The 20 Best Action Movies on Max

This article is updated frequently as titles leave and enter Max. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.

Action movies have long been the most successful genre at home, as viewers try to replicate that rush they got at the movie theater in their own living room. The Max (formerly HBO Max) selection of action flicks is predictably dense, bringing in some of the DC Universe, classic genre movies, and modern hits. Everyone from Martin Campbell to Martin Scorsese can find a home here, and you’ll often find a Batman, too. We will update this list regularly to give readers a new action movie to watch whenever they need a fix, or a reminder to watch a classic they’ve already seen.

Year: 1989
Runtime: 2h 7m
Director: Tim Burton

The modern superhero movie owes an incredible debt to what Tim Burton did in 1989 with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger. It wasn’t the first superhero movie, but it felt darker and different from the candy-coated men in tights movies that came before, especially the superior sequel, also on Max. Watch them both.

Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 56m
Director: Matt Reeves

Matt Reeves now owns the saga of the Dark Knight as a sequel to his March 2022 action blockbuster has already been announced. Dropping on Max while it was still in theaters, The Batman is an ambitious epic reboot of the legendary hero, anchored by Reeves’s craft and fascinating performances from Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, and many more.

Year: 2006
Runtime: 1h 28m
Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

There aren’t enough action movies with the pure momentum of Crank, directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and the 2009 sequel, also on Max. Jason Statham plays a hitman who has to keep his adrenaline up to stay alive. It’s like Speed with a human heart instead of a bus. It’s a hell of a ride.

Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Matt Reeves

Any list of the best modern action trilogies really needs to include the rebooted Planet of the Apes series that started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes over a decade ago. The series arguably got even richer in the follow-up from The Batman director Matt Reeves, which is currently the only one in the trilogy on Max for some inexplicable reason. Still, it’s a great movie, even if it’s weird to not have the whole saga of Caesar to marathon for your subscription fee.

Year: 2021
Runtime: 2h 36m
Director: Denis Villeneuve

The second part of this epic action tale was delayed from the holiday season of 2023 into 2024 because of the strike, but that just means more time to catch up with the first Best Picture nominee. Timothee Chalamet stars in this sci-fi blockbuster from one of the most popular current directors in the world. It’s kind of half of a movie, but it won’t be for long.

Year: 1997
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Lee Tamahori

David Mamet wrote this 1997 survival thriller about a wealthy businessman (Anthony Hopkins) who crashes in the Alaskan wilderness with a photographer (Alec Baldwin) and his assistant (Harold Perrineau). The men have to survive the vicious elements to return to safety … and each other. Hopkins and Baldwin are all in, even in some impressive sequences involving a large Kodiak bear who is hunting his prey.

Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 4m
Director: Gareth Edwards

The new MonsterVerse is on Max in its entirety, but let’s take a minute to lavish some praise on the one that restarted it all, Gareth Edwards’s underrated 2014 blockbuster. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, and Bryan Cranston star in the reboot of the classic Toho series that pits the big lizard guy against two monsters of equally unfathomable size. It’s a rocking good time.

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Ric Roman Waugh

An end-of-the-world movie released during the first Summer of the pandemic, this genre exercise wasn’t seen by enough people. It’s really solid, a reminder of how much Gerard Butler can carry a movie like this one, which reunites him with his Angel Has Fallen director in a film that’s quite literally about the end of humanity. The movie takes a micro approach to the most macro issue as it tracks one family trying to find a way to survive the impending impact from a planet-destroying comet.

Year: 2008
Runtime: 2h
Director: Guillermo del Toro

Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro wrote and directed this sequel to his own 2004 adaptation of the Mike Mignola comic book about everyone’s favorite demon from hell. Ron Perlman returned to play the title character in a more ambitious film than the first, even if it doesn’t quite come together. The most frustrating thing about watching Hellboy II now is knowing how much Del Toro and Perlman wanted to make a third part but the studio declined. Those are the true monsters.

