Zombie Hunter (2013)
Zombie Film
Post-apocalyptic zombie action played with a tongue-in-cheek comic-book tone. Plus Danny Trejo as a badass zombie-hunting priest
Action Films
The action film is a popular subgenre of cinema where the emphasis is on action sequences – gunfights or unarmed combat, vehicular chases, stunts, frequent explosions and mass destruction – which are usually presented as serial set-pieces.
The action film emerged a distinct genre in the 1970s. Action films usually feature lone male (occasionally female) heroes who win out through muscular brawn or martial ability. In genre material, heroes often come with cyborg enhancements or occasional powers.
There have been numerous genre crossovers from action films set in dystopian and cyberpunk futures, featuring killer androids and cyborg heroes, time travel action films, others set in post-apocalyptic venues, or blends of action and horror featuring vampire and zombie-hunting action heroes, plus a good many others.
You Only Live Twice (1967)
James Bond Film
The fifth James Bond film takes the series to Japan. New director Lewis Gilbert is determined to outdo what has come before in terms of the spectacular, especially WITH the construction of the massive volcano set
xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)
Extreme Adventure Sports Spy
xXx, with Vin Diesel as an extreme sports junkie version of James Bond, was ridiculous. This second sequel surprisingly turns out halfway watchable, keeping the stunts moving fast and introducing an ensemble to build this out as a Fast and the Furious-type franchise
xXx (2002)
Extreme Adventure Sports Spy
One of the most brainless action films ever made. This has the laughable notion of trying to make a James Bond film but recasting it with Vin Diesel as an extreme sports junkie. Everything about the film is absurd.
The World is Not Enough (1999)
James Bond Film
The third and best of Pierce Brosnan’s outings as James Bond. All the aspects of the formula are contained within a strong plot and Sophie Marceau proves a standout in a role that combines both villain and love interest
The Witches Hammer (2007)
Vampire Assassin vs Witches
Low budget vampire action about a vampire woman who is recruited into a secret government organisation
Wedlock (1991)
Future Prison Escape
SF action where Rutger Hauer is sentenced with a collar that will explode if he moves 100 yards apart from Mimi Rogers
Waterworld (1995)
Post-Holocaust Drowned Earth
The most expensive film ever made at the time, a Kevin Costner epic in which he is a lone mariner in a drowned world where survivors cling to shantytowns floating on the surface. Essentially a Mad Max film located on water.
Warriors of Future (2022)
Action Spectacular/Plants Invasion
One of the most intensive and exciting action films of recent with humanity engaged in a furious battle with plants and killer robots
Warlords (1988)
Post-Holocaust
B-budget director offers up a copy of Mad Max 2 and peppers it with plentiful tongue-in-cheek exploitation elements stirred with undeniable vigour
Warlord 3000 (1993)
Post-Holocaust
Shabbily made copy of Mad Max 2 that plays out with minimal action
Warhead (1996)
Action/Nuclear Missile Silo Hijacking
Routine action film about the attempts to stop a rogue general who has hijacked a nuclear missile silo
War Machine (2026)
Military Action/Killer Robot
The military action film is a genre that does nothing for me. But this does have a furious, survival-oriented pace as it pits Alan Ritchson and a detachment of soldiery up against an alien killer robot
Wanted (2008)
Super-Assassins/Action
The film that Hitman should have been concerning a secret world of super-powered assassins, revved up by out of this world visuals from Timur Bekmambetov
Virtuosity (1995)
Android Serial Killer
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
Virtual Combat (1995)
Virtual Characters Come to Life/Action
Completely ridiculous martial arts SF film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as a future cop fighting a videogame character incarnated in the real world
A View to a Kill (1985)
James Bond Film
The final outing as James Bond for a visibly aging Roger Moore, the fourteenth Bond film all told. One of the more anonymous among the giant unserious cartoon shows the Moore Bond films became
Vice (2015)
Rogue Pleasure Android
Bruce Willis is the CEO of a corporation that provides customers with androids to use for whatever vices they want. Very similar to tv’s recent Westworld but has a script so boneheaded you can almost imagine it acted as an example for Westworld to do the exact opposite
Versus (2000)
Yakuza Zombies/Splatter
The directorial debut of Ryuhei Kitamura. A film premised on the idea of mashing the John Woo-styled gangster film up with the gore-drenched George Romero zombie film.
Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The fifth of the Universal Soldier films reuniting both Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, while being given a tough, brutal action punch by director John Hyams
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)
Super-Soldiers/Action/Identity Bender
Sixth entry in the series, this throws out all the themes the previous sequels operated by and feels like a Universal Soldier film written by Philip K. Dick with utterly fascinating results. John Hyams hits in with a brutal intensity that shows he is one of the most exciting up and coming action directors
Universal Soldier (1992)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first studio film from Roland Emmerich, a loud, noisy action featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as Vietnam Vets resurrected as super-soldiers
Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business (1998)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
Vampire-Werewolf War
Third of the Underworld films, a prequel to the previous entries. In truth, it is just the same as the others – lots of kinetic action moves and Gothic poses with little in the way of plot
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
Vampire-Werewolf War
The second of the Underworld films where Len Wiseman gets a bigger budget and amplifies the CGI and action sequences,. On the other hand, the characters and story are so stripped to a minimum you lose track of why things are happening
Underworld: Awakening (2012)
Vampire-Werewolf War
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
Underworld (2003)
Vampire-Werewolf War
This stirs a bunch of elements from the late 90s vampire film and dark poses from the graphic novel to create a slick vampire action film. Several sequels followed.
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
Action/Advanced Weaponry
Sequel to Under Siege in which Steven Seagal was a lone individual in a Die Hard scenario defending a battleship against a terrorist takeover; this is the same but with Seagal defending a train
Ultraviolet (2006)
Dystopian Future Action/Vampire Mutations
Milla Jovovich is a part of a vampire rebel underground in a dystopian future. A film filled with incredible design schemes and action scenes that are as spectacular as they are ridiculously improbable
The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
Post-Holocaust
An early example of the post-apocalyptic action film with Yul Brynner as a lone fighter hired to defend a peaceful community
2019: After the Fall of New York (1983)
Post-Holocaust Action
One of the more cheesily entertaining among the Italian-made ripoffs of Mad Max 2 during the 1980s (as well as more than a few dashes of Escape from New York). The film works up a moderate head of steam
2020: Texas Gladiators (1983)
Post-Holocaust Action
One of the numerous Mad Max imitators made in Italy. Directed by notorious adult director Joe D’Amato who pushes the material further than the other entries do
24 Hours to Live (2017)
Action Film
An action film variant on the thriller D.O.A. where Ethan Hawke plays an assassin who is resurrected from the dead and has 24 hours to bring down the corrupt corporation who betrayed him
Turkey Shoot (2014)
Human Hunting/Near Future Reality TV Show
Remake of the Ozploitation film where the original’s Most Dangerous Game scenario set in a dystopian future is lamely rewritten as a reality tv show and another Hunger Games ripoff. The original was fairly terrible; this has a lack of conviction in most regards that makes it even worse
Turkey Shoot (1983)
Future Prison/Human Bloodsports
Ridiculous, splatter-heavy Australian-made film about a prison camp where prisoners are offered their freedom in a run while pursued by armed hunters
Transit 17 (2019)
Zombie Film
Belgian zombie film about a military unit assigned to travel through zombie-infested territory to rescue a girl who has an immunity
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The fifth of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The first of Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels has even better effects and more copious mass destruction to the point it washes over you without any effect
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The third of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. While the human scenes opt for a ghastly miscalculated sense of humour, the effects houses are at the peak of their game, even if Bay allows them to drag the mass destruction out to a numbing excess
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other
Transformers (2007)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
Michael Bay takes on the 1980s toy phenomenon, turning it into a massive blockbuster filled with copious mass destruction and machines beating the metal crap out of each other
Total Recall (2012)
Virtual Memories/Reality Bender/Action
I was never a particular fan of the Schwarzenegger original and this improves on it somewhat. This is far better conceived as an action film with some amazing Cyberpunk designs. On the other hand, the two decades interim has made the story’s Philip K. Dick-ian reality bendings seem commonplace
Total Recall (1990)
Virtual Memories/Reality Bender/Action
Adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story is killed by being turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle and by director Paul Verhoeven’s burying the reality bending subtleties of the story under bludgeoning ultra-violence
The Tomorrow War (2021)
War Across Time
Chris Pratt is recruited to fight an alien invasion in a war across time in a big-budget film that flounders in its own ridiculousness
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
James Bond Film
Pierce Brosnan’s second outing as James Bond holds up fairly well, especially in the action department, although Jonathan Pryce seems miscast as a Rupert Murdoch-modeled super-villain
Tomb Raider (2018)
Videogame Adaptation
This reboot of the film series based on the videogame franchise is a mixed affair. Certainly, the perpetually non-acting Angelina Jolie is replaced by Alicia Vikander who gives Lara Croft living, breathing emotions
Timecop: The Berlin Decision (2003)
Time Police
Sequel to Timecop with more of an action emphasis as Jason Scott Lee replacing Jean-Claude Van Damme trying to stop a criminal who is erasing agents from the timeline.
