The 73 best action movies of all time, according to critics

Critic score: 99%

Audience score: 94%

What critics said: "One action movie older movie audiences should love as much as younger ones." — Chicago Tribune

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 79%

What critics said: "The extreme and escalating violence will prove off-putting to some — frankly, I'm surprised not to have been among them — but for the rest, 'Drive' is a needle-punch of adrenaline to the aorta." — The Atlantic

Critic score: 95%

Audience score: 87%

What critics said: "The austerity of 'Hero' makes you realize how cluttered other action movies are." — Slate

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 81%

What critics said: "The web-slinging sequences are bigger-better-brighter-faster than the already spectacular ones in 2002's 'Spider-Man,' and at the same time, the film's smaller emotional moments are denser, richer and more resonant than those in the first." — Associated Press

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "The on-screen carnage established a new level in American movies, but few of the films that followed in its wake could duplicate Peckinpah's depth of feeling." — Chicago Reader

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "The on-screen carnage established a new level in American movies, but few of the films that followed in its wake could duplicate Peckinpah's depth of feeling." — Chicago Reader

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "Pops your eyes, excites your senses and brings you in as close as a whisper for scenes of startling emotion." — Rolling Stone

Critic score: 95%

Audience score: 87%

What critics said: "'Apollo 13,' Ron Howard's soaring salute to space exploration, lifts off with a payload of the right stuff-courage, can-do, grace under pressure and other qualities derided as machismo by some and applauded as old-fashioned values by others." — The Washington Post

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 83%

What critics said: "Standing at the pinnacle of the series, 'From Russia with Love' shows how good a Bond film can be when all the ingredients mesh." — ReelViews

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "Pure escape and good, clean, unadulterated fun." — New York Daily News

Critic score: 95%

Audience score: 96%

What critics said: "'Raiders of the Lost Ark' has it all — or, anyway, more than enough to transport moviegoers back to the dazzling, thrill-sated matinee idyls of old." — Time

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 79%

What critics said: "Generously exciting, 'In the Line of Fire' is mercifully free of that artificial energy that makes so many new movies look as if they were created with steroids." — Newsweek

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 82%

What critics said: "An entertaining piece of tongue-in-cheek action hokum." — Variety

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 93%

What critics said: "A stirring drama of World War II, in which Spiegel has had the excellent help of British director David Lean, in charge of the action, and of a fine company of international players." — New York Daily News

Critic score: 90%

Audience score: 88%

What critics said: "This just might be the most engrossing, the smartest and the most daring 'Apes' movie ever put on film." — RichardRoeper.com

Critic score: 89%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "See it in 3-D IMAX, people, and you're in for the hallucinatory headtrip of the year. And having Cumberbatch around really raises the bar on what's possible in comic-book fantasy." — Rolling Stone

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "A great action movie, exhilarating and neatly crafted, the kind of picture that will still look good 20 or 30 years from now." — Salon

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 75%

What critics said: "Skillfully performed and welcomely unpredictable, this low-budget crime film, made by actor turned director Carl Franklin, starts out as a herky-jerky exploitation piece, then turns into something better." — The New Yorker

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 85%

What critics said: "Miller's choreography of his innumerable vehicles is so extraordinary that it makes Spielberg's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' look like a kid fooling with Dinky Toys." — Time Out

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 85%

What critics said: "Thoroughly engaging, edge-of-the-seat entertainment." — Philadelphia Inquirer

Critic score: 97%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "It's rare to find a film that satisfies our craving for pop while giving us the transcendence of poetry." — New York Magazine

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 90%

What critics said: "Moviegoers seeking a grand yet edifying entertainment, right-stuffed with what Kaufman calls 'seriousness of subject matter and a wild humor that comes out of left field,' now know where to look." — Time

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 89%

What critics said: "A terse, lean terror with a big, swinging tail." — Dallas Morning News

Critic score: 90%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "Ambitious, even audacious, the movie's mix of action and for-devotees-only intrigue can overwhelm, but there are moments of sheer virtuosity, too." — Philadelphia Inquirer

