About American Assassin
Directed by Michael Cuesta, American Assassin stars Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, David Suchet, Navid Negahban, Scott Adkins, and Taylor Kitsch. It was released in the year 2017.
American Assassin is a complicated film about main character, Mitch, whose girlfriend dies in a terrorist attack. So, in a convoluted plan to put an end to terrorism, he joins the CIA and that’s when things start to get interesting.
After a recent re-watch I started thinking about how many movies like American Assassin are out there and which star Assassins in an assortment of dangerous missions.
1. Blade (1998)
Directed by Stephen Norrington, Blade stars Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N’Bushe Wright and Donal Logue. It was released in the year 1998.
In Blade, Wesley Snipes rolls in like the leather-clad daywalker goth kids wish they could be, slicing through vampires with the swagger of a guy who knows he’s the coolest thing in any room – human or undead. Born half-vampire, half-human when his mother was bitten during childbirth, Blade becomes a one-man supernatural pest-control service. Armed with silver stakes, UV grenades, and a sword sharp enough to shame your kitchen knives into early retirement, he teams up with his grumpy tech-dad Whistler to keep the bloodsuckers from turning the world into one giant all-you-can-drink buffet.
Enter Deacon Frost, a bleach-blond chaos merchant who thinks the vampire establishment is too stuffy and decides to kickstart an ancient prophecy that will basically turn him into a blood god. Frost kidnaps Blade’s mum, summons a demon made of pure hemoglobin ambition, and turns the city into a rave-from-hell with arterial spray for décor. Naturally, Blade answers by upgrading into Boss-Fight Mode – blood serum injections, explosive martial arts, and enough vampire fatalities to fill a spreadsheet. In the end, Blade slices Frost into hematological confetti and goes right back to work, because vampire-slaying isn’t a job… it’s a lifestyle.
2. Hitman (2007)
Directed by Xavier Gens, Hitman stars Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, and Olga Kurylenko. It was released in the year 2007.
In Hitman, Agent 47 stalks through the film like a barcoded grim reaper in an expensive suit, delivering headshots with the precision of a guy who alphabetises his ammo. Born and bred by a creepy monastery full of murder nuns and assassin priests (okay, clones, but the vibe is very “Catholic John Wick”), 47 is the ultimate professional: no emotions, no attachments, no wasted bullets. Naturally, the universe decides to ruin his perfectly curated murder itinerary by framing him for the assassination he did commit – just with the wrong political corpse attached.
Things spiral when 47 crosses paths with Nika, an extremely hot and mistreated sex worker who becomes his accidental sidekick in the world’s least romantic road trip across Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, a power-hungry politician keeps resurrecting himself through body doubles like a bargain-bin Bond villain, Interpol is convinced 47 is having a very public identity crisis, and every rooftop becomes a playground for high-calibre diplomacy. By the finale, 47 clears his name the only way he knows how: by killing absolutely everyone responsible with balletic violence and a perfectly neutral facial expression. He vanishes back into the shadows, leaving behind a trail of bodies, a confused government, and the faint scent of gunpowder and expensive cologne.
3. John Wick (2014)
Written by Derek Kolstad and directed by Chad Stahelski, John Wick stars Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo and Willem Dafoe. It was released in the year 2014.
In John Wick, Keanu Reeves unleashes pure, weaponised grief the moment some bratty mobster man-child decides to break into his house, steal his car, and – fatal mistake incoming – kill his puppy. Not just any puppy, either: the last gift from his dead wife, aka the emotional equivalent of drop-kicking a shrine. That single act of cinematic sin drags Wick out of retirement, out of serenity, and straight back into his old job title: Baba Yaga, the boogeyman the other boogeymen double-check closets for.
What follows is a ballistic ballet of gun-fu carnage as Wick tears through the Russian underworld like depression with a body count. He demolishes hit squads in his own house, turns a nightclub into a neon-lit meat grinder, and storms a safehouse with the cold precision of a man who irons his shirts while reloading his Glock. Everyone keeps insisting he’s a myth. Then they meet him. By the end, Wick has dismantled an entire crime empire out of sheer righteous rage, avenged his dog, stolen another dog, and reminded the world that retirement is a suggestion, not a rule, when you’re the human embodiment of “don’t mess with me.”
4. Collateral (2004)
Directed by Michael Mann, Collateral stars Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, and Bruce McGill. It was released in the year 2004.
In Collateral, Tom Cruise becomes the silver-fox embodiment of existential homicide as Vincent, a contract killer who treats murder like a high-performance art installation. He slips into the backseat of Max’s taxi – Max being a painfully polite dreamer who’s been “working on his limo company business plan” for twelve years, aka the patron saint of procrastination – and convinces him to drive for the night. Then, in true Michael Mann fashion, a corpse plummets onto Max’s cab roof like a bowling ball from heaven, and Max learns the hard way that Vincent’s “appointments” are less business meetings and more “delete this person from Earth’s memory card.”
