Here are the 18 best action movies on Netflix

Rory Cashin

If you’re looking for the best action movies, look no further.

Sometimes all you want to watch is one of the best action movies ever made, and we are here to help with that. We’ve scoured the entire Netflix library, and these are the 18 best action movies available on the streaming service right now:

BAD BOYS/BAD BOYS II
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are the shoot-first-ask-questions-later duo in Michael Bay’s explosive set of action thrillers. What the sequel lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in rocket launchers.

BLACK HAWK DOWN
Ridley Scott collected an incredible cast including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jason Isaacs, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Piven, Ioan Gruffudd, Ewen Bremner, Hugh Dancy, Tom Hardy, Orlando Bloom, Ty Burrell, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau for this panic attack-inducing retelling of US soldiers shot down during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.

CRANK
Jason Statham is a hitman who has been poisoned by his boss, and the only way he can stay alive and get revenge is keep his heart pumping as fast as possible. One of the most bonkers action movies ever made.

EXTRACTION/EXTRACTION 2
Netflix themselves have created their own entires in the best action movies ever list here. It is clear that Chris Hemsworth saw the John Wick movies and thought to himself “I want to do that”. And so he did, mixing in some Call Of Duty set-pieces for good measure.

EDGE OF TOMORROW
Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt are the future soldiers who are using the ability to travel back to a specific point in time over and over again in order to stop an alien invasion. It is Groundhog Day meets Saving Private Ryan meets Aliens and it is incredible.

GODZILLA
This 2014 adaptation of the giant lizard movie takes things very, VERY seriously, with soldier Aaron Taylor Johnson trekking across the planet, through a trail of destruction left by the giant creatures, in an attempt to get back to his family safely.

HEAT
Al Pacino is the world-class cop and Robert De Niro is the top-tier thief in this ultimate cat-and-mouse action thriller, culminating in arguably the greatest shoot out in cinema history.

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
Who would’ve guessed that what many supposed might just be another Twilight young-adult romance knock-off would deliver one of the best sci-fi action movies of the 21st century? Jennifer Lawrence is giving full Ellen Ripley in this hugely impressive epic.

best action movies

Aaron Taylor Jackson in Godzilla (2014), one of the best action movies available on Netflix right now

MAN ON FIRE
Denzel Washington is a man on mission in this tremendous revenge action thriller. He has been hired as a bodyguard to the young daughter (Dakota Fanning) to a rich couple, and when she is taken, he single-handedly tears the crime world apart to find her.

NOBODY
In the long list of actors who you’d never guess would make convincing action heroes, Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad) is right up there. But getting the stunt team behind John Wick and Bullet Train to fill his movie out with incredible set-pieces was a fantastic idea. Bravo!

THE RAID/THE RAID 2
Nobody could question The Raid being on this list of best action movies, but the sequel also deserves your attention, expanding out from the single building setting of the original and placing its violent, inventive action scenes across an entire city.

SICARIO
Feeling as much like a horror movie as it does an action movie, this nail-bitingly tense thriller set on the USA/Mexico border sees a DEA agent (Emily Blunt) get caught up in a war between the government agents (Josh Brolin), freelancing killers (Benicio Del Toro) and the ruthless cartels.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
Still the best of the Tom Holland outings, and arguably one of the very best MCU entries in general, this superhero tale is filled with an incredible supporting cast, including Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei, as well as Michael Keaton in a truly intimidating villain role.

UNDER SIEGE
Steven Seagal best movie. Yes, it is essentially Die Hard on a Battleship, but what is wrong with that? Especially when you’ve got Tommy Lee Jones, Colm Meaney AND Gary Busey as the bad guys!

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
In our humble opinion, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has yet to make a more entertaining action movie than this. He’s a bounty hunter, trying to track down Seann William Scott and bring him back home, except local criminal Christopher Walken has other ideas.

All titles available on Netflix in Ireland and the UK at date of publication.

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