10 Best Action Movies Where Nobody Fires a Gun, Ranked
Without getting into too much of a history of firearms, they have indeed been around for a while, and so plenty of movies about war – or action movies set in contemporary times… or even not-so-contemporary times – might well have action scenes with guns. This can be combined with other kinds of action scenes, sure (see The Matrix, which has slow-motion shootouts and impressive martial arts fights), but once an action movie has gun use in that way, it’s disqualified for present purposes.
And what are those present purposes, exactly? Well, this is a rundown of some compelling action movies (starting with the fairly good and ending with the great) that don’t have guns being fired in their action scenes. Some were easy to single out, taking place at points in history before firearms were invented, but there are also some more unexpected picks here; films that are counted as action movies, according to Letterboxd, and with more modern settings, but still no guns.
10
‘Troy’ (2004)
The best Wolfgang Petersen epic is not Troy, since he was also behind Das Boot, but that one isn’t really an action movie, so here’s Troy in any event. It’s a story that plays out more than 3000 years ago, so firearms were still ages away at this stage, with the story being about a dispute that leads to the legendary (pretty much mythological) conflict of the Trojan War.
Still, even if it never happened, Troy isn’t a fantasy movie necessarily, as it tries to capture warfare from that time somewhat honestly, if not entirely accurately. It’s all very big, there’s quite a lot of violent combat, actors get to overact, and maybe it’s a little exhausting at a point, but there are still good things here that can be enjoyed, despite the overall film being somewhat messy for sure.
9
‘All Is Lost’ (2013)
All Is Lost is especially slight and minimalist as an action movie, to the point where someone might reject it being called that, but it’s one of the genres listed according to some sources, so… maybe it counts? It does depict an ongoing battle for survival, with one man on a single boat trapped out at sea, forced to fight the elements so he can eventually – perhaps by some miracle – get back to dry land.
All Is Lost is also interesting to watch because you sort of want to see how they’ll keep things going for a whole movie without introducing anyone else, or any other complications outside the survival stuff.
When the man is played by Robert Redford, and the technical aspects are all sound, it turns out, that’s all you really need to make a compelling survival/anti-adventure/action movie. All Is Lost is also interesting to watch because you sort of want to see how they’ll keep things going for a whole movie without introducing anyone else, or any other complications outside the survival stuff and, to the credit of those involved, they do indeed make it work.
8
‘300’ (2006)
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Honestly, 300 plays around with “historical accuracy” to so great an extent that if some soldiers had pulled out AK-47s at one point and started blasting, then maybe it’d be possible to just go with it. Though the battle depicted here did technically happen long ago, 300 retells it as a legend, or maybe even something of a myth, rather than trying to keep things realistic or grounded.
And that’s to do with the style, of course, with the film being as striking to look at as it is grand in scope. 300 isn’t a deep movie, but it delivers when it comes to “historical” action that more than bumps up against feeling fantastical, and if you just want to see a bunch of muscly men do tough things and generally be badass, alongside some great visuals and a few memorable bits of dialogue, then here’s 300 for the taking.
7
‘Apocalypto’ (2006)
Mel Gibson has directed his fair share of violent movies, Apocalypto included. But also, there are some brutal characters here using fairly alarming weapons/tools to do harm to others, so maybe it’s just honest to try and paint things like they were… painting things with the color red, mostly. So much red.
But also, Apocalypto is a good movie, so long as you’ve got a strong enough stomach for it. It’s about a Mayan man in the 1510s having his way of life uprooted, and then he fights for survival, and a way to get back to the sort of lifestyle he used to have. It makes for a rather exciting watch a good deal of the time, as it’s grand in scale and always feels like it’s going somewhere narratively and/or physically.
6
‘Creed’ (2015)
Not all boxing movies get described as action movies by Letterboxd or other sources, but the genre tag is there for Creed, so Creed is being counted here. Maybe it’s the intensity of the boxing fights in Creed, as well as the fact that there are a fair few of them, and they’re extended more than, say, the blunt and unabashedly brutal (not to mention briefer) matches shown in Raging Bull.
