The 40 most popular 1990s action movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Zero Woman 2
1995 · 1h 39m
country: Japan
When a valuable suitcase is stolen, the mob, petty criminals, and a beautiful agent from the Elite Zero division are pulled into a battle to settle the score.


The Matrix
1999 · 2h 16m
country: United States
Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth.


Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1991 · 2h 17m
country: France
Ten years after the events of the original, a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to protect young John Connor from the shape-shifting T-1000. Together with his mother Sarah, he fights to stop Skynet from triggering a nuclear apocalypse.


The Mummy
1999 · 2h 4m
country: United States
Dashing legionnaire Rick O'Connell stumbles upon the hidden ruins of Hamunaptra while in the midst of a battle to claim the area in 1920s Egypt. It has been over three thousand years since former High Priest Imhotep suffered a fate worse than death as a punishment for a forbidden love—along with a curse that guarantees eternal doom upon the world if he is ever awoken.


Léon: The Professional
1994 · 1h 51m
country: France
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.


The Fifth Element
1997 · 2h 6m
country: France
In 2257, a taxi driver is unintentionally given the task of saving a young girl who is part of the key that will ensure the survival of humanity.


Heat
1995 · 2h 50m
country: United States
Obsessive master thief Neil McCauley leads a top-notch crew on various daring heists throughout Los Angeles while determined detective Vincent Hanna pursues him without rest. Each man recognizes and respects the ability and the dedication of the other even though they are aware their cat-and-mouse game may end in violence.


Mission: Impossible
1996 · 1h 51m
country: United States
When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.


Batman Returns
1992 · 2h 6m
country: United States
The monstrous Penguin, who dwells in the sewers beneath Gotham, joins up with corrupt mayoral candidate Max Shreck to topple the Batman once and for all. But when Shreck's timid assistant Selina Kyle finds out, and Shreck tries to kill her, she's transformed into the sexy Catwoman. She teams up with the Penguin and Shreck to destroy Batman, but sparks fly unexpectedly when she confronts the caped crusader.


Men in Black
1997 · 1h 38m
country: United States
After a police chase with an otherworldly being, a New York City cop is recruited as an agent in a top-secret organization established to monitor and police alien activity on Earth: the Men in Black. Agent K and new recruit Agent J find themselves in the middle of a deadly plot by an intergalactic terrorist who has arrived on Earth to assassinate two ambassadors from opposing galaxies.


Rush Hour
1998 · 1h 37m
country: United States
When Hong Kong Inspector Lee is summoned to Los Angeles to investigate a kidnapping, the FBI doesn't want any outside help and assigns cocky LAPD Detective James Carter to distract Lee from the case. Not content to watch the action from the sidelines, Lee and Carter form an unlikely partnership and investigate the case themselves.


Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
1999 · 2h 16m
country: United States
Anakin Skywalker, a young slave strong with the Force, is discovered on Tatooine. Meanwhile, the evil Sith have returned, enacting their plot for revenge against the Jedi.


Braveheart
1995 · 2h 58m
country: United States
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.


Ghost in the Shell
1995 · 1h 23m
country: Japan
In the year 2029, the barriers of our world have been broken down by the net and by cybernetics, but this brings new vulnerability to humans in the form of brain-hacking. When a highly-wanted hacker known as 'The Puppetmaster' begins involving them in politics, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop the Puppetmaster.


Die Hard 2
1990 · 2h 4m
country: United States
One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.


Total Recall
1990 · 1h 53m
country: United States
Construction worker Douglas Quaid's obsession with the planet Mars leads him to visit Rekall, a virtual vacation company that manufactures memories. When something goes wrong during Quaid's memory implant procedure, his life turns upside down, leading him to question what is reality and what isn't.


Independence Day
1996 · 2h 25m
country: United States
Strange phenomena surface around the globe. The skies ignite. Terror races through the world's major cities. As these extraordinary events unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that a force of incredible magnitude has arrived. Its mission: total annihilation over the Fourth of July weekend. The last hope to stop the destruction is an unlikely group of people united by fate and unimaginable circumstances.


Blade
1998 · 2h 1m
country: United States
The Daywalker known as "Blade" - a half-vampire, half-mortal man - becomes the protector of humanity against an underground army of vampires.


Bad Boys
1995 · 1h 59m
country: United States
Marcus Burnett is a henpecked family man. Mike Lowrey is a footloose and fancy free ladies' man. Both Miami policemen, they have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.


True Lies
1994 · 2h 21m
country: United States
A fearless, globe-trotting, terrorist-battling secret agent has his life turned upside down when he discovers his wife might be having an affair with a used car salesman while terrorists smuggle nuclear war heads into the United States.


Face/Off
1997 · 2h 19m
country: United States
In order to foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent undergoes facial transplant surgery and assumes the identity of a criminal mastermind. The plan turns sour when the criminal wakes up prematurely and seeks revenge.


The Rock
1996 · 2h 17m
country: United States
When vengeful General Francis X. Hummel seizes control of Alcatraz Island and threatens to launch missiles loaded with deadly chemical weapons into San Francisco, only a young FBI chemical weapons expert and notorious Federal prisoner have the skills to penetrate the impregnable island fortress and take him down.


Deep Impact
1998 · 2h 2m
country: United States
A seven-mile-wide space rock is hurtling toward Earth, threatening to obliterate the planet. Now, it's up to the president of the United States to save the world. He appoints a tough-as-nails veteran astronaut to lead a joint American-Russian crew into space to destroy the comet before impact. Meanwhile, an enterprising reporter uses her smarts to uncover the scoop of the century.


