The 25 best action movies on Paramount+ for an adrenaline rush (October 2026)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Denis Villeneuve proved there was more story to be told in the Blade Runner universe with this sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult classic. Taking place in the near future, new, obedient replicants have been fully integrated, replacing the rebellious originals that threaten humanity. Ryan Gosling plays K, one of those new replicants who hunts down older models and discovers a powerful secret that could change everything. Along the way, he meets Rick Deckard, the OG blade runner, with Harrison Ford reprising his role.

While Blade Runner 2049 fell short of box office expectations, the film was very well-received by critics. EW’s own writes, “Even when its emotions risk running as cool as its palette, 2049 reaches for, and finds, something remarkable: the elevation of mainstream moviemaking to high art.” The stunningly crafted film won Oscars for its cinematography and visual effects. —Kevin Jacobsen

Where to watch Blade Runner 2049: Paramount+

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista, Jared Leto

Bumblebee (2018)

Transformers movies are known for being loud smash-em-ups: action-packed but with little in the way of plot or character development. But Bumblebee broke that mold. In the film, Bumblebee must take refuge from the Decepticons on Earth in 1987, where he meets Hailee Steinfeld’s mechanically inclined Charlie and forms a kind of Iron Giant relationship.

Steinfeld’s winning portrayal underscores why she was such a standout child actor, and the film uses her bond with Bumblebee as a springboard into broader life lessons, such as when she tells him, “People can be terrible about things they don’t understand.” Don’t worry, there are still lots of heavy metal transformations and explosion-filled battles, but the highlight of this movie is Bumblebee cranking ‘80s tunes from his abdomen. —Gwen Ihant

Where to watch Bumblebee: Paramount+

EW grade: B+

Director: Travis Knight

Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Pamela Adlon

Collateral (2004)

Before committing entirely to globetrotting blockbusters, Tom Cruise delivered one of his most unique performances as a gray-haired hitman in this well-received action thriller. Cruise’s smooth-criminal Vincent enters the cab of Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx), offering an exorbitant amount of money to drive him around to various stops in Los Angeles all night. Max soon learns of Vincent’s profession and is subsequently forced to continue driving him as the bodies pile up. Cruise’s chilling turn is matched by Foxx’s Everyman nervousness, delivering a performance that earned the latter an Oscar nomination. —K.J.

Where to watch Collateral: Paramount+

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

This adaptation of the popular RPG could have been a cynical cash grab, but writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley chose the right approach by crafting a loving tribute to what makes the game so addictive without taking it too seriously. Set in the Forgotten Realms, the film follows Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), a pair of thieves who band together with a budding sorcerer (Justice Smith) and a druid (Sophia Lillis) to find a magic relic to help clear Edgin’s name and reunite him with his daughter.

As EW’s critic writes, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves delightfully nails the fun of role-playing as fantasy characters with your friends. It doesn’t require any prior playing experience, either.” —K.J.

Where to watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Paramount+

EW grade: B+

Directors: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis

Dunkirk (2017)

While most war films center on traditional battles and heart-wrenching, character-driven moments, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk focuses on the brutal impact of war on the many rather than the few. The film follows the titular evacuation during World War II, deftly split up into one week of action by land, one day by sea, and one hour by air. As we bounce between the three perspectives, we get a visceral picture of the horrors and uncertainties that these men (boys, really) faced at this pivotal point in European — and world — history. The film earned Nolan some of the best reviews of his career, with EW’s critic praising it as “a full-body sensory experience that sweeps you up in its thrall and places you directly into the fog of war.” —K.J.

Where to watch Dunkirk: Paramount+

EW grade: A

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy

Gladiator (2000)

Ridley Scott resurrected the once-popular sword-and-sandal genre of the 1960s with this turn-of-the-century epic in which Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) refuses to swear fealty to the corrupt new emperor, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who subsequently has Maximus’ family killed. Maximus seeks revenge by competing in the gladiator games in the hope of eventually taking down Commodus. The film delivers on old-fashioned thrills while taking advantage of newer technology of which the great directors of the ‘50s and ‘60s could only dream.

Earning more than $500 million at the box office and winning five Oscars, including Best Picture, Gladiator indeed kept its audience entertained, and holds up on repeat viewings alongside its blockbuster sequel from 2024. —K.J.

