I changed the title of this article from “25 Best” to “My 25 Favourite” cause I foresaw all the dumb arguments I’d have with folks about the exclusions, inclusions and overall placement of movies on my list.
Most of these movies also don’t feature a lot of diversity which was very Hollywood 1990-1999, pretty much every movie on this list is led by a white male and some don’t even feature a major female character. Times sure have changed, and definitely for the better.
25. Desperado (1995)
dir. Robert Rodriguez / USA / 105 minutes
cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, Quentin Tarantino, Danny Trejo
Better in every way than Rodriguez‘s respectable but uneven debut, El Mariachi, Desperado feels more or less like a remake of that movie but done with an actual budget. If you like people flying through the air while shooting weapons and being silly, you’ll probably enjoy Desperado, which plays almost like a south of the border version of a John Woo Hong Kong flick. It’s fun and brutal mayhem and the less serious you take it the more fun you’ll have. It also introduced the world to Salma Hayek, and she’s fantastic! They turn guitar cases into rocket launchers in this one! (VOD)
24. Tombstone (1993)
dir. George P. Cosmatos, Kevin Jarre / USA / 130 minutes
cast: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Bill Paxton, Sam Elliot, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Robert Burke, Thomas Haden Church, Dana Delany, Stephen Lang, Paula Malcolmson, Terry O’Quinn, Joanna Pacula, Jason Priestley, Michael Rooker, Jon Tenney, Billy Bob Thorton, Billy Zane, Charlton Heston, Frank Stallone
Overrated, sure, but most parts not involving the terribly written Dana Delany character are pretty entertaining. It may not be no Deadwood, at least in terms of its period authenticity or richly complex characters, but Tombstone is a good-ass time if you can sit your big tooter down and stop thinkin’ so damn much. It’s a super fake-looking, grand operatic action western overflowing with fairly broad characters and on-the-nose dialogue. The sole exception of this is the layered character of Doc Holiday beautifully brought to life by Val Kilmer, who should have got an Oscar nomination for his performance, let’s be real. (MGM+)
23. Ronin (1998)
dir. John Frankenheimer / France / UK / USA / 122 minutes
cast: Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno, Natasha McElhone, Sean Bean, Stellan Skarsgård, Katarina Witt, Jonathan Pryce, Michael Lonsdale, Skipp Suduth
A Paris-set heist thriller that begins with a quote about feudal Japan because the screenwriter really liked the movie Shogun or something. DeNiro is the titular “Ronin”, a masterless samurai according to Wikipedia, who must use his wits and experience to fend off European bad guys who keep randomly double crossing each other. Parts of the plot, especially in the second half are a little wonky, but the first half is a tight crime thriller with some very fun performances by DeNiro, Jean Reno, Ned Stark, Truman Show girlfriend and Stellar Skateboard. There’s a scene where DeNiro shoots a bazooka out of a car! (MGM+ / Paramount+)
22. Broken Arrow (1996)
dir. John Woo / USA / 108 minutes
cast: John Travolta, Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Delroy Lindo, Frank Whaley, Bob Gunton, Howie Long, Jack Thompson, Kurtwood Smith, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Daniel von Bargen, French Stewart, Chris Mulkey, Raymond Cruz
Feels very much like a warm-up act to Woo’s next action picture, Face/Off, in that it lives just on the cusp of absolute bat-shit insanity, where that movie is full-on Loony Tunes. Travolta’s villain performance in Broken Arrow is almost poetic in its strangeness and significantly makes up for how flat the characters and performances of Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis are. I stand in awe of some of Woo’s choices – my favorite being Travolta’s first appearance in the desert – but Face/Off did it 10x better the following year – but more on that movie later. (VOD)
21. Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
dir. John McTiernan / USA / 128 minutes
cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, Colleen Camp, Larry Bryggman, Aldis Hodge
Look, I enjoy Die Hard 2, so fuck you, okay? I get it’s not the masterpiece the original was but it’s a fun ass movie that has explosions at the airport. Anyway, obviously the third one is better since it brings back the original director – Johnny Boy McTiernan – and gives McClane a compelling counterpart in Samuel L. Jackson’s concerned citizen. Swapping LA and DC for the hectic streets of NYC, Die Hard with a Vengeance is closer to the spirit of the original and even has Hans Gruber’s brother as the villain – played by the reliably sinister Jeremy Irons. That n-word scene plays weird today. (Starz)
