The best action movies on HBO Max

Action films are a favorite of Hollywood, mostly because the genre is just so malleable. There's a hero (or antihero) at its core, tasked with taking care of business. But that business can require anything from reluctantly teaming up with your fellow vigilantes against a crime syndicate, to leading a high-speed pursuit through a dystopian wasteland in search of a better life. Ultimately, action movies are about escapism, pure and unadulterated. Few of us will ever fight an assailant on top of a moving freight train, or leap a motorcycle over an explosion. But we're more than happy to live vicariously through our favorite action heroes. Ready for a mental vacation? Here are EW's picks for the best action movie offerings from HBO Max.

<i>Black Dynamite</i> (2009)

A Blaxploitation action-comedy film set during the Nixon-era, Black Dynamite stars Michael Jai White in the titular role as a former CIA officer and Vietnam veteran seeking answers after his brother Jimmy's murder. Black Dynamite's quest to avenge his brother's homicide and rid the streets of drugs and violence takes him on a circuitous journey through drug dealers and chemical weaponry, culminating with a kung-fu stand off with Tricky Dick himself. Appreciators of satire and '70s B movies will enjoy White's performance, which invites the audience to participate in the joke, even as he himself doubles down on his commitment to the bit.

Inspired by James Brown's "Super Bad" and featuring the production and performance quirks that made the genre popular, Black Dynamite is both an homage to and an interrogation of a particular time in our cultural cinematic history.  In their review, EW's critic writes that "Black Dynamite blends satire, nostalgia, and cinema deconstruction into a one-of-a-kind comedy high." A great option for genre enthusiasts, Black Dynamite is a labor of love, dressed in a leisure suit, and adorned with a '70s 'stache.

If you liked Black Dynamite, you might also enjoy: Shaft (2000), available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.

<i>Mad Max: Fury Road</i> (2015)

It took 30 years for George Miller to make a follow up to his original Mad Max trilogy, the last of which — Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome — premiered in 1985. But the three decades in between iterations of the franchise were not wasted, and Mad Max: Fury Road hits the gas immediately, sprinting off into a dystopian desert wasteland for a high-speed pursuit that wastes no time on exposition. We pick up with Mad Max (Tom Hardy, assuming the mantle of his predecessor, Mel Gibson), who has been taken prisoner by an evil warlord. Unbeknownst to the warlord, his lieutenant, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), is about to break his wives (played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoë Kravitz, Courtney Eaton, Riley Keough, and Abbey Lee) out of the Citadel. The results play out in violent fashion, capturing, as EW's critic writes, "the same Molotov-cocktail craziness of Miller's masterpiece, 1981's The Road Warrior."

In the years since Fury Road premiered, both Theron and Hardy have opened up about the pressure they experienced while filming, and the nightmarish conditions they endured on set (with Theron noting that she "didn't feel safe" working with Hardy, whose behavior during production has been described as "erratic"). But, with a sequel starring both actors (Mad Max: the Wasteland) scheduled for release in 2023, and a new prequel film called Furiosa in the works (starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger version of the character), it doesn't appear that the franchise is in any danger of slowing down any time soon.

If you liked Mad Max: Fury Road, you might also enjoy: Snowpiercer (2014), available for rent on Amazon Prime Video.

<i>Terminator 2: Judgment Day</i> (1991)

The creative and financial apex of what's become an entire universe of film and television titles, Terminator 2: Judgment Day was the first expansion of the story told in 1984's The Terminator, making Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 cyborg killer from the future a father figure good guy to teenaged John Connor (Edward Furlong), son of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who would grow up to lead the human resistance against sentient rogue intelligence Skynet and its world-conquering army of murderous machines. The storyline isn't the only thing that expands here. T2 director James Cameron took action filmmaking to incredible new heights with sequences that hurled massive semi-trucks through cement retention walls, smashed helicopters into government laboratories, and intensified the firepower at every turn.

This time around, the T-800 is tasked with protecting the Connors from a more advanced Terminator dubbed T-1000 (Robert Patrick) which is constructed from liquid metal and is utterly, totally relentless. The T-1000's arms that transform into blades were a particularly spectacular trick of CGI, still so new at the time. "The transformation effects are spectacular," writes an EW critic, "in part because there's real magic to them, a sense of technological wonder. By the end of the movie, we feel that this shape-shifting terminator, this sinister mass chameleonic metal, has an identity all its own."

