15 Best Movies Like Bullet Train

Action comedies are a tricky thing to pull off properly, requiring deftly balanced tones while delivering on both engaging set pieces and hilarious jokes. 2022's "Bullet Train" is a slick, entertaining, and relatively recent flick that successfully lives up to this expectation. The movie also has plenty of style to spare, populating its action-packed story with characters that are too cool for school. That storytelling confidence and visually striking sensibility helps elevate "Bullet Train" above many of its contemporaries.

Of course, "Bullet Train" is far from the only movie that brings that kind of swagger to the action comedy genre, and it certainly won't be the last. There are plenty of movies that provide kinetic action with a wink and a healthy amount of humor to the audience. And there are many movies that offer that blend of action and comedy, with a splash of visual style, even more effectively than this one. Here are the 15 best movies like "Bullet Train" to keep the stylish thrills and gags going.

After helming several popular horror and thriller movies, director John Carpenter pivoted with the 1986 fantasy action comedy "Big Trouble in Little China." The movie stars Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, a truck driver whose rig is stolen after he stumbles into an ancient feud in the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown. Jack teams up with his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) not only to recover his truck, but rescue Wang's kidnapped fiancee, Miao Yin (Suzee Pai). Jack and Wang delve into the lair of local crime boss Lo Pan (James Hong), battling his magical enforcers and monsters in a frenzied martial arts showdown.

"Big Trouble in Little China" has the distinction of being the funniest movie Carpenter ever made and one of his most visually arresting. The film plays out like a modern fairy tale, only the kidnapped princess is confined to modern dungeons below Chinatown while leaning into its '70s martial arts movie influences. Along the way, Carpenter and Russell also deconstruct the typical action hero archetype, making Jack a bumbling figure through the adventure. An amazing '80s movie that deserved a sequel, "Big Trouble in Little China" is one of the most underrated films of Carpenter's career.

Jackie Chan has built an entire career starring in action comedies, to the point where his more serious projects always feel a bit off compared to his usual work. Among Chan's most successful work is the "Police Story" franchise, especially its third installment, 1992's "Supercop." Chan stars as Hong Kong police inspector Chan Ka-Kui, who teams up with Interpol superintendent Yang Chien-Hua (Michelle Yeoh) to infiltrate a Hong Kong-based crime syndicate. As they move closer to the syndicate's inner circle, they become embroiled in its deadly drug trade, which stretches from Thailand to Malaysia.

Completely accessible on its own, you can enjoy "Supercop" without watching the rest of the "Police Story" franchise. The movie arguably balances the series' usual humor and action the best of all of them, in no small part because of Yeoh's action-heavy performance. This is evident in a fierce gunfight in the middle of Thailand's Golden Triangle, descending into explosive chaos but regularly punctuating it with slapstick humor. One of Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh's best movies, "Supercop" exemplifies what Chan does best.

If there's a British filmmaker that popularized stylish crime and action comedies, it's Guy Ritchie. After his cult classic directorial debut "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," Ritchie took things to the next level for his sophomore movie, 2000's "Snatch," which he also wrote. Set in and around the London criminal underworld, the movie follows several separate sets of low-lives involved in various schemes. These range from recovering a particularly valuable diamond to the fixing of a bare-knuckle boxing tournament set up by local gangster Brick Top Pulford (Alan Ford).

After watching him flex his humorous chops in "Bullet Train," check out Brad Pitt's best comedic role in "Snatch." But Pitt is just one element of a masterfully assembled ensemble cast for the movie, including several Ritchie regulars leaning into their working-class English best. The movie seamlessly flits between its multiple narratives before they collide spectacularly as the story reaches its darkly funny climax. Decades later, "Snatch" is still the best Guy Ritchie movie and the bar against which all his subsequent films are judged.

One of Dwayne Johnson's earliest action movie starring roles was in 2003's "The Rundown," with Johnson playing a debt collector and bounty hunter named Beck. Determined to get out of the business, Beck takes one last job, traveling to a remote mining village in Brazil to retrieve Travis Walker (Seann William Scott) for Walker's father. The mine is run by its cruel overseer Cornelius Hatcher (Christopher Walken), who's hunting Travis for a priceless artifact he discovered. This pits Beck and Travis against Hatcher and his small army, with the duo also working with Mariana (Rosario Dawson), who leads the local resistance against Hatcher's operation.

"The Rundown" is a refreshing action movie project for Johnson before his blockbuster work became more homogenized and safe. He finds a natural pairing in Scott, then fresh off of the "American Pie" trilogy, as a fun mismatched partner. Though unsuccessful in its initial theatrical release, "The Rundown" found its audience streaming on Netflix and through other home media platforms. A buddy action comedy that puts Johnson through the wringer, check out this 2003 flick if you missed it before his acting career really took off.

