now streaming

The 20 Best Action Movies on Max

Civil War
Civil War. Photo: A24
Don't have Max yet?

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.

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.

Batman

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.

The Batman

*Civil War

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Alex Garland

When it was released, Garland’s latest film earned quite a bit of flack for not exactly taking sides regarding the issues it raises, but it’s already proven to be surprisingly resilient, even appearing on a few EOY lists for the best of 2024. Kristen Dunst stars in a story that’s really more important the importance of journalism as the world collapses than anything else. Say what you will about its politics, or lack thereof, it’s definitely a conversation starter.

Civil War

*Deadpool

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Tim Miller

R-rated Disney Movie! Well, sorta. Deadpool was really one of the biggest box office hits of the entire 2010s, making almost $800 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie at the time. It changed so much in the blockbuster world, making Ryan Reynolds into a household name and proving that movies about men in tights don’t always have to be for kids.

Deadpool

*Den of Thieves

Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 20m
Director: Christian Gudegast

As Den of Thieves 2: Pantera arrives in theaters this month, Max has dropped the 2018 cult hit, a flick that did reasonably fine in theaters but really took off on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming. Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. headline the story of a group planning to rob the Federal Reserve in Los Angeles, and the LACSD task force that will go to extremes to stop them. It’s a blast.

Den of Thieves

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.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h 29m
Director: George Miller

One of the best films of 2024 is exclusively on Max right now. Ignore the haters, this is robust action filmmaking at its greatest, serving as a prequel to Fury Road but also a fantastic film in its own right. Anya Taylor-Joy captures Furiosa as a survivor in a desperate world, but it’s Chris Hemsworth who steals the movie, sketching a tyrant too power-mad to comprehend his own stupidity.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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.

Godzilla

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.

Greenland

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.

Infernal Affairs

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.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

*The Martian

Year: 2015
Runtime: 2h 22m
Director: Ridley Scott

One of the best late films from an all-time master, this sci-fi gem sees Matt Damon playing an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars, and has to use his ingenuity to get home. One of the many reasons this movie rules is how much it values intelligence and knowledge, two things that more blockbusters could stand to elevate.

The Martian

*The Revenant

Year: 2015
Runtime: 2h 37m
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The Oscar winner for Best Director and Best Actor has kind of disappeared in recent movie memory, hasn’t it? It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a decade since Leonardo DiCaprio fought a bear in this telling of the story of Hugh Glass, a movie that became a legitimate phenomenon, making over half a billion dollars worldwide. It’s one of the most memorable survivor stories of the 2010s. And overdue for a reappraisal.

The Revenant

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.

Robocop

*San Andreas

Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Brad Peyton

Some action movies are about heroism; some are about spectacle. This falls into the latter category, an ode to the ‘70s disaster movies with the CGI of the 2010s. Dwayne Johnson stars as an L.A. Fire Department helicopter pilot who becomes our eyes into the “big one” hitting California. As earthquakes ravage the landscape and send buildings tumbling, the film never lets up. Is it highbrow genre fare? Nah. But it’s undeniably fun.

San Andreas

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 Seven Samurai

Taken

Year: 2009
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Pierre Morel

This is really the movie that changed Liam Neeson’s reputation forever. Once considered an actor who primarily made only Oscar bait dramas, Taken would shift his career into one of the most unexpected action stars of all time. It starts here with Neeson as an ex-CIA officer who has to save his daughter (Maggie Grace) after she’s kidnapped by human traffickers. He proves he has a very special set of skills.

Taken

Unbreakable

Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan’s best film remains this story of an unexpected hero, a man who gets into a car crash and discovers that he may not be like most ordinary men. Bruce Willis is great in the lead role, his stoicism balanced by a fun performance from Samuel L. Jackson as his worldly opposite. Follow it up with the sequel Glass, which isn’t currently streaming for subscribers anywhere but is widely available for rent or purchase.

Unbreakable

Unstoppable

Year: 2010
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Tony Scott

Every year seems to build the reputation of Tony Scott, one of the most vital American action directors of his generation. His last film is on Hulu and it’s evidence of his skill at making tight, no-nonsense pieces of escapist entertainment. Unstoppable stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine as ordinary guys who have to stop an unmanned train before it derails and potentially kills hundreds.

Unstoppable

All recommendations are made independently by our editors. Services you subscribe to through our links may earn us a commission.

The 20 Best Action Movies on Max