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 82%

What critics said: "Rian Johnson's third and most ambitious feature keeps the action popping while sustaining interest in the long arc of a story about a man assigned to kill the 30-years-older version of himself." — The Hollywood Reporter

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "McCarthy's ferocious tale gives the Coens room to unleash their cinematic gifts." — The New Republic

Critic score: 95%

Audience score: 95%

What critics said: "Part two is more a straight-ahead action flick, substituting brawn and brawling for the pastoral radiance of the first film." — Associated Press

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 85%

What critics said: "It has a screenplay of freshness and audacity that's brought to life by a director who understands its every psychological undercurrent. We might hope this kind of thing would happen all the time, but it's rare." — San Francisco Chronicle

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 80%

What critics said: "Mr. Carpenter is an extremely resourceful director whose ability to construct films entirely out of action and movement suggests that he may one day be a director to rank with Don Siegel." — The New York Times

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 89%

What critics said: "Now I'm glad they didn't euthanize James Bond, because 'Casino Royale' is the best movie of the series in almost 40 years." — Seattle Times

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "This is a hard-hitting item, ably directed, splendidly lensed, neatly acted, which has all the ingredients wanted by action fans and then some." — Variety

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 95%

What critics said: "One of the cinema's greatest works, a film of true tragic vision." — Chicago Tribune

Critic score: 97%

Audience score: 89%

What critics said: "Like 'Doctor No' and 'From Russia with Love,' the two previous Bond bombshells, this picture is a thriller exuberantly travestied." — Time

Critic score: 97%

Audience score: 88%

What critics said: "This movie is an exception to the general rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy." — Chicago Sun-Times

Critic score: 95%

Audience score: 95%

What critics said: "The final scene, in which Kubrick presents close-ups of soldiers watching a captured German girl being forced to sing for their pleasure is nothing short of masterful." — Time Out

Critic score: 91%

Audience score: 92%

What critics said: "'Guardians of the Galaxy' does the impossible. Through dazzle and dumb luck, it turns the clichés of comic-book films on their idiot heads and hits you like an exhilarating blast of fun-fun-fun." — Rolling Stone

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 87%

What critics said: "A surprisingly apt companion piece to 'Paths of Glory' in its consideration of the mechanisms of power." — Time Out

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "Not just a great movie but an essential one." — Village Voice

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "Among the great American crime movies, 1973's 'Badlands' stands alone." — San Francisco Chronicle

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 93%

What critics said: "Akira Kurosawa's remarkable 1957 restaging of 'Macbeth' in samurai and expressionist terms is unquestionably one of his finest works -- charged with energy, imagination, and, in keeping with the subject, sheer horror." — Chicago Reader

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 85%

What critics said: "Some people are expressing amazement that Joel and Ethan Coen would set out to make a classic western in the first place, and then that they'd accomplish it. All I can say is that those folks haven't been paying attention." — Salon

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "A supremely confident, well-tooled entertainment. It's bound to be the early pace-maker for the oncoming glut of summer blockbusters." — CNN

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 94%

What critics said: "Certainly, no movie in history has ever presented stronger proof that war is living hell." — New York Daily News

Critic score: 92%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "This film is stylish, intelligent and, one hopes, influential on the next generation of superhero movies; it should leave a lasting legacy." — Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 87%

What critics said: "A knockout police thriller with so much jarring excitement that it almost calls for comic-book expletives. POW! ZOWIE!" — Time

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 95%

What critics said: "Leone (1921-1989) is here at the peak of his epic powers." — New York Observer

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 87%

What critics said: "The franchise has gradually refined its combination of jaw-dropping action set pieces and sleekly cool world of espionage into something that's approaching pop perfection." — Buzzfeed

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 94%

What critics said: "Action thrillers assail but rarely test us; this is the tautest, most provoking, and altogether most draining example ever made." — New Yorker

Critic score: 95%

Audience score: 97%

What critics said: "Another richly imaginative, engrossing and spectacular motion picture from the redoubtable George Lucas." — Los Angeles Times

