A lot of movies often described as “dumb” have brilliantly simple high concepts, and Crank stands peerless in that regard: After being injected with an improbably functioning poison, L.A. hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) will die (!) if he doesn’t keep his adrenaline pumping. Wanting little more than to stay alive long enough to get revenge on the mob boss who betrayed and tried to murder him, Chelios spends the rest of the movie engaging in the most reckless behavior he can think of: picking fights, driving wildly, electrocuting himself, very public sex—anything at all to keep his blood pumping.

Where to stream: Peacock, USA

Another all-time great high-concept, this Keanu Reeves vehicle is a bus (geddit?) that has been fitted by terrorists with a bomb that will detonate once the coach drops below 50 miles per hour. Only a complete suspension of disbelief will allow anyone to imagine even Sandra Bullock could drive for two uninterrupted hours in downtown Los Angeles without slowing down, but that brazenness is part of the movie’s charm.

Where to stream: Starz

Far more memorable for its core conceit than for any of its characters, Hardcore sees the titular Henry waking up on an operating table minus his memory and the ability to speak, and plus a plethora of cybernetic prostheses. Did I mention we’re seeing this all from Henry’s first-person perspective, like we’re watching a YouTube playthrough of a particularly oddball first-person shooter? Pretty soon, it’s off to the races as mercenaries break in and try to kill Henry/us. It’s hard to build a movie around a character with no personality (who we never even really see), but that also means there is nothing to distract us from one blaring action sequence after another.

Where to stream: Tubi

Just about any of the Fast & Furious movies could find a slot here (it’s particularly tempting to include F9, if only for its trip to space), but it was director Justin Lin’s Fast Five found the lane the series has driven in ever since. Expanding just a tad on the street-racing action of the earlier films, Fast Five is an action-oriented heist thriller, one in which cars don’t just drive fast, they jump cliffs and drag bank vaults through busy city streets. By getting a little sillier and a lot more self-aware, the series guaranteed itself a future.

Where to stream: Digital rental

Brilliantly evil terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) has a perfect plan to escape custody: the flight transporting him from Miami to Los Angeles is packed with his former accomplices among the crew and passengers, so evading the FBI agents flying with him should be no trouble. Except the bad guys didn’t count on former policeman and anti-terrorism expert John Cutter to be on the flight, as well. Wesley Snipes and a wildly unhinged Bruce Payne make for entertaining adversaries in the movie that taught us to “always bet on black.”

Where to stream: Starz

Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu are clearly having a ton of fun in a movie that combines slapstick comedy, musical numbers, passable early ‘00s wire-fu, and Crispin Glover as a mute villain. It’s endlessly silly, but self-aware enough that it never feels downright stupid. Well, never unintentionally stupid, anyway.

Where to stream: Digital rental

A fast-paced action movie should almost certainly not be as long as RRR, but there is not one single dull moment in this nearly three-hour Bollywood film. Likewise, a historical drama that touches on the national trauma brought on by the British Raj and depicting two real-life revolutionaries who died as martyrs to the cause of independence shouldn’t be this fun, but somehow the context only makes it more satisfying. Find me a more thrilling moment in the movies than the bit where a truck full of wild animals is forcefully unleashed upon a sedate gathering at a British politician’s compound.

Where to stream: Netflix

Visceral violence can play as goofy fun, no matter how bloody, but Man on Fire veers toward the more serious end of that spectrum—without ever trying to be even a tiny bit more realistic. Seeking to rescue (and avenge) a young girl (a tiny Dakota Fanning) kidnapped while under his protection, Denzel Washington’s CIA agent-turned-bodyguard John Creasy pursues the ring of criminals with guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and, memorably, a bomb planted in a guy’s butt. It’s far from the dumbest or loudest action movie Tony Scott ever made, but it might be the gleefully violent best.

Where to stream: Max

The far-off future world of Paris (circa 2010) is looking bleak in this story of a poor suburb of the city that has been walled off, ostensibly for the protection of its inhabitants...but we all know how that sort of thing works out in the movies. It’s controlled by rival gangs, and politicians are planning to stage an “accident” that would level the place and everyone in it. The fun here is in the film’s extensive use of parkour—amazing, frenetic feats of athleticism accomplished without wires and without the benefit of CGI.

(You might also the movie listed as District B13, or just B13)

Where to stream: Fubo, Kanopy

There’s nothing “dumb”about the artistry involved in the early Hong Kong action movies of writer/director/star Jackie Chan, and action-comedy Police Story represents a career peak. His acrobatics and death-defying comedic stunts make him as much an heir to Buster Keaton and other silent-movie greats as to martial arts-movie masters like Bruce Lee.

Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel

This woefully under-appreciated tower climber sees Karl Urban’s stoic Judge Dredd fighting his way toward Lena Headey’s criminal kingpin, who sits atop a 200-story tower block in the middle of ultra-violent future metropolis Mega-City One, part of a United States devastated by nuclear war. With a dry satirical tone and a purity to its commitment to violence, it’s impressive, entertaining, and a hell of a lot better than the one with Sly Stallone.

