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The decade was more than snap bracelets, pastel polos, grunge, and boy band pop music.
It was more than the dawn of the internet and the fall of communism.
There’s at least 35 we can name that prove it.
There were still big muscles and big budgets, sure.
To prove it, here are 35 of the greatest action movies ever made.
The Rock
Year:1996
Director:Michael Bay
Welcome to The Rock.
Mortal Kombat
Director:Paul W. S. Anderson
Fatality!
In the 1990s, arcades were ruled by the controversial and wildly popular Mortal Kombat franchise.
In 1995, Paul W.S.
Ronin
Year:1998
Director:John Frankenheimer
You never know what’s in the briefcase.
But it doesn’t matter.
What really matters is how fragile loyalties are when they’re up for sale.
Kicking off his decade in Hollywood was the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target.
The result was his hard-hitting kung fu epic Fist of Legend, directed by Gordon Chan.
Rumble in the Bronx
Director:Stanley Tong
Never mind that Rumble in the Bronx was filmed in Vancouver.
You’ll never look at a refrigerator the same way again.
Blade
Director:Stephen Norrington
The currentMarvel timelineand Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole owes everything to Blade.
But it’s no mystery why audiences flocked to see Blade in the first place.
Some men are always trying to ice-skate uphill, but you’ll never catch Blade being so desperate.
The Crow
Director:Alex Proyas
“It can’t rain all the time.”
He said as much in a 2014 interview with Empire.
But only a filmmaker like Verhoeven could lampoon a book while simultaneously adapting it for the screen.
But True Lies has plenty of heart.
But Air Force One from 1997 dares to ask: what if POTUS were an action hero himself?
Police Story 3: Supercop
1996 was a breakout year for Jackie Chan.
Schwarzenegger stars in Total Recall as a construction worker haunted by nighttime dreams of Mars.
The two race against time to stop the destruction of Earth by an angry, cockroach-like species.
Bad Boys
When Will Smith and Martin Lawrence said “bad boys for life,” they meant it.
But it still has Tom Cruise operating at maximal levels in the first of many movies.
But Speed shifted Reeves into a whole new gear.
One might call him unstoppable.
The very definition of iconic.
The Fugitive is a grounded chase thriller that still feels exciting as it looks exhausting.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
There are sequels, and there is Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
And really, no one is here to see bodies hit the floor.
Hard Boiled
The slow-motion gun-fu.
Two men with nothing to lose.
