20 Best Action Movies of 2023: List of Rated Films

Action movies of 2023 are long-awaited new parts of famous franchises, works of interesting debutants and new movies from famous directors.

We offer you a list of the best action movies that were released in 2023. The variety of plots and visuals will please any connoisseur of this popular genre of cinema.

Table of contents

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

IMDB Rating – 7.9
Genre: Action, Thriller, Adventure
Production: USA / 2023
Budget: $290,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $567,535,383
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Cherney, Shay Wigham

The action of the seventh film in the series “Mission Impossible”, which was released in June 2023, takes place after the events of the film “Consequences”. The main role, as usual, is played by Tom Cruise.

On a Russian submarine for the first time, the Entity AI is tested, which becomes a terrible threat to humanity. Ethan Hunt must retrieve two parts of the key that can knock out the insidious ISKIN. One part is in the hands of Ilsa Faust, who agrees to help Hunt, and the second part is stolen by experienced thief Grace for arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis. Ethan Hunt tears through the women’s barrier with dignity, making allies out of their enemies, and saves the world.

The second installment of this story, “Mortal Reckoning 2” is set for release in June 2024.

Fast X

IMDB Rating – 5.8
Genre: Action, Crime
Production: USA, China / 2023
Budget: $340,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $704,709,660
Director: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Momoa, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena, Charlize Theron, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Gun, Jason Statham

What once started out as a slick comedy-crime action movie about racing has turned into a pathos-driven epic battle to save mankind. The tenth Fast and Furious is traditionally densely packed with big-name stars and begins somewhere in the year 2021.

The agency asks Team Dominic to steal a secret chip while it’s in transit. The team goes “on the case,” leaving Dominic at home with his family. Meanwhile, Dante, the evil son of the drug lord Reyes, whom Brian and Dominic ripped off 10 years ago, decides to get revenge on them by destroying their loved ones.

The movie was released in May 2023, and a sequel, Fast and Furious 11 is already in development, but we won’t see it until 2025.

John Wick: Chapter 4

IMDB Rating – 7.8
Genre: Action, Thriller, Crime
Production: USA, Germany / 2023
Budget: $90,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $428,576,029
Director: Chad Stahelski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgard, Shamir Anderson, Ian McShane, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Marco Saror, Laurence Fishburne

A spectacular action movie with incredible fight scenes, a dynamic, tense plot and the magnificent Keanu Reeves as John Wick, a former, noble and invincible assassin who has quarreled with the entire underworld and made a bunch of powerful enemies.

After John kills the Elder above the Board, the Marquis de Gramont becomes obsessed with destroying him. He blackmails Wick’s old friend Cain by capturing his daughter and ordering him to kill John. Meanwhile, Wick himself requests a duel with de Gramont, who, of course, accepts the challenge, but places such a ransom on his enemy’s head that he must fight his way to the duel site through a barrage of skilled assassins.

In 2019, Keanu Reeves said he will play Wick “as long as his legs will hold him up,” literally. He’s mastered many fighting techniques, learned how to work with nunchakus, and doesn’t leave intense training behind. And yes, the creators have confirmed that a 5th movie in the franchise is in development.

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre

IMDB Rating – 6.3
Genre: Action, Comedy
Production: UK, USA / 2023
Budget: $50,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $38,165,964
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Cary Elwes, Bugsy Malone, Hugh Grant, Eddie Marsan, Peter Ferdinando, Nicholas Facey, Lourdes Faberes.

Another cute Guy Ritchie movie – a comedy action movie with “Fast and Furious” star Jason Statham. He plays an experienced MI6 agent Orson Fortune, who is hired to track down and stop terrorists who are ready to spread and use new scary weapons.

The agent teams up with intelligence officers from other intelligence agencies around the world to save the world from another catastrophic threat and embarks on an energetic, action-packed chase after the criminals.

8711 Entertainment, the company responsible for the action scenes in “John Wick,” was involved in the filming.

Hit Man

IMDB Rating – 7.9
Genre: Action, Comedy
Production: USA / 2023
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Archona, Retta, Austin Amelio, Molly Bernard, Mike Markoff, Jo-Ann Robinson, Richie Montgomery, Natalie J. Alarcon, Morgana Shaw

“Hit Man” by Richard Linklater – an independent spectacular action movie with humor and an unconventional romantic line, based on real events. Texas cop Gary Johnson works undercover, portraying himself as a killer, taking complex orders and surrendering to the authorities customers and their victims, if they are involved in crimes.

