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Violence is pretty much a given when it comes to action movies. After all, these are films that tend to prominently feature intensely physical conflict, adrenaline-pumping chase sequences, fights, explosions, gunplay, and the like. However, the degrees of violence that the action genre has displayed over the years vary wildly. Where some action flicks can get away with violence that’s innocent or cartoonish enough to be family-friendly, there are other movies which revel in being as violent as possible.
From gun fu cult classics like Hard Boiled to big-franchise blockbusters like 2008’s Rambo, the most violent action movies of all time are a testament to how entertaining the genre can be when it pulls no punches and allows itself to go as over-the-top as it wants. The violence in these films may or may not be gratuitous, but one thing is almost undeniable, and that is that it makes for action sequences that are, at the very least, moderately engaging.
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‘Hard Boiled’ (1992)
It was Hong Kong auteur John Woo who birthed gun fu cinema during the 1980s, combining the graceful and highly stylized choreography of traditional martial arts movies with intense, hyperkinetic gunplay and shootouts. The peak of the genre came in 1992, when Woo delivered Hard Boiled. It’s one of the best action thrillers in film history, a masterpiece of the heroic bloodshed subgenre that combines deep emotional stakes with some of the most entertaining gunplay of any action flick in history.
As fun as it may be, however, Hard Boiled is also almost undoubtedly the most violent gun fu film in history. The on-screen kill count is off the charts (somewhere in the vicinity of 300 deaths), the relentlessly-paced set pieces don’t pull back any punches in terms of either energy or violence, and the iconic gun fu choreography is as elaborate as it is entertaining. It may not be gory, but Hard Boiled is almost entirely composed of ultra-violent sequences.
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‘Dredd’ (2012)
After the lackluster reviews and disappointing box office performance of 1995’s Judge Dredd starring Sylvester Stallone, the idea of a new movie adaptation of the iconic comic strip of the same title had fans somewhat skeptical. Thankfully, 2012’s Dredd (starring a top-of-his-game Karl Urban in the titular role) ended up offering everything that fans could have possibly wanted out of a cinematic adaptation of the source material, and then some.
It’s one of the best action movies that people have been sleeping on for years, full of gritty, brutal, and extremely graphic action sequences — so graphic, in fact, that some critics actually found the movie a bit too violent for comfort. People who think that viscerally gory action can be done artfully, however, are pretty much bound to love Dredd. Slow motion is used in all sorts of brilliant ways, the visual effects have aged like fine wine, and the mega-claustrophobic combat sequences force the viewer to sit with the sheer viciousness of everything the characters’ bodies are put through.
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‘The Raid: Redemption’ (2011)
Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans came up with the idea for The Raid: Redemption when he moved to Indonesia to shoot a documentary about the country’s martial art pencak silat. It was this martial art that Evans wanted to base an entire film around, so he enlisted pencak silat practitioner Iko Uwais as his star and made The Raid, one of the best martial arts movies released since 2010. It’s almost inarguably the most iconic Indonesian action film of all time, and it may well be one of the best Asian action flicks of the 21st century.
There are several reasons why The Raid is widely considered a benchmark for modern hyper-violent action cinema, thanks to how overwhelmingly (yet oh so entertainingly) bone-crushing its action sequences are. Pencak silat is designed for quick and lethal self-defense, and with brutal efficiency and an airtight plot that allows the action to be the real star of the show for 101 minutes straight, The Raid displays just how unrelentingly fun the martial art can be to watch on the big screen.
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‘Kill Bill: Volume 1’ (2003)
Quentin Tarantino was already a perfectly established director by the time 2003 rolled in, but Kill Bill: Volume 1 significantly helped further enshrine him as a modern master of action cinema. It was at the behest of Harvey Weinstein that Kill Bill had to be split in two, which only resulted in a duology where each entry feels entirely distinct. Where Kill Bill: Volume 2 feels more thematically charged and dialogue-heavy, Volume 1 is a pure tribute to classic martial arts films and exploitation B-movies from the 1970s.