As the night unravels, Vincent drags Max through a neon-lit gauntlet of jazz clubs, seedy backrooms, and existential monologues that hit harder than the gunshots. Max becomes an unwilling accomplice, a panicked hostage, and eventually a man pushed so far out of his comfort zone he’s basically orbiting it. By the final showdown, Max says “nope” to being an accessory to murder, crashes the taxi in spectacular fashion, and faces Vincent in a subway duel where philosophy meets bullets.
Vincent dies quietly on a train – ignored, unnoticed, exactly the way he warned people disappear in big cities. Max stumbles into dawn: battered, traumatised, but finally living his damn life. Collateral is a nocturnal fever dream of gunfire, jazz, and the most stressful rideshare shift ever recorded.
5. The Transporter (2002)
Directed by Cory Yuen, The Transporter stars Jason Statham, Shu Qi, François Berléand, Matt Schulze and Ric Young. It was released in the year 2002.
In The Transporter, Jason Statham steps into the role of Frank Martin – a man so committed to silence, precision, and immaculate suit tailoring that he makes most hitmen look like chaotic toddlers. Frank is a professional courier with three sacred rules: no names, no questions, no opening the package. Naturally, within fifteen minutes he breaks Rule #3 like it’s a New Year’s resolution, discovering his mysterious cargo is actually a woman – Lai, who comes with her own bundle of trouble and a human-trafficking ring attached.
From there, Frank goes from “stoic delivery driver” to “bald, British hurricane of martial arts physics.” He parkours through French villas, fistfights inside oil slicks like he’s starring in the world’s most violent Slip ’N Slide commercial, and turns his BMW into a guided missile of righteous stunt choreography. Every punch, kick, and perfectly executed driving manoeuvre screams “I have no hobbies except being better than you.”
By the finale, Frank is blowing up bad guys, dismantling a trafficking operation, and rewriting his own moral code with the subtlety of a roundhouse kick. Lai gets her freedom, the villains get body-slammed into oblivion, and Frank goes right back to his brooding, hyper-competent lifestyle – like the world’s deadliest Uber driver with an anxiety-inducing five-star rating.
6. Wanted (2008)
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, Wanted stars James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Common, and Chris Pratt. It was released in the year 2008.
In Wanted, James McAvoy starts the movie as the human equivalent of a damp Post-it note – overworked, underappreciated, panic-attacking through life – until Angelina Jolie swoops in like a tattooed grim reaper and tells him he’s actually a genetically gifted murder prodigy. Turns out his deadbeat dad wasn’t dead OR a beat – he was an elite assassin working for a secret society called The Fraternity, who read destiny out of a giant magic loom. Yes. A loom. This movie said, “What if fate was woven… literally?” and everyone just rolled with it.
Next thing you know, Wesley (McAvoy) is getting yeeted into a superhuman training montage where guns bend bullets, keyboards are used as blunt-force trauma devices, and Morgan Freeman gives orders like he’s narrating a violent nature documentary. Wesley goes from office drone to bullet-curving wunderkind, only to discover – oops! – that The Fraternity isn’t exactly the moral compass it claimed to be. His dad didn’t abandon him… he was TARGETED.
Cue the climactic revenge buffet, where Wesley infiltrates a textile-murder cult and turns everyone into slow-motion fatality art. By the end, he’s reclaimed his life, his agency, and his badassery – punctuating it all with a final bullet that bends, swerves, and absolutely dunks on the laws of physics.
Wanted is pure chaos. It’s stylish and unhinged – like a Frank Miller comic book fever dream dipped in gunpowder and stitched together with pure attitude.
7. The Equalizer (2014)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Equalizer stars Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman, and Melissa Leo. It was released in the year 2014.
In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall – a soft-spoken, cardigan-wearing dad-energy enigma who just wants to read books, drink tea, and vibe in the corner of a late-night diner. Unfortunately for Boston’s criminal underbelly, McCall also happens to be a retired government super-operative with a murder skillset so precise it could double as art therapy. When he befriends Teri, a young sex worker brutalised by her Russian mob handlers, something inside McCall snaps like a pencil he’s about to weaponise.
From there, McCall transforms into a one-man Old Testament plague. He walks into a mob office, calmly asks for the price of Teri’s freedom, gets laughed at… and then turns the entire room into a hardware-store massacre demo. Nail guns, corkscrews, barbed wire – basically if Bunnings sells it, McCall can kill you with it. His crusade attracts Teddy, a dead-eyed sociopath with cheekbones sharp enough to commit their own crimes, leading to a showdown inside a Home Depot where McCall uses power tools the way most people use punctuation.
By the end, McCall has dismantled an entire criminal empire with nothing but quiet rage and DIY equipment, walks back into the rain like a suburban vigilante angel, and goes right back to reading books. The Equalizer is brutal and poetic – it answers “What if your gentle neighbour was actually Death, but polite about it?”
8. The Bourne Identity (2002)
Directed by Doug Liman, The Bourne Identity is a spy thriller starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente. Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. It was released in the year 2002.