But one day he is approached by a woman unlike his usual clients. It’s just a damsel in distress, who decided to get rid of a terrible husband. And for the first time Gary thinks about the fact that this order would be good to fulfill for real.

The movie premiered at the 80th Venice Film Festival and is distributed through Netflix.

Hidden Strike

IMDB Rating – 5.3
Genre: Action, Comedy
Production: China, USA / 2023
Budget: $80,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $2,155,243
Director: Scott Wo
Starring: Jackie Chan, John Cina, Ma Chunzhui, Jiang Wenli, Xu Jia, Gong Jun, Rima Zeidan, Hou Minhao, Pilu Asbeck, Amadeus Serafini

In Russian cinemas in the summer of 2023, an action movie with Jackie Chan, the second of his two films this year, appeared in Russian cinemas. The first one, “Kung Fu Stallion,” audiences could watch already in early May, and we have a review of the movie “Kung Fu Stallion.” “Cooler Than Nothing” is an ommage to old action movies with corny stories and stubbornly unwilling to give up on movie stars in the sunset of their careers. They can still please, squeeze out a nostalgic smile and a stingy tear, but they are obviously losing ground, alas.

The events take place in the not-too-distant future. Former Marine Chris (John Cena) teams up with Chinese Feng (Jackie Chan) to free civilians captured by international criminals in another war for oil.

For the role of Chris was invited Sylvester Stallone, but he refused.

Men qian bao di

IMDB Rating – 5.8
Genre: Action
Production: China / 2023
Director: Xu Haofeng, Xu Junfeng
Starring: Jackie Hyun, Bea Hayden Ko, Andy He, Xu Changchu, Kevin Li, Li Yuan, Mao Tao

“100 Yards” or “Men qian bao di” is a wonderful modern Chinese martial arts movie. This movie has a lot of beautiful fights and quite an interesting plot, diligently exploring the nature of human and social conflicts, without ceasing to show a spectacular mauling. And there is no villain, as such, in the script.

The old owner of a wushu school dies. His son planned to connect his future with banking. But when he fights with his father’s best student for the leadership over the school and loses, either envy or pride awakens in the boy and he decides to fight for his inheritance. Chaos ensues in the city, fueled by the two young wushu fighters in their endless attempts to snatch victory from each other.

The film has toured several prestigious festivals it has been invited to and is being released in theaters worldwide in the fall of 2023.

Extraction 2

IMDB Rating – 7.0
Genre: Action, Crime
Production: USA / 2023
Director: Sam Hargrave
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani, Tornike Gogrichiani, Tinatin Dalakishvili, Andro Japaridze, Adam Bessa, Dato Bakhtadze, Tornike Bziava, Olga Kurylenko, Idris Elba.

The sequel to the movie with the same title of 2020, which outraged viewers with the number of murders (183) and scenes of outright brutality, but became the most popular original movie on Netflix – another portion of the adventures of mercenary Tyler Rake, played by Chris Hemsworth.

Having miraculously survived the tumultuous events of the first movie, unfolding in Bangladesh, Tyler falls into a coma, and when he wakes up, does not want to return to a dangerous profession. However, he has to accept a mission to save the family of a brutal gangster, which is threatened by vigilantes from around the world.

The movie is based on the graphic novel Ciudad. A third Reika movie is planned for release in 2025.

The Killer

IMDB Rating – 7.4
Genre: Action, Thriller, Drama, Crime, Detective, Adventure
Production: USA / 2023
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Monique Ganderton, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Carrie O’Malley, Sala Baker, Lacey Dover, Monica Gossmann, Kellan Rood

David Fincher’s new movie is an adaptation of Jacquemond and Nolen’s comic books, a conversational noir about a killer (played perfectly by Michael Fassbender) who is fed up with everything. He doesn’t shut up for a minute, waiting for his victim, telling everything in the world: how his back is stiff, where he last ate, how he chose his image.

All this is interspersed with sarcastic remarks-observations about the world around him and reflections on how bad everything is. And all this talk – without taking a break from his bloody business, which the protagonist is dead tired of, but he knows nothing else in life.

On November 10, this movie is released on Netflix.

Farang

IMDB Rating – 6.7
Genre: Action, Thriller
Production: France / 2023
Worldwide Box Office: $1,530,822
Director: Xavier Jeans
Starring: Nassim Sy Ahmed, Lorin Nune, Olivier Gourmet, Chananticha Tan-kwa, Vithaya Pansringarm, Sahayak Boonthanakit, Gigi Velisitat, Kenneth Vaughn

French action movie tells about a former criminal Sam, who safely buried his dirty past somewhere far away and, having killed one of his “benefactors” gangsters, escaped to Thailand. Here he fell in love, started a family and engaged in an exceptionally honest job.

