Non-linear movies are fun sometimes. When a movie goes off in strange directions, folds in on itself all meta-like, or indulges in some non-chronological storytelling, the results can be dizzying and unique. It’s a big reason why films like Memento and Pulp Fiction are so revered. Sometimes, action-heavy movies can get in on the non-linear action, as seen in the likes of Kill Bill and Sin City.
But, regarding action movies, there’s also a big appeal to the ones that keep things simple, and more or less linear. The following action films are all direct, in one way or another, with characters achieving simple objectives, contending with time going forward steadily, moving from one point to another, or being locked down in one location, without much room to move around unpredictably. Such linear films – all of which still deliver great action – are ranked below, relating to just how linear and satisfyingly straightforward they are.
10 ‘John Wick’ (2014)
Director: Chad Stahelski
The John Wick movies got bigger and more complex with every new installment, as well as beefier regarding things like budgets and runtimes, too. There’s more spectacle to be found in the sequels to the first movie, as a result, but there’s also a simplicity to the story of 2014’s John Wick that truly satisfies. Its directness was likely a reason for its success; a contributing reason as to why it got sequels.
With John Wick, the movie is about a ruthless ex-hitman who has everything taken from him, so he sets out on a path of vengeance – with seemingly nothing to lose – and shoots/beats up a lot of people who had it coming. Narratively, the other John Wick movies aren’t the most complex things in the world, but they build a large world that’s only glimpsed in the first film. It’s mostly about getting vengeance and kicking many asses.
9 ‘Escape from New York’ (1981)
Director: John Carpenter
Escape from New York is about escaping from New York, and presenting a cinematic argument as to why no one’s ever been cooler on screen than Kurt Russell here, playing Snake Plissken. His character is told to infiltrate what was once Manhattan, but is now a giant prison, given the President is trapped inside and needs to escape from… you know, New York.
Snake Plissken goes in, he clashes with people, he meets some allies, and then he gets the President, and then they get out of New York (spoilers, sorry). It is so blunt and no-nonsense, but that’s also part of what makes Escape from New York so cool. It’s almost like a hang-out movie set in a dystopia, with a little action and a lot of grittiness along the way – it’s a blast, really.
8 ‘Commando’ (1985)
Director: Mark L. Lester
Of all the many entertaining action movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Commando might well be one of the silliest and most enjoyable. Schwarzenegger plays someone who was once the elite leader of a commando strike force, and is forced to draw upon his skills once more when his daughter gets kidnapped, at which point it becomes clear he’ll stop at nothing – and spare no one – when it comes to rescuing her.
After that pesky plot is established, Commando is more or less a series of sometimes rather ordinary action scenes that show Schwarzenegger taking on dozens of people with ease. He racks up a stupendously large body count before the movie concludes exactly the way you’d expect it to. But it’s a dumb kind of entertaining, and the quality of the action is forgivable when Commando ultimately ends up delivering quantity.
7 ‘The Dirty Dozen’ (1967)
Director: Robert Aldrich
While The Dirty Dozen didn’t rewrite the book narratively speaking, it did push boundaries of its time when it came to content, displaying a vicious kind of violence and a willingness to follow some rather flawed antiheroes that were sometimes more “anti” than “hero.” Set during World War II, the titular squad is made up of military prisoners told they will be granted freedom if they successfully execute – and survive – a dangerous mission behind enemy lines.
Structurally straightforward but undeniably satisfying, The Dirty Dozen follows a team getting assembled, then shows that team preparing, and then presents the team taking on the dangerous mission after some great build-up. It’s a movie that has a sense of adventure and scale, but, at the end of it all, is no-nonsense and very easy to follow in a story sense, which gives it a feeling of linearity (in a good way, of course).
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6 ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981)
Director: Steven Spielberg
A wonderfully successful throwback to action/adventure serials of old, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best Steven Spielberg movies and one of his easiest to enjoy. It introduced Indiana Jones and is still the greatest film of the series that bears his name, following him here as he races Nazi forces to the Ark of the Covenant, attempting to obtain it before they can use it for likely nefarious purposes.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is sprawling location-wise, given how it’s a globe-trotting type adventure movie, but the plot isn’t complex, and mostly involves having to go from one point to another to another, and so on, until the final destination’s reached. Along the way, there’s humor, great action sequences, and fun characters, and that’s really all you need for an action film like this.
