Which is why it’s especially important for action movies to have strong opening scenes. They need to set expectations and convince viewers that the next 90 to 120 minutes are going to be worthwhile. Here are our picks for the best opening scenes in action movies of all time and why they’re so successfully thrilling. 10. Top Gun: Maverick (2022) 10. Top Gun: Maverick (2022) Has there ever been a movie star quite like Tom Cruise?...
But if you’re in the mood for big explosions, lots of gunfire, reckless car chases, and badass protagonists who spend most of their time crawling through vents, jumping off roofs, and crashing cars? Oh, you’ve come to the right place! Here are some of the best and most iconic action movie franchises of all time, each one delivering its own flavor of blockbusting action that’ll satisfy your thirst for high-octane drama....
While action flicks may be far from the “sophisticated” end of the cinema spectrum, few other genres are as unabashedly exhilarating and easy to watch as an action blockbuster. And when our favorite action movie stars are swinging fists or clanging swords with one another, it’s that much better. Of course, the action movies that came out after the turn of the millenium took on a different identity than the nostalgic actioners of previous decades....
Schwarzenegger, Stallone, you know what we’re talking about. And the trend caught on! In the 80s and 90s, we got all kinds of movies where evil henchmen were dispatched with brute physical force, and it all carved out an essential place in movie history: the action movie genre. But in the 21st century, the action movie genre changed. Audiences grew bored of the usual Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone types running around with oversized weapons and slaughtering bad guys, all to the tune of clichéd plots that got worse by the year....
First, the rights to the Terminator franchise were—as Mario Kassar later described—“a mess.” Second, James Cameron couldn’t do what he wanted with the limits of filmmaking technology at the time. So, he waited until the right time came about. When James Cameron made The Abyss in 1989, he used that film as an opportunity to test the CGI technology he’d end up using to create his sequel to The Terminator. In the end, that test provided him with everything he needed to bring his vision across the big screen....
