There’s a reason action movies are so popular. The best action movies can thrill you with a dazzling combination of car chases, fight scenes, and special effects. The best action movies can also, and this is important, be wonderfully dumb. Indeed, the plot of an action movie is typically fairly unimportant, as long as the set pieces that get you from sequence to sequence are compelling enough.
If you’re looking for some great action, you don’t need to look much further than these, which are some of the best action movies on Amazon Prime. Whether your goal is to find something gritty and realistic or something completely silly but joyous nonetheless, Prime has plenty of great movies to choose from.
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For more great action movies, you can check out the best action movies on Netflix or the best action movies on Hulu.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
45%
6.5/10
138m
Genre
Action, Science Fiction, Adventure
Stars
Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons
Directed by
Chris McKay
Watch on Amazon
an Amazon Original release that delivers all of the over-the-top action and explosions it promises, The Tomorrow War is a whole lot of fun but might not be a great choice if you’re looking for a thought-provoking film. The movie follows a group of time travelers from 2051 that arrive in the present, and they proceed to recruit whoever is able and willing to fight a war against an alien species that is smarter, faster, stronger, and scarier than any other threat to humans. The Tomorrow War isn’t a smart movie, exactly, but it’s tons of fun.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)
7.7/10
115m
Genre
Action, Adventure
Stars
Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Lo Lieh, John Cheung Ng-Long
Directed by
Liu Chia-Liang
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When the Manchu government destroys his school, ravages his town, and kills his father, San Te (Chia-Hui Liu) travels to a Shaolin temple to learn the ways of Shaolin Kung Fu and be at peace. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin tears through the plot at an incredible pace, and manages to get to the kung fu training in just 30 minutes of runtime. After finally getting to the temple, he is — after some resistance — admitted as a monk for training. The rest of the film is focused solely on kung fu and the 35 chambers one must pass to become a master, training the wrists, shoulders, legs, eyes, mind, and so forth, all one chamber at a time. Besides its naturalistic feeling and fantastic story, this film has some classic-styled fight scenes that are timeless, cementing it as one of the best kung fu movies ever.
Highlander (1986)
116m
Genre
Adventure, Action, Fantasy
Stars
Christopher Lambert, Roxanne Hart, Clancy Brown
Directed by
Russell Mulcahy
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A combination of high fantasy and grounded action is what ultimately made Highlander such an overwhelming triumph. The film tells the story of a pair of detectives who find themselves caught in the middle of a centuries-old battle between eternal beings, and what allowed Highlander to become a fairly successful franchise is the way it made its more fantastical elements feel approachable to a broad audience. This is decades before Lord of the Rings, but even in the 1980s, Highlander was already making fantasy cool.
The Wave (2019)
87m
Genre
Science Fiction
Stars
Justin Long, Tommy Flanagan, Katia Winter
Directed by
Gille Klabin
Watch on Amazon
When you look at Justin Long, you probably don’t think of him as the ideal leading man for an action movie. Even so, The Wave makes a compelling case for Long as an action comedy star. The movie follows his character as he’s dosed with a powerful and mysterious hallucinogen and begins experiencing intense hallucinations that he can’t totally explain. The Wave is fairly trippy, but its confident visual style helps it pull off even some of the more outlandish things that our central character sees as he’s riding the wave of his high.
Sicario (2015)
122m
Genre
Action, Crime, Thriller
Stars
Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin
Directed by
Denis Villeneuve
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Denis Villeneuve is now regarded as one of the best directors in the world, and you could argue that the first time he leveled up was with Sicario. Telling a sprawling story about the modern U.S. war on drugs, the movie stars Emily Blunt as a naive FBI agent who is recruited to join the U.S. war on drugs before she even understands what she’s signed up for. From there, she’s taken on an odyssey where she realizes that nobody’s motivations are as pure as they might seem.
Darkman (1990)
95m
Genre
Action, Science Fiction, Thriller
Stars
Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels
Directed by
Sam Raimi
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Sam Raimi’s first attempt at a superhero movie came a full decade before he made Spider-Man, and Darkman is a lot weirder than those films were allowed to be. Starring a young Liam Neeson as a chemist who creates synthetic skin and finds himself horribly disfigured after he is attacked, the movie chronicles his quest for revenge. Although it doesn’t have the budget of his later superhero movies, Darkman is nonetheless a pretty thrilling journey that has a dark, cynical core and the kind of impeccable style that you might expect from Raimi.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
164m
Genre
Action, Thriller
Stars
Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames
Directed by
Christopher McQuarrie
Watch on Amazon
Every Mission: Impossible movie is worth watching for one reason or another, but Dead Reckoning features some of the most thrilling stunt work in the entire franchise. On top of that, the movie also features plenty of scenic locations, a brilliant performance from Hayley Atwell, and strangely, a lot of close-up magic. Dead Reckoning is ostensibly about Ethan Hunt facing off against a faceless artificial intelligence hell-bent on world domination. In reality, though, the movie is about watching Tom Cruise do insanely dangerous things, like drive his motorcycle off a cliff.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
111m
Genre
Action, Crime
Stars
Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox
Directed by
Quentin Tarantino
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Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to the action cinema of previous generations, both volumes of Kill Bill are well worth watching, but the first is especially impressive. Telling the story of a former assassin who was left for dead by the love of her life on their wedding day, the movie follows her quest for vengeance against everyone who had a role in her death. Vol. 1 culminates in one of the most impressive final action sequences you’ve likely ever scene, and is anchored by one of the best performances of Uma Thurman’s career.
Gladiator (2000)
155m
Genre
Action, Drama, Adventure
Stars
Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen
Directed by
Ridley Scott
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Ridley Scott’s Roman epic tells the story of a general who is betrayed by the son of the emperor, and battles his way into the gladiatorial arena in order to get his revenge. The various sequences of gladiatorial combat are one of the best reasons to check this movie out, but equally great are the moments where we see Joaquin Phoenix’s sniveling emperor grasping for more power. Russell Crowe delivers the kind of leading man performance that feels rare in Hollywood these days, and Gladiator is great in part because it feels like a full meal.
Snowpiercer (2013)
127m
Genre
Action, Science Fiction, Drama
Stars
Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, John Hurt
Directed by
Bong Joon-ho
Watch on Amazon
Bong Joon-ho’s English-language action epic, Snowpiercer is set in a dystopian future in which all of humanity is living on a train that is in perpetual travel around the earth. The train is organized by class, with those in the back forced to scavenge for whatever is left from those in front of them. When those in that lower class decide to organize a revolt, they find that the origins of the train they’re on are more complicated than they imagined. Along the way, though, they also do lots of pretty incredible fighting, and that fighting is more than worth the price of admission.
