Action fans have been given a plethora of films on Netflix over the years, and while not all of them have been good, there certainly is something for everyone. Liam Neeson fans have The Ice Road, fight choreography fans have The Night Comes for Us, dark comedy fans have I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, and so on and so forth.
So, let’s take a trip through some of the best, undervalued action drama flicks just waiting to be added to your Netflix queue.
- 1Kate
Mary Elizabeth Winstead has become something of an action star lately. It began back in the early-2010s when she was kicking butt with a giant hammer in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and slaying vampires in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Winstead then kicked into high gear late in the decade by showing up in Gemini Man and Birds of Prey. And after years of showing her action chops either in ensemble pieces or in supporting roles, Winstead got her own full-fledged action flick in 2021’s Kate.Kate sees Winstead star as an assassin who has been poisoned and, as a result, has less than 24 hours to live. What is Kate going to do with her final hours on Earth? Get revenge, of course! Were you expecting her to wallow around in self-pity before breathing her last breath? Kate will be extremely familiar to anyone knowledgeable of the action/thriller genre, but sometimes you just want to see a great actor having fun in a killer role. There is nothing in Kate that will surprise you, but it exists as a sort of “action film comfort food.” There’s nothing wrong with a well-made genre film that checks all the boxes. Besides, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is awesome!
355Â votesWhat do you think?Underrated?
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- 2Gunpowder Milkshake
Get this: Gunpowder Milkshake is a film about a group of assassins that features Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, and Paul Giamatti. Aren’t you just so onboard already? Also, Gunpowder Milkshake is an utterly fantastic name for an action movie. This 2021 flick, directed by Israeli filmmaker Navot Papushado, is big on violence, big on style, and big on cliches. Honestly, there isn’t too much that is uber-original in Gunpowder Milkshake.Even if that is the case, there is a slo-mo fight scene where Headey, Yeoh, and Bassett murder a bunch of bad guys while dressed up as waitresses. So, that’s pretty cool. And there’s another scene where Gugino shoots a minigun out of a van’s sunroof. Which is also pretty cool. What we’re trying to say is Gunpowder Milkshake is pretty dang cool, and you should definitely check it out.407 votesUnderrated?
- 3Polar
Look, 2019’s Polar isn’t the best movie ever made. Is it juvenile and predictable? Yes. Is it overly violent? Definitely. Is it ripping off far better movies? Unquestionably. All that being said, there is plenty of fun to be had in watching this graphic novel adaptation. It’s a neo-noir starring Mads Mikkelsen as an aging assassin! Doesn’t that sound fun? It’s got a weird original score by Deadmau5! Doesn’t that sound weird? Of course, you should probably keep those expectations somewhat low.Polar was absolutely savaged by critics when it came out, but what did you expect from a schlocky B-movie released straight to Netflix? Fan response was much more positive as people knew what they were getting into: some loud, dumb fun. Sometimes you just want to turn on your television, throw a movie on, and turn your brain off. Polar is a perfect movie for that kind of scenario.287 votesUnderrated?
- 4Triple Frontier
If 2019’s Triple Frontier had been produced by a traditional movie studio for a wide theatrical release, the marketing blitz would’ve been insane. It’s a $115 million-budgeted movie that stars Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal. That’s “commercial-during-the-Super-Bowl” kind of stuff right there. Of course, Netflix is anything but traditional as they’ve single-handedly reshaped the entire entertainment landscape in a relatively short amount of time. As such, Triple Frontier came and went in theaters, only to hit Netflix and become your dad’s favorite movie on the streaming service.It follows five retired US Army Delta Force operators as they head to Columbia to kill a drug lord and take his multimillion-dollar fortune in the process. Unsurprisingly, things do not go according to plan, and gunfights aplenty erupt. We don’t want to give any spoilers away, but if you’re in the mood for some classic action and want to see what director J. C. Chandor is about before his Kraven the Hunter movie eventually hits, Triple Frontier fits the bill.307 votesUnderrated?