Timecop (1994)
Time Police
Film featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a temporal police officer. While you expect another time travel action film, this has quite a deal more sophistication in the scripting department than you expect
Timebomb (1991)
Brainwashing/Action
Action film from Avi Nesher that comes with a solid and satisfying punch. Michael Biehn is a mild-mannered clockmaker who suddenly discovers he is a brainwashed assassin
Time Under Fire (1997)
Time Travel/Action
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Time Lapse (2001)
Action/Memory Erasing Drug
Action film in which an agent tries to prevent a nuclear arms deal after being given a memory-erasing drug
The 355 (2022)
Spy/Action Film
Female-led spy/action film that serves everything up in an enjoyably kinetic mix with likeable characters. Not wheel reinventing but more enjoyable than most Hollywood product
Terminator Salvation (2009)
War Against the Machines
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The sixth Terminator film that boasts the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the franchise. After the troughs of Terminator: Genisys, this makes one forget about the last three sequels
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The first sequel to The Terminator where James Cameron returns with the biggest budget for a film at the time. Cameron harnesses then top-drawer CGI technology to create one of the most original nemeses in any SF film
The Terminator (1984)
Time-Travelling Killer Android
One of the 2-3 most influential SF films since 1980. James Cameron creates a barrelling powerhouse of a film, all lorded over by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the relentless killer machine in the role that defined his career
Tenet (2020)
Time Travel Action/Temporal Weaponry
After delays, Christopher Nolan’s unique time travel film is with us, a dense challenging work that plays like an intellectual version of a James Bond film
Tekken: A Man Called X (2014)
Videogame Adaptation
Nobody seemed to care about Tekken, the 2010 film based on the popular videogame. Despite that, this is a sequel – albeit one that has almost nothing to do with the first film. This consists of nothing more than a series of efficiently unmemorable action scenes and a plot that makes no real sense
Tekken (2010)
Videogame Adaptation/Combat Tournament
Another videogame adapted film, this has almost entirely been conceived around a series of slick fight sequences and little else
The Swordsman (1992)
Mystical Sword/Action/Reincarnation
Action film starring Lorenzo Lamas as a detective drawn into underground fight clubs while discovering a mystic sword owned by Alexander the Great
Suspect Device (1995)
Identity Bender/Action
What seems a routine low-budget action film is propelled into the decidedly watchable by a bizarre Philip K. Dick-ian twist that comes mid-film
Surviving the Game (1994)
Human Hunting for Sport
Blatant copy of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target and both in turn from The Most Dangerous Game. Here Ice-T is a homeless man forced to flee hunters and survive with his bare hands.
Supergrid (2018)
Socially Collapsed Future Action
Lowell Dean, director of WolfCop, makes what feels like a revival of the low-budget Mad Max film – an action film set in a socially collapsed future
Sucker Punch (2011)
Fantasy Action in Dreamed Alternate Realities
Bizarrely uncategorisable film from Zack Snyder that seems a mix of Girl, Interrupted and Inception
Submerged (2005)
Action Film/Mind Control
Steven Seagal submarine action where he tackles a terrorist who has perfected mind control techniques
Stryker (1983)
Post-Apocalyptic Action
A vigorous copy of the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action film made by the underrated Cirio H. Santiago
Striking Distance (1993)
Action/Psycho-Thriller
Action thriller with Bruce Willis as a river patrol detective hunting a serial killer
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Videogame Adaptation
Sequel to the 1994 Street Fighter film based on the videogame, this provides the wall-to-wall action that the first film needed but falls down with a wimpily miscast heroine
Street Fighter (1994)
Videogame Adaptation/Action Team
Based on the popular videogame, you cannot complain that this is exactly what you expect – wall-to-wall action, comic-book heroes and villains. The complaint might be that the action is never particularly enervated and the film lacks anything beyond that
Steel Dawn (1987)
Post-Holocaust Action
Patrick Swayze vehicle that uncreditedly relocates the Western Shane into a post-holocaust setting
Stealth (2005)
Artifically Intelligent Fighter Plane Amok
Action film about an artificially intelligent fighter plane that goes amok. Rob Cohen directs in all the cliches of the genre and the seeming need to have something spectacular happening every few minutes
Star Hunter (1995)
Alien Sportsman Hunts Human Game
An incredibly cheap ripoff of Predator (and even more so that film’s real source The Most Dangerous Game) relocated to an urban area. Incredibly tatty and dull on all counts
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
James Bond Film
The tenth of the James Bond films, the third for Roger Moore. This determines to be spectacular in terms of international locales, effects and sets. It was also the point where the Moore Bond films started to become giant cartoon spectacles of the absurd
The Spy Next Door (2010)
Spy Plays Babysitter Comedy
The further slide downwards of Jackie Chan’s career after being discovered by Hollywood. Here he is a spy left to look after a group of kids with excruciatingly unfunny results
Split Second (1992)
Satanic Alien Serial Killer
A mishmash of Alien copy and supernatural serial killer film set in a drowned future London with a script that makes no real sense. The film’s buddy cop relationship starring Rutger Hauer does have its amusements.
