The 10 Best International Action Movies Of The Decade

(This article is part of our Best of the Decade series.)

Movies in general need a lot of different elements to go right for the end product to excel, but genre films typically require one above all else. Comedies should amuse/or make you laugh. Horror films should leave you unsettled, disturbed, and/or darkly delighted. And action movies should thrill audiences through their use of motion and impact. This past decade has been fantastic for films of all kinds, but it's been especially rewarding for fans of action cinema.

Many of the decade's big names in the genre are English-language endeavors belonging to franchises like John Wick, Mission: Impossible, and Mad Max, but for the best action movies – the ones that take the most advantage of both the strength and fragility of human bodies – you typically need to look overseas. Budgets are typically far smaller than their American counterparts, but that just means their efforts need to be more focused. Fewer big stunts and EF-heavy set-pieces, and better brawls, cool choreography, and stylish fights.

English-language action films are being celebrated elsewhere on this site, so I'm stoked to point attention towards the best action movies from non-English countries. Limiting it to just ten films representing an entire decade wasn't easy – hence the additional fourteen honorable mentions at the bottom – but it did highlight something that might surprise some people (even though it really shouldn't). When it comes to fight-heavy action movies, Asian countries are kicking everyone else's ass. South Korea, Indonesia, China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia are responsible for delivering epic amounts of flying fists, calamitous kicks, nifty knife-work, and gratuitous gun play, and we're all better off for it. Keep reading for a look at the 10 best non-English action movies of the decade!

Just as The Villainess below channels notes of Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita (1990), The Man from Nowhere tips its hand more towards The Professional (1994) with its story about a solitary man forced by circumstance to take a young neighbor girl under his protection. He doesn't train her to be a bad-ass killer, but he does do a lot of bad-ass killing in her name. Along the way, though, the film manages something most action movies don't and that's find room for some truly emotional beats between lead Won Bin and young Kim Sae-ron (who gives one of the best performances by a child you've ever seen in an action picture). There's legit pain evident on Won's face when the bad guy tosses him a jar with the little girl's eyes in it... and it's that rare unicorn of an action movie that will have you tearing up at the end.

But this is an action list, and The Man from Nowhere earns a spot here thanks to some slick set-pieces that don't even really start in earnest until the halfway mark. We get some skirmishes and chases, but the film's triumph is a finale that delivers a glorious fight between Won and a dozen henchmen that moves from guns to knives and straight into our hearts. The knife action here set a high bar that wouldn't be matched for years (in 2014's The Raid: Berandal to be precise), and the entire sequence remains an all-timer for its choreography, cruelty, and carnage.

While the Ip Man franchise offers a linear series following the same characters, the SPL films are more about themes and morality. Sha Po Lang is a collection of three stars in Chinese astrology that together determine the moral compass of a person resulting in actions good, bad, and in between. The trilogy opens with Kill Zone, closes with Paradox (2017), and features this stellar masterclass in action cinema smack dab in the middle. Some cast members return from the first film as different characters for a whole new story about bad choices, bloody consequences, and the fights necessary to reach salvation.

A Time for Consequences stars Wu Jing as an undercover cop who's forced to join forces with a Thai prison guard played by Tony Jaa in a battle against a merciless crime boss and nasty organ harvesters. The film squeezes out buckets of contrived melodrama in between brawls, but rather than sink the film it works to give viewers breathing room between fight scenes. Wu and Jaa have a pair of clashes themselves before becoming reluctant partners, with one of the fights occurring during a massive prison riot captured in a single tracking shot. It's a glorious blend of hard-hitting action, nearly seamless wire work, and an energetic camera, and it's still not the film's action highlight. That comes later when Wu and Jaa square off against the precision brilliance of Zhang Jin (whose Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy almost made the cut too).

That's not a typo, and no, you're not hallucinating – one of the decade's best action films came out of Germany. It sadly has yet to find an official US release, but three years on the odds of that happening are probably slim to none. I'm not giving up on it, though, so it's making the list! Odds are you won't recognize the three action leads here (Can Aydin, Yoon Cha-lee, Phong Giang), but you've most definitely seen their work as they have healthy careers as stuntmen/fight doubles in blockbusters like Skyfall, John Wick: Chapter 3, Hobbs & Shaw, and more.

Here they play friends hoping to break into the movie stunt business, but when they mistake a real hostage situation for an audition they find themselves caught up in a world of gangsters, thieves, and killers throughout Berlin. It's a low budget movie, but that never gets in the way of the action which sees all three dishing out and taking plenty of hits with style. The fight choreography is sharp, fast, and consistently athletic showcasing talents every bit as impressive as martial artists whose names you do know. The film is also pretty damn funny thanks to a fast-moving script and playful banter between them, but it's the action that lands it a spot here. The trio made a second film (On the Ropes, 2018) that did get a US release, so here's hoping Plan B doesn't get forgotten.

Okay, what I just said about action movies being simple? Well, I'll use this opportunity to point out that as fantastic as South Korea's action output is they've never met a plot they couldn't make more convoluted. That's not a criticism as Korean cinema's use of complex genre stories and impeccably balanced tone are two of the many reasons why I love them so damn much, and The Villainess is a mesmerizing example of both those traits paired with an absolute stunner of an action movie.

The film opens with a first-person POV assault on a gangster's hideout complete with gun play, sword shenanigans, and more before finally pulling back to reveal the woman behind the mayhem. Kim Ok-bin – perfection in Park Chan-wook's Thirst (2009) – is on fire here as a woman out for revenge who shoots, slices, stabs, and crashes her way through every obstacle in her path. The action is stylish as all hell and includes a deliriously thrilling scene involving a motorcycle chase complete with sword fights. (Why yes, John Wick: Chapter 3 did borrow the idea.) The story jumps all over the place with flashbacks, dense character work, and a story involving a government-run school for assassins, but if you ever feel as if you're being pushed away the action quickly returns to pull your ass back into the thick of it.

I suppose there are some supposed action fans who don't like Gareth Evans' grander follow-up to his 2011 gem, but those aren't people I care to know. This sequel was actually intended to be the first film, but as its scope grew the filmmakers felt it better just to make a smaller film instead. That movie's success made this follow-up a no-brainer, and it's a textbook example of how to do a sequel right – expand the story while delivering more of what people loved the first time around. To that end, the narrative here is richer and more complex, the cinematography is gorgeous and varied, and the action? Well it's the best the decade has to offer.

Iko Uwais returns as the cop putting his life on the line for his country's bigger picture, but rather than fight it out in a single building the action here moves from prison – we get a muddy and bloody yard fight and Uwais taking on a whole cell block – to subways, streets, bamboo forests, a fancy nightclub, a restaurant kitchen, and more. (That kitchen scene also delivers one of the greatest one on one fights of all-time.) Uwais is the lead and star fighter here, but the film also gifts audiences with the action chops of Cecep Arif Rahman, Yayan Ruhian, and Julie Estelle's unforgettable Hammer Girl, in addition to a car chase sequence that impresses with some truly inventive camerawork. It's action nirvana built on the bones of an epic gangster tale, and even multiple re-watches later it remains the best action movie of the decade.