- 5The Night Comes for Us
Be honest… when was the last time you watched an Indonesian action film? And when was the last time you watched an Indonesian action film with fight scenes that would make Quentin Tarantino blush? 2018’s The Night Comes for Us is the kind of movie action-heads crave. Each and every fight scene in the movie (and there are plenty of them) is expertly choreographed with a realistic, brutal style that is amplified by the cinematography and editing. Unlike your everyday, modern blockbuster, you can actually see what is happening in the fights from The Night Comes for Us.This movie about a crime enforcer trying to leave the underworld to save a young girl also achieved quite a rare feat: be an extremely violent film that also garners critical acclaim. The amount and variety of weapons we’re talking about here is wild. We’ve got knives. We’ve got swords. We’ve got wires. We’ve got jars of tacks. We’ve got pool cues. We’ve got hanging fluorescent lights. If you consider yourself a fight scene aficionado of any sort, you must check out The Night Comes for Us immediately, if you haven’t already. 124 votesUnderrated?
- 6The King
Not long ago, The King is exactly the kind of movie you’d have to try really hard to locate at its release. Loosely adapted from Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V, this is not the kind of movie you’d find at the multiplex. You’d have to trudge to your local indie movie theater, if you even have one, and watch it there before it would eventually be pulled from screens months before its home video debut. But, thanks to the influence of Netflix, we are living in the age of streaming media, and this historical war epic was released on the media titan’s platform less than three weeks after its October 11th theatrical premiere.Shakespeare purists may blanch at the changes to the Henriad, and historians certainly have issues with the film playing fast and loose with actual events, but The King is a good movie. Put simply, it’s just well-made, well-acted, and well-edited. We’re not sure what else to say. If you’re the kind of moviegoer who fancies a historical epic every now and then, The King should be right down your alley. And look at Timothée Chalamet’s 15th-century bowl cut!159 votesUnderrated?
- 7The Ice Road
Liam Neeson is going to make action movies until his body just quits on him, eh? Seriously, the guy is in his late-60s, and he keeps pumping out action flick after action flick! He didn’t even become known for being the kind of guy who leads action/thrillers until Taken came out and he was in his mid-50s! Alas, it’s like clockwork… since Taken made a boatload of money, Neeson has been in The A-Team, Non-Stop, The Grey, A Walk Among The Tombstones, Run All Night, The Commuter, Cold Pursuit, Honest Thief, and The Marksman. You probably forgot some of those even existed, if you knew about them in the first place!Continuing his late-career renaissance as an action man, Neeson starred in 2021’s The Ice Road as ice road trucker Mike McCann. McCann and Laurence Fishburne’s Jim Goldenrod lead a crew of ice road truckers in a race against the clock to deliver equipment to save workers trapped in a collapsed mine. The workers only have around 30 hours of air left, and the drivers must face the odds to save their lives. Oh, and there’s a little bit of a violent wrinkle involving the mining company and some insurance money, but we’ll let you see that for yourselves. The Ice Road isn’t groundbreaking by genre standards, but when was the last time you saw a thriller about a truck driver?163 votesUnderrated?
- 8Wheelman
Fans of B-movies and character actors, rejoice! For we have the Netflix film made especially for you. It’s called Wheelman, and it’ll absolutely knock your socks off. The movie’s plot isn’t anything you haven’t seen before: it’s your basic getaway-driver-is-set-up-and-has-to-figure-out-who-betrayed-him story. Frank Grillo stars as the titular protagonist who only goes by “Wheelman,” and boy does his life get flipped/turned upside down. There’s stolen money, cool cars, and all kinds of gunfire awaiting you in this one.The 2017 thriller may have a by-the-numbers plotline, but it is expertly crafted and the tension is dialed up to 11. Heck, everything is dialed up to 11. Did we mention that “f**k” is said an astonishing 286 times in a scant 82-minute runtime? This critical darling also stars beloved character actors like Garret Dillahunt, Wendy Moniz, and Shea Whigham, as well. Suffice it to say, Wheelman is well worth your time… you just might want to put the kids to bed first. Unless you want them running around saying “f**k” all the time.107 votesUnderrated?
- 9Small Crimes
Small Crimes is a dark comedy tailor-made for Coen Brothers fans who want a little more bite with their bark. Also, if you wanted to see Nikolaj Coster-Waldau take on a Kingslayer-lite role as a formerly corrupt cop in middle America, then this is the movie you’ve been waiting for. You know, if it was ever possible to want a thing like that beforehand. Coster-Waldau is backed by a stellar supporting cast featuring the likes of Gary Cole, Molly Parker, Pat Healy, Jacki Weaver, and the great Robert Forster. If any of those names pique your interest, know they’re all putting in solid work.Critical reaction to Small Crimes‘ 2017 release was mixed due to the shifting tone of the narrative. Sometimes it’s quite dark, sometimes it’s quite funny. Fans of films like After Hours and The Favourite will more than likely react well to the vibes this crime flick is putting out. It’s not the greatest black comedy of all time, but you’re already paying for Netflix, so go ahead and throw it on already.47 votesUnderrated?
