The action genre went through an interesting transition in the 90s. It still hadn’t quite reached the CGI-overload that would dominate the 21st century, but it was the last hurrah of practical effects. And yet despite the technical limitations of the era, the 90s were still packed with exhilarating, fun, and even thoughtful action movies that still resonate today. We’ve run down the 27 best 90s action movies, and while there’s some diversity in the subgenres including sci-fi to Hong Kong to old-fashioned destruction, all of these films still hold-up and show that the 90s had something to offer to this exciting genre.
Check out our full list below pf the best 90s action movies and sound off in the comments if you think of any movies that deserved to make the cut.
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Total Recall (1990)
Paul Verhoevenis a master of indefinable films. He delves eroticism, action, and science fiction with a heavily measured tongue-in-cheek satirical bent that is only matched by his unflinching regard for all things beyond the pale.Total Recall, which is one of his finest works, starsArnold Schwarzeneggeras your Average Joe, a regular dude who goes to the local Recall clinic – a place where you can have all the most wondrous memories implanted in your head – and ends up unlocking expertly repressed memories of his life as a secret agent. That pits him against a string of countless government agents, including his stand-in wife (Sharon Stone) as he sets out to bring down a nefarious, if somewhat vague, agency.
Based on aPhilip K. Dickshort,Total Recallis lavish and ridiculous, a stronghold of Verhoeven’s knack for the extravagant and his willingness to go for extremes. What it lacks in coherence, it makes up for in pure panache, as Verhoeven explores the wonders of a futuristic society by upending genre conventions as often as it indulges in them. Equally packed with one-liner humor and gory violence,Total Recallis the myth of the Schwarzenneger hero through the twisted lens of Verhoeven, making it true one-of-a-kind in one on the resume of the action genre’s foremost actors. –Haleigh Foutch
La Femme Nikita (1990)
La Femme Nikitalaunched not onlyLuc Besson’s career as the international man of action entertainment, but it also became an unlikely franchise of its own, spawning two US television series and an American feature film remake (Point of No Return). The watered down stateside formula is simple: woman in cocktail dress + a handgun. But all the US adaptations have missed what made the original so special:Nikitais a Beauty and the Beast tale and Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is both the Beauty and the Beast. And her beginning is beastly.
Nikitabegins with Parillaud as a drug addict with a death wish coupled with an impulsive trigger. She shoots a cop after she druggily drifted off to sleep while her drugstore crew robbed a store and died during a shootout with the police. The policeman she shot merely woke her up, expecting her to be a damsel in distress. Nikita wasn’t startled by him. She just didn’t care. So she shot him. Nikita brutalizes more authority in jail, lands in confinement and is given a choice from the government: accept a death sentence or become an assassin. The Beauty aspect is a glorious touch from Besson, as Nikita is aided by a French New Wave icon,Jeanne Moreau, who teaches her how to embrace a dignified womanhood, even though she may be a contract killer. Many films think that the way to make a female assassin sexy is to give her a bad attitude and fit her into tight leather, but Besson gives Nikita the Bond treatment. She starts with the bad attitude and learns grace—while fitting into a dress that’s meant for cocktail hour—and earning her license to kill.- Brian Formo
The Last Boy Scout (1991)
This isShane Blackat his Shane Black-iest, and it makes you wish that he and directorTony Scotthad collaborated more. Scott gets the tone that Black’s screenplay is going for, and while on the surface the story of a washed-up detective and washed-up football player seems too contrived to work, it does.
The film is unabashedly dark and twisted in its comedy right from the start where we see a football player gun down his opponents on the field before blowing his brains out. Even though it may play within the safety of noir, Scott’s skill at the action genre givesThe Last Boy Scouta unique flavor that shows off a singular ambition when it comes to this oddball story. Throw in Black’s electric dialogue and strong chemistry between leads Bruce Willis andDamon Wayans, andThe Last Boy Scoutis easily one of the most fun and exciting action films of the decade. –Matt Goldberg
Point Break (1991)
Let’s get this out of the way:Point Breakis my favorite action film of the 1990s by a country mile. That may primarily be because its underlying focus seems to be on dismantling the legitimacy of the masculine impulses that guide most action films. DirectorKathryn Bigelowsets up two opposing visions of masculinity at the center of the film:Patrick Swayze’s extreme-sports-loving outlaw Bodie andKeanu Reeves’ buttoned-up FBI agent Johnny Utah. As many have opined, the movie could be seen as an unrealized romance between the two men, as Utah goes undercover to infiltrate Bodie’s gang of presidentially-masked bank-robbers. One could run with that idea andPoint Breakwould still work perfectly as a bracing, breathless action epic, and that’s what separates the film from much of its ilk. T
here’s a sadness at the center of the film that could be construed as sexual, romantic, and tied directly to straight identity. Bodie is liberated, which means he cannot live by the dictates of society, which Bigelow sees as being driven primarily by repression and uniformity. When Utah lets Bodie go at the very end, to meet his end amongst a swell of enormous waves, one can see that where Utah initially craved order, brotherhood, and discipline, he now sees the romance of oblivion that Bodie has become enraptured by. It’s a dark thought, but staring out at the crashing walls of water, it’s hard to argue the freedom that such a perspective allows. –Chris Cabin
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
We should probably stop givingJames Cameronflak for taking so damned long on theseAvatarfollow-ups because if there’s a man who knows how to make an action sequel, it’s him. Hell, he practically defined the format in 1986 withAliens, and in 1991 he put that bigger, badder formula to grand use inTerminator 2: Judgment Day. Picking up withLinda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor 15 years after the events of the first film, we find a woman completely changed by what she experienced – now a tough son-of-a-bitch and ferocious mamma bear devoted to protecting her son, the future leader of the human resistance.
That’s just one of the ways the script turns the original film on its head, the most famous being the re-introduction ofArnold Schwartzenegger’s T-800, not as an unstoppable villain, but as a reprogrammed protector set againstRobert Patrick’s even scarier T-1000. Through Patrick’s new-and-improved Terminator, Cameron puts advances in digital effects to proud use, crafting wire-taut set-pieces as the liquid metal assassin bends, morphs, and bleeds – a terrifying figure of unstoppable death. While those brilliantly crafted set-pieces demonstrate Cameron’s unrivaled mastery of the marriage between technology and cinema, it’s the humanity behind the spectacle (who knew a thumbs up could make you cry?) that’s held upTerminator 2as an all-time great, long after modern effects eclipsed its technological triumphs. –Haleigh Foutch
Hard Boiled (1992)
John Woois a legend of the action genre, which is why you’ll see so damned many of his movies on this list.Hard Boiled, his last official Hong Kong film before heading off to Hollywood, is one of his most entertaining and stylistically definitive, and a giant of the genre.Hard BoiledstarsChow Yun-Fatas Tequila, a tough Hong Kong cop obsessed with taking out the nefarious crime ring that murdered his partner, who teams up with an undercover cop on the brink. Along the way, there are plenty of Woo’s stunningly choreographed fight scenes and shoot-outs, culminating in an insanely violent shoot-em-up final act that’s a breathless series of set-pieces. How insane? Try, “defending infants in a maternity ward from well-armed villains” insane. You just can’t beat the moment Tequila apologizes and coos at a tiny baby as he wipes a splatter of his own blood off the wee one’s face.
Hard Boiledboasts all of Woo’s signature slow-motion sharp-shooting and battletic torrents of blood in their best form. While we’ve come to take for granted just how much those hallmarks influenced and defined the genre, to watchHard Boiledis to watch Woo write his chapter in the playbook of modern action. –Haleigh Foutch
Demolition Man (1993)
Set asideRob Schneiderand the three seashells, andDemolition Manis perhaps one of the smartest, most subversive sci-fi films of the 1990s. It doesn’t get credit for its subversion because it’s puttingSylvester StalloneandWesley Snipesfront-and-center, but if you look at the surrounding film, it’s surprisingly crafty with its cultural critique of a future that will be overwhelmed with product placement and forced fuzzy feelings.
