The 1980s were the home to some of the most beloved classic action movies in cinema history. This was an era that brought the giant over-the-top action heroes played by actors like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dolph Lundgren to popularity. However, the decade also ended with a moment where the everyday action heroes also came to prominence, mostly led by Bruce Willis and his fantastic performance in the action movie Die Hard.
These movies were also hit-and-miss. For every action movie that lit the world on fire, there was a handful that were better off going straight to video, which is where several of the biggest 1980s action stars ended up residing once the 1990s began. However, when some of the best movies did it right, they sat at the top of the box office and brought in massive numbers, many of which remain iconic and beloved to this day. Titles like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Terminator remain name brands four decades later.
While many action movies remain products of their times, there are others that have aged like fine wine. The music might be out of style, and some of the clothing designs don’t look right today, but the action, characters, and storylines all stand up as well today as they did in the 1980s. In fact, many of these 1980s action movies are better than anything released today, whether in theaters or on streaming services that often become the destination for the genre in modern times.
10
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
The first Mad Max movie was a low-budget revenge thriller action movie about a former cop named Max Rockatansky seeking revenge for the death of his family and his partner. Thanks to the cult status of that film, director George Miller got a bigger budget to make the sequel two years later, and what resulted was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Everything was bigger and crazier, and it remains a solid apocalyptic action movie to this day.
After the revenge story from the first movie, former cop Max (Mel Gibson) is back as a drifter who runs across a gang led by a marauder named Humungus, and he ends up in a battle with these villains for his life. The movie remains iconic to this day thanks to its post-apocalyptic setting, punk aesthetic, and the vehicular stunt work, especially in the relentless action sequences. Miller improved on this with Fury Road, but that movie exists because of the template that Road Warrior set.
9
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Released in 1984, Beverly Hills Cop stars Eddie Murphy as street-smart Detroit detective Axel Foley. When his best friend is killed, he heads to Beverly Hills, California, to look into the murder and finds a drug-smuggling operation fronted by an art dealer. However, when he ends up stonewalled by the local police, he realizes he will have to work outside the law to find justice for his friend.
What was most impressive here was that the comedian proved he was perfect for the role of a street-wise, smart-mouthed action hero, and Murphy immediately won audiences over with his performance. The movie received positive reviews and was a monster box office success. In fact, it was the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time when released, at $234.8 million domestically, and it held that record until The Hangover broke it decades later.
8
The Terminator (1984)
The Terminator is a lot of things. It is a slasher horror movie, and it has sci-fi themes. However, as the sequel showed, it is also the start of one of the best action franchises in history. Directed by James Cameron, The Terminator stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a T-800 robot sent back in time to murder a young woman named Sarah Connor before she can give birth to a child who will grow up to lead the human resistance against the machines.
The movie then has Sarah (Linda Hamilton) running for her life as a soldier sent back from the future, named Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), has to protect her. It is horror and sci-fi, but the action is on strong display here, with gun fights, car chases, and relentless pursuit. The film made Schwarzenegger an international star, and it led to one of the best action sequels ever made in cinema history.
7
Road House (1989)
Patrick Swayze was one of the 1980s’ biggest sex symbols, and while he remains known for romantic movies like Ghost and Dirty Dancing, he also had a strong following in action movies. His two biggest action films came in the 1980s and 1990s, with Road House and then Point Break following it two years later. While he was the bad guy in Point Break, he was the hero in Road House.
Swayze plays Dalton, a bouncer hired to clean up a rowdy bar in a small town in Missouri. However, he soon runs afoul of a corrupt local crime boss, and he has to fight to not only save the bar but also save the town itself. This is a hard-R movie with some brutal fight scenes, and that helped it gain its cult classic status. It is unapologetically a guilty pleasure action movie and never wavers from that tone.
6
First Blood (1982)
The Rambo franchise had some wild movies, with the second and third in particular becoming more of a patriotic story of a man fighting for his country. However, the first movie was very different and showed a Vietnam veteran treated terribly when he returned home. In First Blood, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) finds he has to fight his own fellow Americans when they target him, and he finds his life in danger.