Of course, Creed has so much more to offer as a sports drama beyond its boxing scenes, with Michael B. Jordan being phenomenal here, and interesting things are also done with Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky, who kind of passes the torch to Jordan’s character here. Elsewhere, it does indulge in some sports movie conventions, but in ways that work and, importantly, they feel like conventions/staples rather than outright clichés, here.
5
‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ (1963)
Perhaps one of the most relentlessly destructive movies that has no one really dying, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a slapstick action movie, and one of the best. Well, technically, the plot does begin with someone dying after a car accident, and telling a group of people about some buried riches, and then all those people end up competing on a wild cross-country chase to find the goods before anyone else.
It has the scope and the kind of massively sized cast you’d expect to see in an epic, and maybe It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is an epic, just a comedic one. Actually, not just a comedic one, but perhaps the silliest comedic one. It’s probably an acquired taste, but given there’s so much chasing, slapstick chaos, destruction, and stunts here, it can indeed be defined as an action movie (of sorts) without gun violence.
4
‘Death Proof’ (2007)
You might see Death Proof get labelled as both an action and thriller movie, then find yourself waiting through a good chunk of its runtime to deliver thrills and/or action. One pretty intense sequence comes around the halfway mark, with the villain scoring a victory, and then the second half of the movie sees him go on to try and do the same thing again, but things don’t go to plan for him.
He’s in a powerful and fast car that he uses to kill people, but his new targets fight back, and then a huge car chase ensues, which is bold and exciting enough to, indeed, make Death Proof an action movie. It’s about a serial killer who doesn’t just stay away from guns, but other traditional weapons, too, instead opting to use a car to do his killing. If that sounds like the set-up for an exploitation movie, that’s because it is! Kind of. Well, a throwback/homage to exploitation movies of old; the sorts that Quentin Tarantino is clearly fond of.
3
‘Last Hurrah for Chivalry’ (1979)
Before he got famous for making movies with lots of firearms and explosions, John Woo also showed he had it in him to make some pretty fantastic hand-to-hand stuff. Enter Last Hurrah for Chivalry, which honestly has a very convoluted plot that makes just enough sense when you see it all play out, but it doesn’t matter beyond being an excuse to string together a ton of high-intensity – and often melodramatic – action sequences.
And those action sequences are so good that they’re all that really matters. John Woo does martial arts stuff here just as well as he’d do heroic bloodshed chaos in the 1980s and then quite a bit throughout some of the 1990s, too. Last Hurrah for Chivalry is undeniably one of the most underrated martial arts movies of its decade, and likely stands as John Woo’s single most underrated film, too.
2
‘Gladiator’ (2000)
Since Gladiator takes place so long ago, guns cannot factor into its plot, so it’s a bit of an easy pick for present purposes. Instead, all the combat features swords, shields, arrows, spears, and some other sharp and/or blunt force weaponry. Narratively, it gives its characters lots of reasons to use such weapons, too, as Gladiator tells a story filled with war/political conflict, betrayal, revenge, and gladiatorial games.
It’s always thrilling for sure, and the action does deliver, but Gladiator is also an excellent epic that hits the sorts of emotional beats those big, sweeping epics from decades past often did. It’s old-fashioned in that sense, but the grittiness and visceral quality of its action-heavy scenes do feel more modern, as is the way Gladiator is cut together, moving at a snappier (though not overly speedy) pace than a fair few epics of old.
1
‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (2000)
Getting the 21st century off to a remarkable start, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon might well be the martial arts movie of the past 25 or so years. It is about a sword, and the various people who want to get their hands on that sword, but with a clear MacGuffin in place, there’s also a lot more going on that’s slowly and expertly revealed as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon goes along. In all honesty, even if there wasn’t any fighting, it might not be too bad a (slightly) fantastical period drama/romance film.
Thankfully, there’s all that and some of the best-choreographed action scenes of all time, especially one where two combatants have a fight that seems to involve just about every weapon besides a firearm (well, not quite, but one fighter does use a ton of weapons). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shows the beauty in lots of things, but especially shows the beauty in well-made hand-to-hand fight scenes, and so it’s about as essential as (relatively) modern-day martial arts movies get.
