The 32 greatest '80s action movies

In the 1980s, action movies got big. Really, really big. Not only were stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme larger than life, but so was the level of spectacle that directors worked to capture on camera. There are just too many classics of the decade to choose from, but it's no fools' errand to try and rank the greatest action movies of the 1980s.

With the dust settled on Vietnam and America locked in a Cold War with Russia, the 1980s saw a seismic paradigm shift with the best action movies of the decade. While they remained star-oriented vehicles, many action flicks of the decade experimented beyond tired genres, like gunslinger Westerns and political thrillers, to toy with comedy, science fiction, and fantasy. The '80s also saw action movies shape up overseas, with filmmakers from Japan and Hong Kong elevating the game.

Whether you want bazooka blasts by the barrel or hard-hitting fistfights, '80s action movies are second to none. So, to celebrate this golden gun period of cinema, here are the 32 greatest '80s action movies of all time.

32. Commando

Year: 1985
Director: Mark L. Lester

Without question, Commando is the quintessential action movie of the 1980s, with Arnold Schwarzenegger lock and loaded to mow down bad guys with gardening tools and killer zingers. Arnie stars as John Matrix – an all-time great movie character name – who uses his skills as a former Special Forces commando to rescue his daughter (played by a young Alyssa Milano) after she's kidnapped by mercenaries. While the movie is little more than an excuse for Schwarzenegger to flex his Mr. Olympia muscles and blow things up, you don't see anyone complaining.

31. Road House

Year: 1989
Director: Rowdy Herrington

Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing is for the ladies – but Patrick Swayze in Road House is for the boys. In this sweaty 1980s cult classic, Swayze plays a stoic but ice-cool bouncer from New York City who is hired to sort out the rough patrons of the rowdy Double Deuce down in Missouri. But Swayze's Rick Dalton gets in over his head when he sees just how sweeping the town's deep-rooted corruption is, forcing him to rely on a kind of violence he swore off. Road House packs the heat and goes for the jugular.

30. Black Rain

Year: 1989
Director: Ridley Scott

Two years after winning his Best Actor Oscar for Wall Street, Michael Douglas returned to the big screen for Ridley Scott's Black Rain. Douglas stars as a tough-as-nails NYPD officer who teams up with a tradition-oriented Japanese cop (Ken Takakura) to chase down a yakuza gang member in Osaka. Part buddy cop movie, part fish-out-of-water story, and all atmosphere – one that feels not too distant from Scott's own Blade Runner – Black Rain is an underrated banger from Scott, a simmering action-noir gem drenched in neon and misty rain.

29. Highlander

Year: 1986
Director: Russell Mulcahy

There can only be one – and no matter how many sequels and spin-offs it's spawned, there is still only one Highlander. Christopher Lambert and Clancy Brown clash as immortal warriors caught in a blood feud that spans from the Scottish highlands in the 16th century to crime-ridden New York City in the 1980s, where the "Gathering" for immortals to win the "Prize" is secretly set to take place. While Highlander bombed at the box office, it endures as a fantasy cult classic, aided by the sonic boom of Queen's iconic song: "Princes of the Universe."

28. Bloodsport

Year: 1988
Director: Newt Arnold

Kumite! Kumite! Kumite! The film that made Jean-Claude Van Damme a star in the '80s (and later inspired the Mortal Kombat video games) was the total knockout Bloodsport. The action movie, directed by Newt Arnold, is based on the tall tales alleged by Marine veteran Frank Dux, who claims to have studied ninjutsu with a Japanese mentor and competed in a secret underground tournament in Hong Kong. While Dux's claims are dubious, the heat Bloodsport brings is no lie, being a legit martial arts classic that cemented Van Damme as a new icon amid the vacuum of power after Bruce Lee's death. Bloodsport may not have the refinement of a Bruce Lee movie nor the showmanship of anything by the Shaw Brothers, but it is still pure '80s goodness thanks to the magnificent vibes of its synth score and Van Damme screaming in slow-motion.

27. Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior

Year: 1981
Director: George Miller

All roads lead back to Mad Max. A seminal work that laid the groundwork for all post-apocalypse media, George Miller's Mad Max 2 (released in the U.S. as The Road Warrior) follows ex-cop Max Rocatansky (Mel Gibson) on an eternal search for gas and food as he traverses what once was Australia after a devastating global war. While the first '79 movie, Mad Max, kicked off the series, its sequel, The Road Warrior, changed the game with its revelatory vision of a worldwide junkyard hell that awaits us all. The film has inspired everything from the band Mötley Crüe to the Borderlands video games. But its real legacy is its equally astonishing sequels, including Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985 and Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015.

