Action movies don’t get the same kind of respect as straight dramas, which are considered to be prestige projects. Action tends to be dismissed as pure entertainment, but there are plenty of action movies out there that rank among the finest masterpieces in the history of cinema, like Die Hard, The Killer, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
There’s a lot of underrated craft that goes into making a great action movie. Directing exciting action sequences isn’t easy; neither is making fake violence feel real. These are some of the greatest action movie directors of all time, as well as their highest-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes.
10 Richard Donner – Superman: The Movie (94%)
Richard Donner isn’t exclusively an action filmmaker, as he also helmed the adventure comedy The Goonies and the supernatural horror thriller The Omen, but he’s best known for his work in the action genre. He directed all four Lethal Weapon movies with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.
With Superman: The Movie, still one of the best superhero movies ever made, Donner first telegraphed to Hollywood studios that comic book movies were a viable source of income.
9 James Cameron – The Terminator (100%)
With Aliens, Terminator 2, and True Lies, James Cameron has more than proven his ability to direct remarkable action sequences. Not every Cameron movie is a masterpiece, but he hasn’t made an all-out terrible movie (except for his debut feature Piranha II, which he was fired from, so it doesn’t really count).
The idea for his most critically acclaimed movie, sci-fi neo-noir The Terminator, came to Cameron in a fever dream. He saw a metallic skeleton emerging from flames and when he woke up, he conceived the story of a killer cyborg going back in time to terminate the mother of the future leader of the resistance against the machines.
8 The Wachowskis – Bound (89%)
With a dazzling visual style and a penchant for high-octane thrills, the Wachowskis rank among the most iconic action movie directors in the world. The Matrix trilogy is easily their most revered work, questioning the fabric of reality with plenty of car chases, explosions, and gunfights along the way.
The Wachowskis’ top-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is Bound at 89%. The Matrix is just one point behind at 88%. Bound is an erotic crime thriller about two women having an affair and scheming to steal millions from the mob.
7 Tony Scott – True Romance (93%)
When Tony Scott got a hold of Quentin Tarantino’s first couple of screenplays, he wanted to direct Reservoir Dogs. Of course, Tarantino wanted to direct Reservoir Dogs as his debut movie, so he allowed Scott to direct True Romance instead. While True Romance isn’t an all-out action film, it’s unsurprising that its shootouts and fight scenes are so intense.
Scott dedicated most of his career to the action genre, and ended up contributing some of its greatest entries, like Top Gun, Unstoppable, and Enemy of the State.
6 Jackie Chan – Police Story (93%)
In addition to being one of the world’s greatest stars of action movies, Jackie Chan is one of the world’s greatest directors of them, too. This is because he’s a perfectionist who gets take after take of each stunt until it’s just right. And since he’s the star in front of the camera doing these stunts over and over again, it’s fair for him to expect the same from his fellow stunt performers.
Hailing from the school of Keaton and Chaplin, Chan has masterfully used action for the purposes of visual comedy throughout his career. His highest-rated movie is Police Story, an action classic that spawned a lucrative franchise.
5 John McTiernan – Die Hard (94%)
John McTiernan is responsible for the mother of all action movies, Die Hard, whose single-location hostile takeover storyline and everyman protagonist have been copied so many times that it’s spawned a whole “Die Hard in a…” subgenre.
McTiernan also directed Arnold Schwarzenegger in the blood-soaked, sci-fi-tinged Predator, brought Jack Ryan to the screen in The Hunt for Red October, and returned to the Die Hard franchise for its best sequel, Die Hard with a Vengeance.
4 Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker (97%)
Kathryn Bigelow has brought all kinds of action to the big screen, from the absurd popcorn thrills of Point Break to the visceral true-to-life tension of Zero Dark Thirty.
Her most famous movie – and her highest-rated work on Rotten Tomatoes – is The Hurt Locker, an Iraq War thriller that beat Avatar to Best Picture.
3 Akira Kurosawa – Seven Samurai (100%)
Quite possibly the most influential filmmaker who ever lived, Akira Kurosawa directed a ton of movies that are widely considered to be among the greatest ever made: Ran, Yojimbo, Rashomon, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress – he’s a true master of the form.
While Kurosawa didn’t necessarily consider himself to be an action director, he did originate several tropes of action movies, like opening with the hero in an action sequence that isn’t related to the plot. His masterpiece Seven Samurai, which has a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, set the template for The Magnificent Seven and countless other remakes.
2 George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road (97%)
George Miller created the Happy Feet franchise and helmed Babe: Pig in the City, but he’s an action director through and through. He revolutionized low-budget action cinema with his sleeper hit Mad Max, later topping himself with a couple of awesome sequels (and one mediocre sequel).
The most renowned entry in the original Mad Max trilogy was The Road Warrior, but Miller blew his own work out of the water when he finally got the fourth movie, Fury Road, out of development hell and turned it into a modern action masterpiece.
1 John Woo – Bullet In The Head (100%)
With slow-motion, glorious bloodshed, and delightfully unrealistic gunplay poetically woven into his action sequences, John Woo has helmed some of the genre’s most mind-blowing masterpieces: Hard Boiled, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow – the list goes on.
Woo’s influence knows no bounds. Filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have noted Woo’s inspiration. The director’s top-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is Bullet in the Head, with a perfect 100% score.
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