Check out these must-watch action flicks. Credit: Village Roadshow Pictures Updated July 28, 2021 Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewedâs editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. The action film occupies an interesting place at the movies, holding hands with the spy film, the martial-arts picture, the Western, the monster movie, and even science fiction. Where once there were innumerable movies about cowboys and samurai wandering into a small, lawless village to dole out justice, today we tend to think of action films as something slightly different: Keanu Reeves brandishing a pair of polished handguns, long hair slicked back, in a neon nightclub full of Russian mobsters. This is the cinema of stylized violence, high speeds, and an emphasis on choreographed movement.