26. Violent Cop

Year: 1989
Director: Takeshi Kitano

Comedy star turned filmmaker Takeshi Kitano kicked off his directing career with the 1989 picture Violent Cop, an action thriller oozing with attitude. Kitano directs and stars as a notoriously rough homicide detective who takes on a case against the yakuza, only to find that the real enemies are on his side of the law. While Takeshi was known in his native Japan as a deadpan comedian, Violent Cop casts him in a whole different light, engulfing the star in moral darkness to dispel notions of action movie violence as lawful retribution.

25. Wheels on Meals

Year: 1984
Director: Sammo Hung

Talk about serving! Hong Kong maestro Sammo Hung writes, directs, and co-stars in this 1980s action comedy classic. Wheels on Meals revolves around two kung fu cousins, played by Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, whose fast food business in Barcelona is interrupted by the presence of a gorgeous thief (Lola Forner) and her imminent inheritance that's made her a prime target for kidnapping. From acting as her bodyguards to becoming her rescuers, Chan, Biao, and Hung light up the screen as misfits of martial arts mayhem, with Chan stealing the show in a jaw-dropping one-on-one fight scene with real-life kickboxer Benny Urquidez – their fight scene widely considered one of the greatest in action cinema history.

24. Escape From New York

Year: 1981
Director: John Carpenter

In the socio-political miasma post-Watergate and Vietnam, horror filmmaker John Carpenter imagined a dark but plausible future for America in his 1981 classic Escape From New York. Kurt Russell stars as Snake Plissken, an ex-Special Forces soldier and convict who is tasked with rescuing the President of the United States in exchange for a full pardon. But Snake will have to go inside the 13-mile-long maximum security prison that used to be Manhattan, where the world's most dangerous criminals now run amok. To top it off, he has just 24 hours to get the job done. A high-stakes, high-velocity classic, Escape From New York is truly an escape into Carpenter's unparalleled vision.

23. Eastern Condors

Year: 1987
Director: Sammo Hung

In homage to American war classics like The Dirty Dozen, Hong Kong action auteur Sammo Hung helms a bazooka blast of cross-cultural vision in Eastern Condors. Hung leads a dynamite ensemble as a Chinese-American lieutenant colonel who is tasked with a top-secret mission: locate and destroy an American bunker full of missiles in Vietnam before the Viet Cong can get to it. Joining Hung are convicts working in exchange for pardons and U.S. citizenships. With Eastern Condors, Hung detonates the screen with an adrenaline-fueled barrage that effortlessly blends the grit of vintage Hollywood with the gravity-defying style of the Hong Kong New Wave film movement.

22. Streets of Fire

Year: 1984
Director: Walter Hill

Dance for the restless and the broken-hearted. In this rock 'n roll action musical, the rain-soaked and neon-lit streets of Richmond become a battleground for love, revving with soldiers on motorbikes in leather jackets. Written and directed by Walter Hill, Streets of Fire follows Tom (Michael Pare), a soldier who returns home to rescue his ex-girlfriend, nightclub singer Ellen (Diane Lane), from a ruthless gang leader (Willem Dafoe). Less a throwback to any time and place and more a fever dream of Hill's teenage fantasies – where medieval chivalry jives with bygone Americana – Streets of Fire is overrun with heroes and hot rods, killers, and saints. To top everything off, the film is set to a rollicking soundtrack that inspires you to remember that tonight is what it means to be young.

21. 48 Hrs.

Year: 1982
Director: Walter Hill

The buddy cop movie's origin story is found in 48 Hrs. From director Walter Hill, 48 Hrs tracks a tough cop (Nick Nolte) who teams up with a clever convict (Eddie Murphy, in his film debut) as they race against time to catch Murphy's former partner-in-crime. While tensions between Hill and studio Paramount haunted production – with Paramount executives reportedly hating Murphy's work during filming – 48 Hrs has endured as a foundational film that kicked off a new tradition of action-comedies, inspiring other franchises like Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, and Rush Hour in its wake. The movie not only launched Murphy from the SNL stage to the silver screen, but it also changed the course of Hill's career, pivoting him from a director of melancholic movies to a commercial artist with range.