20. Clear and Present Danger (1994)
dir. Phillip Noyce / USA / 141 minutes
cast: Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer, Joaquim de Almeida, Henry Czerny, Harris Yulin, Donald Moffat, Miguel Sandoval, Benjamin Bratt, Raymond Cruz, Thora Birch, Ann Magnuson, Hope Lange, Ted Raimi, James Earl Jones, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Rex Linn, Ken Howard
Apologies to all you Red October fans, but the best Jack Ryan movie is the 1994 Harrison Ford political action thriller, Clear and Present Danger. It’s also the longest but before you write off its butt-numbing runtime, know that it has the most amount of story to tell. There are some truly fun action sequences in this along with unpredictable plot twists and turns and likable two-dimensional characters including a mercenary wonderfully played by Willem Dafoe. (Paramount+)
19. True Lies (1994)
dir. James Cameron / USA / 141 minutes
cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Art Malik, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov, Charlton Heston
This one has not aged like wine, that’s for fucking sure. A bunch of lines and gags read very misogynistic today (most including Tom Arnold) and the less said about the movie’s idea of terrorism, the better. However, James Cameron’s True Lies is, for the most part, a relentlessly entertaining action comedy that gives Schwarzenegger and especially Jamie Lee Curtis a lot of room to have fun. It also features one of Bill Paxton’s funniest characters as a sleazy used car salesman who tries to creep on Curtis. The other bummer about this movie is the sexual abuse of Eliza Dushku on set, then underage, at the hands of one of the stunt coordinators, which is awful and infuriating. But hey, that motorcycle vs. horse chase sequence is stellar…maybe skip this one? (MGM+ / Paramount+)
18. Air Force One (1997)
dir. Wolfgang Petersen / USA / Germany / 124 minutes
cast: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, Liesel Matthews, Paul Guilfoyle, Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell, Tom Everett, Jürgen Pronchnow, Philip Baker Hall
Certainly, the more restrained of the two airplane-set action movies on my list, Air Force One is a great compromise of a movie for general audiences. It’s very well-paced, straightforward without being too predictable and features the ultimate dad-hero president (Harrison Ford) anyone could all get behind. It’s never challenging or too violent, and the very definition of an easy watch. They even threw in Gary Oldman as the bad guy, the perfect guy to play a bad guy! (Tubi)
17. Rumble in the Bronx (1995)
dir. Stanley Tong / Hong Kong / USA / 85 minutes
cast: Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Francoise Yip, Bill Tung, Marc Akerstream, Garvin Cross, Morgan Lam, Carrie Cain Sparks
Don’t get me wrong, the action stunts in Stanley Tong’s Supercop: Police Story 3 are incredible and seeing Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh together is real *chef’s kiss*. But if I’m being honest, that movie frequently disengaged me, whereas Rumble in the Bronx, Tong’s follow-up set in a fantasy Bronx that’s actually Hong Kong, is far more enjoyable and gloriously stupid. Take the uncle’s wedding for example which randomly turns into a doo-wop performance by his plus-sized American wife or the dumb villain, Angelo, getting spanked in the ass with car antenna. This movie is exceptionally funny but also features some unbelievable stunt work. At 85 short minutes with a dope ass montage of Jackie Chan injuring himself during the credits, what more can you ask for? Maybe for Jackie Chan to be more careful, seriously dude, we can’t lose you. (Amazon Prime)
16. Men in Black (1997)
dir. Barry Sonnenfeld / USA / 98 minutes
cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Sioban Fallon Hogan, David Cross
One of only seven movies on this list under two hours, and the only one in the 90-minute range. Barry Sonnefeld’s Men in Black may not be the edge-of-your-seat, comedic gut buster of a Lethal Weapon-mixed-with-Ghostbusters-but-with-aliens-instead-of-ghosts summer action spectacular it was back in 1997, but it’s still enjoyable today. Jones and Smith have undeniable chemistry and the sassy talking dog is a real crowd pleaser! All those cockroaches though, good God, do not watch this with a burrito, that’s all I’m saying! (Max)
15. Blade (1998)
dir. Stephen Norrington / USA / 121 minutes
cast: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N’Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, Arly Jover, Traci Lords, Kevin Patrick Walls, Tim Guinee, Sanaa Lathan
