Movies That Were Probably Made By a Spasm of Six Year-Olds on Acid: The Top 75 Action Films Poll Results Thread

Con Air - 50
Die Hard - 49
Dirty Harry - 48
Kill Bill Volume 1 - 47
Master of the Flying Guillotine (One-Armed Boxer 2) - 46
Midnight Run - 45
Hard Target - 44
Starship Troopers - 43
Ong-Bak - 42
Robocop - 41
For a Few Dollars More - 40
Under Siege - 39
Magnum Force - 38
Die Hard with a Vengeance - 37
Sonatine - 36
One-Armed Boxer - 35
Conan the Barbarian - 34
Aliens - 33
Die Hard 2 - 32
Hard to Kill - 31
Machete - 30
North by Northwest - 29
The Terminator - 28
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - 27
Leon: The Professional - 26
Rush Hour - 25
Lethal Weapon - 24
Hard Boiled - 23
The Bourne Identity - 22
Mad Max - 21
Enter the Dragon - 20
From Russia with Love - 19
Running Scared (1986) - 18
The Enforcer - 17
The French Connection - 16
The Hidden - 15
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - 14
You Only Live Twice - 13
The Seven Samurai - 12
The Dirty Dozen - 11
Death Wish 3 - 10
The Getaway - 9
Lone Wolf & Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx - 8
Dead Heat - 7
Get Carter - 6
Strike Commando 2 - 5
The Running Man - 4
Death Race 2000 - 3
Red Sun - 2
Extreme Prejudice - 1

50 the killer
49 independence day
48 starship troopers
47 hard boiled
46 aliens
45 the fifth element
44 terminator 2
43 children of men
42 hero
41 minority report
40 return of the jedi
39 the matrix
38 robocop
37 top gun
36 GI Joe: The Movie (animated)
35 the fast and the furious: tokyo drift
34 election (johnnie to)
33 a better tomorrow
32 Akira
31 le samourai
30 miami vice
29 for a few dollars more
28 mission: impossible
27 demolition man
26 three kings
25 total recall
24 the bournes (8 points each, maybe?)
23 Commando
22 under siege
21 crouching tiger hidden dragon
20 ronin
19 street fighter (animated)
18 infernal affairs
17 face/off
16 ghost in the shell
15 appleseed (2004)
14 thomas crown affair
13 goldeneye
12 Kill Bill Volume 1 (Tarantino, 2003)
11 to live and die in l.a.
10 the untouchables
9 steamboy (2004)
8 terminator
7 city hunter
6 north by northwest
5 Die Hard
4 the good, the bad and the ugly
3 War of the Worlds
2 Speed
1 d-war

sick list amt, givin me some viewin ideas

Just saw a preview for a tv show where Ashley Judd plays Liam Neeson's character from Taken. I expect it to be amazing/terrible.

<3 her but that sounds awful

some youtubez for some of the less well-known films on my list:

killer constable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Kz7aixrFI
(check out those swords!)

boiling point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMow8XsAVt4
best. trailer. ever. that's a well-known film critic getting his ass shot at :55 btw. i love this movie so much. not for all tastes.

crazy thunder road
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edkgd45wtkA
high water mark of japanese biker-punk cinema.

task force
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDMw66ChElI
cantopop cheesiness + explosions + swordfighting + people diving w/ guns in slo-mo + romance

longest nite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Zbr3970Dg
this is from johnnie to's late-1990s period that culminated w/ the mission (the film that helped introduce him to festival-type audiences rather than just HK genre-film fans). he was on fire around this time (see also: lifeline, hero never dies, running out of time).

navajo joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGcK_qyL9Ug
burt reynolds without a moustache! an ennio morricone score that prominently features people literally screaming! lots of zooms! i rest my case. django is pretty good too.

the great duel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYsXkZHlwI
check that shit out.

OK.. major LOLs: when you watch the demonstration video for facebook's timeline feature, it begins with the opening bars of the main theme from "assault on precinct 13."

i shit y'all not.

ulzana's raid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXw4qsJjR9k
this movie is fucking brutal.

warning: that scene is kind of disturbing.

speaking of disturbing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROMTzJsfOI

def some good films on your list amst, gonne see if i can track those on your list that i haven't seen. also, kind of surprised that i've seen all but one of the movies that placed in the top 75 (branded to kill).

ulzana's raid is a vicious flick

aaaaand not a fucking "action film."

Terminator 2's "I am keeler robot who awnly shewts to vound" makes it the ideal Obamafan action crapper.

there it is

literal stfus

itt Arnold Schwarzenegger talks like Zsa Zsa Gabor

sick list amt, givin me some viewin ideas

― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, February 21, 2012 7:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd say this is otm, and could be extended to thread in general

Ahnold "I vant to be alone" Schwarnegger

oh typing, why did you leave me

I do hope you've volunteered all your spare time to the station for the next 12 days, Morbs, because this thread was actually fun today without you flinging feces everywhere.

cool

http://i.imgur.com/cxTBi.gif

l-r: dude thinkin baout die hard, morbsy

So I didn't follow any of this as it came out and I totally forgot to vote, aka figured I didn't know enough of the action canon to really make a competent ballot. But BRAVO to omar, this is a great list and an even-better to-do list. I haven't seen the overwhelming majority of this list. Think I'm going to start with Big Trouble in Little China.

Also, I got blurbed in a couple of the countdown entries! That makes me feel real special. ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

at least you guys can take comfort that I have absolutely nothing bad to say about your #1 choice.

*applause*

....cuz yeah, never seen it, never will.

best body-swap comedy is All of Me.

wait, I'm confused: that's never stopped you before Morbs.

:p

have a good Lent and watch all of Tarkovsky!

we will; we won't!