5 ‘Revenge’ (2017)
Director: Coralie Fargeat
With a self-explanatory title similar to the aforementioned Escape from New York, Revenge is about revenge. It has a direct premise and a small number of characters, with the protagonist being a woman who’s assaulted and left for dead in the desert by a group of men, only she doesn’t die and is effectively reborn as an unstoppable being who’ll stop at nothing to make the men pay.
It’s a film that stands out because of how brazenly it commits to such a premise, and because of how far it goes in the violence department, emerging as one of the most extreme action movies in recent memory. Revenge is not for the faint of heart, but those willing to handle something gnarly and think they’ve seen it all when it comes to on-screen carnage ought to check it out. They’ll probably emerge surprised and/or a little traumatized.
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4 ‘Die Hard’ (1988)
Director: John McTiernan
The Die Hard sequels didn’t get as wild or progressively bigger in quite the same way the John Wick movies did, but it is another classic action franchise where the first movie was both the simplest and the best. Die Hard follows an unlikely hero in the wrong place at the wrong time… though he also emerges as the only person who can stop a group of apparent terrorists who’ve taken over the building his estranged wife works in.
It’s a film that unfolds over a short amount of time, and always has a clear set of goals for John McClane (Bruce Willis) to tackle. It’s not so much what happens, but how it happens that proves exciting, with so much tension, well-placed comedy, and exciting – albeit never too flashy – action scenes peppered throughout, all in all making for a true classic.
3 ‘The Raid’ (2011)
Director: Gareth Evans
A basically structured but perfectly simple martial arts classic, The Raid has the feel of an old-school video game; a beat ’em up with one level after another… quite literally. It takes place inside an apartment complex where a mission for an elite squad of police officers goes wrong, forcing them to fight their way out of the building, pretty much one level at a time.
The Raid wastes very little time, being just over an hour-and-a-half long and keeping the characters very straightforward. There are a couple of minor narrative turns here and there, but the focus is clearly on the action, and following one police officer in particular as he takes on numerous criminals who’ve been incentivized to kill him and his allies. The Raid is relentless and perfectly linear. It’s a simple action movie with complex fight choreography, and a real adrenaline rush of a film. Its sequel, while fantastic, is a more complicated (and some may say convoluted) affair.
2 ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Director: George Miller
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While Mad Max: Fury Road is a bit more than just one feature-length action scene, it certainly feels like one at times, thanks to the ferocity of its editing and the non-stop feel of its pacing. The titular character is swept up for what’s surely his wildest journey yet, forming an uneasy alliance with a woman named Furiosa, who’s mounting a risky escape from a post-apocalyptic warlord with some of his most prized “possessions” (a group of young women) in tow.
In Mad Max: Fury Road, the main characters escape to one place, find that place wasn’t what they were expecting, and then head back to where they came from, defeating the evil that had enslaved them along the way and ultimately emerging from the whole thing victorious. For two hours, it has characters go from point A, to point B, and then back to point A. That might sound boring, but it makes for one of the best action movies of all time.
1 ‘The General’ (1926)
Directors: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
Speaking generally, The General is one of the most important action movies of all time, and one of the earliest instances of what people now understand as the “action genre” could be seen in full force in a feature-length film. But even then, calling The General just an action movie is underselling it, as it’s also a romance, a Civil War movie, an adventure film, and a genuinely great comedy.
It’s Buster Keaton’s best-known movie for good reason, with the plot following him as he sets out to rescue his train and the girl he loves from people who’ve taken both from him. Like Mad Max: Fury Road, it condenses an A to B and then back to A journey into one film. It’s even more linear, though, because most of it occurs on a train track, and they can only really go in one direction without derailing. The General, as a film, never derails. It barrels forward and then backward and is consistently funny, awe-inspiring, and exciting stuff.
