My Top 20 Favorite Action Movies of the 1990s!

Time to do the best action thriller movies of the 1990s. One of my favorite categories, these are my top 20 list. I did this for the 1980s, so go check out that video. One reason to like these movies, you can watch them casually, you can watch at least some of them for their technical expertise, the way they put things together. These are insane and they work really well, in my opinion, on the durable machines. Treadmill, bike, stationary bike, you name it. For me, it's monotonous, so to get over that really helps to watch movies like this. So here are my recommendations. Coming in number 20, my favorite treadmill movie of the decade. It's intentionally terrible, intentionally cheesy. Some amazingly bad things going on in this movie, yet it's intentionally done, so it's kind of winking at you. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser. Yeah, I love Eraser. I actually love it. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ridiculously dumb in this, but he's one of my favorites, a favorite of movie stars of all time. So you got to know this is here, but I picked Eraser over a couple others that Arnold did in this decade, and you're going to see what I did not put in there from him. Coming in at number 19, one of my favorite franchises. This movie has been long derided. David Fincher's directorial debut, he sort of disowned this movie, but I have always liked it since it came out, Alien 3. I love the setting of Alien 3. I actually think it works, but to me, you got to watch, I don't think it's a director's cut. It's whatever Advanced Cut this is. I can't remember the exact name of it. Get the director's cut though, this, because then you get at least give it its best shot. That's the best way to watch this, at least. Number 18, not my favorite movie as an adult, but it spawned a huge franchise, and by the time it came out, it was a big movie. It scared me to death in a theater. I was a kid at that time. Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. I've taken a run at this movie on social media. I think it's cockamamie, and thanks to the Michael Crichton novel, a little hammy science fiction. It's a lot of monsters chasing kids, but everybody loves it. I mean, if I didn't love it, everybody would, so I got to put it on this list because I think it belongs here. Number 17 was a gigantic movie at the time. A big hit for Keanu Reeves, who was a younger actor at this point. You should check it out if you haven't seen it, if you're younger and never heard of it. It's the movie Speed. You got nowhere to go. Shoot the hostage. Say goodbye, Harry. Speed features Keanu Reeves and Jeff Daniels with Dennis Hopper as a bad guy, and there's a bomb on the bus. What more could you want? Then the cops have to keep a bus going forever on, I think, LA's freeways because otherwise it will explode thanks to this nasty terrorist played by Dennis Hopper. Really interesting movie. Fascinatingly shot. I would check it out if I were you and you haven't seen it. Number 16 is an East Asian movie. We're going to have a couple of these on here. It's from director John Woo, and he did The Killer from the 1980s. I think that was on my 80s action movie list. This one is Hard Boiled. John Woo would transplant to Hollywood as so many directors over the last 80 years at this point had because he's done so well overseas and people like his movies all over the world. So Hard Boiled, this thing must set the record for most bullets in a movie. I think. That's just a wild guess. Trillions and gazillions of bullets fired in this movie. Kind of a precursor to, you know, The Matrix and John Wick stuff, but it should be watched on its own for, you know, bullet ballet is what I would call it. So Hard Boiled. Check it out. Although, wait till they have a Blu-ray 4K release. I watched this on a lame DVD copy. It looked terrible, but still, interestingly enough, watches interestingly enough in that format. Number 15 is a great Gen X movie, Gen X angst, conspiracy theory, paranoid movie, but I'm even describing it as it really is. A science fiction comic book movie, Blade. Blade, of course, is one of the first Marvel movie adaptations or Marvel comics adaptations. Blade and Blade 2 are very interestingly paired together. Very different directors because Del Toro directed the second one. That's what I really like with Wesley Snipes, who is his own version of Arnold. It's dumb, but it's a fun performance. If you really like this movie, go check it out, especially if you're Gen X and annoyed with the world. Numbers 13 and 14. I think these movies are not as liked as I like them. That might make them underrated. Tom Clancy was a gigantic author at this time. One of the big authors. He wrote 700 page books that some of my 8th grade friends read. They're obviously about the military and espionage and that sort of thing. Movie versions of stories about his famous character, Jack Ryan. That would have been done in Hunt for Red October in the 1980s, but here Harrison Ford takes up the mantle of Jack Ryan and plays him in two or three movies. The two movies I'm going to name are Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. I always