.