If you liked Terminator 2: Judgment Day, you might also enjoy: Predator (1987), streaming on Hulu.

<i>The Dark Knight</i> (2008)

Christopher Nolan's stunning sequel to 2005's Batman Begins pitted Christian Bale's buff and brooding, caped and hooded vigilante, along with his allies James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), against the anarchistic machinations of the The Joker, the legendary Batman villain brought back to life with vivid, tremulous energy and rank nihilism by Heath Ledger, who passed away a few months before The Dark Knight was released. Jack Nicholson will always have a seat at the Joker table, but Ledger's performance is the definition of must-watch, and rightly earned him a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

The Dark Knight was the highest-grossing film of 2008, and has continued to resonate with audiences and critics as an example of superhero filmmaking that conducts itself with singular style and deeper, more lyrical intent. An EW critic writes that the film "exudes a predatory glamor that makes comic-book films that have come before it look all the more like kid stuff." And in a 2022 revisit, EW's Darren Franich highlights the "merry destruction that starts from the opening bank scene, that tight criminal crew getting slasher-film'd mid-heist by their own boss," who of course was the Joker himself.

If you liked The Dark Knight, you might also enjoy: The Batman (2022), streaming on HBO Max.

<i>Red</i> (2010)

Long before Jeff Bridges played a retired government spook and assassin who was suddenly forced back into the fight in The Old Man, a movie called Red tread similar territory. Starring Bruce Willis as former secret agent Frank Moses — he's marked with R.E.D. status, i.e. "Retired, Extremely Dangerous" — the film brings his old team out of moth balls to protect each other and neutralize some new threats. There's Helen Mirren in a hilarious, darkly comedic turn as the cold-blooded assassin Victoria, who blissfully boils down the remains of bad guys with acid in her bathtub; Morgan Freeman as the gallant retired CIA man Joe; explosives expert and resident eccentric/PTSD sufferer John Malkovitch as Marvin; and a pre-Succession Brian Cox as Ivan. Mary Louise Parker is also along as Sarah, Frank's love interest, who's caught up in the ass-kicking retirees' return to violent wet work.

All of the veteran actors here are having a lot of fun yukking it up to each other, and generally elevating the otherwise pretty basic script — Red is an adaptation of the DC Comics title of the same name — but what really shines are the film's action sequences directed with bullet-whizzing grit and chaotic glee by German director Robert Schwentke.

If you liked Red, you might also enjoy: Kingsman: Secret Service (2015), available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.

<i>Birds of Prey</i> (2020)

"There's no wrong way to process a breakup" is one interpretation of the message behind Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the 2020 action film and eighth addition to the DC Extended Universe. Four years following the events depicted in 2016's Suicide Squad, the Joker breaks up with Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who — without the benefit of his protection — finds herself a vulnerable target for the many criminals she's angered over the years. After freeing Cass (Ella Jay Basco), a young pickpocket with a bounty on her head, Harley finds herself at a crossroads. Now, she must team up with a Gotham City detective (Rosie Perez), a mysterious vigilante named Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and a nightclub singer with a fatal voice (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) to defeat a crime lord known as Black Mask (Ewan McGregor).

As an origin story for the Birds of Prey superhero team, the film is arguably one of the most enjoyable to emerge from DC Studios of late, a credit to Robbie's unhinged (but deeply controlled) performance. An EW critic writes that Robbie carries the story "with a giddy mix of mad-dog ruthlessness and girlish glee; a kiss blown with a brass-knuckled fist."

If you liked Birds of Prey, you might also enjoy: The Suicide Squad (2021), also streaming on HBO Max.

<i>3:10 to Yuma</i> (2007)

A good cowboy film offers many enticements, among them, the comfort of black and white thinking. In Western movies, there is good and there is evil — and never the twain shall meet. In 3:10 to Yuma, however, part of the film's appeal lies in the duality of its protagonists: one of whom represents "good,"the other "evil," and both of whom you will find yourself rooting for as the story progresses. A remake of — and some would argue an improvement upon —  the 1957 original, 3:10 to Yuma stars Christian Bale as the cash-strapped, nineteenth-century rancher Dan Evans who volunteers to deliver the murderous Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a train that will carry him to jail in exchange for having his debts erased.