get these mixed up in my mind. I can't remember which is which. I think I like Clear and Present Danger better, but to me they're kind of like, you know, I don't know, mature Mission Impossible movies. I shouldn't even undermine Mission Impossible by saying that. These are his cockamamie in their own ways, but I like these movies a lot and they get the heart pounding. I like Ford as a kind of a straight actor in what is action movie fare. Number 12 is a very fun 1999 movie. A lot of great movies made in 1999. It's, well, it would be remade in many worse ways, but this is always plucky fun in the sort of Indiana Jones tradition. It's The Mummy. Let's keep going. Paranoid conspiracy thrillers. Bring them on. There's a ton of them near the end of this decade in the last three or four years in the 90s. This is by Will Smith, who has fallen away in the last few years because of Gene Hackman, one of my favorites. Kind of almost reprising his classic 1970s role from The Conversation, but this is not a sequel to that, although it's kind of in the same vibe. Enemy of the State. Chase movie. Paranoid conspiracy thrillers. Telecommunications spread. The internet spreads. Your privacy is being undermined. This movie is playing that up. I enjoy the heck out of this movie, even if it may be ridiculous. Number 10. Well, this is already a franchise. This is my favorite in the franchise. It's probably got some controversy to it, but anything with Samuel L. Jackson is going to be pretty fun, and one of my favorite actors who inspired my haircut, Bruce Willis, is in this. It's Die Hard 3 or Die Hard with a Vengeance. Number 9. This is in the Criterion Collection. I watched it actually pretty recently, and most of these movies I watched in the 90s originally, but this one I hadn't seen until it was in the Criterion Collection. Once Upon a Time in China. This is a very fun movie, and it's always fun to have the Americans, people like me, pictured as bad guys, like stereotypical bad guys. You never, you don't see that in Hollywood. I mean, you see bad guys who are Americans, but you don't see good guys who are Americans. Imagine this movie where the Chinese are good guys, more or less, and then it's bad Americans. That's, I mean, that's a dumb element of it. It's very fun. It's modeled upon partly on some of the Chinese action thrillers at the time, also American thrillers. You should go check this out. It's very well done, in my opinion. And now we're getting to some serious stuff. Number 8. Probably underrated. It does show up on these kinds of lists on the internet. If you look up best 90s action movies, it will probably be there. Maybe a little lower than I have. It's a Meat and Potatoes Mission Impossible movie, but it's not Mission Impossible. It's Robert De Niro and Ronan. Why am I guarding that? Why? It's to protect me. There is no protection there. If it's come out, we're fishing a barrel. What are you doing? Why do they want you in there? What are you, crazy? You know, you think so. Nobody ever told me that before. I say this is Meat and Potatoes because it is an assembly, a motley of sort of spy mercenary characters who are working for somebody they don't understand. They're going to do impossible missions with a computer hacker and a couple of heavies. And De Niro plays the lead role, which is really weird for him. And you'll be surprised when you see him in it. But this is very well done. The action set pieces and the acting in this is quite good. And it's his ultimate tough guy. Like every single guy in this is an alpha male. Alpha males, alpha male. So that may turn you off, but I need to tell you that describe it better. Number seven, an unusual movie for this list because I have not put an animated movie on or animated movies, action thrillers. Maybe this one kind of is kind of bloody. It's Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke. It's not for younger children to try it with them, but I don't think it's really the thematic material doesn't really maybe resonate with an eight year old as it might with a 16 year old. Lots of action in this movie and death and suffering. So watch out for that. And it's kind of heartening. I've seen this movie many times. It's always glorious to see by one of the greatest artists in the 20th century, 21st century, even Hayao Miyazaki. Now for number six, usually for these lists, I pick my personal preferences as I've done below with Alien 3 and so on. But I sometimes nod in a couple places to what other people like. That's what this is for number six. I saw it in the theater when it debuted. I really liked it. Little did I know it would become iconic for two or three different reasons. It is The Matrix. Don't think you know. Now the reason why I don't like The Matrix is that to me it's science fiction. Science fiction should go crazy with its ideas in the third act. This one sort of devolves into shooting and fight scenes, which is actually what you want out of this list. I think it could do better than that, but nevertheless it is famous for its CGI and fight scenes, in part also the red pill blue pill thing. So I got to put this on here because it's Wanda franchise and everybody loves it. I go to it. It is one of my