It’s the genre that never goes out of fashion — action in cinema started out with the earliest days of the artform, and pretty much defined cinematic spectacle before landmark films like Citizen Kane came up with the modern film language. Action cinema has taken a turn for the better in the past two decades with the reinvention of what brawls and firefights look like on the screen. Gone are the days of big guns, massive explosions, and one-dimensional machismo. Good action these days is all about gritty, tactical realism, utilizing the best of what actors and modern film technology have to offer.
Filmmakers who appreciate good, tactical action on-screen have invented an entire sub-genre of their own, one that is becoming more and more popular with audiences. You can’t get a major action movie these days that doesn’t incorporate at least some amount of realism in their fight scenes. The best movies in the tactical action genre, however, utilize the action sequences to do a great deal of their storytelling. The combination of gritty, tactical action along with good storytelling is what makes these movies stand out. Here are 12 movies in the tactical action genre that are literally perfect.
12 The Bourne Trilogy
Universal Pictures
The original Bourne trilogy single-handedly reinvented action cinema, foregoing grand action set pieces for a more intimate style of cinematic action that was much more visceral and realistic. Based on the eponymous book series by Robert Ludlum, it introduced Matt Damon as an unlikely CIA assassin who is dealing with amnesia. Director Doug Liman directed the movies with a unique vision that involved the creation of a new, more relatable kind of action hero — along with a more gritty, realistic action style to go with it. The new style of cinematic action he pioneered in Bourne immediately caught on with other filmmakers, even influencing the James Bond movies, which in fact was a major inspiration for Liman.
11 John Wick Franchise
Lionsgate
The John Wick franchise is the most recent bookmark in the development of the Hollywood action genre. Its creator, Chad Stahelsky, envisioned a unique new style of action for the screen, and combined a variety of martial arts styles with real-world firearms practices to bring it into fruition. Keanu Reeves was the perfect vessel to bring this brand of action to life, committing himself to a grueling few months of martial arts and firearms training. The formula worked: he brought a whole new level of fluency to his fighting sequences in John Wick, and quickly established the movie as a classic.
10 Sicario
Released in 2015, Sicario is a one-of-a-kind movie that holds up as a powerful work of cinema even outside the action genre tag. Two illustrious names are behind this movie — it was written by Taylor Sheridan, who has garnered acclaim for his work in the modern Western genre, and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Sicario is an intensely thrilling movie with an unforgettable action style. The highway firefight scene is perhaps one of the most thrilling shootouts ever. The movie spends no time in unnecessary motions, and takes a set of well-written characters on a journey that explores the workings of the CIA and Mexican drug cartels.
9 Extraction
Netflix
The 2020 movie Extraction is one of Chris Hemsworth’s memorable recent performances outside the MCU. It was directed by Sam Hargrave and written by Joe Russo, presenting an international cast in much the same way as The Gray Man. Most notably, the movie featured Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda and Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani in key roles. The movie takes place in Bangladesh, and features Hemsworth as a mercenary who is contracted to rescue the kidnapped son of a crime lord. Extraction was praised for its elaborate fighting sequences that focused on real-world tactics. The movie pulled viewers right into the action with long takes, minimal cutting, and a lot of practical effects.
8 Triple Frontier
Triple Frontier is a 2019 movie about a group of elite former US soldiers who band together to plan a heist on a Columbian drug lord. The movie has a minimal plot that draws you straight into the action. Triple Frontier makes a visible effort to focus on real-life military tactics. In fact, there is very little in the way of abject violence for most of the first half of the movie. But a stalwart cast including actors like Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Pedro Pascal, and Oscar Issac keeps you fully engaged and in a state of tense anticipation throughout the movie.
7 Collateral
Dream Works and Paramount Entertainment
Collateral is a 2004 movie by Michael Mann, starring Tom Cruise as a cold, ruthless assassin and Jamie Foxx as a taxi driver who is hired to drive him around for a night. Described as a neo-noir action thriller, the movie was the subject of critical acclaim and garnered many awards and nominations in all aspects — writing, direction, cinematography, and performances. Cruise plays one of his most unique roles ever in this movie, with his famous perfectionism towards action sequences appearing as a key trait of his role as a cold, sociopathic assassin.
6 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Paramount Pictures
13 Hours was the movie that marked John Krasinski’s transition from The Office into a credible action hero. The movie seeks to retell the events of the 2012 Benghazi attack from the perspective of the ex-military security contractors who were on the ground that day. The movie is directed by Michael Bay, and was considered one of the more mature works by him. For 13 Hours, Bay let go of his famous directorial signatures and sought to take a more grounded approach to the action, showcasing the devastation of the incident from the perspective of its victims.
5 No Country for Old Men
Miramax
No Country for Old Men made it on numerous critics’ lists of the best 2007 movies, a singular movie by the Coen Brothers that also included one of the most memorable villains in film history. The movie is set in the modern wild west, and no high-tech machinery figures into its firefights. But it executes cinematic violence in an inimitable way, utilizing its action to create layers of meaning — about its characters, and about the senseless nature violence that often visits those in the land of the living.
4 The Old Guard
The Old Guard is another successful recent film in the action genre. Unlike movies like No Country for Old Men, this is a plain old action movie — one that’s been made very well. The plot of the movie deals with a group of ancient warriors who gained immortality through unexplained causes at different times in history. With no explanation for their quandary, they navigate the modern world as elite guns for hire. Charlize Theron gives a power-packed performance as the leader of this immortal troupe, giving some intense fight sequences. The movie also does a good job of creating a fantastic legend around her character, elevating the overall enjoyment factor to the next level.
3 The Accountant
The Accountant is an enjoyable portrayal of the classic action movie formula of a mysterious, average-seeming person who appears to be endowed with high-level fighting skills. The movie stars Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, an accountant with high-functioning autism who lends his accountancy services to crime lords around the world. He wins the audience’s hearts as the socially awkward accountant who also happens to be ruthlessly proficient at all manners of fighting styles and firearms usage. The movie also earned praise for its portrayal of the Indonesian martial arts known as pencak silat.
2 Daniel Craig James Bond Movies
Sony
The James Bond film franchise has maintained relevance for six decades by continually evolving the character to keep up with the times. The Daniel Craig era of James Bond was the first to explore an emotional arc for the character, and his take on the iconic film spy was also praised for being the closest to the books (per BBC). Alongside the character itself, Craig’s run of the character was also characterized by a revamped look at the movie’s action style. Starting from Casino Royale, the James Bond movies employed a new style of cinematography that allowed the character’s physicality to really shine — often starting the movies with an elaborate action sequence that was simultaneously grand yet more personal to the character.
1 Zero Dark Thirty
Columbia Pictures
Zero Dark Thirty is a fictionalized account of the years-long hunt for Osama bin Laden. The movie was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the critically acclaimed filmmaker behind such titles like The Hurt Locker. Bigelow is a prolific filmmaker in the action genre, a filmmaker who has always sought to transcend the genre, preparing for lengthy periods behind the scenes to create a visceral, kinetic visual style for her movies. Zero Dark Thirty displays the same visual signatures, and explores the CIA tradecraft in extensive detail.