20. Conan the Barbarian

Year: 1982
Director: John Milius

And now, let me tell you the days of high adventure. Directed by John Milius and based on Robert E. Howard's seminal pulp novels, Conan the Barbarian chronicles the hero's journey of a Cimmerian slave (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakout role), turned beefy warrior, who journeys to strike his Atlantean Sword into the heart of the evil cult leader who killed his parents (played by a thundering James Earl Jones). Released in the early '80s when Dungeons and Dragons and heavy metal were growing in popularity, Conan the Barbarian brought moviegoers to the Hyborian Age and made Arnie a movie star in the process. All hail the king, baby.

19. Yes, Madam!

Year: 1985
Director: Cory Yuen

Future Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh and all-time action movie butt-kicker Cynthia Rothrock team up as international cops, taking down thieves who've stolen a precious piece of microfilm. The simplistic plot of Yes, Madam! takes a huge backseat to the balletic athleticism of Yeoh and Rothrock, who dominate director Cory Yuen's frames with equal parts grace and ferocity. In a decade when action heroism almost exclusively belonged to musclebound men, Yes, Madam! – the first in what would become the In the Line of Duty film franchise – made audiences salute some kung fu femme fatales who could throw down as hard as the guys.

18. Millionaires' Express

Year: 1986
Director: Sammo Hung

East meets West in Sammo Hung's all-star smackdown from 1986, Millionaires' Express. A stylistic throwback to the classic Hollywood Westerns, writer/director/star Sammo Hung plays a repentant outlaw trying to make amends with his hometown and hatches a half-baked scheme to derail a luxury train from Shanghai. But the express train is attracting other black hats, too, who are all after a precious map safeguarded by Japanese samurai. Cowboys, kung fu, and katanas collide in a movie that outdid Hollywood long before the 2000s hit Shanghai Noon.

17. Batman

Year: 1989
Director: Tim Burton

Oh yes – let's get nuts. Harnessing the verve of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Tim Burton's big-screen Batman made Michael Keaton a true cinematic hero whilst foreshadowing the coming ascendancy of superheroes in 21st-century Hollywood. Keaton stars as the one-and-only Batman, who rises from the shadows to save Gotham City from the wrath of a new criminal mastermind, The Joker (Jack Nicholson). While Burton had to exercise artistic restraint, the end result of his Batman is a perfect marriage between his artistic eccentricity (informed by gothic aesthetics and German expressionism) with mainstream appeal. Batman is one of the best superhero movies that had its cape and flew with it, too: enough darkness to entertain adults, enough fun to sell toys.

16. Big Trouble in Little China

Year: 1986
Director: John Carpenter

Kurt Russell stands out, quite literally, in John Carpenter's '80s action-classic Big Trouble in Little China. Russell co-stars as a truck driver who, along with his buddy (Dennis Dun), enters the forbidden underworld beneath San Francisco's Chinatown, where they square off with an ancient Chinese sorcerer, Lo Pan (James Hong). What appears to be a clumsy Orientalist nightmare is actually a rip-roaring comic book-style adventure, with Kurt Russell's beefy and seemingly heroic main character unexpectedly occupying the goofball role. Of all the movies in Carpenter's filmography (yes, including the sci-fi classic They Live), Big Trouble in Little China is easily his most fun.

15. Lethal Weapon

Year: 1987
Director: Richard Donner

In terms of '80s buddy action movies, 48 Hrs walked, but Lethal Weapon ran. From director Richard Donner, the action classic Lethal Weapon stars Mel Gibson as an increasingly unstable LAPD officer who teams up with a by-the-books cop and family man (Danny Glover) on a delicate case that drags them into the target sights of an international crime ring. With genuine co-star chemistry between Glover and Gibson, who is intentionally playing a loose cannon, Lethal Weapon is a deadly good time and easily one of the best action movies the '80s has to offer. No wonder it spawned a number of sequels and even a TV reboot in 2016, which behind the scenes saw real animosity between the actors playing Murtagh and Riggs.

14. RoboCop

Year: 1987
Director: Paul Verhoeven

Your move, creep. While RoboCop was a huge challenge for the Orion Pictures marketing department in 1987 (being unsure of marketing a R-rated action movie with a Saturday morning cartoon title), Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi action thriller is pure '80s goodness with special effects that still look impressive after all these years. Peter Weller stars as fatally-wounded Detroit cop Alex Murphy, who is resurrected by a powerful corporation to become the vanguard of cutting-edge crimefighting: the first-ever "RoboCop." While RoboCop blows up the screen with exciting action, its warnings of our dehumanization under the boot of a heavily militarized police force fall on deaf ears, still ringing with rocket blasts.

