Action movies are far from an endangered species in 2026, and it’s one of the few genres that people still want to see in theaters.
The 2020s are already half over, and a handful of action flicks from the last few years have already established themselves among the best ever made.
Watch With Us has narrowed those titles down to the seven best action movies of the 2020s so far.
These are the films to beat in the next four years of the decade. And as much as we’d like to see that happen, it’ll be a tall order.
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7. ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ (2024)
Mad Max: Fury Road may have set the bar too high for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to match. The former is one of the greatest action movies ever made. Fortunately, Furiosa is really good too, and Anya Taylor-Joy embraces her action hero moment as Charlize Theron did a decade earlier.
This film depicts the origin story alluded to in Fury Road, as young Furiosa is stolen away from the only home she’s ever known by the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). As a child, Furiosa was powerless to get her revenge. As an adult, Furiosa works her way up in the Wasteland until she can finally catch Dementus and unleash her rage on him. The vehicular stunts are stunning, but this film’s greatest special effect is Taylor-Joy’s ability to convey so much emotion in her performance while barely speaking in the entire movie.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is streaming on HBO Max.
6. ‘The Northman’ (2022)
Robert Eggers has emerged as one of the best directors in Hollywood, even with only a handful of films under his belt. In The Northman, Eggers revisits the classic inspiration for William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet and turns it into a Grand Guignol of bloody carnage set during the age of Vikings.
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If you’ve read the tale of Amleth or Hamlet, then the film’s setup shouldn’t be that surprising. King Aurvandill War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) has been murdered by his brother, Fjölnir the Brotherless (Claes Bang), and stolen his brother’s wife, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), to make her his own. That eventually sends the Viking prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) on a quest to avenge his parents against his uncle, and there are some jaw-dropping moments of action and violence in this flick. It’s not for the faint of heart.
The Northman is streaming on Netflix.
5. ‘Prey’ (2022)
The Predator franchise was dormant and gathering dust until Prey breathed new life into it. This is the only streaming original film to make this list, and it deserved a theatrical release. Director and co-writer Dan Trachtenberg made the brilliant step of removing the action from the present and setting the story in the early 18th century while shifting the perspective to a Comanche woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder).
Naru’s tribe looks down on her because she wants to become a warrior more than anything else. She has the skills, but not the respect of her peers. When a feral Predator (Dane Diliegro) begins hunting the men of her tribe, Naru finds herself as the only one who can stand in his way. Naru may not fully realize what the Predator is or where he’s from, but she’s not just his prey. She’s the hunter as well.
Prey is streaming on Hulu.
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4. ‘No Time To Die’ (2021)
The James Bond movies are almost always good action flicks. No Time To Die, however, took things to another level in Daniel Craig‘s final film as 007. To date, no other Bond movie has dared to take things as far as this one did, especially with its epic ending that definitively closes the book on this chapter of the franchise.
From the opening moments of the film, No Time To Die rarely lets up on Bond. It turns out that the most effective way to hurt Bond is through his heart. Once he’s convinced that Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) has betrayed him, Bond doesn’t have many reasons to go on. But he’s soon dragged back into the spy game for one last adventure. Ana de Armas makes a big impression as Paloma, one of Bond’s new allies. In just a few minutes of screen time, Armas established herself as an action star and paved the way for her John Wick spinoff, Ballerina.
No Time To Die is streaming on Netflix.
3. ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ (2023)
Tom Cruise doesn’t just defy gravity, he defies time itself in the Mission: Impossible films. Cruise was 60 when Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning was released, and he still comes off as a much younger man. This is the first part of Cruise’s farewell to the franchise as Ethan Hunt faces his greatest test yet. A sentient AI called The Entity has spread all over the world, and almost everyone wants to control it.
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Ethan recognizes The Entity as a threat to humanity, and it notices him as well. The Entity may not have a body, but it can send Ethan’s old enemy, Gabriel Martinelli (Esai Morales), to do its dirty work. But the most stunning addition to the cast of this movie is Hayley Atwell, who plays an exceptional thief named Grace. She keeps Ethan on his toes throughout the film, and her character arc is impressive. It really feels like she goes from a guest star in Ethan’s story to a leading character in her own right.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is streaming on Paramount+ and Netflix.
2. ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022)
Top Gun: Maverick may not have been as physically taxing for Cruise as the Mission: Impossible films, but its air combat and compelling story made it the action hit of the decade. It made $1.496 billion worldwide and $718 million in the US and Canada alone. Even Marvel movies have rarely achieved that kind of success.
Three decades after the events of Top Gun, Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) hasn’t risen very far in the ranks, but he’s still pretty much where he wants to be as an instructor for Top Gun trainees. For perhaps his last mission, Maverick has to get the next generation of pilots ready for a critical mission. One of his trainees is Lieutenant Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of his late wingman, Goose. The weight of that loss hangs between the two men, but they’ll need to work through those issues in light of the greater issues they’ll have to face in the sky.
Top Gun: Maverick is streaming on Paramount+.
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1. ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ (2023)
John Wick was the best action movie of the 2010s, and unless something better comes along, John Wick: Chapter 4 is going to carry the crown in this decade. Keanu Reeves has inhabited the title role so completely that even his return as Neo in The Matrix Resurrections felt like John Wick cosplay compared to the intense action of this film.
Chapter 4 plays like the final installment of John’s story, as he tries to get out from under a death mark placed by the High Table, the real power in this world of assassins. Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) wants to personally end Wick’s life, and he forces one of John’s friends, Caine (Donnie Yen), out of retirement to make it happen. John only has one chance to reclaim his life and get the High Table off of his back. The odds are against him, but that’s never stopped John Wick before.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is available to rent on Prime Video.