In The Bourne Identity, Matt Damon wakes up floating in the ocean like a lost himbo mermaid with amnesia, bullet holes, and absolutely zero context for why he knows seventeen different ways to kill someone with a biro. Once he crawls onto dry land, he discovers his name might be Jason Bourne, his bank account is stacked, and his muscle memory is basically a cheat code for spy violence. So naturally, the CIA immediately decides he needs to be very, very dead.
Bourne teams up with Marie, a German drifter who agrees to drive him across Europe for €20,000 and somehow ends up becoming the getaway driver in a chaotic murder-holiday she did NOT sign up for. Together, they outrun assassins, dismantle covert ops with IKEA efficiency, and watch Bourne slowly peel back the truth: he was part of Treadstone, a shady government program that turned him into a walking weapon – until one botched assassination made his conscience reboot like a cursed laptop.
The Bourne Identity ends with Bourne wrecking the CIA’s plans, dodging more bullets than a metal band dodges genre labels, and peacing out to Mykonos with Marie for a well-earned trauma break. It’s espionage with amnesia, parkour, eurotrash assassins, and the energy of a man who’s one bad memory away from flipping a table and disappearing again.
9. Taken (2008)
Directed by Pierre Morel, Taken is a thriller starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Katie Cassidy, Leland Orser, and Holly Valance. It was released in the year 2008.
In Taken, Liam Neeson stops being everyone’s favourite cinematic dad and becomes the human embodiment of a threatening voicemail. He plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative whose particular set of skills includes: neck-snapping, improvisational torture, and making kidnappers regret every decision they’ve ever made, including getting out of bed that morning. When his teenage daughter Kim gets abducted in Paris by sex traffickers, Bryan goes from “awkward karaoke parent” to “grim reaper with a passport” in approximately 0.4 seconds.
With nothing but a phone call, a bad attitude, and an expense account that apparently ignores international law, Bryan tears through Europe like a one-man demolition derby. He interrogates creeps, bulldozes through the Albanian underworld, and crashes an auction filled with rich monsters buying stolen girls like Pokémon cards. Every fight scene is a PSA for why you should never mess with a man who says “please” before he breaks your wrist.
By the time the finale rears its ugly head, Bryan has single-handedly dismantled a trafficking ring, rescued his daughter from a yacht full of morally bankrupt aristocrats, and walked away without so much as a hair out of place. Taken is revenge cinema distilled to its purest form: fast, furious, and powered entirely by dad rage turned up to apocalyptic levels.
10. Crank (2006)
Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Crank stars Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, and Dwight Yoakam. It was released in the year 2006.
In Crank, Jason Statham becomes the world’s angriest, sweatiest Energizer Bunny after a gang injects him with a synthetic poison that will kill him the moment his heart rate drops. Translation: if he chills for even one second, he dies. So Chev Chelios spends the entire movie doing everything except chilling – snorting drugs, starting fistfights, driving like Grand Theft Auto on god mode, and electrocuting himself with literal jumper cables just to keep the adrenaline pumping.
What unfolds is a high-octane fever dream where logic dies in the first ten minutes and chaos becomes the only law. Chev rampages through Los Angeles hunting down the guys who poisoned him, leaving behind a trail of smashed cars, panicked civilians, and at least one extremely public, extremely chaotic sex scene that somehow boosts his vitals. By the finale, he’s taking on an entire rooftop crime syndicate while running on fumes and pure spite. He kills the villain mid–freefall, flips them both the bird, and plummets to Earth with the kind of poetic rage only Statham can deliver.
Crank is basically: “What if a Guy Ritchie character mainlined Mountain Dew, sprinted through a meth lab, and decided plot points were optional?” It’s fast, filthy, feral, and absolutely glorious in its nihilistic stupidity.
11. Tenet (2020)
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Tenet stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. It was released in the year 2020.
In Tenet, Christopher Nolan looks at time, shrugs, and decides to fold it like an origami swan made of quantum confusion. John David Washington plays The Protagonist – yes, that’s his literal name – an extremely composed espionage badass who gets recruited into a temporal Cold War where objects, bullets, cars, and sometimes people start moving backwards through time because physics got bored and needed a remix.
The Protagonist teams up with Neil, a charming chaos mathematician played by Robert Pattinson, to stop Andrei Sator, a billionaire rage-cloud who’s basically weaponising time inversion to murder the entire future out of spite. Missions unfold forwards and backwards, gunfights run in reverse like they’re being rewound by a caffeinated film student, and a highway chase becomes a full-blown, “Wait – what direction is existence going?” meltdown. It’s spycraft meets science homework, but with better outfits.
By the finale, we’re in a “temporal pincer movement,” which is Nolan-speak for “half the squad is running time normally while the other half is Benjamin Buttoning their way through an explosion.” Secrets snap into place: Neil’s been unstuck in time the whole movie, the Protagonist founded Tenet in the future, and everyone in the film is somehow their own boss’s boss’s boss. Tenet ends the only way a Nolan film can: with emotional devastation, unanswered questions, and your brain quietly leaking out your ears.
