Looking for some excitement? Whether it’s a big-budget creature feature, a gritty thriller, a sweeping sci-fi spectacle, or even an animated martial arts movie, the films on this list offer plenty of suspense and action to keep your adrenaline pumping.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Mad Max: Fury Road is widely considered one of the best action movies ever made. Director George Miller follows it up with this prequel exploring the backstory of breakout character Furiosa, originally played by Charlize Theron.
In post-apocalyptic Australia, young Furiosa (Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy at different ages) lives in the Green Place of Many Mothers, an oasis in the middle of the scorched earth. She is kidnapped by the Biker Horde, followers of the tyrannical warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Furiosa’s mother, Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser), attempts to rescue her.
Furiosa eventually becomes caught up in a negotiation between Dementus and rival warlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who presides over the Citadel. Furiosa teams up with war rig driver Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), learning to drive the rig herself and earning the title of Imperator. She plots to take revenge on Dementus and find her way back to the Green Place.
Miller has directed every Mad Max movie since the first one in 1979 and continues to expand his cinematic universe, with Furiosa featuring the most intricate world-building yet. The movie’s standout action set piece is a breathtaking 15-minute-long war rig chase involving powered paragliders swooping down onto the rig and Furiosa clambering underneath the chassis.
As the world fell, young Furiosa was snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and fell into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus.
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Civil War
Acclaimed writer-director Alex Garland gives audiences a glimpse into a frighteningly plausible future with this cautionary tale. In the indeterminate future, the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) has violated the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, granting himself a third term. He has disbanded the FBI and authorised airstrikes within the country. The Western Forces, led by Texas and California, have seceded from the United States, igniting a civil war. Renowned combat photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is travelling from New York to the frontlines in Washington, DC. She is accompanied by journalists Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who mentored both Lee and Joel. Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young aspiring photojournalist who looks up to Lee, joins the group. They encounter various threats along the way as they draw closer to the heart of the conflict.
Civil War balances a tightrope: it delivers on the character front, painting an intimate portrait of a dogged journalist (brought to life by Dunst’s riveting and haunting performance) while also serving up muscle-clenching suspense via intense and harrowing sequences.
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A journey across a dystopian future America follows a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.
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A Quiet Place: Day One
The Quiet Place series, set in a post-apocalyptic future in which Earth is overrun by alien monsters that hunt by sound, captured the imagination of audiences when it was released. This prequel is set, as its name suggests, on the first day of the alien invasion.
Our heroine is Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), a poet with terminal cancer who lives in a hospice. While on a trip in New York City with nurse Ruben (Alex Wolff) and other patients, she gets caught up in the initial attack of the creatures from outer space, who are later dubbed ‘Death Angels’. Samira is accompanied by her service cat Frodo and later meets Eric (Joseph Quinn), a law student from the UK. They must stick together to survive as they figure out how to escape from New York. Meanwhile, Samira has her heart set on one thing: getting a last slice of pizza.
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (Pig), A Quiet Place: Day One combines small-scale character drama with big disaster-movie spectacle. Look out for Frodo, portrayed by feline actors Schnitzel and Nico, which has fast become a fan favourite.
The story of what happened on day one of the invasion, before the events of A Quiet Place. A woman must survive an invasion in New York City by aliens with ultrasonic sound hearing.
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The Roundup: Punishment
Ma Dong-seok, aka Don Lee, is one of South Korea’s biggest movie stars, and he headlines what is arguably the country’s most successful action movie franchise in recent memory. In the fourth instalment of the Roundup series, Ma returns as police detective Ma Seok-do, dubbed the ‘monster cop’.
Seok-do faces off against Baek Chang-ki (Kim Mu-yeol), a former Korean Special Forces operative who is now an online gambling kingpin based in the Philippines. When Chang-ki murders his employee Jo Sung-jae (Baek Seung-hwan), Seok-do promises Sung-jae’s mother that he will avenge her son’s death. He joins the Korean National Police Agency’s Cyber Terror Response Centre to track Chang-ki down. Meanwhile, Chang-ki’s casino admin, the IT prodigy and cryptocurrency developer Chang Dong-cheol (Lee Dong-hwi), turns against him, planning to set up an even bigger rival operation.
Detective Ma Suk-Do tackles a drug dealer case involving a delivery app, discovering the death of a wanted app developer in the Philippines linked to a major online illegal gambling operation.
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The Planet of the Apes franchise is one of the most enduring and influential in history, spanning 56 years and encompassing 10 movies and two TV series. The recent reboot trilogy, which ran from 2011 to 2017, is often lauded as among the best reboots, and this latest movie builds off those films, set around 300 years after the preceding film, War for the Planet of the Apes. The movie accomplishes the feat of combining cutting-edge visual effects technology with an old-fashioned sense of adventure and emotional heft. More than that, it also switches up the formula of the reboot series, turning the spotlight on the monkeys and telling the story through their perspective.
Ape civilisation has advanced while humans have regressed, most becoming feral and mute. Young chimpanzee Noa (Owen Teague) of the Eagle Clan finds his family and friends are captured by a rival clan of apes. Noa searches for them and is joined by orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) and a mysterious human woman named Mae (Freya Allan), whom the apes dub ‘Nova’. Noa and Mae must form an uneasy alliance to defeat the tyrannical bonobo Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) and free Noa’s compatriots from his iron grip.
Generations after Caesar’s reign, one ape emerges to define the future.
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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
In 2016, documents detailing Operation Postmaster were declassified. This mission carried out by British special operatives during World War II is the basis for The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Helmed by Guy Ritchie, no stranger to the action genre, this movie plays fast and loose with historical facts to create a rip-roaring action extravaganza.
