10 Best Action Movies Nobody Talks About Anymore

Not every great movie has the good fortune of becoming an all-time classic, a recognizable touchstone for audiences across generations. Going down as a canonical film is linked to quality, yes, but also the winds of destiny granting more serendipity to some movies over others. Maybe that's because some films happened to get played on cable repeatedly over the years, or even old-fashioned, undeniable word of mouth helped boost their status.

Regardless, this list of action classics doesn't include the likes of "Die Hard," "Mad Max: Fury Road," or "The Matrix," — you can find the likes of those on our huge list of the 101 best action movies ever made. Instead, this list highlights movies that have been somewhat overlooked. In a different universe, maybe one of these films was played on TNT around the clock until audiences knew every line of it, or perhaps if tastes were skewed in just a slightly different direction, we would have a completely different well-known canon of action that these films help encompass. In any case, they're worth your time and help to expand a diverse legacy of cinematic thrillers.

Here are the 10 best action movies that no one talks about anymore.

"The Hunted" isn't widely remembered, perhaps by nature of it being released in the deep end of Friendkin's late-period films of varying quality. But make no mistake: "The Hunted" is lean, mean, violent, and underrated. Director William Friedkin delivers a gritty, cat-and-mouse procedural thriller with ruthless efficiency, perfectly matching his preference for elemental, stripped-down stylizing.

Clocking in at a clean 90 minutes and change, the film plunges you into the intense military operations experienced by special forces operator Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro). When we flash forward to his life after the field, we see how a life of sanctioned violence has shaped him as he stealthily hunts two men in the woods. Law enforcement gets involved, and they bring in L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones), a former survival trainer with a history with Aaron. The two chase each other across Portland for the rest of the film.

That's what "The Hunted" boils down to: a long chase movie focused on the primal themes of violence and pain shared by two men. If the plot echoes "First Blood," that's just a launching point for Friedkin's unique tone of somber, savage brutality. Plus, as a simple two-hander thriller mounted by the powerful duo of Del Toro and Jones, you're in good hands.

Speaking of films that move like a bullet, here's a road thriller that deserves more love — even star Kurt Russell believes it's underrated. "Breakdown" stars Russell as Jeff Taylor, a civilized white-collar husband whose car breaks down while traveling from Boston to San Diego in the middle of Arizona with his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan). After Amy hitches a ride with a trucker to a nearby diner, Jeff gets the car running, but when he catches up to the diner, neither Amy nor the trucker is anywhere to be found.

"Breakdown" skillfully blends different thriller subgenres. It starts with an uneasy missing-person mystery akin to "The Vanishing," then shifts into folk-horror territory, with Jeff feeling like an outsider in a hostile rural community. Eventually, it turns into straight-up American Ozploitation, capped by a "Max Max" style, high-octane desert highway scene where Russell runs the villains off the road in a fiery, furious showdown.

There are plenty of reference points scattered throughout "Breakdown," and the fast-paced story intensifies the sense of relentless movement. But the filmmaking doesn't let it down either: writer and director Jonathan Mostow makes this an engaging ride because of his understanding of the potential of thrills rooted in the rudiments of solid craft. It's a lean, sharp thriller with a level of storytelling economy and formal skill that reminds you of how dependable '90s Hollywood was.

"Set It Off" was a cultural breakthrough when it was released in 1996, though it now seems to be perceived as a relic of a different time. Yet, director F. Gary Gray's bank heist melodrama holds up tremendously, deeply rooted in the emotional truths of its main cast and shot with the kind of mid-budget richness that defined '90s Hollywood.

"Set It Off" really explores the perceived need to take extreme measures when people are at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. Friends Stony (Jada Pinkett Smith), Cleo (Queen Latifah), Frankie (Vivica A. Fox), and T.T. (Kimberly Elise) have all been mistreated because of their circumstances — Frankie losing her job after being accused of aiding a bank robbery she didn't commit, and T.T. having her child taken away by Child Protective Services after a mishap at her workplace, caused by her inability to afford a babysitter. Screenwriters Takashi Bufford and Kate Lanier craft a story that makes you root for them from the moment they decide to start robbing banks.

Of course, Gray directs the bank robberies with a proficient aplomb. Aided by the deep-rooted character relationships and powerful performances, he draws you into the propulsive momentum of the set-pieces and what they symbolize for the characters, all leading to an incendiary and tragic climax that gives the film genuine stakes.