However, his happiness did not last long. After five years of quiet life, a single careless act puts Sam in the crosshairs of the local mafia and creates a situation that threatens the lives of his loved ones. And, by the looks of it, he’ll have to run away from his problems again.

Dogman

IMDB Rating – 6.7
Genre: Action
Production: France / 2023
Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Marisa Berenson, Christopher Denham, Clemens Schick, Michael Garza, Jojo T. Gibbs, Avan Strangel, William Sciortino, John Charles Aguilar

After a 3-year break, Luc Besson is back on the stage of world cinema with his hard-hitting dramatic action movie “Dogman”. This is the story of a boy named Douglas, the son of a disgusting father who organizes underground dog fights and locks his son in a cage to keep him out of the way.

Douglas has grown up a withdrawn kid who is only good at finding language with dogs. He is an outcast and a fugitive who stands up for his life every day, becoming the literal leader of the dog pack he cares for. But one day Douglas has to get into a confrontation with a brutal bandit, who decided to take over the whole town.

Plane

IMDB Rating – 6.5
Genre: Action, Thriller
Production: UK, USA / 2022
Budget: $25,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $74,191,973
Director: Jean-Francois Richet
Starring: Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Tony Goldwyn, Yoson Anh, Evean Dane Taylor, Paul Ben-Victor, Daniella Pineda, Lilly Circle, Kelly Gale, Otis Winston.

Brody Torrence is a former military pilot working for a private airline. He takes a flight to Honolulu, anticipating an imminent meeting with his daughter. On board the airplane, in addition to the usual passengers, is a rebel Luis, who is convoyed to the place of the court.

Over one of the Philippine islands, where lawlessness and bandit lawlessness reign, the airliner gets into a storm and falls. Brody and Luis become the hope of the survivors – only they are able to resist the bandits who want to take people as hostages.

The film is based on the book by Charles Cumming, and there are plans for a sequel centered on Louis’ adventures.

To Catch A Killer

IMDB Rating – 6.6
Genre: Action, Thriller, Drama, Crime, Detective
Production: USA, Canada / 2022
Worldwide Box Office: $3,091,926
Director: Damian Cifron
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo, Ralph Ineson, Richard Zeman, Dusan Dukic, Jason Cavalier, Nick Walker, Darcy Laurie, Mark Camacho

Sharp crime thriller tells the story of a maniacal sniper who harvests a bloody harvest in Baltimore on New Year’s Eve, masking the shots with the rumble of holiday fireworks. The FBI launches an investigation that yields no results.

Finally, young police officer Eleanor Falco gets her first lead. But the killer again commits a series of murders in the mall, and now the police will face a race against time and a tough confrontation with a cold-blooded professional.

The Covenant

IMDB Rating – 7.5
Genre: Action, Thriller, Military, History, Drama
Production: UK, Spain, USA / 2022
Budget: $55,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $21,632,392
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Saleem, Jonny Lee Miller, Alexander Ludwig, Anthony Starr, Emily Beacham, Jason Wong, Sean Sagar, Reese Yates, Christian Ochoa.

A military-political action movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal. His hero, special forces officer John Kinley, serves in Afghanistan in 2018. During an ambush set up by the Taliban, a local resident who works as a translator for Kinley is killed.

The new interpreter does not inspire confidence in John. Ahmed Abdullah is a cunning man working solely for money, with connections in the Taliban, from which he had defected a little earlier. However, when John’s squad gets into a dangerous situation, Ahmed, risking himself, saves Kinley and his soldiers. Soon the commando returns home, but when he learns that Ahmed is in trouble, he goes back to Afghanistan to save the man to whom he owes his life.

Kandahar

IMDB Rating – 6.0
Genre: Action, Thriller
Production: USA, Saudi Arabia / 2022
Worldwide Box Office: $9,189,524
Director: Rick Roman Waugh
Starring: Gerard Butler, Navid Negahban, Travis Fimmel, Bahador Foladi, Ali Fazal, Tom Rhys Harris, Farhad Bagheri, Mitchell LaFortune, Mark Arnold, Nina Toussaint-White

Tom Harris is a CIA operative who conducts a dangerous mission in Iran to destroy a nuclear reactor. Having successfully accomplished the task, he agrees to help his handler Roman, who asks him to work undercover and deal with problems in Afghanistan.

When Tom finds himself already inside a hostile country, his true identity becomes known to all parties, forcing him into save-your-life mode. Tom has less and less time to make it to the emergency evacuation point in Kandahar, and it’s not certain that even there he won’t be overtaken by an enemy bullet.