12. The One (2001)
Directed by James Wong, The One is a science fiction action movie starring Jet Li, Delroy Lindo, Carla Gugino and Jason Statham. It was released in the year 2001.
In The One, Jet Li basically speedruns the multiverse before the MCU even learned how to spell “variant.” He plays both Gabe Law, a mild-mannered cop with the emotional range of a zen goldfish, and Yulaw, his dimension-hopping murder-twin who’s on a cosmic self-improvement plan that involves killing every alternate version of himself.
Why you might ask? Because every time Yulaw deletes a Jet Li from existence, he absorbs their strength like a martial arts Highlander with a physics degree. The dude is literally trying to become The One – the ultimate Jet Li, the final boss version of himself, a walking existential crisis with punching privileges.
Cue an FBI/time-cop task force chasing Yulaw through wormholes while Gabe suddenly finds himself leveling up – faster, stronger, angrier – because he’s the last Jet Li left who isn’t a full-time psychopath. When Yulaw arrives in Gabe’s dimension, it’s showdown time: Jet Li vs. Jet Li in a battle that looks like someone plugged wire-fu choreography into a particle accelerator. Cop Jet Li fights for justice; Murder Jet Li fights for narcissism and crunchier bones.
In the end, Gabe kicks Yulaw’s ambition straight into a dystopian prison dimension where he immediately starts beating up everyone like he’s headlining Thunderdome. Gabe returns home, mourns his losses, and tries to rebuild his life – with the unsettling knowledge that he only exists because dozens of his alternate selves got bodied in cross-dimensional cage matches. The One is sci-fi kung fu chaos with the energy of a late-night Red Bull hallucination – and Jet Li absolutely owns every version of himself.
13. Rogue Hostage (2021)
Directed by Jon Keeyes, Rogue Hostage is an action thriller movie starring Tyrese Gibson, John Malkovich, Michael Jai White and Christopher Backus. It was released in the year 2021.
In Rogue Hostage, Tyrese Gibson plays Kyle Snowden – a former Marine turned child-services worker who carries more trauma than a prestige-TV protagonist and just wants one normal day. Naturally, he does not get one. Instead, Kyle gets trapped inside a mega-store during a violent siege led by Eagan, a revenge-driven extremist with daddy issues sharper than his weapons. Eagan’s mission? Blow up Kyle’s stepfather – Congressman Sam Nelson – who also happens to be the kind of politician whose face naturally invites a monologue from John Malkovich.
Chaos erupts, hostages scream, gunmen storm every aisle, and Kyle snaps straight back into special-forces mode like he’s speedrunning therapy with tactical gear. While juggling PTSD flashbacks, packing crate fistfights, and trying to protect his daughter (because of course she’s there too), Kyle becomes the reluctant action hero stalking villains between discount furniture displays. Every melee feels like a deleted scene from an off-brand Die Hard, and every emotional beat lands like a coupon for trauma you didn’t ask for.
By the finale, Kyle has dismantled the militia one broken shelf and shattered ego at a time, saved the hostages, forced some father-figure reckoning onto the Congressman, and walked out of the wreckage like a man who just survived the worst shopping trip in human history. Rogue Hostage is messy, gritty and a gloriously fun B-movie with all the right kind of action chaos you’d expect.
14. Renegades (2017)
Directed by Steven Quale, Renegades is an action thriller starring Sullivan Stapleton, Charlie Bewley, Alain Blažević, Sylvia Hoeks, Joshua Henry, Andrej Dojkić, Diarmaid Murtagh, Dimitri Leonidas, Clemens Schick, Ewen Bremner and J. K. Simmons. It was released in the year 2017.
In Renegades, a squad of Navy SEALs decides that international conflict, military discipline, and common sense are all optional when there’s sunken Nazi gold involved. Yup. This movie said, “What if Ocean’s Eleven, but underwater, and everyone has a machine gun?” and then committed to the bit like it was a sacred oath.
We follow Sullivan, Barnes, and their crew – soldiers who operate with the chaotic energy of dudes who’ve played too much Call of Duty and now think treasure hunting counts as counterterrorism. While blowing stuff up in war-torn Bosnia (as you do), they learn about a fortune stashed in a submerged town at the bottom of a lake. Because boredom is dangerous and testosterone is undefeated, the boys go rogue to steal it. Naturally, this involves flooding half a village, dodging enemy forces, and using SEAL tactics for what is essentially a high-stakes pirate cosplay.
The heist, of course, goes to hell. Tanks get stolen. Boats get blown up. Everyone’s lungs are begging for mercy as they drag literal tons of gold out of a collapsing underwater vault. Meanwhile, local villains want the treasure for themselves, the U.S. military wants the SEALs’ heads on a platter, and the lake wants everyone dead. It’s wet, loud, reckless, and powered by sheer bro-energy.
By the end, the team survives through a cocktail of luck, bullets, and questionable decision-making, managing to recover the gold and redeem themselves just enough not to go to military prison forever. Renegades is basically: Fast & Furious goes scuba diving, finds Nazi loot, and forgets the brakes. It’s dumb, explosive, and absolutely committed to its own beautifully unhinged vibe.
15. Beirut (2018)
Directed by Brad Anderson, Beirut is a political action thriller starring Jon Hamm, Rosamund Pike, Dean Norris, Larry Pine, and Shea Whigham. It was released in the year 2018.
In Beirut, Jon Hamm trades his Don Draper suits for Cold War stress-sweat as Mason Skiles, a former U.S. diplomat who’s basically one bad memory away from becoming a whiskey puddle. Years after a hostage situation blows up his career – and his life – Mason gets dragged back to Lebanon in 1982, where civil war is turning the city into a geopolitical pressure cooker. His mission? Negotiate the release of his old friend and CIA operative, who’s been kidnapped by a faction with more acronyms than good intentions.
Once Mason lands in Beirut, the film turns into a masterclass in “everybody is lying and nobody knows who’s actually in charge.” He’s tossed between militias, spies, diplomats, and bureaucrats who all want something, preferably without admitting why. Every conversation feels like a chess match played on a table that’s on fire. Helping him navigate the chaos is Rosamund Pike, a CIA handler with the patience of a saint and the dead-eyed exhaustion of someone who’s read the script and knows things are only getting worse.
As Mason unravels the layers of betrayal, political maneuvering, and good old-fashioned American meddling, he realises the kidnapping is tied to secrets the U.S. would rather bury under ten feet of denial. The finale is a tense hostage exchange that plays out like a diplomatic knife fight – with quiet smiles masking imminent disaster. Mason pulls it off, barely, but the victory is bittersweet: no heroes, no clean endings, just bruised morality and a flight home with more ghosts than luggage.
Beirut is gritty, cynical, and scorching with “everyone sucks but in different ways” energy. It’s a spy thriller dipped in real-world heartbreak – messy, intense, and absolutely the kind of political noir chaos that I live for.
16. Mile 22 (2018)
Directed by Peter Berg, Mile 22 is a gritty action thriller starring Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais, John Malkovich and Ronda Rousey. It was released in the year 2018.
In Mile 22, Mark Wahlberg plays James Silva – a CIA super-operator with the personality of a malfunctioning pressure cooker and the charm of a concussion. He’s the kind of guy who talks like his brain is permanently stuck on 3x speed, powered by caffeine, trauma, and whatever motivational posters Navy SEALs keep on their bathroom walls. Silva leads an elite strike team called Overwatch, which functions like a group project where everyone’s armed, angry, and allergic to protocol.
Their mission is to escort a mysterious informant named Li Noor (Iko Uwais, delivering martial-arts carnage like a divine gift) through 22 miles of hostile territory so he can reveal intel that might prevent a global catastrophe. The problem: absolutely everyone wants him dead, and the city turns into an urban meat grinder the moment they hit the streets. There’s car bombs, snipers, biker assassins, corrupt cops – it’s like the purge but with CIA paperwork.
While Wahlberg rants in weaponised monologues, Li Noor steals the movie with fight scenes so brutal they make drywall wince. Overwatch watches from their high-tech bunker, trying not to get killed by geopolitics or Wahlberg’s personality. The whole trek becomes a gauntlet of chaos, bloodshed, and tactical meltdowns.
And then – plot twist – the informant played them all. Li Noor was a triple-layered trap laid by a foreign government, designed to lure the CIA into total humiliation. Overwatch’s losses weren’t tragic – they were intended. Silva doesn’t get justice. He doesn’t get closure. He just gets punched in the soul by international politics.
Mile 22 is basically: a rage-addicted Mark Wahlberg speedrunning an escort mission from hell while Iko Uwais delivers divine violence and the plot knifes you in the kidney at the end. It’s Chaotic, sweaty, unhinged. So yeah, typical Wahlberg.
17. Interceptor (2022)
Directed by Matthew Reilly, Interceptor is a stripped-back, siege-style action thriller which stars Elsa Pataky and was released in the year 2022.
In Interceptor, Elsa Pataky steps into the action hero spotlight like she’s been secretly auditioning for “Die Hard on a Floating Metal Panic Attack” her whole life. She plays Captain JJ Collins, a military officer exiled to a remote missile-defense platform in the middle of absolutely nowhere – basically the world’s loneliest, most heavily armed offshore office cubicle. Her job is to make sure no one hijacks the U.S. interceptor system that prevents nuclear annihilation. So of course, someone immediately tries to hijack the system and start nuclear annihilation.
Enter Alexander Kessel, played by Luke Bracey, a smarmy ex–military golden boy turned domestic terrorist with big “trust fund villain who discovered Reddit conspiracies” energy. He leads a crew of mercenaries who storm the platform like they’re speedrunning Metal Gear Solid, only to find JJ Collins waiting with enough righteous fury to power the entire Pacific. What follows is a gauntlet of corridor beatdowns, flooding-control-room standoffs, tactical knife fights, and JJ single-handedly reminding everyone that she is, in fact, built different.
