10 Best Action Movies About Revenge, Ranked
If a movie’s main character has something very bad happen to them, or someone they care about, in the opening scenes of the film they’re appearing in, then there’s a good chance the rest of the runtime will be spent showing them getting revenge. It’s the kind of narrative that’s been around for who knows how many centuries at this point; you can go back at least as far as the 1800s for literature (The Count of Monte Cristo) and the 1600s for theater (Hamlet). Well, with Hamlet, that play might’ve even been written in 1599, so…
Eh, the main point is that revenge is a timeless theme to explore, and seeing someone go all out in trying to seek vengeance never really gets old. Because getting revenge is so physical, and naturally a form of confrontation/conflict, revenge is found particularly often in action movies, which the following titles (including martial arts films, war epics, and samurai movies) will hopefully demonstrate.
10
‘The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms’ (1978)
The premise of The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms is a little crude (as is the more common title it’s sometimes referred to as, “Crippled Avengers”), but it does the job for a story about revenge. Essentially, there are five (shock, horror) prominent characters who are all wronged and maimed in various ways by the same despicable villain, and so on their own, each is disadvantaged, as a fighter.
But then they realize their common enemy, and they band together, working as a team and manipulating certain situations to turn their disadvantages into strengths (cornering some bad guys in a room that gets the lights turned out, for example, so the vengeance-seeker without sight has the upper hand). The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms is pulpy and over-the-top, not to mention kind of formulaic, but there is something surprisingly satisfying about the whole thing, and the action really delivers.
9
‘John Wick’ (2014)
Of all the recent action/thriller movies about revenge, John Wick is easily one of the most well-known, since it kicked off a whole series and has given The Matrix series a run for its money as the best/most famous to star Keanu Reeves. He’s the titular character in John Wick, and though the sequels in the series get pretty wild and over-the-top, the first movie is nice and straightforward, and also the most revenge-heavy.
John Wick (2014) is a man who loses the love of his life, but she gives him a puppy before she passes. Then, some robbers try to steal his car and kill that dog in the process. So he feels like he’s lost everything, and stops at nothing to get back at – and kill – those responsible. That’s all you need for a well-paced action movie to work, it turns out, and even if the sequels are debatably more spectacular, the bluntness, emotional core, and straightforward nature of the first movie make it special.
8
‘Braveheart’ (1995)
Sure, Braveheart becomes more than just a revenge movie, but all the large-scale battle sequences do come about because its central character, William Wallace, is out for revenge against the British soldiers who murdered his wife. His violent defiance of them, striking back at the injustice of it all, ends up spiraling and inspiring others, and the personal act of revenge snowballs into a full-on rebellion against English rule in Scotland.
Even by epic movie standards, Braveheart is especially thrilling and moving, as it’s hard not to get swept up, to some extent, in the simple but well-told story here. It’s very broad, but it doesn’t have to be anything more. And yep, that anything more includes historical accuracy. It does not matter whether Braveheart is accurate or not, because the movie is cool and entertaining. You heard it here first, folks. Annoying history snobs, cower in fear.
7
‘Vengeance!’ (1970)
There almost doesn’t need to be any commentary for this one, because Vengeance! is called Vengeance! There is a man, and he’s killed, and then his younger brother… you’ll never guess what the younger brother is after. And it’s wild, he goes around trying to get the thing you’d never expect. It’s madness. It’s subversive. Its complexity makes Citizen Kane look like Patrick Star’s “The Ugly Barnacle.”
Okay, not really, but Vengeance! is great as an action movie, and it’s also got a bit more going for it than you’d expect, seeing as the quest for revenge here does gradually drive the protagonist mad. He starts out as a sympathetic hero of sorts, then merges into an anti-hero, and then maybe something else (more villainous) as things go along. It’s consistently escalating, and it’s also incredibly violent and emotionally raw for a film of its age, so it’s definitely underrated overall.
6
‘Revenge’ (2017)
And speaking of revenge movies with simple premises that are also incredibly violent, here’s Revenge, which would make for one part of a good double feature alongside Vengeance!, so long as your stomach is sufficiently strong. This one is about a woman who’s brutalized and left for dead in the desert by a group of men, but she manages to survive and track them down again, wreaking messy and grisly vengeance upon them.