Where to watch Gladiator: Paramount+

EW grade: A–

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Derek Jacobi

Gravity (2013)

Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is alone in space, with no one to rescue her. Everything that can go wrong does on her first-ever mission, and she must rely on her training to find a way home. This setup is what makes for such a gripping survival action thriller, but it’s Bullock’s emotive performance that really keeps the audience invested. Winner of seven Oscars, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity is ”an awesome technological daydream of a movie,” writes EW’s critic. “It’s a tale of disaster and grief and survival rooted in the possibilities of space travel as they exist today.” —K.J.

Where to watch Gravity: Paramount+

EW grade: A

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

The Lost City (2022)

While on tour promoting her latest romance novel, writer Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) gets kidnapped and taken to a remote, lush location with the goal of looking for the mysterious titular city. When her devoted, Fabio-like book cover model (Channing Tatum) goes after her, romantic hijinks ensue as Loretta starts living an adventure not unlike the ones she pens.

“There used to be a lot more of a certain kind of sunny, modestly ambitious movie that might have been called a romp,” EW’s critic notes, “blithe action comedies in which two pretty people fight and blunder and fall for each other, and maybe romance a few stones along the way. Almost everything about The Lost City feels familiar in that sense, and comforting, too.” —G.I.

Where to watch The Lost City: Paramount+

EW grade: B

Directors: Aaron Nee, Adam Nee

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Brad Pitt

Minority Report (2002)

Minority Report is one of Steven Spielberg’s most thought-provoking films — in every sense of the phrase. The film transports us to a futuristic world in which an innovative policing program called “Precrime” seeks to stop murders before they happen, using the collective psychic powers of three clairvoyants. Tom Cruise is Precrime’s chief commanding officer, but the program is turned back around on him when he’s flagged as a future murderer himself. He soon becomes a fugitive, desperately trying to evade capture while learning the truth behind why he was targeted.

Tackling themes of free will, the slippery slope of police surveillance, and more, the film raises potent questions on our technological future while also delivering as a pulse-pounding thriller. —K.J.

Where to watch Minority Report: Paramount+

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011)

“Everything is breaking down in Ghost Protocol,” writes EW on why this fourth installment is the best of the Mission: Impossible movies. This is part of the film’s appeal, allowing viewers to see Tom Cruise trying to figure it out without the same old resources at his disposal.

After Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is falsely accused of planting a bomb that nearly obliterates the Kremlin, he is secretly tasked with exposing the real culprit, teaming with fellow agents Jane (Paula Patton) and Benji (Simon Pegg) and an intelligence analyst (Jeremy Renner) on a covert mission. Director Brad Bird breathed new life into the Mission: Impossible films, bringing a kinetic energy and a sense of grandeur (that skyscraper scene!) that brought the franchise to new heights. —K.J.

Where to watch Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol: Paramount+

Director: Brad Bird

Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas evoked the serial adventures of their youth with this crowd-pleasing 1930s-set blockbuster. Harrison Ford added another iconic role to his repertoire as Indiana Jones, a dashing archaeologist who tries to stop the Nazis from gaining access to the Ark of the Covenant. It’s good old-fashioned swashbuckling entertainment, particularly after Indy teams up with an old flame, spitfire Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), on his dangerous mission.

“What made Raiders so great,” EW’s critic writes, “is that it was the first movie that took what we think of as the ‘good parts’ from most movies and just strung them together, making it a movie that’s all good parts.” —K.J.

Where to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark: Paramount+

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Alfred Molina

The Running Man (2025)

As reality TV continues to dominate the airwaves, it’s only natural that a new take on Stephen King’s classic novel (first adapted for the big screen in 1987) would be released. Writer-director Edgar Wright brings his signature wit and panache to this sci-fi action thriller in which Glen Powell plays Ben Richards, a working-class laborer living in a dystopian future. Desperate for money to pay for his daughter’s healthcare, he competes on a reality show in which he must outrun five expert hunters for 30 days for a $1 billion prize. EW’s critic calls The Running Man “a high-octane dystopian thriller that manages to pack in laughs and timely commentary in equal measure.” —K.J.

Where to watch The Running Man: Paramount+

Director: Edgar Wright

Cast: Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Steven Spielberg’s World War II drama remains one of the most affecting war movies ever made. Saving Private Ryan features a group of soldiers on a perilous mission. Following the deaths of three brothers, a general commands the soldiers to find the fourth brother, the titular Private Ryan (Matt Damon), and bring him home safely to spare his grieving family more heartache. From the stunning Normandy invasion that opens the film to the emotional conclusion, Spielberg’s saga of brotherhood and bravery is an overwhelming achievement, with EW’s critic calling it “a movie of staggering virtuosity and raw lyric power, a masterpiece of terror, chaos, blood, and courage.” —K.J.