Where to stream: Netflix

Michael Bay movies make money, and pretty consistently, but they can also be a bit too much: too loud, too dumb, with action sequences that overwhelm rather than entertain. Bad Boys is frequently guilty of all of that, but it has something that many other Bay movies lack: brilliant chemistry between leads Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. That chemistry is why we’re still watching Bad Boys movies (at least as of 2020), and while the most recent one might be the best of the trio, the it’s hard to top the mid-’90s charm of the original.

Where to stream: Prime Video

Speaking of Michael Bay, this one involves the absurdly unlikely team-up of Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery as a chemical weapons expert and an Alcatraz escapee, respectively, brought together to stop ex-military terrorist Ed Harris, holed up on the island prison and threatening to attack San Francisco with chemical weapons in order to bring to light sanctioned injustices committed against members of the U.S. armed forces, or something. Despite an attempt at a message, the emphasis is places squarely on outsized action fun, with a lighter touch than many of Bay’s other films. The action was so convincing, apparently, that several scenes and characters were treated as real and presented to British intelligence as evidence of Iraq’s WMD program—it took the espionage experts at MI6 rather too long to realize chemical weapons aren’t typically transported in bright green glass balls.

(If this is where you get mad I included The Rock instead of Con Air, I understand.)

Where to stream: Digital rental

Robert Rodriguez knows exactly what he’s doing with Machete, a loud, violent, and tasteless exploitation movie that’s very much intended to be all those things. Reprising his role from (of all things) the Spy Kids franchise, the great Danny Trejo plays Machete Cortez, former Mexican Federal and current mercenary, as he carves a bloody path through Texas, getting revenge on the corrupt and racist police who ruined his life. It’s excessively gory, with plenty of gratuitous nudity, and a lot of fun if that sounds up your alley.

Where to stream: Max

There are some who’d argue that John Woo’s sci-fi/action thriller is nearly operatic in its artistic reach, while others will say that it’s possibly the stupidest movie ever made. I say, why not both? An FBI Special Agent (played, initially, by John Travolta) and a child-killing criminal (Nicholas Cage, at first) swap faces for reasons that make sense as long as you don’t think about them for more than several seconds, and proceed to chase each other around for the rest of the film. It’s a premise that would be almost impossible to take seriously, even on its own terms, if it weren’t for the wildly zany action set-pieces (a prison where all the inmates wear magnetic boots? OK!) and deeply committed performances from the co-leads selling it all.

Where to stream: AMC+

Between career peaks Dirty Dancing and Ghost, Patrick Swayze starred in this memorably sleazy story of a Zen bouncer (who repeats mantras like “Pain don’t hurt”) working at a roadside bar who gets into plenty of violent fights, mostly just because, but also because of something to do with corrupt businessmen controlling the nearby town. Swayze brings some of that A-list charisma to a trashy fistfight flick, elevating to something approaching pop art stupidity.

Where to stream: Max

Highlander spins out a convoluted science-fantasy mythology that only obscures the fact that this is a movie about immortals (possibly aliens, we learn later) whose sole raison d’être is chopping each other’s heads off. Which is perfectly fine as a premise for a movie, if you ask me. Star Christopher Lambert is an under-appreciated legend of ‘80s action movies, and he’s joined by Sean Connery playing his Spanish mentor with an improbably thick Scottish accent, so I have basically no complaints.

Where to stream: Prime Video,Peacock, Crackle, Freevee, The Roku Channel

The best plots are often the simplest. Here, a young Muay Thai fighter (Tony Jaa) travels to Bangkok to retrieve part of a statue stolen from his village and beat up the thieves who took it. Think John Wick, but with a plaster Buddha head as motivation rather than a dog. It’s pretty much all fighting, all the time, but Jaa is so talented and charismatic that it works.

Where to stream: Hulu, Fubo

The movie that kicked off a decade of star-studded disaster films, and still (with the possible exception of The Poseidon Adventure) the best of the bunch, Airport improbably earned a bunch of Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. All that prestige only serves to obscure the fun, particularly for old-time celebrity spotters: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, and Helen Hayes are just a few of the performers who take part in the story of a bomber attempting to bring down a passenger airliner during a snowstorm that threatens to knock the only nearby airport out of commission.

Where to stream: Digital rental

This is the one where Keanu Reeves battles a league of assassins on horseback through the streets of Brooklyn, so yeah. Nearly topped by Chapter 4, and probably by succeeding movies in the series.

Where to stream: Netflix

Wonderfully simple, The Raid (also called The Raid: Redemption, which makes it sound like a sequel) remains an excellent reminder that a movie doesn’t require a complex plot to be a work of art. Iko Uwais stars as rookie cop Rama, forced to jump into the fray when the arrest of a crime lord goes sideways—the boss engaging every criminal in his high-rise apartment building to stand between him and the cops. Rama has to shoot, punch, and kick his way to the top of the building where his prey waits. Welsh director Gareth Evans also directed the also-very-good sequel, The Raid 2, streaming on Freevee.