- 10Shimmer Lake
On its face, Shimmer Lake seems like your run-of-the-mill modern crime movie. It stars Benjamin Walker as a sheriff investigating a bank robbery, and that’s about as standard a story there is for the genre. But Shimmer Lake is told in reverse order, going from a Friday to a Thursday to a Wednesday, and so on. And let’s talk about the rest of the cast as it’s a veritable “Who’s Who” of comedic stars of the past two decades.Rainn Wilson, Adam Pally, John Michael Higgins, Ron Livingston, and Rob Corddry flesh out the story, and with that cast list onboard, you know Shimmer Lake isn’t going to be a straightforward crime flick. It never veers head-first into comedy, but the comedic underpinnings are there. All the crime is believable, as well. Honestly, the most unbelievable thing about Shimmer Lake is that we’re supposed to buy Benjamin Walker and Rainn Wilson as brothers. 54 votesUnderrated?
- 11Hold the Dark
When it comes to low-budget thrillers, there have been few names as exciting as Jeremy Saulnier’s over the past decade. His 2013 film, Blue Ruin, came out of nowhere on a Kickstarter-funded budget to become one of the best films of that year. In 2015, he followed it up with the arresting Green Room, a movie starring Patrick Stewart as the villainous leader of a Neo-Nazi group. The upcoming Rebel Ridge is one of Netflix’s most highly anticipated future projects. And in 2018, Netflix released Saulnier’s Hold the Dark.Based on the novel of the same name by William Giraldi, Hold the Dark is the only one of Saulnier’s films that he didn’t write. That doesn’t mean it isn’t filled to the brim with nail-biting tension, though. It stars Jeffrey Wright as Russell Core, a wolf expert who heads to Alaska in the mid-2000s to figure out what’s going on with three wolves who killed a young child. Obviously, more is going on than is first thought, and Core is thrust into a violent mystery. Hold the Dark may not have the universally stellar critical reception of Saulnier’s best, but any film with a thespian of Wright’s ability at the core is an obvious watch.66 votesUnderrated?
- 12I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore
The “comedy thriller” genre is a bit of a difficult one to pull off correctly. Sometimes you end up with great films like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, In Bruges, or A Simple Favor, and sometimes you end up with a misfire like Suburbicon or The Tourist. Thankfully, 2017’s I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore walks the comedy/thriller tightrope quite deftly. It helps to have seasoned actors like Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood in the starring roles, considering they’re both well-versed in both comedy and drama thanks to their nearly life-long Hollywood careers.Lynskey and Wood star as a melancholy woman and her idiosyncratic neighbor as they hunt down the thieves that ransacked her house. A critical and audience hit upon release, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore is full of social commentary, laugh-out-loud moments, and a surprising darkness that permeates throughout the movie. The crux of the movie’s message can be summarized by Lynskey’s character in six words when she’s asked what she wants: “for people to not be a**holes.” Certainly, that is something we can all rally behind.77 votesUnderrated?
- 13Da 5 Bloods
What is there to say about Spike Lee that hasn’t already been said? He’s one of the most celebrated directors of the past 40 years, for goodness sake. Of course, things were looking a bit dire there for a minute. Do we even need to bring up the Brooklyn-born director’s ill-fated remake of Oldboy? Thankfully, that’s all in the past, and Lee is back on his game with films like BlacKkKlansman and his 2020 outing, Da 5 Bloods. This war drama follows four veterans as they head back to Vietnam in the modern day to search for the remains of their deceased squad leader. Da 5 Bloods may not be as heavy on action as other war flicks (it’s not like Lee is known for his action set-pieces, after all), but what it lacks in bombast, it makes up for in gumption. Also, the performances housed in Da 5 Bloods are outstanding. Everyone gives a shout to Chadwick Boseman in one of the final performances of his career, and rightfully so, but Delroy Lindo is the true standout of the movie’s cast. Seriously, watch Da 5 Bloods for Lindo’s acting alone.Â
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