5 Action Movie Masterpieces Better Than ‘Die Hard’
Ask someone what the greatest action movie ever made is, and there’s a good chance Die Hard will be the answer. Even Collider puts it at number one. It’s easy to see why. The plot of a New York City cop fighting terrorists in a Los Angeles skyscraper is simple but thrilling. It turned Bruce Willis, who starred as the heroic John McClane, into an action icon, and its villain, played by Alan Rickman, in his first ever film role, was so good that few can match him. Die Hard created a franchise and a host of imitators over the years. Only a select few action movies can say that they are better than Die Hard. These five argue the case better than any other.
5
‘Speed’ (1994)
In the late 80s and early 90s, it was hit-and-miss for Keanu Reeves. While he had success in the Bill & Ted movies, his acting skills were often criticized. In an era before The Matrix and John Wick made him the most beloved actor on the planet, casting him as the lead in Speed was a huge risk. It paid off big time. In the film, Reeves plays a bomb squad police officer in Los Angeles named Jack Traven. When a mad man terrorist, brilliantly portrayed by Dennis Hopper, puts a bomb on a bus and promises that it will go off if the speed goes below 50 miles per hour, it’s up to Jack to save the day.
Speed has an even better concept than Die Hard. It manages to put most of the action in the confines of a bus while still keeping it nerve-racking. The tension is found in the question: how do you stop a bomb from going off on a moving bus?! Jack can’t simply shoot the bad guy and be done with it. Graham Yost‘s script delivers one wild scene after another, and Jan de Bont‘s direction never lets up. Throw in Sandra Bullock as Reeve’s adorable love interest, and you have an instant classic.
4
‘The Fugitive’ (1993)
Harrison Ford was the most famous actor in Hollywood in 1993, following the likes of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchise. He, too, took a big risk with The Fugitive, which had to deliver on making a thrilling adaptation to one of the most popular action shows ever made. It did this by keeping the idea of a wrongly accused hero seeking a one-armed man intact, then telling its story in a new way. Ford is Dr. Richard Kimble, a man sent to prison for killing his wife. When a bus crash allows him to escape, he begins a quest to bring his wife’s real killer to justice.
The Fugitive excels by not being your traditional action flick. It’s not about gun fights and one-liners. Instead, it’s a deep character-driven movie, with Ford playing against type as a man who is not your usual, predictable hero. It’s the love of his wife and the need for justice which drive him. He has the perfect counterweight in Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), the U.S. Marshal sent to track him down. From the train crash to the dam jump, The Fugitive has realistic set pieces mixed with a twisty script. It was nominated for a whopping seven Academy Awards, with Jones winning for Best Supporting Actor. How many other action movies can say that? Not Die Hard, which was nominated for four and won none.
3
‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
The Dark Knight is not only one of the best action movies ever made, but it’s the greatest superhero movie of all-time. Christopher Nolan‘s film is an ultra-realistic crime thriller with a great ensemble cast of characters, and a pulse-pounding score from Hans Zimmer, but it’s nothing without the performances of Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. The Caped Crusader has been after the Joker many times in the Batman world, but never like this.
The Dark Knight makes this list by refusing to stay inside the lines of what it was supposed to be. The multiple chase scenes are phenomenal, and the splendid cinematography is what IMAX was made for. It’s the complexity of all that is transcending. Nolan isn’t interested in simple good guys vs. bad guys. Not everyone in Gotham City loves the actions of Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, and Harvey Dent’s (Aaron Eckhart) fall and turn to darkness isn’t so black and white. Pulling all the strings is Heather Ledger in the most riveting Joker performance. With all due respect to Alan Rickman, Hans Gruber can’t touch what Ledger pulls off. He won a deserved posthumous Oscar, and The Dark Knight was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
2
‘Aliens’ (1986)
Director Ridley Scott changed sci-fi and horror forever in 1979 with Alien, a slow-burn haunted house-type movie with a terrifying creature dispatching of its human prey on a spaceship. A sequel that could come anywhere close to what Scott created should have been impossible, but enter James Cameron, who was just coming off the success of The Terminator. With Aliens, he brought back Sigourney Weaver as the badass Ellen Ripley, then gave her a completely different story from the first film.
Aliens takes everything from the original and turns it up. Instead of being slow and quiet, it’s a wild, action-packed roller-coaster ride filled with explosions at every turn. Rather than a cast of unprepared people on a ship, Cameron puts Ripley with a group of gun-toting Marines. And forget one xenomorph. How about hundreds of them?! The director does all of this without losing the humanity of the story by going for the heartstrings too. As all of this is breaking out around Ripley, she must save the orphaned Newt (Carrie Henn). John McClane fought for a building filled with people. Ripley fought for humanity by going toe to toe with an alien queen.
1
‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)
The only other movie that gets included so often as the best action film ever made is Terminator 2: Judgment Day. After making The Abyss in 1989, James Cameron returned to the Terminator franchise by doing the same thing he did with Aliens: making everything even bigger. The sequel begins with the brilliant twist of making Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s cyborg the hero this time around. Instead of wanting to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), it’s his mission to save him, much like Ripley had to protect Newt in Aliens.
Robert Patrick‘s T-1000 is the ideal antagonist as a more advanced Terminator even more powerful than Arnold’s. Linda Hamilton is back in top form too, transitioning from the scared Sarah Connor to the brave warrior unafraid of anything. Cameron’s script is packed with one high-octane action scene after another, and it’s all highlighted by top-rate CGI. The advancements in technology allowed for this story to go where none had so realistically before. Thirty-five years later, the effects still hold up. Die Hard is a phenomenal action flick, but it didn’t alter the history of filmmaking as we know it like Terminator 2: Judgment Day did.