Where to watch Saving Private Ryan: Paramount+

EW grade: A

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore

Star Trek (2009)

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek rebooted the franchise for a new generation without sacrificing the core tenets of what has made it last. (As EW’s critic writes, “Abrams as a director is very good at taking stuff that was great and making it feel great again.”) Serving as a prequel to the original series and set in an alternate timeline, Star Trek follows a young James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) in their early days aboard the USS Enterprise as they attempt to stop a time-traveling villain (Eric Bana). Both Pine and Quinto slip into the well-worn Starfleet uniforms of Kirk and Spock with ease, and the film takes care to invest the audience in both of their emotional journeys. —K.J.

Where to watch Star Trek: Paramount+

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldaña, Simon Pegg

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Long-time Trekkies often point to No. 2 as the culmination of Star Trek as a series. You know all the hallmarks: the opening tragedy fakeout; Kirk (William Shatner) yelling “Khaaan!”; the apex of his friendship with Spock (Leonard Nimoy); even his dynamic with his son.

EW’s critic declared that The Wrath of Khan highlights the acting of the Trek franchise above all else: “‘Performance’ is both running plot point and underlying theme in Wrath of Khan. Khan fools Kirk with a performance, and Kirk fools Khan with three performances… We will never get a great Moby Dick movie: I submit to you the possibility that Ricardo Montalbán playing Khan is also playing cinema’s greatest Ahab.” An interesting take for sure, and yet another argument that it’s probably time to watch Wrath of Khan again. —G.I.

Where to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Paramount+

EW grade: A–

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalbán, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

Paramount+ is the home for numerous iterations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, from the original series to the live-action films, but Mutant Mayhem is easily the most well-received entry in the franchise’s history, with both critics and audiences. The animated action-adventure flick finds the four anthropomorphic turtles wanting to explore life outside the sewers, and soon become unlikely heroes attempting to take down a gang of criminals — who also happen to be mutants. With quippy humor that amuses kids and adults alike, plus visually striking action set pieces inspired by the comic-book feel of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mutant Mayhem is a fast-paced good time for all audiences. —K.J.

Where to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: Paramount+

Director: Jeff Rowe

Cast: Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Ayo Edebiri

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Frequently hailed as one of the best sequels of all time, T2 takes the potential of the original Terminator and adds in higher-budget action sequences and an emotionally resonant story. The film follows time-traveling cyborg T-800’s (Arnold Schwarzenegger) attempts to protect future resistance leader John Connor (Edward Furlong) and his mother, Sarah (Linda Hamilton), from the malevolent T-1000 (Robert Patrick), who is sent to kill them.

Even all these years later, the film holds up surprisingly well, largely due to the chemistry of John and the T-800 and Sarah Connor’s badass sensibility. Its visual effects also remain impressive, “in part because there’s real magic to them, a sense of technological wonder,” says EW’s critic. “By the end of the movie, we feel that this shape-shifting terminator, this sinister mass of chameleonic metal, has an identity all its own.” —K.J.

Where to watch Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Paramount+

EW grade: B+

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick

Top Gun (1986)

Top Gun: Maverick grabbed a lot of headlines (and box office victories) in 2022, but let’s not forget where all this military flight bombast began. Anytime is an excellent opportunity to revisit Maverick’s friendship with Goose (Anthony Edwards), his rivalry with Iceman (Val Kilmer), and the iconic volleyball match that foreshadowed Maverick’s football game. But the main takeaway from rewatching the 1986 film is just how stunning those flight scenes are even decades later. (And the soundtrack doesn’t hurt, either.) —G.I.

Where to watch Top Gun: Paramount+

EW grade: B

Director: Tony Scott

Cast: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Follow up your Top Gun rewatch with its highly acclaimed “legacyquel,” released 36 years after the original. Cruise reprises his role as Maverick — whose rebellious streak has remained — and is now tasked with training Top Gun graduates, including his old partner Goose’s son, Rooster (Miles Teller), who bears a striking resemblance to his father. As Maverick trains his students for a precarious flight mission, he also attempts to overcome past trauma.

