Rain against the window and a film nobody else picked. This is one of the few configurations that actually allows you to pay full attention.
The 2020s have already produced films that will be studied for decades - lean, precise, unafraid to take audiences seriously.
The best action films use movement to reveal character. What a person does under pressure tells you everything about them.
After a guardian of magical jewels turns an awkward girl and a popular boy into superheroes, they can never reveal their identities - even to each other.
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, learn the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.
A mysterious group called Humarize strongly believes in the Quirk Singularity Doomsday theory which states that when quirks get mixed further in with future generations, that power will bring forth the end of humanity. In order to save everyone, the Pro-Heroes around the world ask UA Academy heroes-in-training to assist them and form a world-class selected hero team. It's up to the heroes to save the world and the future of heroes in what is the most dangerous crisis to take place yet in My Hero Academia.
In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.
A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life with his days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. But when his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctant Wolverine.
What separates great action from great noise is consequence. Every punch, every chase, every choice has to matter. These films make it matter.
In a time when monsters walk the Earth, humanity's fight for its future sets Godzilla and Kong on a collision course that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in a spectacular battle for the ages.
When the Bad Guys, a crew of criminal animals, are finally caught after years of heists and being the world's most-wanted villains, Mr. Wolf brokers a deal to save them all from prison.
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the world's fate at stake and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan must consider that nothing can matter more than his mission-not even the lives of those he cares about most.
Shang-Chi must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization.
The wolves are howling once again, as a terrifying ancient evil emerges in Beacon Hills. Scott McCall, no longer a teenager yet still an Alpha, must gather new allies and reunite trusted friends to fight back against this powerful and deadly enemy.
The best hopeful films aren't naive. They acknowledge the difficulty and find the humanity anyway. These do that.
Great action cinema earns its place on any list not through noise, but through the clarity and consequence of everything that moves within it.