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "In Hitchcock's hands, however, this well-known espionage adventure provided the basis for a new sort of thriller and a new sort of comedy." — Village Voice

Critic score: 96%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "Forget that the premise is silly and the acting second-rate because director James Cameron has the action formula down pat." — Boston Globe

Critic score: 100%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "To watch 'Rio Bravo' is to see a master craftsman at work. The film is seamless. There is not a shot that is wrong. It is uncommonly absorbing, and the 141-minute running time flows past like running water." — Chicago Sun-Times

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 91%

What critics said: "Goes back to the legend's roots with a boldness that brings a fatigued franchise back to life." — Wall Street Journal

Critic score: 100%

Audience score: 88%

What critics said: "A rip-snorting Western, as brashly entertaining as they come." — The New York Times

Critic score: 92%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "Among the most ambitious imaginings of Bond to date: dark, supple, and punctuated with moments of unanticipated visual brilliance." — The Atlantic

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 96%

What critics said: "I haven't had as much fun at a movie in years. With its technical wizardry, high-velocity storytelling and spirited good humor, Star Wars dazzles the child in us." — Newsday

Critic score: 97%

Audience score: 84%

What critics said: "Like every war before it, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has generated its share of movies. But 'The Hurt Locker' is the first of them that can properly be called a masterpiece." — Miami Herald

Critic score: 91%

Audience score: 89%

What critics said: "The most mature and substantive picture to have yet emerged from the Marvel Cinematic Universe." — Variety

Critic score: 97%

Audience score: 90%

What critics said: "A grisly film, often ugly as sin, which achieves precisely what it set out to accomplish-scare the hell out of you." — Newsweek

Critic score: 94%

Audience score: 94%

What critics said: "Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, 'The Dark Knight' goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind." — The New York Times

Critic score: 92%

Audience score: 88%

What critics said: "It's not only the best Spider-Man movie -- it's one of the best films in Marvel's cinematic universe." — Toronto Sun

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 84%

What critics said: "The best summer blockbuster in years, a smart, thoughtful, confrontational and challenging allegory for a world run amok." — Detroit News

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 93%

What critics said: "Remains one of the most intelligent, handsome, and influential of all war epics." — Chicago Reader

Critic score: 100%

Audience score: 93%

What critics said: "The characters here are probed and thoroughly penetrated, not through psychoanalysis but through a crucible of human conflict, action, gesture and expressive facial tones." — Variety

Critic score: 100%

Audience score: 97%

What critics said: "The epic action scenes involving cavalry and samurai are still without peer." — Time Out

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "Edgar Wright's start to finish sensation is blessed with killer car chases, a star-making turn from Ansel Elgort, the year's best soundtrack and the most fun you'll have at the movies all summer." — Rolling Stone

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 87%

What critics said: "With 'The Force Awakens,' Abrams has begun one of the most important reclamation projects of our time: the complete erasure from cultural memory of 'The Phantom Menace' and its sequels." — The Atlantic

Critic score: 98%

Audience score: 86%

What critics said: "'King Kong,' as spectacular a bolt of celluloid as has thrilled audiences in a couple of sophisticated seasons, is the product of a number of vivid imaginations." — New York Daily News

Critic score: 93%

Audience score: 90%

What critics said: "The superhero category has gotten more boring as it's gotten more popular, but 'Logan' suggests an escape from escapism, a restoration of the human element in blockbusters, a stripped-down return to the feel of 1970s Clint Eastwood pictures." — New York Post

Critic score: 92%

Audience score: 88%

What critics said: "Isn't just a triumph for women, it's a triumph, period. This is grand entertainment with rousing action, sparkling humor, a romantic streak and a titanium-strength debut from Gal Gadot in the title role." — Newsday

Critic score: 99%

Audience score: 92%

What critics said: "Few films have ever been more visually exhilarating." — Chicago Sun-Times

Critic score: 97%

Audience score: 85%

What critics said: "The shock, really, is how tender 'Mad Max: Fury Road' ultimately becomes. The film just wraps that tenderness in one of the most epic action extravaganzas of recent years. It's enough to renew your faith in movies." — Boston Globe