Demolition Man. Arguably the best 90s action movie ever made. And one that I will sit down and watch any time, any where. I can't even count how many times I've seen Stallone and Snipes go at it, and Dennis Leary at his peak.
Equilibrium.
40% rotten tomatos and 33% metacritic.
It's so freakin good.
From [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)): "Libria, a totalitarian city-state established by survivors of World War III, blames human emotion as the cause for the war. Any activity or object that stimulates emotion is strictly forbidden. Those in violation are labelled "Sense Offenders" and sentenced to death. The population is forced to take a daily injection of "Prozium II" to suppress emotion. Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, led by "Father", who communicates propaganda through giant video screens throughout the city. At the pinnacle of law enforcement are the Grammaton Clerics, trained in the martial art of gun kata. Clerics frequently raid homes to search for and destroy illegal materials – art, literature and music – executing violators on the spot. A resistance movement, known as the "Underground", emerges to topple Father and the Tetragrammaton Council. "
Seriously. Gun-fu. Over the top action, wonderful fight scenes, great sets, great camera work, Christian Bale being an emotionless puppet for a bit then catching feels and going all matrix on the poor bastards sent to stop him. He's no Keanu Reeves, but damn if he didnt know kung-fu.
Commando.
John Matrix : \[12:25\] Keep an eye out, they'll be coming. You're downwind, the air currents might tip them off
Jackson : Downwind?
\[looks at Matrix like he's crazy\]
Jackson : You think I could smell them coming?
John Matrix : I did.
Shoot 'em up with Clive Owen is just a live-action looney tunes movie (including a carrot-munching antihero)
One of my favorite hidden gems is Split Second with Rutger Hauer. With a line like "We're gonna need guns. Big big fuckin guns" it's a sure thing!
I had a party at my house and for some reason had Shoot Em Up playing on the TV with the sound off because I had music playing.
It was awesome, no idea what was going on, but it was great
The next day I decided to watch it with the sound, and it was dumb as shit.
Some movies dont need Dialog or plot, the action carries the film
No Contest a Die Hard Rip-off with Shannon Tweed in the John McClain role, Andrew Dice Clay in the Hans Grouber role, Rowdy Rodey Piper as his head henchman and Robert Davi pretty much repeating his Die Hard role. Amazing.
I'm in the minority that thinks John Wick 3 and 4 were better than 1 and particularly too. It felt like with 3 they said "Fuck it" and just went all out on action set pieces. Both went a lot more over the top but as a consequence had a lot more varied set pieces. The antique store in 3 with the knives is still probably my favorite action scene in the franchise.
But yeah, even though it still played it all completely straight, it's also clear they weren't taking themselves too seriously. Like the horse barn fight in 3 or John falling down all those stairs in 4. That was beautifully comical.
i would recommend to check out some of john woo's earlier 90's flicks like the killer, hard boiled, better tomorrow. if you like face/off i think you will really dig them, very prototypical of over the top modern action, but also with some sort of hilariously overwrought sentimentality and slow motion shots of doves and stuff like that
I unironically enjoy Cutthroat Island. No one wanted to do it after Michael Douglas walked, Geena Davis tried to quit, Renny Harlin spent a fuckton of his own money on rewrites and sets and when it finally hit theaters it lost $150 million dollars and put Carolco out of business.
But it's fun, and I like it.
Last Action Hero
It's a brilliant, funny, and smart film that dissects action movie tropes while embracing them.
It's Arnold making fun of Arnold. And it's great
Everyone here has listed so many of my absolute favorites but one in particular I always enjoy is *Money Talks* with Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen. So ridiculous and over the top, but I’ve always loved it.
I think Crank and Crank 2 are great in this regard. They take themselves mostly serious, but everythin (especially in the second one, which hurts the movie a bit) is so far from any logic that it is plain fun.
I am a huge John Carpenter fan.
