Face/Off, The Rock, Con Air. They are tied because they are all fantastic action movies starring Our Greatest Living Actor and they each have their own moments that make them spectacular.
john mctiernan on top form, a great build-up structure to the script, great walk on characters - 'send in the car' etc, a classy combination of high tension and laughs.
@paulmako: it's an expression, if someone's a die hard it means they don't give up.
For pure choreographed action Hard Boiled. Woo reused a lot of stunts and tricks from his earlier films in Face/Off and Hard Target. There's nothing like the warehouse or the single shot hallway gunfight in any of John Woo's Hollywood stuff.
For dumb 80's action. I love Commando, Lethal Weapon 2 is incredible, but First Blood Part II has everything... It's easily my favourite action movie of that era.
The Rock is like the greatest action movie if you see it as a teenager. Rewatching it recently my biggest criticism of it is how boring most of the gunfights in it are. It's a super fun movie with lots of big dumb stuff going on, but any time there's a shootout not in a shower room it's just dudes occasionally popping out of cover... The shower scene is incredible.
Okay good multiple people have already said Commando. Commando is like the purest distillation of everything that makes action movies hilarious and excellent.
I'm very partial to The Raid 1 and 2. Also 2012s Dredd movie was fucking fantastic. The two movies are actually pretty similar but in a good way, The Raid goes into a tower and punches everybody to death, and Dredd goes into a tower and shoots everybody to death, great modern action movies.
For all the shit they get, The Matrix movies had some amazing fight scenes, I loved the flowing dance like nature of it all.
what the hell?! Expendables trilogy! If you drink a protein shake, and sit down and watch all 3 in a row, you gain 15% muscle mass, your voice drops three octaves, and you instantly gain a plus 4 to mean mugging people who look/act like terrorists!
Okay now, guys... let's drop the pretense. We all know Street Fighter: The Movie is the greatest. We don't need to use code names like "Face/Off" or "Die Hard" when we all know what movie we're REALLY talking about.
Die Hard, Terminator 2, The Matrix, Hard Boiled, The Killer, and now The Raid 1 and 2 are all in the upper echelon of the all-time greatest action movies. Among others, of course. These are just the first to spring to mind.
Seriously, if you haven't seen The Raid 2, go do yourself a huge fucking favor and watch this epic masterpiece of action cinema. Still the best movie to come out this year.
I'd have to say Die Hard. I didn't watch Die Hard until at least I was in my early 20's and I must say that film has easily moved up as my top 5 all-time favorite films. You can hate me for saying this but on my top 5 I also have Schindler's List and hands down Die Hard tops Schindler's.
@phili151: I ripped my DVD a long time ago, it sits on my NAS as Face Off, since you can't have the slash in the file name. I've long forgotten it had that slash. If the slash is in the intro of the movie when the title comes up, I've never noticed it because of Cage's swank glasses and moustache.
I Would throw down on Die Hard, the original. The action keeps ramping up as you go on. it's a great ride.
It seems like people are forgetting Jackie Chan as a great action movie star. With that I would submit to ya'll The Legend of Drunken Master and Who am I?The Fight Choreography is top notch, and for the most part, all done naturally (every Chan movie has those sweet outtakes at the end showing how much he abused his body for a good scene).
I do agree with most of the other submissions. I thought I'd add a couple more to the list.
Honorable mention to the Bourne movies(identity and supremacy specifically), don't know if they qualify as action, I love em' though, some James Bond stuff are great action movies as well, but nothing beats the Predator for me.
The Rock is too good a movie to count as an action movie, ditto The Matrix and Terminator 2. I'm gonna say Commando - it's just the right amount of good to be the best action movie, without being so good that it stops counting.
When people ask this question it really seems that they are actually asking, "which is you favorite Die Hard inspired action movie?" No harm there, but Die Hard inevitably is the most important of that tone of action movie. Big Trouble in Little China, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, Naked Killer, From Russia With Love, Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro, and Akira are other fun kinds of action movies that I'd like to throw my hat in for.
I don't know what people are saying die hard for, there's like barely 20 minutes of fighting in that movie and its not even that well done. Its pretty hard to compete with the Matrix as a movie but in pure action i'd say that Raid 1 takes the cake. Feels much more edgy, especially mad dog, I think I will never forget his face when he is attacking so relentlessly. I'd say that after the first 5 minutes there's not even 3 minutes of break time without something action-y happening.
Also expendables 1&2 are some of the worst action movies i've ever seen, its only popular because of the cast... its not even funny.
For pure choreographed action Hard Boiled. Woo reused a lot of stunts and tricks from his earlier films in Face/Off and Hard Target. There's nothing like the warehouse or the single shot hallway gunfight in any of John Woo's Hollywood stuff.
Hard boiled is amazing, i would go with die hard too, and of the recent ones i would pick any of the raid films, and i just saw john wick and that movie is really good
Die Hard with T2 a very close second. VERY close. The Rock after that. Others in the top 10 are Commando, The Raid 2, Aliens, Cobra. I'd have to think on the rest.
Lots of 80-90s classics here, and they are great. For me it’s Starship Troopers (no one made or will make a movie like that at least for the next decade or two). But if i would want to pick action movie, based solely on the quality of action, there is no better movie than The Raid 2: Berandal. 2 and a half hour long movie, that never had me bored and left me wanting even more (story too!). The choreography, camera angles but mostly its "rawness". You can almost physically feel every punch and broken bone.
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