This article is updated frequently as titles leave and enter Max. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.
Action movies have long been the most successful genre at home, as viewers try to replicate that rush they got at the movie theater in their own living room. The Max (formerly HBO Max) selection of action flicks is predictably dense, bringing in some of the DC Universe, classic genre movies, and modern hits. Everyone from Martin Campbell to Martin Scorsese can find a home here, and you’ll often find a Batman, too. We will update this list regularly to give readers a new action movie to watch whenever they need a fix, or a reminder to watch a classic they’ve already seen.
*Attack the Block
Year: 2011
Runtime: 1h 29m
Director: Joe Cornish
Long before he won a Golden Globe for Small Axe, John Boyega broke through in this 2011 sci-fi/action flick from director Joe Cornish. With echoes of John Carpenter, it’s the tale of a street gang who end up being the final defense between the world and an alien invasion.
Batman
Year: 1989
Runtime: 2h 7m
Director: Tim Burton
The modern superhero movie owes an incredible debt to what Tim Burton did in 1989 with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger. It wasn’t the first superhero movie, but it felt darker and different from the candy-coated men in tights movies that came before, especially the superior sequel, also on Max. Watch them both.
The Batman
Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 56m
Director: Matt Reeves
Matt Reeves now owns the saga of the Dark Knight as a sequel to his March 2022 action blockbuster has already been announced. Dropping on Max while it was still in theaters, The Batman is an ambitious epic reboot of the legendary hero, anchored by Reeves’s craft and fascinating performances from Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, and many more.
Crank
Year: 2006
Runtime: 1h 28m
Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
There aren’t enough action movies with the pure momentum of Crank, directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and the 2009 sequel, also on Max. Jason Statham plays a hitman who has to keep his adrenaline up to stay alive. It’s like Speed with a human heart instead of a bus. It’s a hell of a ride.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Year: 2000
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: Ang Lee
One of the most successful foreign language films of all time, Ang Lee’s 2000 wuxia epic was so popular that it landed an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, along with nine other nominations (winning four). It’s a gorgeous epic based on the Chinese novel by Wang Dulu that stars the legendary Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen. It hasn’t aged a day in the over-two decades since its release.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Matt Reeves
Any list of the best modern action trilogies really needs to include the rebooted Planet of the Apes series that started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes over a decade ago. The series arguably got even richer in the follow-up from The Batman director Matt Reeves, which is currently the only one in the trilogy on Max for some inexplicable reason. Still, it’s a great movie, even if it’s weird to not have the whole saga of Caesar to marathon for your subscription fee.
Dune: Parts One & Two
Year: 2021, 2024
Runtime: 2h 36m, 2h 46m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
You can now watch the entire Dune saga to date on Max, the exclusive home to the highest grossing film of 2024 so far. The second half of Villeneuve’s saga fulfills the promise of the first, turning the set-up of the 2021 film into a full-blooded action tale of a new messiah. Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya lead an all-star cast in a film that understands both scope and character. It may not play quite as well at home as it did in theaters, but it still rocks.
The Edge
Year: 1997
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Lee Tamahori
David Mamet wrote this 1997 survival thriller about a wealthy businessman (Anthony Hopkins) who crashes in the Alaskan wilderness with a photographer (Alec Baldwin) and his assistant (Harold Perrineau). The men have to survive the vicious elements to return to safety … and each other. Hopkins and Baldwin are all in, even in some impressive sequences involving a large Kodiak bear who is hunting his prey.
Godzilla
Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 4m
Director: Gareth Edwards
The new MonsterVerse is on Max in its entirety, but let’s take a minute to lavish some praise on the one that restarted it all, Gareth Edwards’s underrated 2014 blockbuster. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, and Bryan Cranston star in the reboot of the classic Toho series that pits the big lizard guy against two monsters of equally unfathomable size. It’s a rocking good time.