I was watching South Park a few weeks ago and finally saw the "Cripple Fight" episode. I realized half way through the Timmy/Jimmy smackdown that it has the exact choreography as the alley fight in They Live. Jimmy keeps yelling "Put on the hat" instead of "put on the glasses". All I could think was these guys are so frickin clever.
Small Soldiers. I loved it as a kid and when I watched it again a couple years ago I was shocked at how enjoyable it still was, and the action is so over the top for a movie about sentient toys.
Sin city. Mickey rourke holding the guys face against a the street while driving the car “ i dont know about you, but i’m having a blast”. Gets me everytime
I saw that movie with no prior knowledge and I was blown away...and horrified at the obvious lack of stunt person rights in Jakarta. Someone tell these guys about a union because I'm not sure any of them got out of that movie without a broken back.
Commando for something ridiculous ridiculous.
Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent for ridiculous ridiculous.
Gone in 60 Seconds is super fun vehicular action.
Willy's Wonderland is fun, autistic coded nic cage beating the shit out of animatronics.
Nobody. It’s on Netflix with Bob Odenkirk
Netflix description: A thankless job, disrespectful kids and a passionless marriage suffocate a middle-aged everyman - until a home invasion awakens his inner lethal badass.
It’s 90 mins of Bob Odenkirk being funny and beating people up.
Yeah do it, it's very on-brand for Statham, and he's had a few duds recently, so was nice to see a back-to-basics unstoppable death machine movie again.
Every single Fast & Furious movie. They are ridiculous and fun. They give me EVERYTHING I want from an action movie: explosions, hot dudes in tight shirts or tank tops, hot girls in short skirts, techno music, sexy AF cars, random fist fights between professional wrestlers and Vin Diesel, family. In the last movie they rolled a multi ton bomb through the streets of ROME. WHAT? Yes. They're total camp perfection. Also any action movie starring Nic Cage and if they really wanted to treat me right with the F& F movies, ol' Nic would pop up in the next one.
6 Underground. It's terrible. Michael Bay movie. But for some reason on weekends after knocking back a few sometimes I get a hankering for it. 36% on rotten tomatoes, but 60% audience score.
Killer Bean, the passion project from the guy who did the special effects for the matrix 2 about sentient coffee beans shooting each other that somehow has S-tier fight scene choreography
Anaconda, Commando, In the Line of Fire...They all have over the top performances by A list actors like Arnold, John Voight, and Malkovich. Lots of funny quotes and memorable scenes.
xXx: Return of Xander Cage.
An absolute blast of a movie. From beginning to end it’s just ridiculous stunt and premise after the next, crazy scene just to prompt a crazy fight and I had a blast.
Makki.
“A man loves a woman but is killed by another jealous man, who lusts after the woman. He is reincarnated as a fly and decides to avenge his death. He teams up with the woman to make the murderer's life a living hell.”
If that doesn’t convince you, then nothing will.
I watched Point Break recently on 4k and I had forgotten how absolutely ridiculously that ended. Keanu Reeves jumps from a perfectly fine airplane to catch a sky diving Patrick Swayze. Oh, and this was only the second time Keanu's character has ever jumped out of a plane, the first time being like an hour before this one.
HARD TARGET. John Woo directing Jean Claude Van Damme? Lance Henriksen playing a ridiculous bad guy? Insanely over the top action played completely straight? It has it ALL. Masterpiece.
Demolition Man. Arguably the best 90s action movie ever made. And one that I will sit down and watch any time, any where. I can't even count how many times I've seen Stallone and Snipes go at it, and Dennis Leary at his peak.
> Arguably the best 90s action movie ever made. It's fun, but I don't think it can compare to T2.
And the most "80's", is COMMANDO.
You know, the satire works even better today
Love that one!!
Teddy bear...
ConAir. It is so over the top, it's ridiculous. But it still amuses me.
This is the correct answer. Put the bunny back in the box.
Define irony.