Year: 2010
Runtime: 2h 29m
Director: Christopher Nolan

After the crazy success of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan went and made one of the most ambitious blockbusters ever made, cementing himself as one of the most interesting auteurs working in the Hollywood system. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a man who leads a team into other people’s dreams for the purposes of corporate espionage at first. Of course, he brings some personal baggage with him. This movie is a reminder of Nolan’s incredible vision and robust filmmaking. It’s held up wonderfully. One wishes there were more big-budget filmmakers taking these kinds of risks.

Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Andy Lau, Alan Mak

A lot of people probably don’t even know that Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winner The Departed was a remake of an awesome Hong Kong action film from just a few years earlier. Andy Lau and Tony Leung star in the story of a cop who goes undercover in a Triad while a criminal becomes a mole in the other direction at the same time. It was followed by two sequels, both of which recently dropped on Max too.

Year: 2001
Runtime: 2h 58m
Director: Peter Jackson

The Oscar-winning franchise by Peter Jackson bounces around the streaming services with alarming regularity, now finding its way to Max for an indeterminate amount of time. Watch the entire saga of Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gange, and the rest of the Fellowship while you can.

Year: 2015
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: George Miller

Have you seen the Furiosa trailer?!!? It’s insane and easily one of the most anticipated films of 2024. Go back to its predecessor, one of the best action movies ever made. This sequel rocked the world when it was released in 2015 on its way to winning multiple Oscars and really setting a new bar for practical action effects. George Miller went into the desert and returned with one of the most ambitious, insane, downright impossible action epics ever made.

Year: 1982
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: George Miller

Mad Max was fun, and it helped put both Mel Gibson and George Miller on the map, but it was the sequel, often just called The Road Warrior that blew the roof off. With some of the best car sequences of all time, this was a game-changer, a film that felt completely fresh and new, while also paying homage to classic tropes of the Western.

Year: 2004
Runtime: 2h 26m
Director: Tony Scott

One of Tony Scott’s last (and best) films is this action flick based on the 1980 novel of the same name. Scott collaborates with his regular star Denzel Washington, who plays a former G-man turned private bodyguard who scorches the earth after the 9-year-old he’s protecting is kidnapped. It’s one of those “they messed with the wrong guy” action flicks that really works.

Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Paul Verhoeven

People like to point at ‘80s movies and say they were ahead of their time, but this may be most true about Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 masterpiece, a film that foretold how technology would impact law enforcement in ways that took decades to come true. A brilliant action satire, this is the story of a Detroit cop who is murdered and revived as the title character, a superhuman cyborg enforcer. It’s even more riveting and relevant almost four decades later. Note: Both original era sequels and the 2010s reboot are also on Max.

Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Brad Peyton

Some action movies are about heroism; some are about spectacle. This falls into the latter category, an ode to the ‘70s disaster movies with the CGI of the 2010s. Dwayne Johnson stars as an L.A. Fire Department helicopter pilot who becomes our eyes into the “big one” hitting California. As earthquakes ravage the landscape and send buildings tumbling, the film never lets up. Is it highbrow genre fare? Nah. But it’s undeniably fun.

Year: 1956
Runtime: 3h 26m
Director: Akira Kurosawa

They don’t get more classic than Akira Kurosawa’s classic that inspired generations of action filmmakers. Co-written, directed, and edited by one of the best filmmakers of all time, it’s the story of seven ronin who are hired by farmers to fight the bandits who are ruining their village. It’s a formative text for the action genre, and quite simply one of the best movies ever made.

Year: 1999
Runtime: 1h 54m
Director: John McTiernan

Pierce Brosnan gave his best non-Bond performance in stellar remake of the 1968 film of the same name. Stepping into the shoes of Steve McQueen is no easy feat but Brosnan does so with style as Thomas Crown, a billionaire art thief who falls for the insurance investigator chasing him, played by the wonderful Rene Russo.

Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 43m
Director: Zack Snyder

Zack Snyder fans, assemble! In 2009, the controversial director finally got his chance to adapt arguably the best graphic novel series of all time, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons brilliant unpacking of heroism and the history of America in Watchmen. The result was kind of a miss — and this film doesn’t remotely compare to the superior HBO series version — but there are some interesting scenes and performances here that make it worth this list.

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