"More exciting and drily funny" than its earlier counterpart, an EW critic writes, the strength of the 2007 film lies in its precisely staged action sequences, including its climax, which is delivered in the form of a fatal and emotionally devastating shootout (as is required by the bylaws governing the genre).

If you liked 3:10 to Yuma, you might also enjoy: The Hateful Eight (2015), streaming on Netflix.

<i>Black Hawk Down</i> (2001)

Ridley Scott's 2001 war film Black Hawk Down won Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound, launched the career of Tom Hardy, and features an absolutely stacked ensemble cast including Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Sam Shepard, and two actors who later found small-screen success: Ty Burrell (Modern Family) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones). When a US Army air and land operation in war-torn Mogadishu goes south in a hurry, the 1993 Somalia Civil War becomes personal for the Army rangers, Delta Force operators, and UH-60 Black Hawk flight crews that are pinned down in the city, running out of ammo, significantly outnumbered, and fighting for their lives.

With production from Jerry Bruckheimer and the direction of Scott, who has proven an expert grasp on action with such projects like Blade Runner and Gladiator, Black Hawk Down becomes an extended gun battle full of outsized slow-motion explosions, ringing automatic weapons fire, and the pockmarked infrastructure of scarred city Mogadishu seeming to collapse in real time around the soldiers' positions.

If you liked Black Hawk Down, you might also enjoy: Lone Survivor (2013), also streaming on HBO Max

<i>Thelma & Louise</i> (2011)

Coming out of the '80s, a decade littered with buddy cop films (whether they be human or canine) audiences were refreshed when they entered theaters in 1991 for a fresh take on the genre. Thelma & Louise was a subversion of everything that had come before: a female-centered film about two best friends (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) leaving for a fishing getaway only to have their plans altered after a murderous run in with a would-be rapist.

As they flee the law, they confront a series of unsavory men — including a young actor named Brad Pitt, who used his breakout role and his intimate scene with Davis' character to establish himself as a '90s sex symbol. In their review, an EW critic writes, "At once extravagant and shallow, hilarious and glib, mythical and weirdly synthetic, this flamboyant saga of outlaw heroines on the run exerts a cracked fascination."

Nominated for Oscars for Best Direction (for Ridley Scott), Best Actress (for both Sarandon and Davis), and receiving the award for Best Screenplay, Thelma & Louise — which was initially received with some critical reservations — proves more and more prescient as time goes on. In 2016, the film was selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in their National Film Registry, a further endorsement of the movie's cultural and narrative significance. If you're looking for a cinematic classic that combines comedy, character development, and increasing forays into violence and criminality with female bonding and mutually assured self-destruction, then Thelma & Louise is a can't-miss.

If you liked Thelma & Louise, you might also enjoy: Bonnie & Clyde (1967), also streaming on HBO Max.

<i>Total Recall</i> (1990)

Director Paul Verhoeven followed the success of his 1987 classic RoboCop with Total Recall, a big budget, effects-heavy dystopian sci-fi action movie that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a construction worker in the future whose innocent wish to visit a colonized Mars via memory implant goes violently awry. Turns out, he's already been there and his brain can't tell the difference. As the confused but determined Quaid, Schwarzenegger has plenty of chances to go full Action Hero, taking down ten guys in a metro station attack, and, in a thrilling extended fight sequence, squaring off against Sharon Stone when his supposed wife is revealed to be an agent of the evil forces looking to take over Mars for themselves. Meanwhile, representing the fellow villains are Ronny Cox and Michael Ironside, who are both fantastic.

When the action moves offplanet, Total Recall gets a ton of mileage out of balancing all of its bruising and errant gunfire against the mortal threat of exposing the colony's built environment to the deadly wastes and choking atmosphere of Mars. Celebrating the 2012 release of the film on Blu-Ray, Chris Nashawaty called Recall one of his favorite "Ah-nuld" movies, and the "most unrelentingly violent film the strapping cinematic sadist ever served up."

If you liked Total Recall, you might also enjoy: RoboCop (1987), available for rent on Amazon Prime Video.

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