Everybody enjoys watching a high-octane action film every now and then as movie fans in cinemas around the world are regularly treated to all manner of stunts, amazing special effects, massive explosions and the classic plotline of good versus evil. Hollywood history is rife with some truly iconic action films and some of the latest movies like Cowboys & Aliens could well be regarded as a classic in years to come. For now, though, we hold the following blockbusters as the benchmark when it comes to amazing action movies.
One man synonymous with hard-hitting action films is Sylvester Stallone. Sly has been there, done it, bought the t-shirt and then had to buy a replacement t-shirt because the last one wasn't big enough for his massive frame. From the Rambo and Rocky films to The Expendables, the 65-year-old has been a regular feature in cinemas since the mid-1970s. Rocky Balboa is probably Stallone's most famous role of all as the Italian Stallion put his body on the line time and time again against the likes of James "Clubber" Lang and Ivan Drago.
There's an Austrian with a German accent who's built like a tank and was quite good in action films, but he's in politics now. The mighty Arnold Schwarzenegger has given us some of the greatest action films in the world, including the Terminator series and Predator.
Terminator and Terminator 2 are both superb films on their own merit, but there's something extra special about Predator. If you need your memory jogging, Arnie leads a team of commandos on a mission into a Central American jungle that isn't quite as it seems. One by one, Arnie's men are picked off by a mysterious creature before the duo slog it out in a finale that had action fans perched on the edge of their seats in cinemas the world over back in 1987 when it came out.
Next in the action hero pecking order is Bruce Willis, who joined Schwarzenegger and Stallone in The Expendables, which is one of his more well-known latest movies. While the first Die Hard film made Willis the global superstar he is today and is still a great watch over two decades since it came out, Die Hard with a Vengeance is arguably the best of the four movies in the series. It sees Willis and Samuel L. Jackson embark on a game of cat and mouse - or 'Simon Says' - in New York in a race against time to defuse a bomb.
Rambo, the Terminator and Die Hard were not the only great films of their time. Indeed, perhaps the greatest decade of all for action movies was the 1980s, with the likes of Top Gun, Flash Gordon and Indiana Jones hitting our cinemas with an equally powerful punch.
Most DVD collections contain at least one or more of the Indiana Jones films and they certainly deserve lofty praise. All three of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade stand up to scrutiny on their own, but put them together and it makes a pretty tight trilogy. Shame, then, that all the hard work done by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in the 1980s was undermined by 2008 release Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which failed to live up to the lofty heights of the previous trio.
It is Lucas, of course, who is the genius behind the Star Wars franchise, which is poised to return to cinemas in 3-D for the first time at some point in the very near future. Finally, no homage to all things related to action films could be complete without mentioning the Matrix films as well as the 22 James Bond movies to have been produced since 1962.
One man synonymous with hard-hitting action films is Sylvester Stallone. Sly has been there, done it, bought the t-shirt and then had to buy a replacement t-shirt because the last one wasn't big enough for his massive frame. From the Rambo and Rocky films to The Expendables, the 65-year-old has been a regular feature in cinemas since the mid-1970s. Rocky Balboa is probably Stallone's most famous role of all as the Italian Stallion put his body on the line time and time again against the likes of James "Clubber" Lang and Ivan Drago.
There's an Austrian with a German accent who's built like a tank and was quite good in action films, but he's in politics now. The mighty Arnold Schwarzenegger has given us some of the greatest action films in the world, including the Terminator series and Predator.
Terminator and Terminator 2 are both superb films on their own merit, but there's something extra special about Predator. If you need your memory jogging, Arnie leads a team of commandos on a mission into a Central American jungle that isn't quite as it seems. One by one, Arnie's men are picked off by a mysterious creature before the duo slog it out in a finale that had action fans perched on the edge of their seats in cinemas the world over back in 1987 when it came out.
Next in the action hero pecking order is Bruce Willis, who joined Schwarzenegger and Stallone in The Expendables, which is one of his more well-known latest movies. While the first Die Hard film made Willis the global superstar he is today and is still a great watch over two decades since it came out, Die Hard with a Vengeance is arguably the best of the four movies in the series. It sees Willis and Samuel L. Jackson embark on a game of cat and mouse - or 'Simon Says' - in New York in a race against time to defuse a bomb.
Rambo, the Terminator and Die Hard were not the only great films of their time. Indeed, perhaps the greatest decade of all for action movies was the 1980s, with the likes of Top Gun, Flash Gordon and Indiana Jones hitting our cinemas with an equally powerful punch.
Most DVD collections contain at least one or more of the Indiana Jones films and they certainly deserve lofty praise. All three of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade stand up to scrutiny on their own, but put them together and it makes a pretty tight trilogy. Shame, then, that all the hard work done by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in the 1980s was undermined by 2008 release Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which failed to live up to the lofty heights of the previous trio.
It is Lucas, of course, who is the genius behind the Star Wars franchise, which is poised to return to cinemas in 3-D for the first time at some point in the very near future. Finally, no homage to all things related to action films could be complete without mentioning the Matrix films as well as the 22 James Bond movies to have been produced since 1962.
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