The 2020s have been a rather great time for movies. Pretty much every genre has thrived, from fantasy to science fiction, but if there’s one that has had it particularly good the last six years, it’s action. Once considered something of a lowbrow genre that produced explosive, disposable entertainment, action has evolved greatly in the new millennium, largely thanks to movies like The Matrix, Mad Max: Fury Road, and John Wick. The 2020s have produced major critical and commercial hits, from cultural phenomena like Top Gun: Maverick to Oscar winners like Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Indeed, the action genre has produced a plethora of great movies in just six years, which also means many of its most deserving efforts have also been lost to the cinematic aether. After all, with so many movies coming out every year, it’s only logical that many would slip through the cracks. This list will cover those action movies that people have all but forgotten by most audiences, but that deserve a second look. Sure, they’re not all masterpieces of the form, but they’re all solid actioners that will satisfy even the most demanding of fans. So, if you haven’t watched them, now’s the perfect time to do it.
‘Gunpowder Milkshake’ (2021)
Image via Netflix
Let’s kick off this list with one of Netflix’s best action offerings. Gunpowder Milkshake stars Karen Gillan as Sam, a hitwoman who teams up with her estranged mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), and her former colleagues, Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Anna (Angela Bassett), and Florence (Michelle Yeoh), to protect a young girl from rival assassins. Paul Giamatti also stars as the head of the HR department of the organization Sam works for.
Gunpowder Milkshale benefits from several things: a vibrant, neon-lit visual style, a straightforward but engaging narrative, and the performances of an incredible collection of actresses, all giving it their all. Gillan is great as the stoic lead, but the supporting players steal the show, particularly Headey as the elusive Scarlet and Bassett as the tough Anna. The action is also inventive and exhilarating, especially the climactic shootout. Gunpowder Milkshake is the perfect kind of Netflix movie: it’s simple but memorable, offering great, rousing entertainment that will indoubtedly stay with you long after the credits roll.
‘Blue Beetle’ (2023)
The DCEU produced a ton of slop throughout its decade of existence, but one of the last movies it produced was actually an incredibly solid superhero movie that deserved a lot better. Blue Beetle stars Xolo Maridueña as Jaime Reyes, a recent college graduate who finds and bonds with a mysterious alien scarab that gives him superpowers. However, he soon becomes the target of Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), the CEO of Kord Industries who is hellbent on recovering the scarab.
Blue Beetle is among the most underrated movies of the decade so far. Released in the middle of a major strike and at a time of uncertainty for DC overall, the film was a disappointment at the box office. However, it’s actually a very solid entry into the crowded genre, focusing more on themes of family, legacy, and self-discovery than in the traditional hero-saves-the-world trope that characterizes most superhero movies. Maridueña is incredible in the lead role, and the visual effects are far better than most of the genre’s other entries in the decade. Hopefully, Jaime will return in a future movie, but if not, at least he had one hell of a debut.
‘Boy Kills World’ (2023)
Bill Skarsgard and Jessica Rothe walking together while covered in blood in Boy Kills WorldImage via Lionsgate
Bill Skarsgård is among the most talented and daring actors of his generation, never settling for a particular genre and always choosing interesting roles to showcase his craft. In 2023, he went fully into the action genre with Boy Kills World, a curious mix of genres from director Moritz Mohr. Skarsgård plays Boy, a young man rendered deaf-mute after an attack that killed his entire family. After years of intense training, Boy launches his revenge against the Van Der Koy family, leaving a bloody path behind him.
Boy Kills World is the quirkiest movie on this list, an approach that allows it to be simultaneously silly and gory. Skarsgård gives a very physical performance, really going for it in the action sequences while playing Boy with a mix of youthful innocence and uncontrolled rage. The result is a surprisingly endearing character that makes the whole thing all the more entertaining. The supporting cast is great — there’s even a Hemlock Grove reunion between Skarsgård and Famke Jansen — and Boy’s inner monologues, voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, make Boy Kills World a deliriously entertaining actioner.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
‘Monkey Man’ (2024)
Dev Patel in a boxing ring in a monkey mask in Monkey ManImage via Universal Pictures
This list might very well be a collection of great actors who should be far bigger deals than they are, with Gillan, Skarsgård, and now, Dev Patel. In Monkey Man, Patel pulls quadruple duty by directing, co-writing, co-producing, and starring. He plays Kid, a young man making a meager wage fighting in an underground club. Soon, he launches a revenge campaign against the corrupt leaders responsible for his mother’s death.
Patel has been making a name for himself for almost two decades now, and his 2020 oeuvre is quite solid. With Monkey Man, he cements himself as one of the most versatile performers of his generation. In front of the camera, he’s confident in the role of a traditional action man, making the brutal choreography look natural and really tapping into Kid’s rage and frustration. Behind the camera, he’s kinetic and stylish, serving a bloody extravaganza with a heavy dose of social commentary that never feels unnecessary. Monkey Man is the type of action movie that’s bound to become a cult classic; it’s only a matter of time.
‘Novocaine’ (2025)
Jack Quaid as Nathan “Nate” Caine upside down falling through a hole on a ceiling in NovacaineImage via Paramount Pictures
It’s always great when an actor who you wouldn’t necessarily consider an action star dips their toes in the genre. In 2025, it was Jack Quaid‘s turn with the great but severely underrated Novocaine. The film features Quaid as Nathan Caine, a bank employee who cannot feel pain. When his co-worker and supposed girl of his dreams, Sherry (Amber Midthunter), is kidnapped by a group of bank robbers, Nathan goes on a mission to rescue her, turning his condition into a real-life superpower.
Novocaine is a great mix of action, romance, and body horror. Quaid is perfect in the role of an unassuming but surprisingly effective action man, while Midthunder shines in a role that isn’t quite what it seems. The film is also creative in its ways of using the premise, coming up with some rather gruesome and increasingly unhinged action set pieces that delight in putting Quaid through the wringer. Novocaine is a deliciously deranged action movie, a refreshing twist on the “unwitting action hero” trope with a heavy dose of charm courtesy of one of the most delightful young actors working today.
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