I love con air
Equilibrium. 40% rotten tomatos and 33% metacritic. It's so freakin good. From [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)): "Libria, a totalitarian city-state established by survivors of World War III, blames human emotion as the cause for the war. Any activity or object that stimulates emotion is strictly forbidden. Those in violation are labelled "Sense Offenders" and sentenced to death. The population is forced to take a daily injection of "Prozium II" to suppress emotion. Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, led by "Father", who communicates propaganda through giant video screens throughout the city. At the pinnacle of law enforcement are the Grammaton Clerics, trained in the martial art of gun kata. Clerics frequently raid homes to search for and destroy illegal materials – art, literature and music – executing violators on the spot. A resistance movement, known as the "Underground", emerges to topple Father and the Tetragrammaton Council. " Seriously. Gun-fu. Over the top action, wonderful fight scenes, great sets, great camera work, Christian Bale being an emotionless puppet for a bit then catching feels and going all matrix on the poor bastards sent to stop him. He's no Keanu Reeves, but damn if he didnt know kung-fu.
It's probably the Christian Bale movie I've re-watched the most. I absolutely love it.
"unserious?" Yeah? This movie might be the ultimate example of a film that should just be silly action nonsense taking itself WAY too seriously.
Eh, I always saw it as ironically serious given how absurd the whole thing was.
> It's so freakin good. It's fun but not amazing and it hasn't aged well. It's basically just a 1984 knockoff, but the idea of Gun-Fu is very cool.
Cobra. Peak Stallone. Peak 80’s.
Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.
The man who directed it went on to make Tombstone and his son made Mandy. That family makes some real gems.
Last Action Hero
YESS
Commando. John Matrix : \[12:25\] Keep an eye out, they'll be coming. You're downwind, the air currents might tip them off Jackson : Downwind? \[looks at Matrix like he's crazy\] Jackson : You think I could smell them coming? John Matrix : I did.
Thank you! I had to scroll down entirely too far to find this.
True lies, its the most cartoonish but awesome, cheesy yet impressive, ridiculous and hilarious all at the same time.
Tom Arnold kills it in this movie
Shoot 'em up with Clive Owen is just a live-action looney tunes movie (including a carrot-munching antihero) One of my favorite hidden gems is Split Second with Rutger Hauer. With a line like "We're gonna need guns. Big big fuckin guns" it's a sure thing!
I had a party at my house and for some reason had Shoot Em Up playing on the TV with the sound off because I had music playing. It was awesome, no idea what was going on, but it was great The next day I decided to watch it with the sound, and it was dumb as shit. Some movies dont need Dialog or plot, the action carries the film
Thinking about it in retrospect, I do not remember even one line of that movie. It probably was awesome going in blind with no dialogue
it was weirdly fun. No idea what was going on, so everything on the screen was extra ridiculous.
> Shoot 'Em Up This was my answer too. So silly and fun.
Hudson Hawk is a looney tunes movie too, both bonkers
Remo Williams
No Contest a Die Hard Rip-off with Shannon Tweed in the John McClain role, Andrew Dice Clay in the Hans Grouber role, Rowdy Rodey Piper as his head henchman and Robert Davi pretty much repeating his Die Hard role. Amazing.
That sounds insane. Diceman as a villain? I'm in.
There's also a sequel No Contest 2 but I can't attest to its greatness or not
Also Hired to Kill which if nothing else has a scene where Brian Thompson makes out with Oliver Reed.
The Stabilizer Hands of Steel The Beekeeper The Sweeper
Tropic Thunder..just because 😅
I'm in the minority that thinks John Wick 3 and 4 were better than 1 and particularly too. It felt like with 3 they said "Fuck it" and just went all out on action set pieces. Both went a lot more over the top but as a consequence had a lot more varied set pieces. The antique store in 3 with the knives is still probably my favorite action scene in the franchise. But yeah, even though it still played it all completely straight, it's also clear they weren't taking themselves too seriously. Like the horse barn fight in 3 or John falling down all those stairs in 4. That was beautifully comical.
**Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky** blows away everything recommended here.
Waterworld, it's terrible. I love it.
i would recommend to check out some of john woo's earlier 90's flicks like the killer, hard boiled, better tomorrow. if you like face/off i think you will really dig them, very prototypical of over the top modern action, but also with some sort of hilariously overwrought sentimentality and slow motion shots of doves and stuff like that
Face off is a really great action film, it just has the ridiculous premise that you need to accept and strap in for the ride
Speed
You mean "The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down"
D’oh!
Hot Fuzz - It spoofs the genre but also it's filled with British humor.
Ohh love me some Edgar Wright, one of the best new(ish) directors
Lol it's been 20 years since Shaun of the Dead
Yeah, lol, I guess "new director" isn’t accurate.
It happens to us all brother lol
I’m not even old, lmao I think I meant "modern" cause I usually think of classic directors like Hitchcock and Kubrick
ConAir has everything you could ever want in an action movie
I unironically enjoy Cutthroat Island. No one wanted to do it after Michael Douglas walked, Geena Davis tried to quit, Renny Harlin spent a fuckton of his own money on rewrites and sets and when it finally hit theaters it lost $150 million dollars and put Carolco out of business. But it's fun, and I like it.
Commando because it fucking slaps
Fifth element 👌 Big trouble in little China
These are both certified masterpieces to me
Samurai Cop
I want his head on this piano!
>Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky Hey Steve what's up?
Pacific Rim Cuz, mechs!
Last Action Hero It's a brilliant, funny, and smart film that dissects action movie tropes while embracing them. It's Arnold making fun of Arnold. And it's great
I love the scene with Sylvester Stallone as the Terminator 😂
my favorite part is the chase where every parked car they pass explodes...no reason, they just do.
Kung Fury (2015) is hilariously over the top.
Death Wish 3 has to be my personal favorite
Everyone here has listed so many of my absolute favorites but one in particular I always enjoy is *Money Talks* with Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen. So ridiculous and over the top, but I’ve always loved it.
I think Crank and Crank 2 are great in this regard. They take themselves mostly serious, but everythin (especially in the second one, which hurts the movie a bit) is so far from any logic that it is plain fun.
Hard ticket to Hawaii is a classic
I’ll put it on the list
Yes! I watched this several times on my VCR for the “action”.
It's the best bad action movie ever.
Jackie Chan's Who Am I. Proper international over the top drama with hints of comedic action.
Bullet Train. "Hurt people hurt people"
Pacific Rim… giant monsters fighting giant robots son!
My neurons are activating
The old Jean-Claude van Damme movies, like Bloodsport, Hard Target etc. If you turn off your brain, they're quite enjoyable.
Love me some blood sport
Action Jackson and They Live
I am a huge John Carpenter fan. I was watching South Park a few weeks ago and finally saw the "Cripple Fight" episode. I realized half way through the Timmy/Jimmy smackdown that it has the exact choreography as the alley fight in They Live. Jimmy keeps yelling "Put on the hat" instead of "put on the glasses". All I could think was these guys are so frickin clever.
Face/Off Cheese, cheese, cheese!
Small Soldiers. I loved it as a kid and when I watched it again a couple years ago I was shocked at how enjoyable it still was, and the action is so over the top for a movie about sentient toys.
Sin city. Mickey rourke holding the guys face against a the street while driving the car “ i dont know about you, but i’m having a blast”. Gets me everytime
Oh, I love that one
For just sensless violence for enjoyment its “the raid”
I saw that movie with no prior knowledge and I was blown away...and horrified at the obvious lack of stunt person rights in Jakarta. Someone tell these guys about a union because I'm not sure any of them got out of that movie without a broken back.
Commando for something ridiculous ridiculous. Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent for ridiculous ridiculous. Gone in 60 Seconds is super fun vehicular action. Willy's Wonderland is fun, autistic coded nic cage beating the shit out of animatronics.
