The action genre will always remain perennially popular for the sole reason that it never gets old watching shootouts, fistfights, car chases, and explosions, at least if it’s handled well. The artform is constantly evolving to move with the times, too, but you won’t have to travel too far in order to find folks of the belief that the 1980s and 1990s were the Golden Age.
Initially dominated by the musclebound meatheads who would flex their biceps and drop a one-liner while laying entire armies to waste, things eventually evolved into something a touch more relatable, with Die Hard the obvious catalyst. The beefy dinosaurs were out, and the out-of-their-depth everyman was in, but that didn’t mean an end to the cheesy delights.
In fact, Redditors have been praising the self-aware, sly, and all-round excessive actioners that deserve to be named among the top tier, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find many mentions that are unworthy, especially when the conversation gets kicked off with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s glorious Commando.
The top-voted comment at the time of writing being Big Trouble in Little China tells a story on all its own, with John Carpenter and Kurt Russell continuing to make magic together. Sylvester Stallone’s leather-clad, over-the-top violent and very sweaty Cobra, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target (which was the Hollywood directorial debut of action icon John Woo), and the self-aware cult classic Last Action Hero all rank among the top contenders, and they each earned it in their own unique way.
Action blockbusters may have gotten smarter and more spectacular, but rarely do they get sillier than they did back then.