There’s tonnes of action movies to check out on Netflix Australia—featuring assassins, cops, thieves and other purveyors of on screen carnage. Here’s the best, picked by critic Luke Buckmaster.
See also
* Best new movies & series on Netflix
* All new streaming movies & series
Death Proof (2007)
WATCH ON NETFLIXThis splashily retro, grindhouse-homaging curio is a minor work in Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre, but it packs real grunt and it’s peppered with knowingly trashy showmanship. Three jive-talking women (Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd and Sydney Tamiia Poitier) are accosted by Kurt Russell’s “Stuntman Mike,” leading to vehicular carnage and revenge-a-rama.
Deepwater Horizon (2016)
WATCH ON NETFLIXPeter Berg’s riveting, pressure-packed dramatisation of America’s worst oil spill is The Towering Inferno for a new generation, with a politically salient message against oil companies and a strong leading performance from Mark Wahlberg as a technician fighting to save himself and his colleagues. What could be more American than a disaster movie about workers scrambling to save their lives because of multinational corporations making cost-cutting decisions?
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
WATCH ON NETFLIXTom Cruise plays an alien-fighting US solider who cannot die and experiences the same day over and over, Groundhog Day style, in Doug Liman’s rootin’-tootin’ video game-esque sci-fi . The fight/die/repeat format keeps a ferocious pace and doubles as a comment on the infallibility of the Hollywood hero.
The Great Wall (2016)
Watch on NetflixThe look and feel of Chinese director Yimou Zhang’s fantastical battle epic couldn’t be further from the rapid-fire freneticism de rigueur in Hollywood. The director is unafraid to hold the frame, savouring the beauty of his compositions, many of which evoke jaw-dropping vertical depth. Loads of battles are staged atop the titular wall, which is attacked by vicious beasts, Matt Damon’s warrior joining Chinese forces to fend them off.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
WATCH ON NETFLIXThe second Hunger Games movie evokes a thoroughly menaced tone: the world is broken; people are pushing back; revolution is in the air. Despair and cynicism infuse everything—even the relationship between Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss and Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta, who are used as propaganda tools by the state. They’re sent back into the death tournament arena, where Katniss rises from celebrity contestant to mythical saviour.
Jack Reacher (2012)
WATCH ON NETFLIX“Did I need a knife in Siberia?” That is the showstopping line in Jack Reacher, hissed by a very creepy, very shit-eating Werner Herzog, playing a former political prisoner cum villain. Tom Cruise is leading man, in fine form as a quick-thinking tough guy thrust into a tangled plotline involving crimes, conspiracies and creepy old Herzog. Generic but rewarding.
Jaws (1975)
WATCH ON NETFLIXThe shark catchers in Steven Spielberg’s iconic creature feature famously needed a bigger boat. The film itself—a thrillingly suspenseful blockbuster—shifted the foundation of multiplex cinema, ushering in a new era of tentpole spectacles. The story unsubtle messages have contemporary relevance, about heeding the advice of public health experts.
Jumanji (1995)
WATCH ON NETFLIXRobin Williams plays a character who got lost in an alternate universe as a child, and is returned to reality when new players (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce) of the titular board game roll the dice. Joe Johnston’s 1995 hit is to some extent a coathanger for special effects—but it’s unusual to see a family film so alive with paranoia, so dripping with dread. Jumanji was under-appreciated back in the day but time has been kind to it; even the special effects still look pretty good.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
WATCH ON NETFLIXThe story is a simple revenge arc: Uma Thurman’s Beatrix Kiddo will find and kill Bill. What makes this film so rewatchable—and superior to volume 1—is that irresistible, Tarantino-flavoured dialogue, the characters stopping everything to chew the fat. The scenes with David Carradine are particularly irresistible.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
WATCH ON NETFLIXI am far from the first critic to liken Stephen Chow’s zany chopsocky period movie to a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, but sometimes the collective wisdom gets it right. Chow (also the writer and director) plays a blunderous small-time con artist who, in a rural slum in China in the 1940s, becomes embroiled in an epic brouhaha between the murderous “Axe Gang” and a trio of genuine kung fu masters. The story is OK; the execution is delightful.
Mad Max Fury Road (2015)
Watch on NetflixThere was every indication that George Miller’s fourth Mad Max movie would turn into a fizzer, enduring a famously difficult shoot and arriving three decades after the previous installment. But when Fury Road roared into cinemas, depicting cinema’s most elaborate U turn, it became clear the director had delivered a face-melting modern classic. And that the titular character (Tom Hardy) had finally met his match with Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Watch on NetflixBritish troupe Monty Python had a great knack for merging realities, crafting jokes sort of from this world and sort of not. Instead of riding a horse, for instance, Arthur (Graham Chapman) mimes riding one while a man behind him simulates the noise of horse hooves. The joke makes no sense but it doesn’t have to. This film’s structure is patchy and sketch-like, though, with the gags flowing thick and fast, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Okja (2017)
Watch on Netflix
Tilda Swinton plays the Willy Wonka-esque CEO of a company that produces a not-so-sweet product: giant genetically engineered pigs to carve up and sell worldwide. Chaos ensues when a young girl (Seo-Hyun Ahn) puts up a fight to save the titular character’s bacon. There’s Spielbergian largesse in Bong Joon Ho’s brisk direction, but he goes places Spielberg wouldn’t—with pointy messages about anti-meat consumption and corporate malfeasance.
RRR (2022)
Watch on NetflixSS Rajamouli’s sensationally loud Telugu-language spectacle pivots around two Indian citiziens rebelling against the British Raj circa the 1920s. The plot moves in long and large chunks, and just when you start to get antsy come the thunderclaps of overblown action. There’s no edge to it, stylistically, but it reeks of sheer decadence, even by the standards of Bollywood epics.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Not an origins film, but a film about the myth of origins. This restlessly inventive visual cocktail depicts a multiverse of realities, each harbouring a different version of the titular superhero—and each painted with a distinct aesthetic. The adhesive binding these universes together is the eponymous web-slinger, who saves the world from a super-gangster with a little help from his friends (who are actually different versions of himself).
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1992)
WATCH ON NETFLIXFear of a robotic uprising has long stimulated the public imagination—rarely as memorably as in James Cameron’s 1992 masterpiece. Larded with gripping chase scenes, which have aged not one iota, the villain from its predecessor—a cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger—returns as a reprogrammed good guy, initially butt naked but soon to kick ass in an iconic leather jacket and black sunnies.
Titles are added and removed from his page to reflect changes to the Netflix catalogue. Reviews no longer available on this page can be found here.