1 d-war

― flagp∞st (dayo), Tuesday, February 21, 2012 8:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i saw this in the theater & own it on dvd

it's pretty fun isn't it?

Kinda want to see Ulzana's Raid now.

ulzana's raid is a western, but like some of the other westerns on my list it has a lot -- a LOT -- of "action" and violence.

i mean obvs i could make a list of 50 great westerns and most of them would have many scenes of violence. so it's a bit arbitrary. who cares really.

xxp yea def

I always felt a bit of action/western crossover, it's just hats/horses vs no hats/horses, lol. But Rio Bravo figured on a few lists and fuck that's practically a musical.

i want to take a moment commend omar, though i've been working straight through the list reveal and have not really been able to join in the fun.

i also want to take a moment to commend everyone's restraint in not wishing dr. morbius into the cornfield.

I've been trying to but it looks like Suggest Ban is gone? I missed that development stage of nu-nu-ILX.

speaking of which i've never really gotten the "assault on precinct 13 is an uncredited remake of rio bravo" line that so many people repeat. i mean, they have plot points in common i suppose, and one could argue that the "ethos" of the protagonists is vaguely (self-consciously) similar, but in no way is it a remake.

and yes we should hoist omar on our shoulders and parade him around in glory.

i just watched the elite squad movie that netflix added. from brazil. pretty good if you love corrupt cops. and lots of guns.

I've been trying to but it looks like Suggest Ban is gone? I missed that development stage of nu-nu-ILX.

It's been renamed to "Flag Post"

yeah tropa de elite is quite good. made that one song at the beginning quite famous.

so glad city of god didn't make this list.

well it's about as much of an "action" movie as goodfellas is

</tuomas>

Thanks for your hard work, omar. It's greatly appreciated.

However, I would like for you to consider amending the results, as I've just realized that we all allowed a grievous oversight to occur in the nominations process. Presenting the true best action movie ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx7PYAAOwxE

Time will be our judge.

(There's a part of me that's dead serious about this.)

the part that was exposed to too much radiation as a young child

Perhaps the most iconic cinematic image of manhood from the days of the presidency of George Bush 41 (1989-1993) is that of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular cyborg in the ad for the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, sitting atop a motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket, black T-shirt, and black sunglasses from whose left lens a red point of light glows, an enormous phallus of a gun held in his right hand and pointed aggressively upwards, the entire image darkly swathed in an ominous blue-black neon glow. The image encapsulates the menace and might of Schwarzenegger's newly rearticulated identity as a futuristic killing machine. Always a bit of joke in such films as Stay Hungry (1976) and Conan the Barbarian (1982) and its sequel, Schwarzenegger benefited from James Cameron's innovative use of him as the implacable Terminator in the 1984 film of that name, a sleeper box-office hit and one of the great films of the 80s. But, as Schwarzenegger told talk-show hosts unironically when he campaigned for the 1991 sequel, he was now playing a "kinder, gentler Terminator." This sequel, Schwarzenegger suggested, had been tailored to fit the ideological and rhetorical design of the Bush presidency. In the first film, Schwarzenegger's cyborg, returning from a future in which machines bent on eradicating all the remnants of human life rule the earth, was an unstoppable agent sent to kill the woman, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn child, to be named John, would eventually lead the human resistance against the machines. In contrast, Schwarzenegger's cyborg killer in the sequel is the hero, programmed to save the now teen-aged John Connor. The cyborg, to be sure, retains his uncouth instincts to destroy all in his path, and must be counseled by sarcastic but sensitive John in murder-etiquette. This kinder, gentler Terminator learns not to annihilate the hapless humans who inconvenience him but, with cybernetically enhanced precision, merely to wound them in non-vital areas. The spectacle of crippled, wounded, whimpering, maimed men, lying at the feet of the looming Terminator, is an exact image of its time. As J. Hoberman writes, "Politically, Terminator 2 suggests the merging of Schwarzenegger and Schwarzkopf, techno-war and Technicolor. This is truly the Desert Storm of action flicks" (qtd. in Rushing and Frentz 201). I think that this film's associations with war extend beyond Desert Storm to World War II and its cultural afterlife, specifically its images of fascism and the Nazi. Fusing tropes of Nazism in American popular culture with its homoerotic tableaux, tableaux embedded in the construction of fascism, Terminator 2 is a pivotal text poised between the backward-looking Reagan years, in which a Classic Hollywood star turned national leader presided over the nation, and the era of both postmodern techno-war and postgay articulations of sexual identity.

My hypothetical ballot. I kinda got tired of assigning points to the last third of the list, so the values are kind of arbitrary, lol.

Road Warrior - 50
Escape From New York - 49
Ronin -48
Hard Boiled -47
Die Hard - 47
To Live and Die in LA - 46
Raiders of the Lost Ark -45
Lethal Weapon - 44
Dirty Harry - 43
Red Dawn -42
Seven Samurai -41
Thief -40
Mad Max - 39
The Killer -38
13 Assassins -37
First Blood -36
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - 35
Robocop - 34
Enter the Dragon - 33
Gallipoli - 32
Heat - 31
Army of Darkness - 30
Bound (write-in vote) -29
Big Trouble In Little China -28
El Mariachi - 27
Wages of Fear -26
Vanishing Point -25
Bullitt -24
Assault on Precinct 13 -23
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan -22
Blade Runner -21
Casino Royale -20
Get Carter - 19
Point Break - 18
Ghostbusters - 17
Hot Fuzz -16
Kelly's Heroes -15
Kill Bill Volume 1 -14
Predator -13
Terminator -12
Rocky -11
Stagecoach -10
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly -9
Westworld -8
F/X -7
Billy Jack -6
Rio Bravo -5
The Blues Brothers - 4
Conan the Barbarian -3
Drive (2011) -2
3:10 To Yuma -1