13. Beverly Hills Cop

Year: 1984
Director: Martin Brest

You can already hear its catchy theme song, can't you? In Beverly Hills Cop, streetwise Detroit detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) goes on paid "leave" to upscale Beverly Hills. Unbeknownst to his superiors, he's secretly there to investigate the murder of a close friend. But while Axel's urban midwest smarts clash with the glitz and glamour of upscale Beverly Hills, he closes in on the case of a lifetime. A slick action-comedy vehicle tailor-made for Murphy to show off his movie star chops, Beverly Hills Cop upholds the law as one of the greatest action movies and funniest movies of the 1980s.

12. Armour of God

Year: 1986
Director(s): Jackie Chan, Eric Tsang

Seizing on the popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jackie Chan goes on the adventure of a lifetime. In Armour of God, Chan plays an international treasure hunter who must rescue his ex-girlfriend (Rosamund Kwan) from kidnapping cultists who seek to complete the assembly of an ancient supernatural armor. Made with the deft craftsmanship and showmanship Jackie Chan is famous for, Armour of God dazzles with legitimately awe-inspiring stunts (which Chan suffered serious injuries performing, including cracking his skull) and kung fu action that goes far beyond its already winning premise of: "What if Jackie Chan were Indiana Jones?"

11. The Killer

Year: 1989
Director: John Woo

There has never been a single soul on Earth cooler than Chow Yun-fat between the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the Hong Kong actor was both an action hero and a heartthrob who rode the Hong Kong New Wave with the agility of a surfer. Chow's legendary collaborations with director John Woo reached its apex with 1989's The Killer. Chow plays a mob assassin on the verge of retirement who has to perform one last job as penance for blinding a pretty singer (Sally Yeh). Woo's operatic brand of action and Chow's masculine but romantic charisma swirl to make The Killer a generational action hit that kicked down the doors for more Hong Kong "heroic bloodshed" blockbusters to find audiences abroad.

10. First Blood

Year: 1982
Director: Ted Kotcheff

The enduring image of Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo is that of a beefy guerilla soldier, caked in camouflage and clad in bandolier belts. But that image betrays what Rambo stands for: The abject treatment of American veterans upon return home from war. Ted Kotcheff's First Blood, based on the book by David Morrell, follows a traumatized Vietnam veteran (Stallone) who is accosted by the police of a small town, kicking off a violent stand-off. Although sequels distorted Rambo into a one-dimensional one-man army, Kotcheff's film is a sympathetic portrait of soldiers' disillusionment, people used and then abandoned, in a way that reveals the crushing reality of the war machine upon those who operate it. While the action is superb, it's a surprisingly moving performance by Sylvester Stallone that makes First Blood cut deep.

9. A Better Tomorrow

Year: 1986
Director: John Woo

Audiences worldwide love John Woo's The Killer, but his 1986 feature A Better Tomorrow was the true start of the "Heroic Bloodshed" sub-genre, not to mention Chow Yun-fat's superstar status. Leslie Cheung and Chow Yun-fat co-star as brothers, with Chow playing a reforming ex-gangster trying to make amends with his policeman brother (Cheung) only to learn the hard way how hard it is to leave such a life behind. Behind the camera is John Woo, who at the time was coming off a string of disappointments and strove to shake off burnout by exercising greater creative control. The end result is extraordinary, a ballet of bullets and bloodshed that made his style famous forever.

8. Scarface

Year: 1983
Director: Brian De Palma

It's strange to think a hyper-violent gangster movie like Scarface isn't considered an "action movie" in the classical sense. But the shootouts in Scarface are unforgettable and way too explosive not to rank the movie as not only an action movie but one of the greatest ever made. In Brian De Palma's loose remake of Howard Hawks' pre-code classic, Al Pacino plays a Cuban immigrant whose rags-to-riches drug operation in Miami lets him live the American dream in a way far beyond anyone can imagine. That is, until the dream ends. A touchstone for a whole generation of rap artists, Scarface showed us what it's like to live large and how far we can fall while flying too close to the sun.