With eye-popping aerial sequences and an earnestly emotional core, Top Gun: Maverick earned widespread acclaim not only from audiences but critics, many of whom claimed it as better than the first Top Gun. The film went on to receive six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, taking home the win for Best Sound. —K.J.

Where to watch Top Gun: Maverick: Paramount+

EW grade: B+

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell

Total Recall (1990)

This futuristic genre-bender from director Paul Verhoeven cleverly weaves in themes of authoritarianism while also delivering on what we expect from great sci-fi action filmmaking. In one of his best performances, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Douglas Quaid, a construction worker whose experience with memory-implanting technology triggers a memory of his suppressed past as a secret agent. After other agents emerge to track him down, he quickly realizes how his previously established reality isn’t quite what it seems. Aided by beautifully realized, Oscar-winning practical effects, Total Recall is an immersive action thriller that also engages the viewer in its ambiguous blending of reality and fantasy. —K.J.

Where to watch Total Recall: Paramount+

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside

Transformers (2007)

The Transformers franchise has had many ups and downs, but few would argue that the 2007 original is its best entry (besides, of course, the previously listed prequel, Bumblebee). The film centers on a centuries-old war between alien robots — the Autobots and the Decepticons — who seek control of an artifact to be used for, respectively, good and evil. Shia LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, a teenager who proves to be the key to finding the artifact and must prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. —K.J.

Where to watch Transformers: Paramount+

Director: Michael Bay

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, Megan Fox

Tropic Thunder (2008)

This action comedy is audacious in portraying the pretensions of show business. Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. star as actors making a faux-prestigious war movie, with each of them proving demanding for their director. But things go from bad to worse after the director opts for a hidden-camera style of filmmaking, and the pampered actors are faced with real-life dangers in the jungle, with no script to guide them.

Tropic Thunder lampoons the absurdity of Hollywood and its inherent shallowness, from self-indulgent method actors to ego-driven producers. “With every character, and with every believably outrageous turn of the plot,” writes EW’s critic, “Stiller brings real insider knowledge of — and compassion for — the big business of Hollywood make-believe.” —K.J.

Where to watch Tropic Thunder: Paramount+

EW grade: A

Director: Ben Stiller

Cast: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan, Jay Baruchel

V for Vendetta (2006)

Set in a futuristic Britain, this adaptation of Alan Moore’s best-selling graphic novel is an engrossing political allegory — and feels more relevant with each passing year. V for Vendetta follows the masked anarchist V (Hugo Weaving) through his attempts to take down the fascist government, which freely punishes its opponents through imprisonment or execution. V rescues Evey (Natalie Portman), a young woman whose activist parents died in prison, and must now avoid capture herself.

The film blends multiple genres — political thriller, action drama, dystopian sci-fi — but remains clear-eyed in its message of hope and perseverance, serving as a powerful rallying cry for the disenfranchised. —K.J.

Where to watch V for Vendetta: Paramount+

Director: James McTeigue

Cast: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt

War of the Worlds (2005)

Steven Spielberg directed this riveting action thriller update of the classic H.G. Wells story of extraterrestrial invasion. Tom Cruise plays Ray, a divorced father of two who tries to survive amid the invasion as the aliens do battle with humanity via war machines. Of course, with Spielberg at the helm, War of the Worlds isn’t just empty spectacle — the film is infused with very real anxieties over the end of the world. “What’s unsettling about War of the Worlds, in its roller-coaster nightmare way, isn’t so much the aliens’ methods of destruction,” EW’s critic writes, “as it is the film’s visceral vision of world annihilation as something uncanny yet imminent, happening right before your eyes.” —K.J.

Where to watch War of the Worlds: Paramount+

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman

World War Z (2013)

Brad Pitt leads this globetrotting action drama about a zombie outbreak that quickly turns into an apocalypse. U.N. investigator Gerry Lane (Pitt) is tasked with finding the source of the pandemic to help develop a vaccine, but, with zombies multiplying by the minute, the clock is ticking. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Max Brooks, this adaptation goes in a decidedly more action-oriented direction, delivering massive entertainment even if it’s not as deep as its source material. “World War Z is epically scaled, but it’s not a messy, noisy, CGI-bogus, throw-everything-at-the-audience sort of blockbuster,” writes EW’s critic. “It’s thrillingly controlled, and it builds in impact.” —K.J.

Where to watch World War Z: Paramount+

EW grade: A–

Director: Marc Forster

Cast: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale