Top 5 Favorite Action Franchises
There are some great action franchises out there with a lot of great movies in each of their respective franchises. So today I am sharing my picks for the 5 best action franchises of all time.
5. Rambo: Between Rocky and Rambo, Sylvester Stallone has two definitive franchises. Rambo is a little bit more of my thing, but the Rocky franchise is fantastic. The Rambo franchise is an interesting one because every couple of films, there is a dramatic change in tone. First Blood is a fantastic movie that I think works as a great character study more than an action movie, but it is also a fantastic action movie. I love how serious and subtle it is, where it is not this big bombastic action film. You get to the two ‘80s Rambo sequels, that are total 80s cheese. For me, that is where the franchise went off the rails. But the problem with those movies is not the action, it is the ridiculous over the top tone of the film. But the action is big and where you can see everything that is going on. James Cameron wrote the second film, so you have great James Cameron action mixed with a high budget where the second film was the most expensive movie of all time when it came out. The franchise came back to what made the original great with Rambo (2008) and Rambo: Last Blood. They are the most brutal films in the franchise, and I love the brutality of the films. There are so many moments in both films where they create a set of villains that you want to see taken out and the movie delivers on that by the end of it. I hope the new Rambo movie we are getting next year keeps the brutality of the later films. Easily, the Rambo franchise makes it onto this list.
4. John Wick: This is one that a lot of people might have higher up on the list. To be clear, this is a list of the best action franchises so every single one of these franchises is strong with multiple great entries. In the case of John Wick, this is the most consistent franchise on the list. Where every single movie is a B+ and above, so maybe it should be higher. In terms of the franchise, the John Wick franchise has rebranded the action genre where they gave us a lot of groundbreaking action. Chad Stahelski really broke out with this franchise and had a lot of practical stunt work that is rare in the modern era of Hollywood. Every single John Wick film has this incredible action set pieces, where there is something memorable about them. You get to John Wick Chapter 4 where they had the biggest budget so they could do the biggest action set pieces that are just incredible to watch. Also, it is of course great to see Keanu Reeves kick ass for four movies. He is in his 60's and still being a badass action star and it is different from what he did with The Matrix franchise. I even liked the Ballerina movie they did last year with Ana de Armas; it does not have some of the magic of the mainline John Wick franchise, but it is still awesome and has the vibe and aesthetic of the John Wick franchise.
3. Jason Bourne: Of the franchises on the list, this is the one that I have the most nostalgia for. This was the franchise that made me love Matt Damon and I have seen the original trilogy many many times over the years. The Bourne Legacy and Jason Bourne I do not think are great and drags the franchise down from being in the top two. But there’s still stuff in those movies that I think are great. This franchise is built around the character of Jason Bourne and the reason it works is because of Matt Damon and his performance. He is great at playing smart characters and Jason Bourne is inherently a very smart character. Each movie does an excellent job of making Jason Bourne this badass character, where he gets these moments that put a smile on your face. Especially some of the scenes with Joan Allen’s character in The Bourne Supremacy with spying on her, it is these great moments. I do not think the Paul Greengrass type of action in the sequels. It works and fits the franchise well enough. But I do think that Doug Liman is the best director of the franchise with The Bourne Identity and that is the best film of the franchise. There are also some great actors in this franchise with Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Tommy Lee Jones, Karl Urban, and many more fun faces that appear as antagonists in the film.
2. Indiana Jones: Similarly to the Bourne franchise, the original trilogy is fantastic with two other movies that are not great but also are not bad. I recently saw Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen, and it was truly incredible to see that film on that big screen. It is a film that is aged well, and the entire original trilogy has aged well, but they are not CGI heavy. They are films that were made before CGI was a major thing, so Steven Spielberg did everything practically and so the sequences are incredible because of that. You can watch behind the scenes videos of Harrison Ford doing his own stunts in the different sequences and infamously getting injured during Temple of Doom’s third act. Speaking of Harrison Ford, he has such fantastic casting. It is one of the definitive blockbuster casting choices of all time; it solidified him as a movie star. The performance works because of Ford’s ability to be the charming action adventurer while also being handsome and able to command the screen and guide the audience on this adventure. You also get a truly classic, iconic, and legendary John Williams score that is the definitive adventure music. The main Indiana Jones theme is one of the most iconic pieces of movie music of all time. Besides the original trilogy, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny are not great. So, you have 60% of a great franchise and 40% of not a great franchise. But there is still so much in this franchise that I love, that I feel comfortable putting it here.
1. Mission Impossible: When making this list, deciding what franchises go at two through five was hard. But I knew that Mission Impossible would be #1 on this list. This is the franchise that I like to rewatch the most and makes the action movies that I find most rewatchable. With this franchise, there is only one misstep and that’s Mission Impossible II, and that is not even a bad movie. Every other film in the franchise I would rate a B+ or higher, and they are these incredible action spectacles. It’s interesting to watch the course of this franchise change from a fairly grounded spy thriller in 1996 to 2025 where we get Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning that has some of Tom Cruise’s craziest stunts where he’s hanging off the side of planes and submarines that are these incredible action set pieces. But the franchise is still able to remain consistent with the tone and the things you would expect from the franchise have stayed consistent over 30 years. In terms of quality, the franchise can be so consistent where from Ghost Protocol to The Final Reckoning, you get movies that are some of the bests of the year. Rogue Nation is my personal favorite as it is the most well-rounded film of the franchise and has so many of my favorite sequences. Ghost Protocol features the best sequence of the franchise with the Dubai tower. There are a lot of people that say that Fallout is the best of the franchise, and I am not going to argue with people on that statement. It is a fantastic movie with fantastic action set pieces.
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