Demolition Manprovides a unique dystopia, one that’s run by the mentality of a neighborhood association rather than a world falling into chaos. While Snipes’ Simon Phoenix is ostensibly the villain of the piece, he’s right in calling out the bigger bad, Doctor Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne) as “an evil Mr. Rogers.” DirectorMarco Brambillabasically reimaginedBrave New World, gave it the body of an action movie, and imbued it with comedy. It’s a concoction that shouldn’t work and yet it does. –Matt Goldberg
Hard Target (1993)
How sweet it is to live in a world where movies likeHard Targetexist.John Woo’s first American action film is pretty much what you’d expect out of that scenario – bigger explosions, a swaggering hero, and a minimal interest in plot (it’s ostensibly about a heroic sailor taking down a ruthless society of men who hunt the homeless for sport, but it’s really about Jean Claude Van Dammefabulously kicking ass). The result is an intoxicating middle ground between B-Movie camp and Woo’s set-piece artistry.
The director’s trademark reverence for kinesthetic on-screen violence remains in tact, and with Van Damme he has an extraordinarily capable vessel through which he can channel it all. There’s a precision to Woo’s choreography, especially with an athletic specimen like Van Damme behind it, that keeps the audience attuned to every piece of the action. Every punch, kick and bullet lands – a skill that’s been widely missing over the last decade when lesser craftsmen tried to emulatePaul Greengrass' frenetic Bourne-style combat. It may not be as smart or incisive as Woo’s Hong Kong films, but it’s a stellar piece of action filmmaking all the same. Van Damme also knocks out a snake with a single punch, and that’s really all I needed to say. –Haleigh Foutch
The Fugitive (1993)
In the early 90s,Harrison Fordwas intent on proving that while he was entering his 50s, his leading man days were far from over. The actor was just coming off his first turn as Jack Ryan in 1992’sPatriot Gameswhen he signed on to lead a feature film adaptation of a television series calledThe Fugitive. Now, on paper, this just sounded like a neat little action-thriller, but it turns out Ford went and made one of the best films of the decade. Indeed, Ford’s turn as a prominent doctor falsely convicted of murdering his wife is wonderfully dynamic and unsurprisingly intense, and as the title suggests, Dr. Richard Kimble escapes on his way to death row and finds himself pursued by a relentless U.S. Marshal, played byTommy Lee Jones. DirectorAndrew Davisframes the film as a non-stop action-thriller with a strong mystery throughline, and while there are certainly spectacular set pieces to be found, it’s the deeply human performances of Ford and Jones that really make this thing soar. It’s no wonder the film scored seven Oscar nominations—including Best Picture—and one win for Jones. –Adam Chitwood
Speed (1994)
Speedis often described as “Die Hardon bus” and that’s complete nonsense. To be sure, the 90s were littered withDie Hardcopycats (See:Sudden Death), butSpeedain’t one of them. For one thing, the action isn’t confined to a single location. But most importantly,Keanu Reeves' Jack Trayven isn’t picking off bad guys one-by-one as he works his way to the top, and he isn’t the right guy in the wrong place, he’s specifically targeted byDennis Hopper’s incredibly creepy retired police officer with a grudge.
Now that that’s out of the way, we can celebrateSpeedfor what it is – an original spin on a well-worn formula that was executed so well, it managed to spawn copycats of its own (See:Chill Factor). Written byGraham Yost, who would go on toJustifiedfame,Speedwas a hell of a debut fromDie HardDPJan De Bont(who sadly never replicated the success of his first film) that had the foresight to recognize the talents ofSandra Bullockbefore the industry caught wise. FollowingPoint Break, Reeves cemented his place as a premier action star (a legacy that was expertly re-established recently withJohn Wick), and his chemistry with Bullock is first-rate, making for a movie that’s endlessly watchable, even when you’ve become well acquainted with its clever twists and turns. –Haleigh Foutch