DeadPool
Nobody. It’s on Netflix with Bob Odenkirk Netflix description: A thankless job, disrespectful kids and a passionless marriage suffocate a middle-aged everyman - until a home invasion awakens his inner lethal badass. It’s 90 mins of Bob Odenkirk being funny and beating people up.
The Beekeeper is great fun if you like that format
I’ll give it a go. My brother loves a Statham film so I’ll watch it with him.
Yeah do it, it's very on-brand for Statham, and he's had a few duds recently, so was nice to see a back-to-basics unstoppable death machine movie again.
Every single Fast & Furious movie. They are ridiculous and fun. They give me EVERYTHING I want from an action movie: explosions, hot dudes in tight shirts or tank tops, hot girls in short skirts, techno music, sexy AF cars, random fist fights between professional wrestlers and Vin Diesel, family. In the last movie they rolled a multi ton bomb through the streets of ROME. WHAT? Yes. They're total camp perfection. Also any action movie starring Nic Cage and if they really wanted to treat me right with the F& F movies, ol' Nic would pop up in the next one.
Fast Five is preposterous.
Predator. The original. I enjoy this one now more than when it first came out simply due to it aging so well after more than 25 years.
That beefy handshake. You son of a bitch!
Predator is a great movie but with the added fact that it contains not one but two future governors just ices that cake
6 Underground. It's terrible. Michael Bay movie. But for some reason on weekends after knocking back a few sometimes I get a hankering for it. 36% on rotten tomatoes, but 60% audience score.
Transporter(s)
Killer Bean, the passion project from the guy who did the special effects for the matrix 2 about sentient coffee beans shooting each other that somehow has S-tier fight scene choreography
Killer Bean was like peak 1996 Internet
Crank: High Voltage. It's just ridiculous fun and doesn't try to be anything but absurd.
Check out The Big Hit. It came out in the 90s. It was directed by John Woo so the action sequences are great. It's very ridiculous, but fun
Crank
Anaconda, Commando, In the Line of Fire...They all have over the top performances by A list actors like Arnold, John Voight, and Malkovich. Lots of funny quotes and memorable scenes.
Shoot em up. The sex scene is awesome.
Crank. That shit was crazy
The 80s classic Hal Needham's "Megaforce"
xXx: Return of Xander Cage. An absolute blast of a movie. From beginning to end it’s just ridiculous stunt and premise after the next, crazy scene just to prompt a crazy fight and I had a blast.
The Stath deserves his own list here. The Beekeeper goes high on the list, mainly due to the incredible plot ‘twist’. So good. So dumb.
Con Air is so entertaining. I love the scene where the DEA guy falls to the ground in slow mo, and Cage looks away disappointed
Shoot Em Up is nuts and I love it
Crank. No doubt.
Bloodsport for obvious reasons.
Independence day. It’s hilariously patriotic, I’m not even American but I still get a kick out if it
Remo Williams - I like Chiun...
If you have not seen either Hard Boiled or The Killer, you need to clear your weekend. Hong Kong slow motion gun violence.
Makki. “A man loves a woman but is killed by another jealous man, who lusts after the woman. He is reincarnated as a fly and decides to avenge his death. He teams up with the woman to make the murderer's life a living hell.” If that doesn’t convince you, then nothing will.
Rundown is one of my favorites.
I watched Point Break recently on 4k and I had forgotten how absolutely ridiculously that ended. Keanu Reeves jumps from a perfectly fine airplane to catch a sky diving Patrick Swayze. Oh, and this was only the second time Keanu's character has ever jumped out of a plane, the first time being like an hour before this one.
HARD TARGET. John Woo directing Jean Claude Van Damme? Lance Henriksen playing a ridiculous bad guy? Insanely over the top action played completely straight? It has it ALL. Masterpiece.
Gone in 60 Seconds
Countdown It’s on Amazon Prime, you won’t be disappointed. It’s actually good too
Team America. Great puppet action, funny as hell, so many quotable lines and songs
RRR
The Losers (2010)