If you love Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" movies but haven't seen "Darkman," boy, do I have some good news for you. Raimi's take on his own original comic-book style hero is essentially a trial run for his eventual big-budget swing at the webslinger, featuring all the distinctive stylistic choices you love from those films, now presented in the same energetic, infectious manner unique to Raimi. He's a director like a kid gleefully smashing together all his favorite toys, and "Darkman" put him ahead of the superhero curve.

Imbued with a dash of both Universal Horror-type monster movies and mad-science body-transformation thrillers, "Darkman" is packed with pulp influences from multiple directions. Liam Neeson stars as Peyton Westlake, a scientist nearing a breakthrough in developing synthetic skin for burn victims, until he's viciously attacked and left for dead by a criminal gang. He survives through experimental treatment at the hospital, emerging burdened with scars but also endowed with super-strength and an amplified emotional state. Using his own scientific advancements, he creates realistic masks to temporarily change his identity, enabling him to infiltrate the criminal underworld and seek revenge.

"Darkman" captures the vivid, comic book-style splashiness on screen, fueled by Raimi's exuberant formal chops. The film is filled with innovative effects like smash zooms, superimposition montages, stop-motion, impressively grotesque practical effects and makeup, and the now nostalgic '90s digital composite images. It's sure to renew your belief that superhero movies still have plenty of room for originality and verve.

The conspiracy at the center of "The Last Boy Scout" might seem quaint today. You're telling me bigwigs in pro football want to legalize sports gambling?! But its sense of rollicking fun still holds up 35 years later. Legendary action director Tony Scott helms this crackerjack buddy-cop-style screenplay by Shane Black, in his usual subversive yet misanthropic manner, which takes a callous view of the heroes at its center.

Those heroes: Bruce Willis as Joe Hallenbeck, a disgraced, jaded ex-Secret Service agent, and Damon Wayans as Jimmy Dix, a disgraced, jaded ex-pro quarterback. Their tarnished careers, as well as their individual stakes in the central scheme, allow them to connect despite their conflicting personalities, with the two forming a charming, banter-filled friendship of mutual respect, nonetheless underlined by a certain grotesqueness born of the excesses of the violent American psychological id.

So this is an unhinged Shane Black movie, but it's also a '90s Tony Scott action movie, so you know what to expect: something explosive and sharp in only the way a '90s action flick can be, even with a famously troubled production where almost everyone involved had a terrible experience editor Stuart Baird saved the final product from a reportedly unwatchable rough cut. You wouldn't guess any of that from how smoothly "The Last Boy Scout" plays, thanks to the great chemistry between Willis and Wayans, and the script that's both satirical and reverent of the detective stories it references. If you don't believe me, believe our list of every Tony Scott movie ranked, where "The Last Boy Scout" ranks comfortably in the top 10.

If you enjoy the extravagant excesses of "The Last Boy Scout," then you owe it to yourself to check out "The Long Kiss Goodnight." This film is another Shane Black-penned buddy thriller that encompasses his typical preoccupations: scuzzy amateur detectives, major political conspiracies, witty dialogue that takes aim at genre tropes, and the droll irony of incongruous elements like clever children and Christmas playing a significant role.

Directed by action programmer extraordinaire Renny Harlin, Black gets ahead of the amnesia-stricken state-killer curve a few years before "The Bourne Ultimatum." Harlin stars his then-wife, Geena Davis, as Samantha Caine, a suburban mother who can't remember anything before the past eight years of her life, despite having seen various private detectives, such as Mitch Hennessey (Samuel L. Jackson), to help uncover her past. Soon, she begins recovering memories, and old enemies start to close in as she uncovers the truth about her past as a trained assassin.

"The Long Kiss Goodnight" was not a major box office success upon its initial release, possibly due to its timing right after Harlin and Davis's previous collaboration, the legendary flop "Cutthroat Island." But it lives on with a well-earned cult status for its cheeky writing and its truly unhinged sensibilities, with both Black and Harlin, in their contrasting sensibilities, throwing every familiar trope and subversion at the screen simultaneously, crafting something that feels like a chaotic explosion of '90s style that refuses to tone down. That's part of its charm: "The Long Kiss Goodnight" is frenetic and self-indulgent in a way that most studios tend to avoid these days.

All you need to know about "Hard Target" is that, at one point, Jean-Claude Van Damme knocks out a snake by punching it in the head, rips out its rattle with his teeth, and then sets it up to fall from a tree and attack his unwitting pursuers while on his trail. That's the kind of silly mania you can expect from this John Woo-directed thriller styled after "The Most Dangerous Game," which is really one of the most ripped-off movies ever made. This version is about a rich bounty hunter who runs an operation to allow the elite to hunt and kill the homeless combat veterans of New Orleans.