Wesley Snipes made some seriously not good action movies in the 90s from the nothing special Boiling Point to the actively stupid Passenger 57. However, Wesley struck G-O-L-D when he put on a black leather cape to play Marvel’s resident vampire slayer, Blade. This is one of the most underrated and purely fun action thrillers of the late 90s, with a surprisingly relatable hero you can root for to slaughter the highest amount of vampires possible. The exploding vampire darts are great but the best scene of the movie involves a nightclub full of vampires seen through the eyes of frightened human. This is one hell of a stylish picture that spawned two sequels – one pretty good (Gilly Del Toro’s) and one pretty bad (the one with Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel). (VOD)
14. The Rock (1996)
dir. Michael Bay / USA / 137 minutes
cast: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, William Forsythe, David Morse, John Spencer, Michael Biehn, Vanessa Marcil, Claire Forlani, Tony Todd, Gregory Sporledder, John C. McGinley, Bokeem Woodbine, Danny Nucci, Todd Louiso, Xander Berkeley, Jim Caviezel, Willie Garson, Raymond Cruz, Philip Baker Hall, Stuart Wilson
Recently I saw an old TV commercial for The Rock and if I saw that on my 27-inch Sony back in 1996, I would have stolen my dad’s car to go see this in theaters. That trailer is mad as a hatter, featuring non-stop action set pieces, just like the movie – a relentless and relentlessly loud, overstuffed Michael Bay boom-boom bonanza. I usually hate Bay, but this is his most satisfying movie, a tight and taut 137 minutes that feels like an hour and forty-five. There are definitely some outdated elements, especially with the humor, and the hairdresser side character is egregiously homophobic, but that’s only three minutes of an otherwise asexual action picture. The boys don’t talk about their dicks once inside Alcatraz. Ed Harris is legitimately good here, Nicolas Cage is fun as hell and Sean Connery gives us his last palatable performance. (Tubi)
13. Starship Troopers (1997)
dir. Paul Verhoeven / USA / 129 minutes
cast: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Neil Patrick Harris, Jake Busey, Clancy Brown, Michael Ironside, Patrick Muldoon, Seth Gilliam, Rue McClanahan, Amy Smart, Dean Norris, Marshall Bell, Eric Da Re, R. Lee Ermey
The type of smart political/social commentary disguised in trashy B-movie leggings that Verhoeven is famous for. This one is about a super fascist futuristic society of humans that falsify a war with giant bugs to control population numbers. This feels like a hilariously self-aware piece of pro-war propaganda sprung to life. One that is also wisely cast with beautiful but flat leads (Van Dien and Richards) which make the whole thing feel all the more like a creepy army recruitment infomercial from the future. (Netflix)
12. Total Recall (1990)
dir. Paul Verhoeven / USA / 113 minutes
cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside, Marshall Bell, Dean Norris
Another slyly political future-set action picture from Verhoeven, this time with a deliciously ambiguous ending. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a regular Joe who wants more excitement in his life, so he goes to some VR clinic that sells you sexy and/or exciting memories so you can forget how goddamn boring and pointless your dumb life is. He chooses one where he gets to be a secret agent from Mars, and as luck would have it the simulation triggers some repressed memories that reveal he’s actually a secret agent from Mars IRL. Of course the government tries to kill him, but he’s Arnold Schwarzenegger so he kicks their stupid asses all over planet Mars. There are great “bulging” practical effects in this one. (VOD)
11. The Mummy (1999)
dir. Stephen Sommers / USA / 124 minutes
cast: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Patricia Velásquez, Kevin J. O’Connor, Jonathan Hyde, Oded Fehr
My friend Audrey’s favorite movie for a reason, and that reason is fun. The Mummy is the type of ridiculously dumb but enjoyable old-fashioned swashbuckler adventure that don’t really get made anymore. I guess the closest equivalent would be a Marvel movie but name me a Marvel movie with as palpable as a movie romance as Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz’s Rick and Evelyn. I’ll save you the brain power, there isn’t one. Before you go on a date, make sure the person likes The Mummy. (Peacock)
10. Jurassic Park (1993)
dir. Steven Spielberg / USA / 127 minutes
cast: Wayne Knight, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, B.D. Wong
Not explicitly what I think of when I think of an “action movie” because it’s more about the wonder and excitement of the animatronic/CGI dinosaurs, but it does have some damn pulse-pounding sequences throughout. The raptor/child kitchen chase scene is fantastic, the famous one out in the mud, Newman getting a dino money shot to the eyes, etc. This is also the perfect movie to watch during summer, instead of going outside because it is far far far too hot. (Peacock)
