My Top Ten Favorite Action-Adventure Movies
- Raiders of the Lost Ark by Steven Spielberg
- Die Hard by John McTiernan
- THe Hunt For Red October By John McTiernan
- Scarface by Brian DePalma
- French Connection By William Friedkin
- The Bridge Over The River Kwai by Sir David Lean
- Last of The Mohicans by Michael Mann
- Bullit by Peter Yates
- Enter The Dragon by Robert Clouse
- Hardboiled by John Woo
1. You got a brawling archeologist with a cool hat with a gutsy ex-flame and a big arab friend who hates snakes and likes to save historical artifacts while beating up thugs, shooting swordsmen, and killing Nazis. Plus, he rivals with a murderous French archeologist. Only a few ways adventure movies get better than that.
2. The Best of the Trilogy, although I hear they are going to make a fourth. Maybe it's to make-up for the sham that Die Hard with a Vengeance turned out to be. One mouthy, blue-collar cop, alone and bare-footed, facing off against a horde of ruthless thieves, led by a chillingly elegant archvillain like Alan Rickman and a big, blonde-haired ex-ballet dancer. The fight scene between John McLane and Carl is savage. The explosions rock the building. And an obnoxious reporter gets punched. Only things I'm missing are the chips and the dip.
3. Where has John McTiernan gone? He made two great action movies two years in a row, and then nothing. I have lost some respect for Connery on a personal level, but he is still a great action star. He is cool as the cunning Soviet submarine captain Marco Ramius. Suspenseful nautical action, trembling at times. Scott Glenn should be getting more film roles. Alec Balwdin is excellent as Jack Ryan. The best Tom Clancy movie I have seen yet, and far better than The Sum of All Fears, which was saved by Morgan Freeman, Liev Schriber, and Bridget Moynihan. Ben Affleck as a young Jack Ryan? Please, not again.
4. Brutal and bloody rise-and-fall story of a ruthless drug kingpin with Pacino at his most explosive barbarity. Richly bellicose ending.
5. Gritty and realistic cop drama with brilliant acting, a rollicking chase scene, and a most ambiguous ending.
6. Great commando warfare movie. Superb story, superb acting, and a bitterly ironic ending.
7. Sweeping and often intense historical adventure based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper. Great and authentic battle scenes. Daniel Day-Lewis is perfect as wandering frontiersman Nathaniel Poe, known as Hawkeye to the Indians. Madeline Stowe as an ethereal beauty as the strong Cora Monroe. Great music score and a great study into the French and Indian War as fought on the American frontier of 1775. Set in New York, much of it filmed in North Carolina. The climatic cliff-fighting scene is so exquisitely edited and shot with cool synchronization with the music that it is both rousing and memorable. And the lovemaking scene between Day-Lewis and Stowe on the fort was one of the tender and sexiest scene I've seen without it being implicitly sexual.
8. There are good cops and bad cops. and then there's Frank Bullitt. Steve McQueen is so icy and relentless as police Lt. Frank Bullitt that he is one of the screen most memorable anti-heroes. Gotta admire a guy in a mustang who can drive hitmen into a gas station.
9. The Godfather of Martial Arts movie. The best of The Dragon's movies. Bruce Lee was a league unto himself.
10. One of John Woo's great adrenaline-pumping Hong Kong action flicks. Also one of the best cop movies I've ever seen. I was going to say Reservior Dogs for number ten, but much of Reservior Dogs pays homage to these type of action movies made overseas in Hong Kong and Japan.
You like Hard Boiled better than The Killer? That's interesting. Don't get me wrong I dig Hard Boiled, but I've always felt that The Killer was the more complex and character driven story.
Nice list though...
You're right. Killer was more character-driven, but I thought Hard-boiled had a less dramatic ending. And I thought this one was just pure action movie, not really big character stories.
But Killer was a great action flick too. I had a hard time picking between Killer and Hard-boiled actually.
Anyone know the last movie John McTiernan made? Was it that Cliffhanger movie with Sly Stallone? Anyone ever been to www.imdb.com?
It's a superb movie website. It tells you almost anything you want to know about movies.
John stays pretty active. He directed last year's Basic, and before that the much despised Rollerball remake. 1999 saw his under-rated The Thomas Crown Affair and The 13th Warrior, which I have not seen and have heard many conflicting reports on.
Cliffhanger was a product of Renny Harlin, a man hardly beloved on this site by and large. He directed Die Hard 2, so perhaps that's why you mixed the two directors up a bit...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I like the 13th warrior. Wasn't superb, but it was a fun adaptation of beowulf. Harlin directed DIe Hard 2? Hmmm, well I liked Die Harder, but it can't hold a candle to Die Hard 1. Basic was a decent thriller, but I think the plot-twists got out of hand. Still the little fight scene between Travolta and Connie Nielsen had some spark to it. Hate seeing Tim Daly as the bad guy, but he's good at it.