Woo brings his typical style of Hong Kong action grandiosity to his first Hollywood movie. If it doesn't capture the melodramatic poignancy of something like "The Killer," it does still feature sweeping slo-mo shots of Van Damme standing on top of a moving motorcycle, avoiding explosive artillery while riding a horse, and roundhouse kicking just a whole bunch of dudes. The plot's early goings can be a tad plodding, but you've forgotten all about that once you get to the huge firefight between Van Damme and a team of mercenaries in a warehouse of abandoned Mardi Gras parade floats.

That's how Woo gets it right where it counts with "Hard Target." The elemental grandeur of his action is as effective as ever, and you get that same giddy thrill you get from watching the best of his Hong Kong work in the heat of the action. "Hard Target" is silly, absurd, and over-the-top, which is just what you want when hitting play.

It seems that, in the '90s, there was a penchant for adapting "The Most Dangerous Game" into thrillers focused on how society dehumanizes homeless people. That's how we got "Surviving the Game" the year after "Hard Target," echoing the Woo film's plot and themes with a less theatrical but still plenty nutty low-budget style.

Ernest R. Dickerson directs a script by Eric Bernt that follows Mason (Ice-T), an inner-city homeless man recruited for a suspicious job as a wilderness survival guide. It turns out this is a ruse orchestrated by his supposed employers, who instead lure people like Mason into the wilderness to hunt them for sport, happily taking their bloodlust out on a group they consider beneath civil society.

"Surviving The Game" gets pretty wild when Mason starts setting traps in the woods to trick his hunters, demonstrating he's more capable of surviving than expected as he quietly takes each one out. Ice-T delivers a solid performance in the lead role, and the villains chasing him include a lineup of notable '90s character actors: Rutger Hauer, Charles S. Dutton, John C. McGinley, Gary Busey, and F. Murray Abraham — as they look to make Ice-T their next prey. You won't find the elegance of "Hard Target" here, but you will get a gritty, unpolished genre flick that doesn't hold back.

"Haywire" tends to rank lower in the pecking order of Steven Soderbergh movies. But that's for no good reason! His espionage thriller belongs among some of the best underrated women-led action films, deconstructing the glamorized idea of the spy action thriller by stripping it down to grittier, more realistic truths.

The woman leading the film is, unfortunately, Gina Carano, who has since derailed a promising transition from professional MMA fighting to movie stardom by courting controversy in the public eye and losing her lucrative "Star Wars" gig. But I digress. On its own terms, it's an impressive physical performance, with precise combat choreography and brutal stunt-work that elevate Soderbergh's boilerplate story about a contractor assassin betrayed by her handlers.

Soderbergh cuts down the espionage genre to brass tacks, coasting on the raw aura of pulp intrigue and primal physical combat, with a straightforward sense of viciousness in the fight scenes emphasized by simple camera setups and, mostly, a lack of score. A great ensemble of supporting actors joins the ride, including Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, and others. Clocking in at 90 minutes, Soderbergh wastes no time, and "Haywire" showcases the director operating at some of his anatomized pragmatism.

Have you ever wanted to see a movie that feels like "The Terminator," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Grand Theft Auto," "Twin Peaks," and "Robocop" rolled into one? I have a very specific title for you. Jack Sholder elevates the '80s buddy–cop action genre with a wild sci-fi premise courtesy of a script by Jim Kouf, allowing "The Hidden" to indulge in every aspect of mid-budget action excess, heightened with an extra dash of absurdity.

Michael Nouri stars as detective Tom Beck, who is investigating why regular LA citizens are suddenly committing major crimes like car hijackings and bank robberies. His partner is young, aloof FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan, foreshadowing his role as FBI agent Dale Cooper, who also teams up with the local police to track a supernatural entity), who might be connected to the criminal behind the chaos. Spoiler: They're actually tracking an alien parasite that jumps from one host to another, making ordinary people act on their most hedonistic urges.

"The Hidden" satirizes the excesses of '80s culture through its concept, but it's the strong craftsmanship behind the camera that keeps it engaging. Sholder leans into straightforward action sci-fi fun and a real ruthless streak when it comes to the violence, which even includes MacLachlan attacking an alien-possessed US Senator with a flamethrower. "The Hidden" combines its various sci-fi, action, and horror influences into something unique. Just don't bother with the DTV sequel.