Where to stream: Netflix

John Carpenter's tribute to earlier exploitation films gets away with some of its more stereotypical elements by being such a loving pastiche, and also by including Chinese and Chinese-American actors (like the great James Hong) in significant roles, something that earlier American movies dealing with martial arts and Asian mysticism couldn't be bothered to do. The blend of fantasy and fighting action ensures there's never a dull moment.

Where to stream: Digital rental

The films of Paul Verhoeven's classic era (roughly between this one and Starship Troopers) don't always entirely hit their marks, but they all each have something to say, using over-the-top action as a means of distracting his audience from whatever it is he's trying to say (the fact that audiences still don't always see Starship Troopers, for example, as satire, makes clear just how effective the strategy was). Here, the resurrected police officer played by Peter Weller takes on all the trope 1980s street thugs...only to discover that corporate greed is the real enemy. The violence here is nearly non-stop, with highlights(?) being a very visceral shot to a bad guy's groin region, and an extended sequence of a villain getting doused with toxic waste, mutating and melting until he explodes when hit by a car.

Where to stream: Max

One of my favorite movies from 2023 hails from Finland, and finds old prospector Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) carrying a recent gold find to the city to cash in. It's 1944 and, along the way, he's taunted by a Waffen-SS platoon traveling through the nearly conquered country. John Wick-style, they quickly discover they've messed with the wrong guy: Our grizzled prospector is a veteran of the 1939 Winter War with the Soviet Union, where his exploits became legendary. The gold is too tempting for the Germans to give up easily, but they're slaughtered by Korpi in increasingly violent (and oddly satisfying) ways.

Where to stream: Starz

A modern exploitation film for anyone with a love of violence and cheese, Mad Heidi takes the classic story and rolls it into a deeply weird Swiss dystopia. Heidi (Alice Lucy) is enjoying a literal roll in the hay with Goat Peter (Ken Matsena) when he's taken away and executed by the authorities for unauthorized sales of his excellent goat cheese. The crackdown on him and other enemies of the state (including the lactose intolerant) is overseen by President Mieli (Casper van Dien), who runs the country's cheese production resources with an iron fist. Enter: Heidi, out for vengeance. It's all brilliantly goofy and over-the-top, the rare example of a cheesy (get it?) exploitation parody that actually works.

Where to stream: Digital rental

Park Chan-wook's classic stars Choi Min-sik as Oh Dae-su, locked in a room for fifteen years, for no apparent reason. Upon his release, Dan-su sets out on a quest for vengeance that finds him tied up in a twisty-turny web of conspiracy. A huge influence on plenty of films that followed it, Oldboy's signature scene involves a hallway fight scene that's been homaged many times, but never bettered.

Where to stream: Netflix

Bones break and blood flies during The Man from Nowhere's excellently, and uniquely, choreographed fight scenes. While the movie takes itself seriously, there's a playfulness to the action sequences that sometimes puts us, the viewers, in the middle of the action...almost literally. Cha Tae-sik (Won Bin) is a quiet man running a pawnshop—or, at least, that's what he seems (John Wick didn't invent this trope). Tae-sik is a former secret agent and, when a criminal organization realizes it, they kidnap his young friend and her mother in order to force the man to run drugs for them. He does not take this calmly.

Where to stream: Netflix, Peacock, Mubi

This slot could hold any of several 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger joints, including the overall-superior Predator, but for pure unhinged violence, it's gotta be Commando. What the movie lacks in subtlety or plot, it more than makes up for in purity of purpose: This is Ahhnold as John Matrix, given a gun and unleashed on some nebulous bad guys in a fictional South American country. The movie boasts, apparently, the actor's highest single-movie body count, and deserves credit for that.

Where to stream: AMC+

At one point, Rambo III was the Guinness Book of World Records title-holder for most violent film ever made...but the 2008 sequel surpasses it by a fair bit. Rocky and Rambo were two beloved Sylvester Stallone-fronted franchises that had similar trajectories: Each began on a relatively sensitive and thoughtful note before throwing subtlety out the window entirely. Rocky has pulled back a bit over the years, but Rambo never bothered. 2019's Rambo: Last Blood saw Rambo kill an impressive(?) 46 people, but couldn't compete with this 2008 sequel's 254 onscreen kills.

Where to stream: Peacock

Very much not to be confused with the charming Juliette Binoche vehicle Chocolat, Chocolate is a Thai martial arts film from many of the same filmmakers who brought us the better-known Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior. Here, actress and martial artist Yanin Vismitananda (credited here as Yanin Mitananda) plays Zen, the autistic daughter of a Thai woman and her one-time Japanese mobster father. The plot here is...not so much...but the fight sequences and choreography as Zen fights to collect on her mother's debts are unrelenting and top-tier. If we ignore the hilariously tacky "special need to kick some ass" description in the trailer (easier said than done), the lead character's ASD is handled reasonably well...and it's indeed satisfying to see some new representation in the ass-kicking genre.

Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Freevee