Top 20 Best Action Movies of 2019

3. Shadow

Action Movies Release: May 17

Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos

Director: Chad Stahelski (John Wick: Chapter 2)

 

2. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek

 

Action Movies Release: January 18

James Badge Dale, Brian Geraghty, Patrick Fischler, Happy Anderson

Director: Henry Dunham

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is a movie that understands the value of restraint. After a mass shooting at a police funeral, a militia group in Michigan assembles at a warehouse to double-check the status of their massive stockpile of deadly weapons, including a batch of AR-15s. Turns out one of the guns is missing — the radio has confirmed that the shooter.

3. Shadow

Release: May 3

Deng Chao, Sun Li, Zheng Kai, Wang Qianyuan

Director: Zhang Yimou (Hero)

In a city covered in gray clouds and besieged by constant rain, an umbrella can become your last line of defense against the elements.

In Shadow, the latest visually stunning action epic from Hero and House of Flying Daggers wuxia master Zhang Yimou, parasols are more than helpful sun-blockers: They can be turned into deadly weapons, shooting boomerang-like blades of steel at oncoming attackers and transforming into protective sleds for traveling through the slick streets.

The “real” Commander Yu, also played by Deng, nurses a festering battle wound underground, training his double and scheming to overthrow the king.

This is a martial arts epic where the dense plotting is as tricky as the often balletic fight scenes. The narrative does lose steam in stretches, but the brilliantly designed and impeccably edited action sequences are simply on another level. If the battle scenes in Game of Thrones left you frustrated, Shadow provides a thrilling alternative.

4. Avengement

Action Movies Release: May 24

Scott Adkins, Craig Fairbrass, Thomas Turgoose, Nick Moran

Director: Jesse V. Johnson (The Debt Collector)

On the run, Cain ends up at a pub in the middle of the day, where he entertains the assembled goons with his convoluted life story, which involves a betrayal by his older brother and many grueling jailhouse brawls.

Johnson, a stuntman-turned-filmmaker who has directed Adkins features like Accident Man and Triple Threat, co-wrote the refreshingly sharp script, which has more on its mind than your average fight-driven revenge film, and he stages the ferocious, bare-knuckle melees with appropriate vigor, allowing Adkins to give one of the best performances of his career.

5. Alita: Battle Angel

best action movies in 2019

Release: February 14

Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson, Mahershala Ali

Director: Robert Rodriguez (Sin City)

(Alita) is an innovation from an era of despair. Dr. Edo found her mysterious while collecting cyborg parts..

Alita becomes a deadly and dangerous creature, she no longer remembers who she is or where she came from. But for Dr. Ido, the truth is very clear.

She is the being who can break the cycle of death. But for its purpose to be complete, it must have I fight and kill, this is where Aletta gains its true significance; She is an angel from heaven, as well as the angel of death.

Director: Robert Rodriguez (Director)
Written by: James Cameron (Screenplay) Lita Kalogridis (Screenplay)
Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala, Ali Ed Screen, Michelle Rodriguez

6. The Bouncer

best action movies in 2019

 

Action Movies Release: January 11

 Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sveva Alvit, Sami Bouajila, Kaaris

Director: Julien Leclercq (The Crew)

A nightclub guard in his 50s tries to raise his 8-year-old daughter. When it comes to aging action stars from the ’80s and ’90s.

it can be hard to know which of their new movies are truly worth watching and which ones you wouldn’t even pick up in a Blockbuster bargain bin.

This is a smart, no-nonsense, character-based action movie featuring one of Van Damme’s finest broken-down, hollowed-out performances.

The Bloodsport star plays Lukas, an ex-bodyguard turned nightclub tough guy who gets recruited by the cops to spy on his boss at a strip club. (He’s not a willing snitch:

The government suspects the crime boss of being in charge of a counterfeiting ring and they squeeze Lukas, who takes care of his young daughter, into serving as their mole.)

While the setup is basic neo-noir stuff, the execution here is top-notch, from the direction and writing to the performances and the fights, which are brutal and quick.

With his gaunt face and expressive eyes, Van Damme is perfect as a man consistently pushed to the brink.

Action Movies Release: September 27

Masataka Kubota, Nao Ōmori, Shōta Sometani, Sakurako Konishi

Director: Takashi Miike (Audition)

Leaping from heart-tugging romance to stomach-churning bloodshed, Takashi Miike’s crime lark First Love never settles down. That type of stylistic hyperactivity, a reluctance to find a lane and stay in it, can be irritating if improperly executed, but Miike, a prolific filmmaker with over 100 genre-spanning movies under his belt, is a master of controlled chaos. The relationship between despondent young boxer Leo (Kubota) and haunted young prostitute Monca (Konishi) provides a structural backbone for the narrative, which ricochets across a city as Yakuzas, Triads, cops, and underlings scheme away the night. Guns get pulled, swords get drawn, and, in one particularly kinetic moment, the movie switches to brightly colored animation, perhaps to cover for an effect the production couldn’t afford. Who knows? First Love’s restless energy keeps you swooning even as the bodies pile up.

8. Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy

best action movies in 2019

Action Movies Release: April 12

Max Zhang, Dave Bautista, Liu Yan, Xing Yu

Written by: Tae-Lee Chan (Writer) Edmund Wong (Writer)

Director: Yuen Woo-ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny)

Cast: Jin Chang Def, Batista, Michelle Yeoh, Tony Ja, Liu Yan, Chrissy Chao

As he maintains his inferior status after defeating his martial arts master, (Cheung Tin Chi) gets into trouble after getting into a battle with a powerful alien.

