Lights. Camera. And? What even constitutes an action film is a concept that never stops evolving, and one that’s palpably changed since the turn of Y2K. You could make the argument that Buster Keaton’s The General (1927), a non-stop chase achieving nearly perpetual motion, laid down a certain template for action blockbusters almost a century ago.

Long gone now are the days when Arnie, Sly, Chuck Norris or Dolph Lundgren would simply swing a shotgun at every revolting knucklehead that came their way. The ‘action movie’, in that load-up-the-hot-dog 1980s sense, went through a long phase of being rarely green-lit in top-level production, even if the Die Hard franchise stubbornly persisted for as long as it could.

A revival, though, is well underway. Some films on this list have resurrected the flavour of that trigger-happy era in a winkingly retro fashion. Others have surged ahead with the times, delivering intensely harrowing suspense in space, or getting Actual Tom Cruise to run along the side of the world’s tallest skyscraper.

The most satisfying films in the genre have always had a glued-together coherence, and know that thinking fast even in the downtime is crucial. These aren’t just the films with the best action in them; they’re those paragons of the genre which build excitement with context, character, and all the other tools available, adding up to a lot more than the sum of their whizziest parts.

20. Fast Five (Justin Lin, 2011)

Who’d have guessed that summer 2000’s hotrod caper flick, inauspiciously bolted together by Rob Cohen, would push up to 10 instalments? It has gotten too big for its boots, as the ever-expanding roster of guest stars shoves the running times up and the bombast through the roof. Justin Lin floored it nicely with 2009’s Fast & Furious, but it’s his next one that hit a series-high sweet spot, scoring as the pleasingly throwaway demolition derby it should have been all along. Plot is never the point, but the Ocean’s 11 heist angle was a relief after all those street-racing interludes, The Rock arrived to clunk domes with Vin Diesel, and Lin socked over one preposterous highlight after another, peaking with a bank vault whipping around at crazy speeds through downtown Rio. Quoth co-star Tyrese, “This just went from Mission: Impossible to Mission In-freaking-SANITY!” (Fast Five review)