After turning cop movies on their head by writing 1987's "Lethal Weapon," filmmaker Shane Black veered more into overt comedy with his 2005 neo-noir film "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." Robert Downey Jr. plays an inept burglar named Harry Lockhart who travels to Los Angeles after he accidentally stumbles into an audition and impresses a casting director. Arriving in time for Christmas, Harry links up with private investigator Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer), and they both become embroiled in a murder mystery. As Harry and Perry try to find out what happened, they are targeted by deadly figures, leading to a steadily building body count.

Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer make the perfect team for the perfect crime movie in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." Like many classic noir stories, the true culprits and motivations for the mystery are just window dressing for the main characters' twist-heavy journey. Black has a lot of fun with that setup and Downey Jr. and Kilmer make the most of his sharp writing. An offbeat Christmas classic with plenty of dark humor, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is Black's masterpiece.

Guy Ritchie is far from the only British filmmaker who excels at stylized action, with Edgar Wright also bringing his eye-catching sensibilities to the silver screen. After spoofing zombie flicks with "Shaun of the Dead," Wright turned his attention to cop movies for the 2007 comedy "Hot Fuzz." Wright reunites with "Shaun of the Dead" stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, this time with the actors playing a pair of police officers in a sleepy English village. A newcomer, Nicholas Angel (Pegg) soon realizes that his new jurisdiction's picture-perfect image is murderously maintained by a dark conspiracy.

Though "Shaun of the Dead" is its own masterpiece, "Hot Fuzz" is the best of Edgar Wright's informal Cornetto trilogy. Wright packs in plenty of gags and allusions to classic cop movies, including the same masterful setups and callbacks that his best work is known for. This all culminates in what is an absolutely cathartic gun fight through the streets of town, as hilarious and violent as anything Wright has done before or since. One of the best action comedies ever made, "Hot Fuzz" is a sincere love letter to the genre it so thoroughly deconstructs.

The comic book series "The Losers" by Andy Diggle and Jock was adapted into an action comedy of the same name in 2010. The movie follows a close-knit team of black-ops soldiers who are betrayed while on a mission in Bolivia. After faking their deaths, the squad is approached by an enigmatic woman named Aisha Al-Fadhil (Zoë Saldaña) with an offer to return to the States and get their revenge. Upon their entry into Los Angeles, the group identifies clandestine government official Max (Jason Patric) as their betrayer and moves to stop his latest explosive plot.

Much more comedically oriented than its comic book source material, "The Losers" really leans into its ensemble cast's charm. This includes one of the funniest performances from Chris Evans in years, playing the team's resident tech expert. The action is relatively straightforward but competently done, made all the more enjoyable by the cast. An underrated action comedy that doesn't reinvent the wheel (but also never particularly tries to), "The Losers" offers lots of lightweight fun.

Filmmaker Matthew Vaughn adapted the comic book series "The Secret Service" that he created with Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons in 2014. The movie completely deconstructs the British gentleman spy popularized by James Bond, complete with well-tailored suits and gadgets. Gifted lower-class youth Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) is recruited into a slick spy service known as Kingsman by his late father's colleague, Harry Hart (Colin Firth). Eggsy's training coincides with a plot by billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) to eradicate the majority of humanity by transmitting a special signal inducing uncontrollable violence.

Though its sequels and spin-offs steadily suffered from a law of diminishing returns, the first "Kingsman" movie is still a blast. From its slick action sequences to a cooler-than-ice performance from Firth, Vaughn creates a fresh and fun spy movie. This is highlighted by a frenzied fracas in a bigoted Kentucky church, all set to "Free Bird." Purposefully oozing with style and self-assured swagger, "Kingsman: The Secret Service" is still the pinnacle of the franchise.

Another action comedy classic from Shane Black, 2016's "The Nice Guys" winds back the clock to Los Angeles in the '70s. The movie has private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and gruff enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) become involved with a winding murder mystery involving a conspiracy linked to the entertainment industry, with a merciless hitman, John Boy (Matt Bomer), eliminating all loose ends associated with it. As March and Healy dig deeper, they learn that the conspiracy spreads to the automotive industry as the body count continues to rise around them.

Black and the cast are clearly having a blast with the period piece setting behind "The Nice Guys," and that joy spreads to the audience. Even in scenes without Crowe, Gosling comedically subverts the cool-guy investigator archetype as he guides the viewer through this neo-noir adventure. Paired together, Gosling and Crowe make for a fun duo, with Crowe handling much of the conventional action while Gosling stands as his mismatched partner. It's absolutely criminal that it hasn't received a sequel, but "The Nice Guys" perfectly encapsulates Shane Black's creative strengths.

Another crime comedy set in the '70s, 2016's "Free Fire" unfolds over the course of a particularly violent night in 1978. The story centers on an arms deal gone wrong in a Boston warehouse between the IRA and a local arms dealer and his associates. Tensions between the two factions rapidly escalate, resulting in an ongoing gunfight between them throughout the warehouse. The survivors fight not only to take out their enemies, but recover the intended cash payoff for the botched deal.