7. Police Story

Year: 1985
Director: Jackie Chan

Every action star has that one movie that defines their career forever. For Bruce Willis, it's Die Hard. For Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's The Terminator. For Jackie Chan, it's Police Story. Chan's now-legendary 1985 classic sees him play rising super cop Ka-Kui ("Kevin" in English versions), who must not only protect a Triad boss' girlfriend-turned-informer but also clear his own name after he's falsely accused of murder. Overloaded with death-defying stunts, including an unforgettable climactic leap of faith in a crowded shopping mall, Police Story is an exhibition of Jackie Chan at the absolute top of his game.

6. Aliens

Year: 1986
Director: James Cameron

Space is an intimidating but silent vacuum. but in James Cameron's 1986 banger Aliens, everyone can hear you scream, "Hell yeah!" Aliens continues the story of Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror Alien, picking back up with Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), who awakens 57 years later from hypersleep. But the film takes on a whole new vibe, departing from the isolating terrors of Scott's original to lock and load as a balls-to-the-wall action classic. Ripley is called back to action to advise a unit of marines who are tasked with exterminating a Xenomorph nest at a human colony, only to end up in a new fight for survival. Aliens may not be as scary as its predecessor, but who's noticing when Sigourney Weaver is tearing it up with giant flamethrowers?

5. Predator

Year: 1987
Director: John McTiertnan

"If it bleeds, we can kill it." That's what Arnold Schwarzenegger told us in John McTiernan's towering '87 classic Predator, the first (and arguably, still best) in the franchise. A Vietnam-esque action flick mired in the muck of a monster thriller, Predator follows a paramilitary rescue team whose mission in South America gets interrupted by a lethal warrior from who-knows-where. (Expanded universe media explain exactly where, of course, but as far as Predator is concerned, the alien might as well come from hell itself.) The movie is yet another notch under the belt for Schwarzenegger, whose Hollywood star was officially as big as his biceps.

4. Top Gun

Year: 1986
Director: Tony Scott

When Top Gun flew into theaters, it took everyone to the danger zone. Helmed by Tony Scott with Tom Cruise sitting in the cockpit, Top Gun takes audiences into the U.S. Navy's Fighter Weapons School – aka, "Top Gun" – to follow a young pilot (Cruise) determined to prove he's the best of them all. The genius of Top Gun (aside from its breakneck set-pieces) is its nondescript politics and faceless enemies that leave us to only know and care about the brave few we fly with, freeing it from national propaganda to tell a soulful story about brotherhood and pushing oneself past their known limits. Echoing its own story, Top Gun also elevated Tom Cruise to even bigger movie stardom, letting him reach an altitude few can ever dream of.

3. Die Hard

Year: 1988
Director: John McTiernan

A perennial Christmas favorite, Bruce Willis stars in the immortal Die Hard as John McClane, a rugged New York cop who finds himself trapped in a Los Angeles skyscraper when the building is under siege by terrorists (led by Alan Rickman). What makes Die Hard your uncle's "favorite Christmas movie" is that it actually does tell a heartfelt story about family and togetherness, and all Bruce Willis wants to do is make it out alive and make amends with his estranged wife. If that isn't about the spirit of Christmas, I don't know what is.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Year: 1981
Director: Steven Spielberg

Still shining like a priceless artifact, Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark stirs the imagination like few movies ever can. The first in the beloved Indiana Jones film series introduces Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, a famed archaeologist who punches out Nazis to stop them from getting their hands on the Ark of the Covenant – a powerful relic from Biblical mythology. Along for the ride is the captivating Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, who aids Indy on his thrilling quest. A student of cinema like Spielberg pays homage to Hollywood's Golden Age swashbucklers and, in doing so, raises the bar for summer blockbusters forever. Han Solo and Jack Ryan ain't got nothing on a man with a whip and fedora.

1. The Terminator

Year: 1984
Director: James Cameron

Just as the birth of John Connor changed the fate of humanity, so did the release of James Cameron's The Terminator. A time travel adventure, a slasher flick, a shoot 'em up affair, and a star-crossed romance rolled into one dense package; The Terminator follows an ordinary young woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) who learns she's destined to birth the future leader of mankind in a war against intelligent machines. But with a "Terminator" assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger) after her, she'll have to come with a dashing savior (Michael Biehn) if she wants to live. The Terminator didn't just make a star out of Schwarzenegger or make James Cameron a valuable commercial director. But its experimentation and muscular showmanship proved that smart sci-fi action movies aren't box office poison. Take out The Terminator from our memory, and who knows what our world might look like?