Al Weisel - CDNow's 10 Essential Action Movies
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| The 10 Essential Action Films
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 | By
Al Weisel
CDNOW Senior Editor, Movies
Every scene in every movie begins with a director yelling
"Action!" But in an action film what happens after the cameras
start rolling is heightened to the point that everything is
secondary to how many thrills the movie delivers to the
audience. But while the focus is on the chases, shoot-outs,
fights, and explosions, actions films can also have great
performances, witty dialogue, or beautiful cinematography.
One of the first great fiction films, 1903's The
Great Train Robbery, was an action film. Since then
directors have created ever more inventive ways to excite
audiences with faster car chases, more violent gun battles,
and bigger explosions. Unfortunately, of all the genres action
films are the most susceptible to being formulaic. Some
producers have let interesting stories and characters fall by
the wayside as they try to squeeze as much destruction and
mayhem into the film as possible. While they may have
discovered infinite variations to crashing a car or blowing up
a building, ultimately it all begins to look mind-numbingly
similar after a while if the stories or characters aren't
interesting.
The films on this list have plenty of thrills but they also
have something else to offer. They also have moments of comedy
or drama, compelling characters, and good stories. Although it
may be true that many people go to auto races to see the
crashes, most people like to see some good driving, too.
Otherwise, they would be better off spending their money at a
demolition derby.
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| 1. Seven Samurai (1954) |
 Sure, it's a classic film that often makes lists of
the best movies ever made. But don't let that put you off.
Akira Kurosawa's film about a group of samurai who defend a
village against bandits has well-rounded characters, great
performances by such actors as Toshiro Mifune, hilarious
comedy, and suspenseful drama, but it also has amazing sword
play and a climactic battle sequence when the village is
besieged by 40 bandits.
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| 2. North by Northwest
(1959) |
 A
victim of mistaken identity, Cary Grant is chased from the
U.N. building in New York to a field in the Midwest (where a
crop-dusting plane tries to cut him down in the film's most
famous sequence) to the precarious heights of Mount Rushmore.
Along the way he manages to woo Eva Marie Saint with witty
double-entendres in Alfred Hitchcock's classy, suspenseful
thriller.
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| 3. Pulp Fiction (1994) |
 Probably no other action film has managed to pack so
much dialogue, so many quirky characters and plot twists, and
so much over-the-top violence into one film. Quentin
Tarantino's outrageously innovative film about such lowlifes
as two philosophical hitmen (John Travolta and Samuel Jackson)
and a crooked boxer (Bruce Willis), is a tour-de-force that
became one of the most influential (and badly imitated) movies
of the 1990s.
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| 4. Ben-Hur (1959) |
 This epic about a Jewish slave (Charlton Heston)
living in the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus has one of
the greatest action sequences ever filmed -- a nail-biting
chariot race featuring a chariot with spiked wheels that grind
up an opponent's spokes. The film, which won 11 Oscars,
including best picture, is an example of Hollywood filmmaking
at its most lavish and exciting.
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| 5. Terminator 2 (1991) |
 James Cameron's sequel to his film The
Terminator was one of the earliest films to use
computer graphic imagery effectively. In addition to its
amazing special effects and stunts, what makes this film so
memorable is Linda Hamilton's performance as the kick-ass
heroine, who was a refreshing change from the usual portrayal
of women in the genre as helpless, shrinking
violets.
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| 6. Enter the Dragon (1973) |
 What Fred Astaire was to dancing, Bruce Lee was to
martial arts. One of the world's most popular stars until his
untimely death at age 33, Lee was not only an actor who
possessed a lethal grace onscreen, he was a master of his art
offscreen as well. Enter the Dragon shows off the kung
fu fighter at his best as a martial artist battling a
narcotics gang.
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| 7. The Killer (1989) |
 Director John Woo's stylish Hong Kong action films
elevated the genre to new levels of sophistication, and The
Killer, starring his protégé Chow Yun Fat, is his greatest
film. Chow stars as a hitman out to make one last hit to pay
for the operation of a girl he accidentally blinded in a
shootout -- if the cop (Danny Lee) pursuing him doesn't stop
him. While the elaborately choreographed shoot-outs are
breathtaking, the touching relationships between the hitman
and both the blind girl and the cop, with whom he develops an
almost homoerotic connection, give the film an added
dimension.
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| 8. French Connection (1971) |
 William Friedkin's film about a cynical, violent cop,
Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman, who won an Oscar for this role)
tracking down a drug kingpin has the greatest car chase ever
filmed. With its gritty, urban realism and psychologically
complex antihero, The French Connection, which also won
an Oscar for best picture, is one of the '70s best
films.
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| 9. Die Hard (1988) |
 When the employees of a high-powered corporation are
taken hostage during their Christmas party in an L.A. office
tower by terrorists, a wisecracking New York cop (Bruce
Willis) springs into action. With its amazing stunts and
special effects and entertaining performances from Willis and
Alan Rickman as the steely villain, Die Hard showed
there was still life left in the action genre.
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| 10. Goldfinger (1964) |
 Goldfinger, the best entry in one of film
history's greatest series, based on Ian Fleming's James Bond
spy novels, stars the series' finest agent 007, Sean Connery,
and has the most memorable theme song, sung by Shirley Bassey.
Connery is perfect as the suave, stylish secret agent who
always has just the right gadget or witty rejoinder on hand to
get him out of danger. In this episode Bond must stop an evil
villain from cornering the world's gold supply, encountering
along the way a gold-painted corpse and the incomparable Pussy
Galore (Honor Blackman).
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