"Free Fire" is an explosively entertaining feature-length shootout, stylishly staged by filmmaker Ben Wheatley, who directed and co-wrote the movie. Cillian Murphy and Brie Larson lead a strong ensemble cast, trading barbs with each other as well as bullets. But given the locked-room premise, this story is all killer, no filler as it presents and resolves its extended standoff across 90 minutes. Another solid and atmospherically presented period piece action comedy, "Free Fire" deserves more love than it got during its theatrical run.

After helming the Cornetto trilogy, Edgar Wright wrote and directed the 2017 crime thriller "Baby Driver," which focused on driving prodigy Baby (Ansel Elgort). Baby works as a getaway driver for local crook Doc (Kevin Spacey), often listening to music to help him get into the groove while driving. In between jobs, Baby strikes up a romance with diner server Debora (Lily James), which is complicated by Doc starting to work with the volatile Bats (Jamie Foxx). When the group's last big bank heist goes disastrously wrong, it puts Baby and his entire world in danger.

Right from the opening heist, it's clear that "Baby Driver" is going to be a ridiculously good time in a way that only Wright can orchestrate. The synthesis of what's unfolding on-screen and the soundtrack is seamless and elevates the entire experience. But whenever the film brings those sensibilities together for its driving sequences, it leads to some of the greatest car chases in movie history. Slickly staged and with Wright's killer sense of visual style still very much intact, "Baby Driver" is among his best work.

After exploring different genres for several years, filmmaker Guy Ritchie returned to contemporary crime comedy with 2019's "The Gentlemen." The movie has American ex-pat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) build his own drug empire in the United Kingdom. As Britain begins to legalize marijuana, Mickey looks to sell off his empire and retire from his illicit business. Even though Mickey has selected a successor in Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong), he and his business are targeted by unsavory figures in the British criminal underworld.

"The Gentlemen" is a welcome return to form for Ritchie, and he assembles quite the all-star cast to usher in the moment. All the usual hallmarks of Ritchie's strong early work are present, particularly his penchant for dark humor using London's criminal element as a backdrop. While the movie itself can feel like a parade of Ritchie's greatest hits, with the cast that good and material that strong, it all coalesces together. Inspiring a Netflix television spin-off of the same name, "The Gentlemen" is one of Ritchie's best films in years.

In between seasons of "Better Call Saul," Bob Odenkirk starred in and produced the 2021 action thriller "Nobody." Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, a seemingly ordinary, if passive, family man and white-collar office worker whose orderly life is disrupted by a home invasion by common burglars. This leads him to fend off a group of crooks on a bus, permanently brain damaging one of them, enraging his mob boss older brother Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov). This leads Yulian to hunt for Hutch and his family while the truth about Hutch's violent background comes to light.

Though the story itself feels like a more family-based retread of "John Wick" (both projects were written by screenwriter Derek Kolstad), "Nobody" excels considerably thanks to Odenkirk's performance. Kolstad also injects a darker sense of humor into the 2021 than he had with the Keanu Reeves-led franchise, helping set it apart. On top of that, the requisite action is solidly staged, with Odenkirk more than holding his own as a middle-aged crime-fighter. "Nobody" was a modest box office hit, spawning a 2025 sequel that kept the thrills going.

For their third movie together, the 2023 crime comedy "Hit Man," filmmaker Richard Linklater and Glen Powell worked closely together. In addition to producing and co-writing the movie with Linklater, Powell stars as Gary Johnson, a mild-mannered professor who agrees to pose as an assassin for a police sting operation. For each sting, Gary takes on a different colorful persona to solicit each potential client, with police arresting them all for attempted murder. However, Gary grows close to beautiful client Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona), who hires him to kill her abusive husband, blurring the lines of his fabricated persona and true self.

Though "Hit Man" is built around Glen Powell's affable charm (and he brings plenty to the project), the movie's secret weapon is really Adria Arjona. Her chemistry with Powell and overall likable performance is what stirs Powell's character, and the audience, to become deeply invested in the story. The action elements are solid, but the real focus is on the romance at the movie's core. A light romantic comedy with crime and action tropes to inform and complicate the tale, "Hit Man" showcases Linklater, Powell, and Arjona's easygoing collaboration.

The hit '80s series "The Fall Guy" was loosely adapted into an action comedy in 2024 starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Gosling plays death-defying stunt performer Colt Seavers, who abruptly quits the business after suffering a major accident and breaking up with his girlfriend, Jody Moreno (Blunt). Colt is later convinced to join Jody's first feature directorial project, though she's still furious at him over their complicated history. While working on the movie, Colt uncovers a conspiracy that has him test his action capabilities for real as he tries to solve a murder mystery.

Given its premise, "The Fall Guy" maintains a self-aware sense of humor about work in the film industry. Fortunately, this doesn't overshadow the story itself, with Gosling and Blunt keeping the proceedings entertaining and playing off of each other well. The set pieces are explosively thrilling and provide more old-school, stunt-drive spectacle than something largely computer-generated. "The Fall Guy" is a spectacular time at the movies that appropriately leans heavy on its action.