9. Con Air (1997)
dir. Simon West / USA / 116 minutes
cast: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Colm Meaney, Dave Chappelle, Mykelti Williamson, Rachel Ticotin, Monica Potter, Angela Featherstone, Nick Chinlund, M.C. Gainey, Danny Trejo, Renoly Santiago, Steve Easten
Problematic to say the very least, Con Air may just be the closest a single movie has come to imitating pure uncut cocaine. It is a Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay production after all, Don Simpson had already died by this point of a massive drug overdose. Everyone is sweaty and hot and screaming, and the cuts come so quick, and the sound is so loud, and everyone is mean and shouting things that often make zero sense. The action sequences are spectacular and even if the whole thing is super implausible and the characters are less than likable, Con Air is so fascinating on the basis it even exists in the first place. This is a time capsule movie of what Hollywood was in the mid to late 90s, really this and Face/Off were the end of an era of action filmmaking. One thing you can never say about this borderline obnoxious, endlessly quotable big budget diarrhea fart is that it’s certainly not forgettable. You’ll remember this shit forever. (VOD)
8. Speed (1994)
dir. Jan de Bont / USA / 116 minutes
cast: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Daniels, Alan Ruck, Beth Grant, Joe Morton, Richard Lineback, Hawthorne James, Carlos Carrasco, Glenn Plummer
I feel like Speed is brought up in film classes on a regular basis. It’s basically a prototype of a perfectly paced crowd-pleaser action movie, wisely taking place (for the most part) in a single location that is moving fast and can’t stop. Keanu Reeves plays a very Keanu Reeves character as a hot shot cop who incurs the wrath of a real butthole of a terrorist (Dennis Hopper as a watered-down version of Dennis Hopper) when he saves a bunch of people from dying in an elevator. Months later, the terrorist rigs a public bus to explode if it ever goes slower than 50mph. So, Keanu Reeves must hop aboard the speeding public transport machine and disarm the bomb with the help of Sandra Bullock who plays a woman forced to ride the bus because she’s such a bad driver. Of course, she ends up in the driver’s seat of the bus, because this is a movie! Action films have changed quite a bit from 1994, but I haven’t seen a single one in 2023 that’s as fun and inspired as Speed. Another Reeves-led action picture, John Wick 4, came close though. (Hulu)
7. The Fugitive (1993)
dir. Andrew Davis / USA / 131 minutes
cast: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pantoliano, Jeroen Krabbé, Daniel Roebuck, L. Scott Caldwell, Sela Ward, Julianne Moore, Jane Lynch, Richard Riehle
Maybe more of a thriller than an action film, but there are a handful of amazing action sequences to be had in Andrew Davis’ stunning adaptation of the popular TV series by the same name – The Fugitive. Harrison Ford plays a rich white doctor with a heart of gold who gets framed for murdering his wife and subsequently gets sent to prison to face the gas chamber. Desperate to find out who really did kill his wife, and maybe not die by choking to death on poisonous gas, he escapes a prison transport bus and travels back to his hometown of Chicago to reveal his wife’s actual killer. Tommy Lee Jones deservedly won an Oscar for playing the tough but fair US Marshall tasked with capturing the escaped Harrison Ford. “I don’t care”, Jones tells Ford when he insists that he didn’t kill his wife. He’s just doing his job. By making the dude trying to capture Ford not a bad guy at all, the movie allows you to empathize with both the cat and the mouse in this scenario. This along with Candyman, Home Alone and a few more, is a definitive Chicago movie. (Tubi)
6. Point Break (1991)
dir. Kathryn Bigelow / USA / 122 minutes
cast: Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty, Gary Busey, John C. McGinley, James Le Gros, Josh Philbin, Lee Tergesen, BoJesse Christopher
Kathryn Bigelow is one of the best action filmmakers to ever live and famous for being the first woman director to win the Oscar. Point Break was her first moderate box office success, a beautifully choreographed and endearingly stupid bromance between a bank robbing surfer (Patrick Swayze) and an undercover cop (Keanu Reeves) trying to bring him down. There a few foot chase scenes in this movie that are just edge-of-your-seat thrill rides, and Keanu Reeves is so flat it almost serves as performance art within the film. Add in Gary Busey as a very Busey-esque senior cop, a health-obsessed, always shouting John C. McGinley as the cops’ boss and Lori Petty as the Anybodys of surfing, and you got yourself one of the best action movies of the 90s. (Tubi)