The plot sees a drifting Rambo being harassed and arrested by small-town police, triggering PTSD flashbacks, and he has to use his survival and combat skills to evade a manhunt. Brian Dennehy stars as the sheriff who pushes him over the edge, and Richard Crenna is the military colonel who trained Rambo during his service time. This is one of the best serious portrayals of a traumatized veteran, with the emotional weight countered by the brutal action sequences.
5
RoboCop (1987)
In 1987, Paul Verhoeven directed the satirical action movie RoboCop. In this film, Peter Weller stars as Alex Murphy, a Detroit police officer who is murdered in the line of duty. His body is given to the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products, which then turns him into the cyborg known as RoboCop. While he has prime directives he has to follow, Alex begins to rediscover his humanity and focuses on the corrupt corporation.
The entire movie is a smart satire of an authoritarian society where even the police force is ruled by giant corporations. It holds up well today as an indictment of corporate greed, privatization, and media culture, and it might even be more relevant today than it was when the movie was released in 1987.
4
Aliens (1986)
The first Alien movie took the form of a haunted house horror story, but instead, it moved the story into space on an abandoned spacecraft rather than in a house on Earth. This increased the terror because there was nowhere to run and no one was coming to help. However, when James Cameron signed on to direct the sequel, he changed everything. Sigourney Weaver was back as Ripley, and the Xenomorphs were back, but it wasn’t a horror movie anymore. Instead, this was an all-out action sci-fi thriller.
Ripley teams with Colonial Marines, all of whom try to take out the Xenomorphs with big guns and explosions, and the action here is as good as in any Earth-based action movie. Cameron also smartly kept the scares, and Weaver continues to excel in her role as one of the best heroines in action or horror movies.
3
Lethal Weapon (1987)
A lot of people talk about Die Hard as the ultimate action movie franchise coming out of the 1980s, but Lethal Weapon was, at the time, just as great. Rather than the one-man show of Bruce Willis as John McClane, Lethal Weapon played the buddy cop format, with Mel Gibson as the brash young cop with a death wish and Danny Glover as the by-the-books family man who just wanted to eventually retire.
The movies got even more action-packed as the series rolled on, but this first movie was a masterclass of action and drama. Gibson’s Martin Riggs is a depressed cop who never got over his wife’s death. Glover’s Murtaugh is a great counterpoint, and their back-and-forth banter is as good as any action scene. However, the fight between Riggs and Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey) at the end is brutal and one of the best choreographed fights in 1980s action cinema.
2
Die Hard (1988)
When people talk about 1980s action movies, it usually begins and ends with Die Hard. Before this, the movies were almost entirely about larger-than-life action heroes with giant muscles and even bigger guns blazing down seemingly unstoppable forces. However, Die Hard changed everything when former comedy star Bruce Willis took on the role of NYPD detective John McClane, who encountered terrorists while on a holiday vacation in California.
Everything about Die Hard still holds up to this day. Willis is masterful as McClane, and Alan Rickman turned in one of the best villain roles in action movie history as Hans Gruber. The gun fights, the stealth tactics, and the dialogue between McClane and Gruber all aged like fine wine, and this is a movie that plays as well today as it did four decades ago.
1
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
While Die Hard might be the best pure action movie of the 1980s, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best films of the entire decade, and its mix of high adventure and action helped elevate it into a masterpiece. Harrison Ford stars as Indiana Jones, an archaeologist who is also a treasure hunter who seeks to bring rare treasures to be placed in museums and protected locations. His goal here is the Ark of the Covenant, and he is in a race against the Nazis to get it.
Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Lawrence Kasdan, and based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, this is the movie that started a franchise and is one of the best action-adventure movies ever made. With breathless set pieces, great stunt work, and a perfectly paced storyline, nothing has ever topped this first-time outing for Indy and his globe-trotting adventures.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