 

9. Gemini Man

 

Action Movies Release: October 11

Director: Ang Lee (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk).

One of the elite serial killers finds himself being watched, tracked, and targeted by another mysterious person outside the game, only to discover that his target is the younger clone of him.

 

11. Triple Threat

 

Action Movies Release: March 19

Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Tiger Chen, Scott Adkins

Director: Jesse V. Johnson (The Debt Collector)

A deal is made to snip the daughter of a billionaire trying to bring down the major crime organization, and here it becomes necessary for a team of mercenaries and a group of professional assassins to seek to stop the perpetrators of the deal before the billionaire’s daughter is injured.

12. Angel Has Fallen

best action movies in 2019

 

Release: August 23

 Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Danny Huston, Nick Nolte

Director: Ric Roman Waugh (Shot Caller)

Secret Services agent (Mike Banning) is suspected of attempting to assassinate the President; He must escape from his own agency and the FBI in an effort to uncover and reach the real threat before it is too late.

Growing increasingly weathered and grizzled with each passing year, Gerard Butler has become a surprisingly endearing, warm screen presence in various cookie-cutter action movies.

Deviating from the siege-structure of Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen.

Angel Has Fallen takes a slightly grittier approach, following Butler’s put-upon Secret Service Agent Mike Banning as he goes on the run, Fugitive-style, after being framed for an assassination attempt on the President of the United States (Freeman).

Thanks to Butler’s lunkhead charm, a self-aware performance from Nolte as Banning’s bearded Vietnam veteran father, Waugh’s taut direction of the bullet-ridden set-pieces, and a script peppered with amusing references to current events.

this is the rare threequel that easily tops the previous entries in the series. Over a decade after yelling his way through Zach Snyder’s macho dorm room staple 300, Butler has learned how to anchor a movie like this with a gruff, gun-toting form of grace.

13. Triple Frontier

best action movies in 2019

 

Release: March 13

Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund

Director: J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year)

Five friends are reunited with one goal in mind: the elimination of a South American drug lord, which puts them on a risky mission.

14. Furie

 

Release: March 1

Veronica Ngo, Cát Vy, Phan Thanh Nhiên, Phạm Anh Khoa

Director: Le-Van Kiet (The Rich Woman)

Kidnapping the child of an action hero has to be one of the dumbest things a villain can do. Don’t you know that person you just messed with is going to come after you with all their special skills, their physical strength, and their righteous anger? Apparently, the child-smuggling, organ-stealing black market gang at the center of Furie, a brisk Vietnamese action thriller, had no idea that local debt collector and single-mother Hai (Ngo of Star Wars: The Last Jedi) was so resilient when they decided to pluck her daughter from a crowd. Hai runs, kicks, punches, and shoots her way to her daughter. From a story-telling perspective, the plot isn’t that different from various Taken-like tales of parental vengeance, but the filmmakers have tricked out the story with enough emotional flashbacks and specific cultural details to make it stand out. The use of color in some of the dimly lit fights is particularly impressive, like when Ngo becomes a blur of pink as she battles an attacker on a rickety train.

15. Domino

 

Release: May 31

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Carice van Houten, Guy Pearce, Nicolas Bro

Director: Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible)

A police officer in Copenhagen, Denmark is seeking justice for his partner’s murder by a mysterious and unknown man.

16. Dragged Across Concrete

best action movies in 2019

 

Release: March 22

Action Movies Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White

Director: S. Craig Zahler (Brawl in Cell Block 99)

17. Terminator: Dark Fate

 

Action Movies Release: November 1

Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes

Director: Tim Miller (Deadpool)

Twenty years after the events of Judgment Day, Sarah Connor is back in order to protect a girl named Danny Ramos and her friends from a destructive new model sent to wipe them out.

18. The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil

best action movies in 2019

Action Movies Release: June 7

Ma Dong-seok, Kim Mu-yeol, Kim Sung-kyu, Heo Dong-won

Director: Lee Won-tae (Man of Will)

The Korean crime thriller The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil has one of those simple, straight-forward premises where you’ll likely know if you’re in or out right away.

As the title suggests, the plot follows a gangster (Train to Busan’s break-out star Ma Dong-seok) and a cop (Kim Mu-yeol)

who temporarily join forces, putting aside their natural distrust and simmering animosity, to hunt down a serial killer known only as K (Kim Sung-kyu).

He’s not exactly the devil, but he’s close enough. Dashing and terrifying, K selects his victims by getting into minor traffic accidents with them.

bumping their cars and then stabbing them when they get out to inspect the damages. For fans of Thomas Harris novels or Michael Mann films, The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil will feel familiar

the procedural aspects are too formulaic at points, leaning on stock characters and rote conflicts.

but Ma Dong-seok, a burly and wry performer, makes the most of his role as the heavy. He’s good enough that you wish the rest of the movie was operating at the same level.

19. Cold Pursuit

 

Release: February 8

Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum, Tom Bateman

Director: Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance)

Niels (Liam Neeson) a committed and committed snow skimmers driver, awarded with the Citizen of the Year award by Ski Town (Colorado). But conditions change and his life is turned upside down after his son was killed by the head of a well-known criminal organization, so Niels’ only endeavor is revenge for his son.

20. Polar

best action movies in 2019

Release: January 25

Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Matt Lucas

Director: Jonas Åkerlund (Lords of Chaos)