There’s that old expression: Actions speak louder than words. It’s hard to imagine a truism more true of cinema than that one. In this “show, don’t tell” artistic medium, a dozen great dialogue scenes are rarely as effective or as memorable as one unique action sequence.
So today we are honoring that saying here at ScreenCrush by naming the ten best action movies of the last ten years. As you read through it you will notice the absence of two other film genres that often overlap with action: Sports (where something like Creed might qualify as an action movie, given the amount of onscreen fighting) and animation (where you could argue for something like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, thanks to several extremely dynamic set pieces).
Both were deliberately left out; the former because sports movies feel like their own separate category worth judging on their own, and the latter because it doesn’t seem fare to compare the athletic feats of actual human beings, which are governed by things like physics, and cartoon characters, who bear no such restrictions on their activities.
Once you filter out those possibilities, here is what is left. Hopefully these words speak loudly in honor of these amazing action movies.
The 10 Best Action Movies of the Last 10 Years (2015-2024)
Shootouts, fist fights, car chases, spectacular leaps … these are the best action movies of the last ten years.
Honorable Mentions: Atomic Blonde, Black Panther, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Gemini Man, The Killer (2024), Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, The Nice Guys, Shadow, Sicario, Triple Frontier.
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