Brigadier Colin ‘M’ Gubbins (Cary Elwes) and Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox) — yes, the Ian Fleming who wrote the James Bond spy novels — assemble a covert team of special operatives. Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) leads the team, comprising Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González), Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), and Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer). Their mission, strictly off the books, is to sabotage the Italian supply ship Duchessa d’Aosta and its two tugboats docked at the Spanish colony of Fernando Po (now Bioko). If the ship is unable to service German U-boats, then the Allies have a chance of crossing the Atlantic. The team must rely on their ingenuity and deadly skills to outsmart and outgun the Nazis.
The true story of the first-ever special forces organisation formed during WWII by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a small group of military officials, including author Ian Fleming.
View DetailsGodzilla x Kong: The New Empire
The fifth instalment in the Monsterverse sees its titular Titans team up after facing off in Godzilla vs. Kong. Now, Kong lives a relatively peaceful life in the Hollow Earth, which humans first explored in the previous film, while Godzilla fights various other Titans on the Earth’s surface. A mysterious signal originating from the Hollow Earth catches Godzilla’s attention.
‘Kong whisperer’ Dr Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), her adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle), eccentric veterinarian Trapper (Dan Stevens), and conspiracy theorist Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) travel to the Hollow Earth to investigate. There, they discover hidden civilisations, including a secret colony of giant apes led by Skar King, a formidable primate Titan. He feels threatened by Kong, who forms an unexpected bond with Suko, a juvenile Titan ape from the Skar King’s clan. This gloriously silly spectacle is packed with monster fights around the world, with set pieces taking place in Rome, Cairo, and Rio de Janeiro.
Godzilla vs. Kong with an all-new adventure that pits the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence.
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In the Land of Saints and Sinners
It’s been 16 years since Liam Neeson became a full-fledged action star, relatively late in his career, with 2008’s Taken. In In the Land of Saints and Sinners, an action movie with a more dramatic bent, he plays Finbar Murphy, a World War II veteran and former mafia hitman. When four members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army come to his town to hide out after a car bombing, Finbar must call on the skills he thought he had left behind. Neeson is joined by a talented cast of fellow Irish actors, including Jack Gleeson and Oscar nominees Kerry Condon and Ciarán Hinds. In the Land of Saints and Sinners also reunites him with director Robert Lorenz, who helmed The Marksman, in which Neeson also played a retired veteran who gets entangled with organised crime.
Finbar Murphy leads a quiet life in the remote coastal town of Glencolmcille. When a menacing crew of terrorists arrive, Finbar is drawn into a vicious game of cat and mouse.
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Kung Fu Panda 4
The beloved panda Po (Jack Black) has come a long way from his beginnings as an eager fanboy-turned-Dragon-Warrior in the first Kung Fu Panda movie in 2008. In the fourth outing of DreamWorks Animation’s martial arts action-comedy series, the furry hero is selected as the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, meaning he must find and train someone to succeed him as the Dragon Warrior. A new threat arises in the form of the Chameleon (Viola Davis), a shape-shifting sorceress who can absorb other combatants’ powers. He teams up with Zhen (Awkwafina), a wily corsac fox who is also a wanted thief. Along the way, they meet allies, including Han (Ke Huy Quan), a Sunda pangolin who is Zhen’s friend. The Chameleon shapes up to be the most formidable opponent Po has ever faced, channelling the powers of his previous foes, Tai Lung, Lord Shen, and General Kai.
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He must find a new hero to take over as Dragon Warrior so that he may fulfil his destiny as the next spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, Po decides to take one adventurous mission.
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The Beekeeper
There’s something very cathartic about watching Jason Statham give scumbag scammers just what they deserve, and there’s plenty of that in The Beekeeper. Statham plays Adam Clay, a beekeeper whose kindly neighbour, Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), falls victim to a phishing scam and loses all her life savings. He seeks to avenge her, taking on spoiled tech mogul Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), who runs a network of scam call centres and data mining operations. Derek is well protected because he is the son of wealthy Danforth Enterprises founder Jessica Danforth (Jemma Redgrave), who is also the President of the US, and employs former CIA director Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), who used to date his mother. Eloise’s daughter, Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), happens to be an FBI agent. While pursuing Adam, she discovers he is a retired member of an elite, top-secret organisation called the Beekeepers. Adam blazes a path of vengeance that leads straight to the highest rungs of society. Simply put, The Beekeeper is very much your Jason Statham joint — you’ll get to see him in all his scowly, grouchy, tough-guy glory.
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One man's brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organisation known as 'Beekeepers'.
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Dune: Part Two
Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune continues to be an influential work of science fiction. In 2021, director Denis Villeneuve’s movie adaptation of the same name covered the first half of the original novel. This sequel rounds that out.
Following the destruction of House Atreides depicted in the previous film, young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) further assimilates into the desert-dwelling Fremen tribe. As he falls in love with Chani (Zendaya), the Fremen are split on whether Paul is or isn’t the prophesied messiah, whom they dub ‘Lisan al Gaib’. Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), a Bene Gesserit acolyte pregnant with a daughter, gains power with the Fremen and engineers Paul’s ascent in status. Paul must face various obstacles, including the sadistic Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), nephew of the tyrannical Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), who murdered Paul’s father, Leto. The stage is set for a massive battle that will see Paul claim his destiny. And more than just providing action and thrills, Dune: Part Two also explores themes such as religious propaganda and the dangers of cults of personality.
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Explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.
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