This is only the second American movie to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia.

Expend4bles

IMDB Rating – 5.2
Genre: Action
Production: USA / 2023
Budget: $120,000,000
USA: $8,039,021
Director: Scott Waugh
Starring: Jason Statham, Fifty Saint, Megan Fox, Sylvester Stallone, Andy Garcia, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jha, Iko Weiss, Randy Couture, Jacob Scipio

In September 2023, Russian cinemas are screening the next film in the “Unstoppable” franchise, a popular series of powerful American action movies. The mercenary squad is undergoing some changes. Barney Ross gives leadership to Lee Christmas, and there are several new fighters in the group.

“Unstoppable” has a new mission that could end in nuclear war. The task turns out to be almost impossible. Having lost the newcomers, the old guys and Ross himself, Christmas must sneak into the enemy’s lair alone to save the world once again.

In terms of box office receipts, Part 4 was the worst in the franchise, failing at the box office and garnering a lot of negative criticism.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Genre: Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Drama, Adventure, Military
Production: USA / 2023
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Rachel Segler, Hunter Schafer, Tom Blyth, Kjell Brutscheidt, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis, Bern Gorman, Finola Flanagan.

Another adaptation of Susan Collins’ book is a sci-fi action thriller, the gripping story of teenager Coriolanus Snow, who in the future is to take over the presidency of Panem, becoming a calculating dictator. This movie is a prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy.

Young Coriolanus is chosen to mentor the next Hunger Games. Coriolanus’ partner becomes Lucy Gray, a girl who loves snakes. Between them begins a romantic relationship, which will end in a real disaster and largely form the cruel character of the future president.

The movie is set for release in November 2023 and is one of the most anticipated of the season.

Knox Goes Away

Genre: Thriller
Production: USA / 2023
Director: Michael Keaton
Starring: Michael Keaton, Al Pacino, James Marsden, Marcia Gay Harden, Ray McKinnon, Dennis Dugan, John Hoogenecker, Lila Loren, Yoanna Kulig, Suzy Nakamura

The movie “Knox Goes Away” is a fresh directorial effort from Michael Keaton, who played himself in the movie, inviting his buddy Al Pacino as well. Once again, the talented and famous old guys give the heat, portraying brutal and invincible.

Keaton plays an aging hitman with dementia, John Knox, who plans to retire and quietly live out the rest of his years. But these rosy dreams are cut short in the harshest possible way by his estranged son Michael, who asks his father for salvation from corrupt cops. With nothing to do, Knox calls his buddy Xavier and tries to deal with the situation the best way he knows how – with a gun.

This is Keaton’s second film, 13 years after his first, 2008’s The Merry Gentleman.

The Tomorrow Job

IMDB Rating – 5.0
Genre: Action, Fantastic
Production: USA / 2023
Worldwide Box Office: $67,094
Director: Bruce Wemple
Starring: Grant Schumacher, Caitlin Duffy, Ariella Mastroianni, Chris Simperman, George Kat, Andrew Gombas, LeJohn Woods, Catherine Daddario, William Champion, Rick Montgomery Jr.

Independent sci-fi action movie tells about an unusual team of thieves who use a special drug to travel an hour into the future and steal something.

Lee Warner and his two accomplices Finn and Sophia have worked out a series of strict rules not to violate any laws of physics and guaranteed to go back. But one day they have competitors led by the evil, cunning Darrick, who decides to get his hands on all the ampoules with the miracle drug.

Bruce Wemple, idea writer, screenwriter and director, has been writing and producing independent films since 2016.

Heart of Stone

IMDB Rating – 5.7
Genre: Action, Crime
Production: USA / 2023
Director: Tom Harper
Starring: Gal Gadot, Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Matthias Schweighöfer, Sophie Okonedo, Paul Rady, Lu Sijing, B.D. Wong, Glenn Close, Mark Ivanir

In the summer of 2023, an action movie was released on Netflix that is slated to become an entire franchise if it wins the love of viewers. It seems that hopes are not going to come to fruition. Viewers and critics agree that this is an average, rather formulaic action movie, the continuation of which no one is interested in.

At the center of the plot is Rachel Stone, an MI6 operative who works undercover and uses powerful artificial intelligence to accomplish tasks. Soon begins a mission to capture the famous arms dealer Mulvaney, which fails due to the suicide of the criminal, and one of the operatives is captured. And only Stone can bail him out without revealing himself.

The movie was filmed in Reykjavik, London and Lisbon.