Between the bone-crunching brawls, we learn JJ survived a military assault scandal, systemic retaliation, and a career built on being tougher than every dude in the room – and the movie weaponises that rage in glorious, fist-swinging fashion. As the terrorists close in and nukes hover on the brink of launch, JJ MacGyvers her way through the base, turning office supplies, hoses, and whatever else she can grab into improvised instruments of “absolutely not today.”
By the end, she’s the last woman standing, the nukes are neutralised, Kessel gets the karmic dropkick he earned the moment he opened his mouth, and JJ becomes the unofficial patron saint of shutting down men with fragile egos and dangerous plans.
Interceptor is pure B-movie mayhem: sweaty, scrappy, patriotic, and gloriously unhinged – like watching a one-woman army suplex the apocalypse into submission.
18. One Shot (2021)
Directed by James Nunn, One Shot is a real-time action thriller which stars Scott Adkins, Ryan Phillippe, Ashley Greene and was released in the year 2021.
In One Shot, Scott Adkins steps into the spotlight like the patron saint of tactical violence, starring in a movie that’s one giant “Can we do this in a single take?” flex. Spoiler: they absolutely can – and it’s chaos. Adkins plays Navy SEAL Jake Harris, the kind of operator who eats breaching drills for breakfast and apologises to no one, ever. He and his team are sent to a CIA black site to extract a detainee who supposedly knows where a dirty bomb is hiding. Easy, right? Ha. No.
Within minutes, a swarm of heavily armed terrorists storms the facility like they found a cheat code. What follows is 90 minutes of uninterrupted, single-shot carnage – hallway gunfights, courtyard ambushes, knife duels, explosions, and Adkins drifting through it all with the calm fury of a martial artist who drinks pure testosterone instead of coffee. Every time you think the movie might take a breath, it doesn’t. It hits you with another firefight, another sprint, another moment where someone gets folded like a camping chair.
Meanwhile, Ashley Greene plays the CIA analyst who actually understands the stakes, and Ryan Phillippe shows up as a high-ranking officer doing his best “I’m too stressed to function” performance. The detainee – who might be a terrorist, an informant, or the world’s worst icebreaker – is needed alive, which is awkward because everyone else is extremely committed to shooting him.
By the final act, the black site is basically a smoking ruin, the dirty-bomb threat inches from reality, and Jake Harris is on his last, blood-smeared nerve. He fights his way through the final wave of bad guys like a human blender on a vendetta and secures the prisoner, saving the day through sheer martial-arts stubbornness.
One Shot is a 90-minute tactical panic attack filmed like a video game speedrun – it’s relentless, sweaty, immersive, and absolutely the kind of chaos I love.
19. 24 Hours to Live (2017)
Directed by Brian Smrz, 24 Hours to Live in a high-concept action thriller which stars Ethan Hawke, Xu Qing, Paul Anderson and was released in the year 2017.
In 24 Hours to Live, Ethan Hawke wakes up on an operating table like a hungover assassin who just respawned with patch notes he did not agree to. He plays Travis Conrad, a once-legendary hitman who gets killed on a mission – fully dead, toe-tagged and everything – until a shady corporation resurrects him using sci-fi medical nonsense that’s barely holding his organs together. The catch is he’s got a glowing countdown timer in his arm and exactly 24 hours before he dies again. Reset button or not, mortality is basically a subscription service.
With one day left to exist, Travis sprints into a redemptive meltdown: hunting the people who betrayed him, protecting the Interpol agent he was supposed to kill, and trying to make peace with the fact that he was a terrible husband, a worse father, and an excellent murderer – like, disturbingly excellent. The film throws him into gunfights, car chases, rooftop ambushes, and moral dilemmas with the pacing of someone shaking a snow globe full of bullets.
As his clock ticks down, Travis becomes a walking existential crisis wrapped in Kevlar, fighting not just henchmen but the corporate machine that puppet-mastered his entire life and death. The finale is pure chaos – Travis blazes through an army of goons with the energy of a man who’s overdrafted his soul and is making one last withdrawal. He buys justice with his final seconds, collapses, and lets the countdown hit zero like a grim, bloody mic drop.
24 Hours to Live is basically: Crank meets John Wick meets Black Mirror, dipped in regret, rage, and beautifully bonkers sci-fi which makes sense if you let it.
20. Kandahar (2023)
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh, Kandahar is a gritty action thriller set in the Middle East which stars Gerard Butler and was released in the year 2023.
In Kandahar, Gerard Butler once again clocks in for his favourite part-time job: being a walking international incident with dad energy and a rifle. He plays Tom Harris, a covert CIA operative whose entire existence runs on grit, guilt, and the kind of situational awareness only a man who’s survived 40+ action movies can possess. After sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program in a way that feels aggressively on-brand, his cover gets blown so catastrophically that half the Middle East suddenly wants him dead.