5. Face/Off (1997)
dir. John Woo / USA / 138 minutes
cast: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon, Dominque Swain, Nick Cassavetes, Harve Presnell, Colm Feore, Robert Wisdom, CCH Pounder, Margaret Cho, John Carroll Lynch, Matt Ross, Thomas Jane, Tommy Flanagan, Kirk Baltz, the rapist from That 70s Show
One of my go-to comfort movies is John Woo’s gorgeously bizarre, overstuffed, would-be kabuki theater project about an FBI agent (John Travolta) and an international terrorist (Nicolas Cage) swapping faces to stop a major terrorist attack in Los Angeles. This is Woo’s best American film because for 138 minutes it never lets up, it’s wall to wall, insane entertainment with moments so ridiculous you’ll chortle for days. It’s basically a whole movie where John Travolta is doing a Nicolas Cage impersonation and Nicolas Cage is doing a Nicolas Cage impersonation. Nuckin’ futs! (Showtime)
4. Hard Boiled (1992)
dir. John Woo / Hong Kong / 128 minutes
cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Anthony Wong, Teresa Mo, Philip Chan Yan-Kim, Philip Kwok Chun-Fung, Kwan Hoi-San, Stephen Tung Wai, Bowie Lam
Woo’s best overall film is his Hong Kong-set, relentless shoot-em-up and likely inspiration for the John Wick franchise, Hard Boiled. Chow Yun-Fat plays Inspector Tequila, a cop who lives to fuck up Triad assholes. He teams up with an undercover cop (Wong Kar Wai’s muse, Tony Leung Chiu-wai) to turn a hospital into a shooting gallery. The plot is whatever in this movie, but the action is just non-stop and pulse-pounding. Can I say relentless again? Oh no, I’ve used it in this article a million times. Also, very artistic and I guess a bit of a novelty when compared to typical American action pictures. The third act in particular made me go “Ooooooohhhhhhhhh.” (VOD)
3. The Matrix (1999)
dir. Lilly & Lana Wachowski / USA / 136 minutes
cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie Ann-Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Marcus Chong, Anthony Ray Parker, Matt Doran, Gloria Foster, Belinda McClory, Paul Goddard, Robert Taylor, Julian Arahanga
The last great action film of 1990s and one of the most influential movies ever made. This triggered so many garbage imitators that maybe I should have left it off the list out of spite, but it’s not The Matrix’s fault everyone wanted to be her. The Wachowskis repurpose a bunch of cool techniques from their first movie, Bound, as well as some new tricks. It’s a great concept executed exceptionally well and populated by three central characters to really have legs. It was followed by two early 2000s sequels that totally sucked and one very meta 2021 sequel that was actually very good. (Max)
2. Heat (1995)
dir. Michael Mann / USA / 170 minutes
cast: Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Tom Sizemore, Natalie Portman, Kevin Gage, Danny Trejo, Jon Voight, Henry Rollins, Dennis Haysbert, Hank Azaria, William Fichtner, Tom Noonan, Jeremy Piven, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Mykelti Williamson, Tone Loc, Ricky Harris, Xander Berkeley
The biggest debate I had with myself while prepping this list was whether to include Heat, which is more of a crime thriller than an action movie, or not. Then I thought, well, this crime thriller has the best bank robbery scene (which is action!) ever committed to film, so how the heck could I leave it off? Pacino and DeNiro play an LA cop and an intelligent crook caught in a tricky cat-and-mouse game with each other in this nearly 3-hour but never-dull epic that, if anything, could have been longer. If Heat had been made today, it probably would have been a Netflix or HBO miniseries. Still, it’s a remarkable piece of modern noir filmmaking and celebrated director and apparent WGA strike condemner Michael Mann’s most outstanding work. Maybe don’t watch this during the writer’s strike.(Netflix)
1. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
dir. James Cameron / USA / 137 minutes
cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Earl Boen, Jenette Goldstein, Xander Berkeley, S. Epatha Merkerson, Dean Norris
There’s a healthy argument to be made for James Cameron‘s vastly superior follow-up to his already great 80s sci-fi classic, The Terminator, being the greatest action movie ever made. It’s not an opinion I share, but T2 definitely is in the top 5, maybe even top 3. Here, Cameron wisely flips the script and makes Schwarzenegger the hero, an intensely lovable one too. The effects were groundbreaking when the film was released during summer of ’91, but they still hold up today. This movie looks better than most Marvel movies and I’m sure James Cameron would be the first person to tell you that. (Netflix)
Margetis Movie Reviews 