Greenland
Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Ric Roman Waugh
An end-of-the-world movie released during the first Summer of the pandemic, this genre exercise wasn’t seen by enough people. It’s really solid, a reminder of how much Gerard Butler can carry a movie like this one, which reunites him with his Angel Has Fallen director in a film that’s quite literally about the end of humanity. The movie takes a micro approach to the most macro issue as it tracks one family trying to find a way to survive the impending impact from a planet-destroying comet.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Year: 2008
Runtime: 2h
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro wrote and directed this sequel to his own 2004 adaptation of the Mike Mignola comic book about everyone’s favorite demon from hell. Ron Perlman returned to play the title character in a more ambitious film than the first, even if it doesn’t quite come together. The most frustrating thing about watching Hellboy II now is knowing how much Del Toro and Perlman wanted to make a third part but the studio declined. Those are the true monsters.
Infernal Affairs
Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Andy Lau, Alan Mak
A lot of people probably don’t even know that Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winner The Departed was a remake of an awesome Hong Kong action film from just a few years earlier. Andy Lau and Tony Leung star in the story of a cop who goes undercover in a Triad while a criminal becomes a mole in the other direction at the same time. It was followed by two sequels, both of which recently dropped on Max too.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Year: 2001
Runtime: 2h 58m
Director: Peter Jackson
The Oscar-winning franchise by Peter Jackson bounces around the streaming services with alarming regularity, now finding its way to Max for an indeterminate amount of time. Watch the entire saga of Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gange, and the rest of the Fellowship while you can.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Year: 2015
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: George Miller
Have you seen the Furiosa trailer?!!? It’s insane and easily one of the most anticipated films of 2024. Go back to its predecessor, one of the best action movies ever made. This sequel rocked the world when it was released in 2015 on its way to winning multiple Oscars and really setting a new bar for practical action effects. George Miller went into the desert and returned with one of the most ambitious, insane, downright impossible action epics ever made.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Year: 1982
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: George Miller
Mad Max was fun, and it helped put both Mel Gibson and George Miller on the map, but it was the sequel, often just called The Road Warrior that blew the roof off. With some of the best car sequences of all time, this was a game-changer, a film that felt completely fresh and new, while also paying homage to classic tropes of the Western.
*Panic Room
Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 52m
Director: David Fincher
David Fincher followed up his cult hit Fight Club with a movie that still doesn’t get enough attention in his filmography, this 2002 thriller starring Jodie Foster and a young Kristen Stewart. Not only is this a tight, well-crafted flick but it’s also, believe it or not, unavailable on Blu-ray. So streaming is the only way to watch it in HD right now.
Robocop
Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
People like to point at ‘80s movies and say they were ahead of their time, but this may be most true about Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 masterpiece, a film that foretold how technology would impact law enforcement in ways that took decades to come true. A brilliant action satire, this is the story of a Detroit cop who is murdered and revived as the title character, a superhuman cyborg enforcer. It’s even more riveting and relevant almost four decades later. Note: Both original era sequels and the 2010s reboot are also on Max.
Seven Samurai
Year: 1956
Runtime: 3h 26m
Director: Akira Kurosawa
They don’t get more classic than Akira Kurosawa’s classic that inspired generations of action filmmakers. Co-written, directed, and edited by one of the best filmmakers of all time, it’s the story of seven ronin who are hired by farmers to fight the bandits who are ruining their village. It’s a formative text for the action genre, and quite simply one of the best movies ever made.
The Thomas Crown Affair
Year: 1999
Runtime: 1h 54m
Director: John McTiernan
Pierce Brosnan gave his best non-Bond performance in stellar remake of the 1968 film of the same name. Stepping into the shoes of Steve McQueen is no easy feat but Brosnan does so with style as Thomas Crown, a billionaire art thief who falls for the insurance investigator chasing him, played by the wonderful Rene Russo.
Wanted
Year: 2008
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
It’s not perfect but few films have felt more like a moving comic book than this 2008 blockbuster based on the graphic novels by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones. James McAvoy stars as an ordinary guy who learns that he’s actually in the lineage of professional assassins as he gets sucked into a world that include characters played by Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, and Common.
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