Tom’s only way out? A desperate, 400-mile sprint across hostile territory to reach an extraction point in Kandahar – aka “the world’s least convenient rendezvous spot.” He’s accompanied by translator Mohammad, the film’s emotional backbone who reminds us that civilians, not super-spies, pay the biggest price in geopolitical dick-measuring contests. What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase stitched together with drone strikes, motorcycles, desert firefights, and Butler delivering grim one-liners like he’s being paid per syllable.
Meanwhile, multiple factions – Taliban commanders, Iranian agents, black-ops mercenaries, you name it – descend on Tom with the enthusiasm of fans at a heavy-metal signing event, except everyone’s armed and no one wants an autograph. The film keeps layering the chaos: missile trucks, sandstorms, double-crosses, and moral dilemmas stacked like a Jenga tower built out of classified documents.
By the finale, Tom has crawled, bled, driven, and detonated his way across the desert, losing allies, tearing through war zones, and forcing Mohammad to confront the cost of survival. The extraction is messy, brutal, barely won, and leaves both men scarred in ways that sandpaper couldn’t fix. But they make it – just enough victory to keep the nihilism from winning completely.
Kandahar is peak modern Butler: dusty, sweaty, explosive, morally conflicted, and delivered with enough “tired man who just wants to go home” energy to fuel a thousand certified rotten reviews. Anyways, yeah, it’s a bit of fun for a midday movie.
21. Unthinkable (2010)
Directed by Gregor Jordan, Unthinkable is another movie with explosions and blood which stars Samuel L Jackson, Michael Sheen, Carrie-Anne Moss and was released in the year of our lord 2010.
In Unthinkable, Samuel L. Jackson shows up as “H,” a government interrogator so ice-cold and morally radioactive that the Geneva Conventions start sweating the moment he walks into the room. The film kicks off with a nightmare scenario: a terrorist has planted three nuclear bombs in major U.S. cities, they’re armed, and the clock is ticking louder than your conscience. Enter H, whose job description is basically “do whatever it takes and sleep never.”
Michael Sheen plays the captured bomber, a soft-spoken fanatic who radiates calm like it’s a weapon. He refuses to talk, knowing every second of silence tightens the noose around millions of lives. Carrie-Anne Moss anchors the chaos as an FBI agent desperately trying to hold onto the idea that there has to be a line you don’t cross. Spoiler: that line gets bulldozed, reversed over, and set on fire. What follows is a brutal, unflinching descent into torture-as-policy – psychological warfare, physical torment, and choices so ethically corrosive they feel like a test the audience didn’t consent to take.
As H pushes further, the movie stops pretending this is about heroics and starts asking the ugly question: If torture works, does that make it right – or just effective? The answer is a stomach punch. Even when information finally comes out, the victory feels hollow, soaked in blood and moral fallout. By the end, nobody wins – least of all the viewer, who’s left staring at the screen like they just walked out of a very intense philosophy class held in a dungeon.
Unthinkable isn’t entertainment so much as a cinematic stress test for your ethics – mean, grim, and designed to sit with you long after the credits roll. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t ask for consent to fuck you up.
22. Legacy of Lies (2020)
Directed by Adrian Bol, Legacy of Lies is an espionage thriller starring Scott Adkins, Anna Butkevich, Yuliia Sobol and a whole bunch of fists and firearms. It was released in the year 2020.
In Legacy of Lies, Scott Adkins plays Martin Baxter, a former MI6 agent who retired from the spy game after it nuked his life and left him raising his daughter on a steady diet of regret and emotional drywall. He’s done with secrets, done with violence, done with the kind of moral rot that comes from governments treating people like disposable chess pieces. Unfortunately for his blood pressure, the past absolutely refuses to stay buried.
When a journalist digs up evidence tied to a long-suppressed CIA/MI6 cover-up – one involving corporate corruption, assassinations, and a whole lot of “national security” hand-waving – Baxter gets dragged back into the meat grinder. Suddenly he’s being hunted by intelligence agencies, mercenaries, and shadowy suits who really don’t want the truth trending. What follows is classic Adkins mode: brutal close-quarters fights, bone-snapping efficiency, and the quiet fury of a man who’s done being lied to.
As Baxter reconnects with his daughter and uncovers just how deep the conspiracy goes, the movie leans hard into its central vibe: governments lie, spies pay the price, and the truth gets people killed. By the end, Baxter exposes the operation at enormous personal cost, proving that survival doesn’t mean freedom – and justice rarely comes without collateral damage.
Legacy of Lies is lean, angry, and soaked in post-Bourne paranoia. It’s Scott Adkins doing grimdad espionage action with fists full of betrayal and a worldview forged in classified documents and broken trust. It’s bleak, punchy, and exactly the kind of late-night thriller that’ll keep you up all night from the adrenaline rush.