It’s a spin on the king of sub-genre best exemplified by I Spit on Your Grave, and there’s a sensitive word in that sub-genre, so it’s not going to be referenced here, but if you know, you know. Anyway, the main thing is that Revenge is like I Spit on Your Grave and some of those other movies, but actually good, and though it’s not as well-known as Coralie Fargeat’s surprisingly popular follow-up, The Substance, it’s equally worth checking out.
5
‘Lady Snowblood’ (1973)
An absolute classic of the martial arts genre, Lady Snowblood is about a young woman whose family was brutalized and largely killed before she was born, or immediately after. So, she has no one, but she’s aware of her family’s history, and her life essentially becomes about nothing else except training to be a warrior and, in adulthood, taking down anyone responsible for making her family suffer all those years ago.
It’s often talked about the influence Lady Snowblood had on a certain movie about a person named Bill who needed to be killed, but it also stands on its own.
In this way, it’s hard to think of a movie more about revenge than Lady Snowblood is, because it’s all that matters – for better or worse – for its central character. It’s often talked about the influence Lady Snowblood had on a certain movie about a person named Bill who needed to be killed, but it also stands on its own as a classic old-school martial arts/samurai film; one of the best and most visually bold from Japan, for sure.
4
‘The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter’ (1984)
In The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, there’s an early action sequence that sets in motion the events of the rest of the film. A family of fighters are betrayed and almost entirely wiped out, with two sons escaping and independently going on the run. One goes mad from the whole terrible ordeal, and the other hides out in a Buddhist temple, clashing with the monks there while also learning certain things about martial arts.
And he uses some of those skills for the eventual climax, which involves getting vengeance and all that jazz. It’s not surprising narratively or anything, other than the inciting incident (since many soon-to-be-dead characters feel like they could be major players), but it’s the quality of the action that counts and makes The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter such a resoundingly satisfying martial arts movie.
3
‘Oldboy’ (2003)
At the risk of saying too much about one of the most famously twisty movies of the 21st century so far, Oldboy is about its main character finding answers and getting vengeance, but then it’s also about more than that. Certain truths are revealed along the way, and the results are very impactful in ways that feel wrong to spoil, even if people have technically had more than 20 years, at this point, to watch Oldboy.
What can be said is that it’s about a man who is mysteriously imprisoned for a great many years, and then suddenly released. Feeling lost and confused, he becomes fixated on trying to find out who imprisoned him and why. Along the way, you get some action alongside all the mystery/thriller stuff, and the film ends up being impressively dizzying, surprising, and emotionally complex, all at once.
2
‘Gladiator’ (2000)
Like Braveheart, Gladiator is set a very long time ago, is a little questionable if you’re after historical accuracy, plays out as an epic with a good deal of action, and focuses on a quest for vengeance. Oh, and both movies won Best Picture at the Oscars, for whatever that might be worth. With Gladiator, it takes place in about 180 AD, and is about a general who’s betrayed by the power-hungry son of the emperor, with his family killed and the same fate almost befalling him… but he escapes, only to then become a slave, and later a gladiator.
Through the gladiatorial games he takes part in, the ex-general sees an opportunity for revenge, and is solely motivated by getting it, in turn potentially saving Rome from a tyrannical oppressor. As an epic, it’s exciting and emotionally stirring, and an overall excellently done blockbuster that’s certainly a crowd-pleaser, but not in a bad way at all.
1
‘Kill Bill: Vol. 1’ (2003) and ‘Vol. 2’ (2004)
It’s an easy pick for the #1 spot, and was influenced (probably) by some of the aforementioned movies, but here’s Kill Bill. Admittedly, it’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 that feels most like an action movie, of the two films that make up the duology, but the quest for revenge obviously isn’t completed until Kill Bill: Vol. 2 wraps up, so you sort of have to include that one here as well.
Anyway, good action in the first movie, and a little less action in the second movie, but it’s still engrossing in its own way, and it makes up one hell of an epic (originally being conceived as one long movie, called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, too). Kill Bill is up there among the best movies Quentin Tarantino’s ever directed, which is saying quite a bit, and it’s become basically the gold standard for revenge-focused action movies, or at least the film that probably comes to mind first whenever one hears the words “action” and “revenge” in close proximity.