From Dusk Till Dawn
1996 · 1h 48m
country: United States
After kidnapping a father and his two kids, the Gecko brothers head south to a seedy Mexican bar to hide out in safety, unaware of its notorious clientele.


The Hunt for Red October
1990 · 2h 15m
country: United States
A new technologically-superior Soviet nuclear sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius. The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. Lone CIA analyst Jack Ryan has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it - because the entire Russian naval and air commands are trying to find Ramius, too. The hunt is on!


Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
1991 · 2h 23m
country: United States
Nobleman crusader Robin of Locksley breaks out of a Jerusalem prison with the help of Moorish fellow prisoner Azeem and travels back home to England. But upon arrival he discovers his dead father in the ruins of his family estate, killed by the vicious sheriff of Nottingham, Robin and Azeem join forces with outlaws Little John and Will Scarlett to save the kingdom from the sheriff's villainy.


Tomorrow Never Dies
1997 · 1h 59m
country: United Kingdom
A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mastermind in an adrenaline-charged battle to end his reign of terror and prevent global pandemonium.


Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
1997 · 1h 27m
country: Japan
SEELE orders an all-out attack on NERV, aiming to destroy the Evas before Gendo can advance his own plans for the Human Instrumentality Project. Shinji is pushed to the limits of his sanity as he is forced to decide the fate of humanity.


Armageddon
1998 · 2h 31m
country: United States
When an asteroid threatens to collide with Earth, NASA honcho Dan Truman determines the only way to stop it is to drill into its surface and detonate a nuclear bomb. This leads him to renowned driller Harry Stamper, who agrees to helm the dangerous space mission provided he can bring along his own hotshot crew. Among them is the cocksure A.J. who Harry thinks isn't good enough for his daughter, until the mission proves otherwise.


Batman & Robin
1997 · 2h 5m
country: United States
Batman and his sidekick Robin attempt to the foil the sinister schemes of a deranged set of new villains, most notably the melancholy Mr. Freeze, who wants to make Gotham City into an arctic region, and the sultry Poison Ivy, a botanical femme fatale. As the Dynamic Duo contend with these bad guys, a third hero, Batgirl, joins the ranks of the city's crime-fighters.


Starship Troopers
1997 · 2h 9m
country: United States
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs."


Alien Resurrection
1997 · 1h 49m
country: United States
Two hundred years after Lt. Ripley died, a group of scientists clone her, hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the new Ripley is full of surprises … as are the new aliens. Ripley must team with a band of smugglers to keep the creatures from reaching Earth.


Demolition Man
1993 · 1h 55m
country: United States
In 1996, brash L.A. detective John Spartan and maniac killer Simon Phoenix are both sentenced to decades in a cryogenic prison as punishment for a rescue mission gone wrong. When Phoenix escapes 36 years later to wreak havoc on the future, Spartan is awakened to capture his nemesis the old-fashioned way.


Speed
1994 · 1h 56m
country: United States
Tensions run high when a crazed bomber rigs a Los Angeles bus with a device that will kill everyone on board if the vehicle's speed dips below fifty miles per hour.


Batman Forever
1995 · 2h 1m
country: United States
Batman faces off against two foes: the schizophrenic, horribly scarred former District Attorney Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, and the Riddler, a disgruntled ex-Wayne Enterprises inventor seeking revenge against his former employer by unleashing his brain-sucking weapon on Gotham City's residents. As the caped crusader also copes with tortured memories of his parents' murder, he has a new romance, with psychologist Chase Meridian.


Predator 2
1990 · 1h 48m
country: United States
A police chief in the war-torn streets of Los Angeles discovers that an extraterrestrial creature is hunting down residents - and that he is the next target.


The Mask of Zorro
1998 · 2h 18m
country: United States
It has been twenty years since Don Diego de la Vega fought Spanish oppression in Alta California as the legendary romantic hero, Zorro. Having escaped from prison he transforms troubled bandit Alejandro into his successor, in order to foil the plans of the tyrannical Don Rafael Montero who robbed him of his freedom, his wife and his precious daughter.


The Negotiator
1998 · 2h 20m
country: Germany
The police try to arrest expert hostage negotiator Danny Roman, who insists he's being framed for his partner's murder in what he believes is an elaborate conspiracy. Thinking there's evidence in the Internal Affairs offices that might clear him, he takes everyone in the office hostage and demands that another well-known negotiator be brought in to handle the situation and secretly investigate the conspiracy.


Con Air
1997 · 1h 56m
country: United States
Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.


The World Is Not Enough
1999 · 2h 8m
country: United Kingdom
Greed, revenge, world dominance and high-tech terrorism – it's all in a day's work for Bond, who's on a mission to protect a beautiful oil heiress from a notorious terrorist. In a race against time that culminates in a dramatic submarine showdown, Bond works to defuse the international power struggle that has the world's oil supply hanging in the balance.
The 1990s were the independent film decade, when Sundance and Miramax pushed low-budget American filmmaking into the mainstream. It's also when Hong Kong action, Japanese animation, and Iranian art cinema found large Western audiences.
Action cinema runs from the stunt-driven spectacle of Hollywood blockbusters to the choreographed precision of Hong Kong and Korean thrillers. The best of it treats physical performance as storytelling — chases, fights, and set pieces that reveal character rather than pause for it.