In the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, the ESFJ personality is one of the sixteen established personality types. ESFJ personality is often known as “The Caregiver” or “The Provider.” These types of people are usually traditional, organized, and outspoken.
When looking for the right movie for ESFJ audiences, action movies seem to provide a lot of interesting options. ESFJs have certain characteristics that would likely be drawn to certain action films, while there are also some that would not fit their particular tastes and interests. Here are some action movies ESFJs will love and some they will hate.
Love: Cop Land (1997)
Cop Land is a thrilling crime thriller featuring one of Sylvester Stallone’s best performances. He stars as an out of shape cop who polices a community filled with big-city cops. When he learns that many of those officers are crooked, he must disrupt his quiet life to bring them to justice.
ESFJs live by a strict moral code and they expect others to do the same. They do not shy away from calling out bad behavior. Stallone’s character is surrounded by people breaking the rules but he knows he has to act even if he’s on his own.
Hate: Bad Boys II (2003)
Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II is a sequel that brings back Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two destructive Miami police officers. These two hotshots spread mayhem everywhere they go as they try to hunt down a new drug lord in town.
ESFJs like to bring order to situations that are out of control, so they would likely be frustrated by these heroes. In this movie, the chaos only builds as these cops continue to blow up, shoot up, and crash into everything they possibly can.
Love: 3:10 To Yuma (2011)
James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma is the highly entertaining Western film. Christian Bale stars as a family man whose farm is struggling. In order to provide for his family, he takes a job transporting an outlaw (Russell Crowe) to prison while the man’s gang pursues them.
ESFJs see providing for their family as their top priority. The heroic nature of Bale’s character all comes down to him trying to give a better life to his family. He is willing to put himself in danger to see them taken care of.
Hate: Escape From New York (1981)
Kurt Russell gave audiences one of his most iconic anti-heroes with Snake Plissken in Escape from New York. Set in the future, Snake is a renowned outlaw who is caught and forced to go on a mission to rescue the president from New York City which is now a prison island.
Snake is the kind of action hero who really doesn’t care about anything or anyone. The only reason he is on this mission is that he will die if he doesn’t complete it. ESFJs are not the kind of people who need to be forced into helping others.
Love: Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Steven Spielberg delivered one of the most intense war movies of all time with Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks plays the leader of a small platoon in the early days of World War II who is sent on a mission to find a soldier who is being sent home.
Tom Hanks’ hero in this film is an ordinary man put in an extraordinary situation. But while his mission to find this man is the top priority, he cares for the men in his command and does all he can to put their needs before his own much like ESFJs do.
Hate: Dirty Harry (1971)
Clint Eastwood gives one of his most iconic performances as Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry. Set in San Francisco, Harry is the city’s toughest cop who is willing to bend and break all the rules in order to catch a deranged killer who is terrorizing the city.
ESFJs operate in black-and-white while Harry is a character who is very much in the grey. He wants to see justice done, but he is willing to break the law to achieve that. That seeming juxtaposition might be hard for ESFJs to get on board with.
Love: Children Of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is the intense science-fiction story. The story is set in the future in which babies have stopped being born for decades. Clive Owen plays a mild-mannered man who is tasked with helping a young pregnant woman escape the war-torn country.
This is another example of a hero who puts the needs of others before the needs of himself. Owen’s character may be a reluctant hero at first, but he gradually comes to terms with his responsibility, and ESFJs will likely enjoy that journey.
Hate: The Road Warrior (1981)
George Miller’s The Road Warrior is the second installment in the director’s wild Mad Max series. The film stars Mel Gibson as a lone warrior in the dangerous post-apocalyptic wasteland. As he focuses on his own survival, he comes across a small community looking to escape to safer land.
Max is not the kind of hero ESFJs would easily root for. Though he is capable and fearless, he is only concerned with himself. When he sees these people in need, he only recognizes it as an opportunity for himself.
Love: Gladiator (2000)
Russell Crowe gives an Oscar-winning performance in Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator. Crowe plays Maximus, a former general who is betrayed by the new emperor and left for dead. After being captured as a slave, he is forced into the gladiator games where he becomes a renowned fighter.
ESFJs like to make order out of chaos, which is exactly what Maximus does when hen steps in as a gladiator. He takes the ragged group of warriors and teaches them how to fight and organizes them into a team.
Hate: The Untouchables (1987)
Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables is the director’s epic action film set during the Prohibition Era. Kevin Costner plays Elliott Ness, an ambitious agent who assembles a team of officers to target infamous gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro).
Ness begins the film as very by-the-book which is something ESFJs would appreciate as they are sticklers for the rules. However, over time, he realizes he’ll have to fight dirty to defeat Capone. That bending of the rules is not something ESFJs would condone.