23. Ava (2020)
Directed by Tate Taylor, Ava is a slick-violent-thriller starring Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Common, Colin Farrell, Geena Davis and a whole lot of existential dread. It was released at the turn of the worst decade in human history – the year 2020.
In Ava, Jessica Chastain becomes a jet-setting assassin with a caffeine addiction, daddy issues, and a moral crisis she doesn’t have the time for. She plays Ava Faulkner, a globe-hopping contract killer who works for a shadowy organisation that treats employees like disposable apps – useful until they start asking questions. Ava’s problem? She’s started doing the unthinkable: talking to her targets. You know, asking why they’re about to die. HR hates that.
When one of those curiosity-driven hits goes sideways, Ava gets marked for deletion by her own employers. Suddenly she’s dodging assassins, CIA spooks, and a very smug Colin Farrell while trying to reconnect with her estranged family – because nothing says “healing journey” like being hunted across continents. John Malkovich shows up as her mentor, radiating “I care, but also I will absolutely betray you if the spreadsheet demands it.”
As the bodies pile up, Ava uncovers the truth: the organisation doesn’t tolerate conscience, recovery, or independence – especially not in a woman who refuses to be quietly lethal. Cue brutal kitchen fights, parking-garage beatdowns, and emotionally charged confrontations where Chastain punches people who symbolise her unresolved trauma. Geena Davis delivers maximum ice-cold matriarch energy as Ava’s mother, proving the deadliest thing in the movie might be family dinner.
By the end, Ava survives the purge, burns the system that tried to erase her, and walks away battered but self-aware – still dangerous, still broken, but finally on her own terms.
Ava is slick, bruised, and moody: it’s John Wick if he had to attend AA meetings and unpack generational damage between assassinations. Stylish, violent, and perfectly weird for this genre.
24. Anna (2019)
Directed by Luc Besson, Anna is a cold stare-sharp suit-espionage thriller starring Sasha Luss, Helen Mirren, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy and was released in the year 2019.
In Anna, Luc Besson spins another slick, time-jumping assassin fairy tale where beauty is a weapon, bullets are punctuation, and nobody is telling the truth – especially not the protagonist. Sasha Luss plays Anna Poliatova, a Russian street kid turned fashion model turned KGB-trained murder machine, because apparently in Besson’s cinematic universe, that’s just a career pathway.
The movie zigzags through multiple timelines like it’s allergic to linear storytelling, revealing how Anna’s glamorous catwalk life is actually a cover for wet-work assignments carried out with balletic gun-fu efficiency. She’s bounced between handlers played by Helen Mirren (cold, maternal menace) and Cillian Murphy (CIA agent with a smile that says “I will absolutely ruin your life”), each promising freedom while tightening the leash. Every hit is stylish, every betrayal is inevitable, and every promise of escape comes with extra fine print written in blood.
As the layers peel back, Anna turns the entire spy ecosystem against itself, orchestrating a long-con revenge that makes everyone think they’re in control right up until they’re very much not. By the end, she’s played the KGB, the CIA, and every manipulator in her orbit like chess pieces, faked her own death, and vanished into anonymity – free, finally, because she engineered the exit herself.
Anna is glossy, violent, and drenched in Euro-thriller attitude: it’s Red Sparrow with more bullets, Nikita with better lighting, and enough double-crosses to qualify as cardio.
25. The Contractor (2022)
Directed by Tarik Saleh, The Contractor is post-military paranoia thriller starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gillian Jacobs, Eddie Marsan, Nina Hoss and was released in the year 2022.
In The Contractor, Chris Pine ditches his leading-man polish and sinks into full dead-eyed, post-service dread mode as James Harper, a Special Forces soldier who gets medically discharged and immediately learns that “thank you for your service” does not come with healthcare or job security. With bills piling up and pride in shambles, Harper signs on with a private military contractor run by men who smile like sharks and talk like LinkedIn posts.
Harper’s first overseas job in Berlin goes sideways fast – wrong intel, wrong targets, and suddenly he’s been framed for an assassination that wasn’t part of the contract. The company he trusted flips the kill-switch on him, and Harper goes from hired gun to international fugitive in under ten minutes. Ben Foster shows up as his former teammate, radiating “I care, but not enough to die for you” energy, while Eddie Marsan chews scenery as a corporate warlord who treats soldiers like disposable receipts.
What follows is a grim, grey manhunt through safe houses, stairwells, and morally bankrupt boardrooms. Harper survives on grit, instinct, and the realisation that loyalty is a myth once money enters the room. Every fight is ugly, desperate, and stripped of movie-magic glamour – just exhausted men hurting each other for reasons that stopped making sense years ago.
By the end, Harper exposes the truth, burns the operation to the ground, and limps home alive – but not victorious. His family’s safe, but the damage is permanent. The Contractor doesn’t celebrate violence; it autopsies it. It’s a bleak, bruised thriller about how modern warfare doesn’t end – it just changes uniforms.
Have you seen any of these movies before?
Did any of them remind you of American Assassin? Let us know in the comments.