go-tos for teaching students various things and you know just as a touch point for paranoid conspiracy thrillers and post-modernism and transhumanism in popular culture. This is this is a good one to to describe that sort of thing. Now top five here. I'm looking at them. Four out of five of them I think are absolutely great movies and number five is, although you may hate it, it's got a weird ending, but I've covered the ending on Substack. Go sign up for my Substack. I've covered this on my channel. It's another David Fincher movie. It's The Game with Michael Douglas. Listen I am a very wealthy man and whatever they're paying you I'll double it. And yet again another paranoid conspiracy thriller movie. I don't want to surprise you though because it's not like Enemy of the State or some of these others where there's a nefarious all-controlling kind of providential all-seeing entity like the U.S. federal government or something like that that's coming after you but it's in the shadows. This is quite different in its own way with the ending but I can't spoil anything. Just go watch it. I think it's fun in the first watch and then watches very differently in the second third watch. So The Game, go check it out. Number four I will apologize for. A lot of you will think this movie is stupid. I mean so stupid you will hate it and that's one reason to watch it. This is the best treadmill movie of all. It is so over the top and it's post-modern winking. It's knowing that it's an action movie and it's so stupidly unrealistic. It was great at the time. A bunch of us were teenage bros when it came out. Loved it. I re-watched it recently. I love it. It is con air. Can I lower this? Go ahead. You're gonna lower yours? Sorry boss but there's only two men I trust. One of them was me. The other's not you. Prisoners in the Sky. Nicolas Cage is a prisoner going to be set free. He's in a maximum security plane with a bunch of other the worst prisoners in the world. This is another alpha male movie like Ronin. Packed full of big tough guys and or crazy psychopath guys. One played with Steve Buscemi and when I say this is as ridiculously ridiculously ridiculous you'll never be able to top this movie. Probably. Go watch it. It's crazy what happens this movie. I won't give it away. Just go watch it. My top three is great. This is sort of an action movie. I think it is because there's a lot of action scenes in this. Used to have the record of shot length per shot. That is it was less than two seconds per shot. This thing goes boom boom boom very quickly cut. Almost unendurable in that moment. It's a science fiction movie by Alex Proyas. Another Paranoid Conspiracy Thriller. It's Dark City. I learned about this because the great critic Roger Ebert praised it when it came out. It does have the most unique spaceship in movies. Well certainly one of the most. Weird set. Interesting themes. Great mood. I love the score and the ending and I'm fascinated by this movie. I rewatch it and I had the same thrills that I did when I first saw it. It always works for me. Go check it out. Number two. Probably the best action one of the best action movies ever made. When it saw the theater it was great and Harrison Ford shows up in it as a Hitchcockian wrong man. A man wrongly accused of a crime. That's a mild spoiler but you figure that out 20 minutes in. Still works. I cover this on my channel The Fugitive. Get out on your knees right now. Amazing that they remade a TV show here and did it in a straightforward way. Tommy Lee Jones, who's been in a number of movies before this, serves as an explosion as a great name actor. He's perfect in this. A number of great actors. Actually all the cops chasing after Harrison Ford are great. It's sort of a roadrunner Wile E. Coyote movie but it's also serious in its own way. Anyway, I love this movie. I could watch it every single year. Number one. Undisputed champion. Was near the beginning of the decade released and could not be dethroned. It has some of the best CGI of the decade and even movies 6, 7, 15 to 20 years after it could not do CGI as well as it could. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He began the list. He ends the list. It's Terminator 2. I've covered this one on my channel so check that out but there's weird Wizard of Oz vibes in this movie. People going down the yellow brick road to see the wizard to get what they want. The Tin Man in this. The Arnold character was as the good Terminator. I love the way this movie starts. Well, just go watch it. Watch the first Terminator, the second one. This one builds on the second one. Some tremendous what I would call silent movie action sequences. Nobody needs to talk or have any dialogue. This one is the best and it's not even close in my opinion to these other ones. Now, there are a lot of action movies and a lot of action movies from around the world and I know I've missed a bunch of them. I didn't put anything by Kurt Russell in here for example. I'm wondering what I missed. What do you think I missed? What would you have put in here? What are your favorite action thrillers of the decade? Let us know in the comments. Please subscribe to the channel. Thank you and have a great day.