It’s also one of the most fun action movies of the 21st century, a testament to Tarantino’s most effective sensibilities as an action filmmaker. Starring Uma Thurman at her very best and featuring several of the most unforgettably stylish and bloody action scenes in all of 21st-century action cinema, Kill Bill: Volume 1 is proof that a movie can favor style over substance and still be incredibly effective from top to bottom. In this particular case, in fact, the style is the substance.
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‘Sisu’ (2023)
Written and directed by Jalmari Helander, the Finnish-American co-production Sisu is one of the most unique World War II movies of the last decade, a hyper-violent film that’s bound to go down in history as one of the biggest action cult classics of the 2020s. It’s a lean, mean 90 minutes of pure badass entertainment, an over-the-top B-movie experience that delivers precisely what’s promised on the cover: Nazis being viscerally slaughtered non-stop.
It wears its classic grindhouse cinema influences on its sleeve, while serving as an exceptional piece of grindhouse entertainment at the same time. A quasi-mythical action hero who refuses to die, kills that are as creative as they are cathartic, and enough gore to make even die-hard fans of ultraviolent action cinema uncomfortable are but a few of the reasons why Sisu is a must-see for people who love the genre.
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‘The Raid 2’ (2014)
Where The Raid: Redemption was a far more contained, claustrophobic, and tightly plotted, mostly single-location action thriller, its sequel went for a far bigger concept: A two-and-a-half-hour-long crime epic set in the streets of Jakarta. With this premise, The Raid 2 became one of the best action movies released since 2010, expanding on absolutely everything that made the original an instant modern classic in ways that every fan of action cinema should find irresistible.
One of the areas where The Raid 2 one-upped The Raid: Redemption, of course, was the violence of its action sequences. The original movie proved what Evans and Uwais were able to achieve in a single hallway, but The Raid 2 took that foundation to levels that might have seemed impossible before. You hear every bone break, you hear every piece of skin being slashed, and you see every last bit of the close-quarters violence in such excruciating detail that it almost hurts you, too.
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‘Rambo’ (2008)
When it came out back in 1982, First Blood — still widely remembered as one of Sylvester Stallone‘s best movies to date — surprised audiences with its unexpectedly semi-restrained violence. Cut to 26 years later, and you get Rambo, one of the most unprecedentedly violent action movies in the history of mainstream Hollywood action flicks. Stallone was initially hesitant to participate in the movie at all, but grew more excited when the opportunity to direct came up.
Since Rambo aimed to offer commentary on the real-life civil war and human rights abuses in Myanmar, Stallone knew that the only way for the film to feel truly authentic was for it to be exceptionally violent. Boy, did he succeed. Bodies are dismembered and decapitated, people are shot in the head point-blank, and atrocities based on what was actually happening during the Karen conflict are depicted with gut-wrenching realism. It’s tough to even watch Rambo without the temptation to cover one’s eyes.
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‘The Night Comes for Us’ (2018)
Originally conceived as a script but adapted into a graphic novel before it was released as a film, Timo Tjahjanto‘s The Night Comes for Us is another one of the best Indonesian action movies of all time, also starring Iko Uwais. Critics and action movie fans alike praised it for its relentless pencak silat choreography, its high-octane pacing, and its gonzo violence and visceral gore. It’s definitely not for everyone, but people who love over-the-top violence in action movies are bound to love it.
Calling a film the single most violent action movie of all time is no small statement, but The Night Comes for Us definitely deserves the title. Where many films treat physical combat like a blank canvas for highly artistic choreography, The Night Comes for Us treats it like a brutal slaughterhouse where no one is safe. Tjahjanto had spent his career directing acclaimed slasher cinema and body horror, allowing him to transport that brutality straight to the action genre. The result is an incredibly fun movie for those able to tolerate such harrowing violence.
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Diego Pineda Pacheco
Almontather Rassoul