Spectre (2015)
James Bond Film
The fourth Daniel Craig James Bond film welcomely resurrects one of the great nemeses from the series past – only to fall flat on its face. This is a Bond film severely hampered by a director unattuned to the classical elements of the series and the need to cripple everything by giving Bond backstory and character development
Spacerage: Breakout on Prison Planet (1985)
Interstellar Prison Escape
SF action with Michael Paré convicted to a prison planet from which he attempts to organise the prisoners to make an escape. This is essentially a Western that takes place in SF terms
Southern Comfort (1981)
Backwoods Brutality
A beautifully evocative Walter Hill film where National Guard soldiers on training manoeuvres are hunted through the Louisiana swamps after accidentally shooting at Cajun locals
Solo (1996)
Android Becomes Self-Aware
Mario Van Peebles plays a military android who defies his programming to defend the villagers he is sent to kill
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021)
Martial Arts/Action Film
Part of the attempt to reboot the G.I. Joe film series into a shared universe, this is a kinetically driven martial arts film
Sleeping Dogs (1977)
New Zealand Dystopia
The cornerstone of the modern New Zealand film industry – the first film of both Sam Neill and Roger Donaldson – a vigorous dystopian action film that offers up a nightmare of sleepy parochial 1970s NZ being brutally overrun by the imagery of totalitarianism
The 6th Day (2000)
Cloned Man/Action
Arnold Schwarzenegger revisits something of Total Recall in this modest and clever action film in which he discovers that a clone has stolen his life
Silent Rage (1982)
Action Film/Resurrected Psycho
A Chuck Norris horror film! One of his earlier films where Chuck is pitted against a psycho who is resurrected from the dead and becomes a near-invincible killing machine
The Silencers (1996)
Action Film/Alien Invasion Conspiracy
Action film made at the height of the popularity of tv’s The X Files with Jack Scalia fighting off the Men in Black
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Marvel Comics Martial Arts Superhero
The Marvel onslaught continues with this resurrection of a martial artist superhero character from the 1970s. Amid the mostly ho-hum MCU offerings of the 2020s, this becomes an energised action vehicle
The Sender (1997)
Alien Visitor/Psychic Powers/Action
Action film with Michael Madsen and a mystery alien woman fighting a government coverup of UFOs to retrieve his abducted daughter
The Sector (2016)
Alternate World Criminal
Variant on the alternate world hopping theme where a bounty hunter finds the person he is pursuing is an alternate world criminal. The film’s budget is way too low to do any justice to either the theme or the setting after the collapse of civilisation
The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior (2008)
Sword and Sorcery
Prequel to The Scorpion King. Unfortunately director Russell Mulcahy allows his broad hand with comedy free reign and the plot is overrun by glib character banter and constant flip modern one-liners
The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power (2015)
Sword and Sorcery
Fourth entry in the eminently forgettable sword-and-sorcery series, this heads down into bad movie stakes by writing a series of grating quips over everything, while the action scenes exist in the realm of unbelievability that show that nobody is treating anything with the slightest seriousness
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012)
Sword and Sorcery
The best of an otherwise lightweight, throwaway series. Roel Reiné directs some good action scenes, even if the hackneyed plotting never lets the show rise to anything more than average
The Scorpion King (2002)
Sword and Sorcery
Back when Dwayne Johnson was a wrestler billing himself as The Rock, this was a forgettable sword and sorcery effort spun off from his appearance in The Mummy Returns. This led to a surprising number of sequels
Savage (1995)
Alien-Altered Neanderthal Superman
Bizarrely incomprehensible film from Avi Nesher set in a Cyberpunk future in which Olivier Gruner is turned into a Neanderthal superhuman by aliens living in cyberspace
The Running Man (2025)
Future Televised Human Hunting
Edgar Wright conducts a remake of The Running Man and takes it more back to the original Stephen King book than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, while adding a level of biting modern commentary
The Running Man (1987)
Action/Future Televised Gladiatorial Combat
This adapts one of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman novels but the book is sidelined to become an Arnold Schwarzenegger action comic-book on the oft-used theme of a future where people compete in televised gladiatorial games
Rome 2072 (1983)
Future Gladiatorial Combat
Lucio Fulci was a cult Italian horror director. This was the only occasion that Fulci visited the SF film, a low-budget ripoff of Rollerball by way of Mad Max featuring futuristic gladiatorial games