Action movies usually live up to their name by incorporating various intense fights, chases, or other physical confrontations in an attempt to keep their audiences invested. After all, when a cinema goer buys a ticket for John Wick or The Bourne Identity, they have a certain expectation that the thrills delivered will be well worth the admission, even if the story isn’t anything to write home about. That being said, some action films make bold changes to this winning formula, hoping to win their viewers over with quality over quantity.
The very idea of a cinematic experience that promises thrills only to deliver just a single action scene seems ludicrous on paper. However, there are multiple ways past films have managed to pull it off, ranking among them some of the best action movies of all time. Whether by clever use of cutaways, enough dramatic chops to carry a story up until a climactic fight, or making the entire film essentially one long action scene, there are a surprising number of ways in which clever directors can forge some explosive action films, with less sometimes being more.
10 The Raid On Osama Bin-Laden
Zero Dark Thirty
Retelling the chilling true events leading up to the monumental moment in American military history, Zero Dark Thirty tells the story of Seal Team Six and the hunt for Osama Bin-Laden. Labeling itself as more of an action-thriller, the majority of the film focuses on the U.S. armed forces difficulty in finding the infamous terrorist leader moreso than his actual death. Jessica Chastain heads the majority of the film as an analyst for the CIA, weaving the audience through the dense, true-to-live narrative the preceeded the raid on Bin-Laden’s mountain complex.
But when the time comes to actually show what the daring strike looks like, no punches are pulled, as special forces soldiers deftly sweep through the tight, claustrophobic corridors of the terrorist base. The striking darkness of the scene has the film living up to its name as the squad navigates the compound, featuring a pre-Guardians of the Galaxy Chris Pratt in his first real action role. The end result is a satisfying conclusion to the tension slowly cranked up by the first two acts, Chastain’s final confirmation of Bin-Laden’s corpse being a somber, yet cathartic way to cap off the violence.
9 The Seven Samurai Defend A Village
Seven Samurai
Perhaps the crowning achievement of famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai is an over 3-hour epic that plays its cards close to its chest. Centering around a samurai that recruits, of course, six other sword-wielding ronin to help him defend a village from bandits, the black-and-white samurai epic is surprisingly sparse on action for the majority of its runtime. Besides brief scuffles and the villager’s self-defense training, there isn’t a true action scene until the very end, in which the dreaded bandits finally arrive.
The result is a feudal Japanese battle on a truly epic scale, each single samurai responsible for warding off scores of the endless gang as they descend on the town. Some of the emotional payoff in seeing the villagers put their training to use is just the cherry on top of a monumental battle scene that changed the landscape of action films forever. With the laurels to prove itself as one of the all-time action film greats, Seven Samurai went on to heavily inspire other films, such as the Western The Magnificent Seven and, strangely enough, Pixar’s A Bug’s Life.
8 Maverick Leads His Trainees Into The Real Deal
Top Gun: Maverick
Being the highest grossing film of Tom Cruise’s legendary career, 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick proved that the original film still had staying power even 30 years later. It’s all the more surprising that the action drama only has one real dogfight, most of the film’s action beats consisting of training, similar to Seven Samurai. With the titular ace pilot, Maverick, now taking the role of a mentor, the final act sees him finally lead the next generation of Top Gun pilots into real battle.
The film’s single action setpiece more than makes up for the wait with a daring series of unbelievable twists and turns, including a fakeout death as Maverick sacrifices himself and two pilots stealing an enemy plane to get back in the action after being shot down. Considering the money and care that went into lovingly portraying the real fighter jets used in the film, not to mention the G-Forces endured by the actors, it’s a good thing the scene paid off was well as it did. Action films centered around aerial acrobatics and dogfights aren’t the most common, and after Top Gun: Maverick‘s fantastic final showdown, any flying films of the future will have a high bar to clear.
7 Godzilla Takes On The MUTOs
Godzilla
Taking advantage of their rights to adapt the King of the Monsters for the screen in America, Warner Brothers unleashed the Monsterverse on audiences in 2014 with the aptly-titled Godzilla. A common criticism of the film was its tendency to cut away from the kaiju action, teasing the appearance of the new Godzilla iteration by cutting away to focus on the scale of his destruction. When the film finally does allow the camera to settle on the monsters, however, it’s hard to admit that the resulting brawl doesn’t live up to the hype. Facing down two opponents at once, it’s Godzilla vs. The insectoid MUTOs as the human characters are helpless to do anything but watch.
The earth-shattering scale of Godzilla and his adversaries having been well-established, the impact of every footfall is felt as the radioactive lizard struggles with the intruders to his territory. The dynamic between the agile, flying MUTO and the bulkier, stronger one give Godzilla enough trouble to finally warrant unleashing his atomic breath, a moment that’s hard not to cheer at. The final brutal finishing move he performs with this signature weapon established a fantastic trend of glorious killing blows in every following Monsterverse film, making this single action scene one to remember.
6 The Bride Takes Elle’s Other Eye
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Being the work of Quentin Tarantino, the second installment of the Kill Bill duology certainly is not one to shy away from violence. That being said, the movie is surprisingly sparse on true action scenes, the ex-assassin Beatrix Kiddo crossing off a few names on her list of revenge without much trouble. Having already offed O’Ren Ishii and Vernita Green in the previous film, all that’s left is Elle, Bill’s brother Budd, and Bill himself. Yet Bill is defeated swiftly enough to not register as an action scene, and Budd is unceremoniously poised by a literal Black Mamba. That leaves a single fight scene with Elle as the film’s only true action beat.
Luckily, Tarantino was keen to make The Bride’s fight with the single surviving member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad one to remember. Elle taunts Beatrix mid-fight with the revelation that she killed their former master, Pai Mei, retaliation for the unforgiving Kung-Fu legend plucking her eye out of its socket. The Bride returns the favor, taking her other eye and landing this scene in the annals of gory action legend.
5 Tony Montana Introduces His Little Friend
Scarface
The 1983 crime drama masterpiece Scarface is a gory good time, not shying away from the bloodshed the cocaine-ridden gangsters of Miami that inspired the loose remake were known for. From chainsaw dismemberment to hangings from a flying helicopter, the body in Scarface isn’t shy, yet most of the action is one-sided torture and executions. It isn’t until Tony’s life comes crashing down around him that the bullets start truly flying.
Opening the festivities with the now infamous line, “Say hello to my little friend!“, Tony goes out on his own terms as the Sosa’s men surround his lavish mansion. On a drug-fueled rampage, Montana chews through legions of gangsters with his M-16, complete with an underslung grenade launcher. The sheer spectacle of it all makes it easy to forget that this is the only scene in the film in which gunfire is actually exchanged.
4 1917 Is One Long Battle Scene
1917
Thus far, most films covered that feature a single action scene build up to it slowly, paying off their tension all at once with an explosion of climactic fighting. But 1917 takes the opposite approach, instead transforming the entire film into one non-stop action scene with only brief breaks from the carnage. Set amidst the trenches of World War I, the sheer exhaustion of the soldiers depicted alongside the protagonist, Schofield, on the European front is transferred to viewers with non-stop action.
Consisting of multiple grueling extended shots that linger along the battlefield of the French Western Front, 1917 takes place in real time with essentially only two single scenes, only cutting to black when Schofield is briefly knocked out. The result is a single pulse-pounding action scene that assaults the viewer with bombs, bullets, and bayonets throughout the entirety of the 119-minute runtime, hardly letting audiences take a breath.
3 The Bandit And The Samurai’s Blades Cross Over Twenty times
Rashomon
Another hallmark entry in the filmography of Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon is a much more thoughtful drama set in Japan’s Heian era. Following the testimony of a samurai’s wife following his killing, the film is a heady exploration of the human condition, examining how individual experiences color the perception of truth. Though this description runs counterintuitive to the brain-off appeal of an action film, Kurosawa manages to include an amazing swordfight in the midst of the philosophical pondering.
Hoping to buy himself some cred before likely being executed for murder, the bandit that the samurai’s wife accuses of killing him tells a self-aggrandizing story in which he seduces her, then fights her husband for her hand. Hyping up the battle, Kurosawa films the bandit’s verion of events as an expertly-choreographed sword fight, both sides using the environment to their advantage as they dart around one another. The bandit gleefully proclaims that their swords crossed over 20 times, appreciating out-loud the jaw-dropping single action scene Rashomon was conceeded.
2 The Hallway Fight
Oldboy
An undeinably girm film, Oldboy seeks not to glorify the violence it portrays, resulting in only a single, carefully measured action scene among the otherwise depressing world. Written and directed by Park Chan-wook, the gritty action drama follows an ex-prisoner detained under mysterious circumstances in his quest for revenge on his captors. What follows is a disturbing trek through a city’s seedy underbelly from behind the eyes of a disturbed man.
After being trapped in a bleak room for 15 years with only a T.V. for company, the former business person Dae-su passes time by learning martial arts, practicing on a wall. When he’s finally released, Dae-su gets the chance to try out what he’s learned on a group of thugs, fighting them within the claustrophobic confines of a narrow hallway. The striking action scene is done in a single take, spawning a whole genre of hallway fight scenes that emulated the success of the brutal, drag-down brawling of Oldboy‘s single drag-down brawl.
1 The Victims Of Stuntman Mike Fight Back
Death Proof
Being such an acclaimed action director, it’s no surprise that Quentin Tarantino’s name comes up multiple times when discussing the leanest action films around. Death Proof is styled as more of a horror film, the starring Chevy Nova being just as much of a terrifying, faceless presence as Michael Meyers or Jason Voorhees. However, in practice, the end result is a straightforward action film with only one scene in which the depraved Stuntman Mike’s victims put up enough of a fight to be considered an actual car chase.
After handily dispatching a party of female friends, Stuntman Mike sets his sights on a new group. Getting more than he bargained for, the hunter becomes the hunted as Mike’s quarry turns around and chases him back, injuring him and ultimately pulling him from the safety of his “Death Proof” stunt car. This under-the-radar schlock action offering from Tarantino certainly makes the most out of it’s only true action scene.
