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The 20 Best Action Movies Of 2018

5. “You Were Never Really Here” – The Rescue and Brothel Rampage
Lynne Ramsay’s impressionistic odyssey into the discordant mind of a traumatized soul mires the viewer in stark brutality throughout. Yet, Ramsay focuses less on the physical impact of the carnage her protagonist Joe (a haunted Joaquin Phoenix) can inflict than the emotional scars grafted onto his psyche. As a result, Ramsay never fetishizes the violence. The film’s centerpiece follows Joe as he infiltrates a child sex ring to rescue Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), laying waste to the pedophilic “customers” in his path. A lesser director might choose to gratuitously linger on the carnage. Rather, Lynne Ramsay frames the action through grainy, eerily silent surveillance camera footage, creating a distancing effect. The frenzied swings of Joe’s hammer are enough to inform the viewer of his capacity for destruction. In never sensationalizing the violence, Ramsay zeroes the focus on the victims. Joe’s trauma has long since seared into his being, but Nina’s is a fresh burn. “Close your eyes,” says Joe before dispatching one last “customer.” Ramsay cuts before the hammer strikes, but Nina’s open eyes see everything the audience doesn’t. Ramsay silently comments on the cost of violence. Nina may have been rescued, but everything she saw and felt in this moment has opened a new wound on her damaged spirit. – Ted Silva

4. “The Night Comes For Us– The Operator vs Two Assassins
Blindfold yourself, wait however long you like, and throw a dart at the screen of Indonesian helmer Timo Tjahjanto’s Netflix movie “The Night Comes For Us” and you will hit a batshit crazy, spectacularly choreographed action scene that likely gave a camera operator permanent whiplash and will dazzle and throw you for a loop. Made by many of the same people that brought you “The Raid” film (the same company, producers, most of the same actors, etc.), while Gareth Evans doesn’t direct the film, but he might as well have—“The Night Comes For Us” is cut from the exact same cloth. While it’s low on story—an ex Triad enforcer turns his back on his former life as a killer to rescue a young girl—and doesn’t have much to say, Tjahjanto’s fight sequences throughout are death-defyingly outlandish. It’s hard to pick just one sequence—they’re all variations on, “holy shit how did they do that?!?,” but the fight between the Operator (Julie Estelle) versus the two deadly female assassins—wicked, ridiculous and gruesome—is next level. “The Raid” set the bar for international action. With “The Night Comes For Us,” they up the dosage and do a triple backflip over it. – RP
(note this clip is grisly and deeply NSFW)

3. “Suspiria” – Dance/Torture Scene
Luca Guadagnino’s gloriously gory and absorbing “Suspiria” remake faced myriad expectations, but one of the most crucial questions was, how it might outdo the memorably over-the-top violence of the original Dario Argento 1977 classic. The paint-soaked blood is as iconic as any eye-popping Technicolor set, and the film’s masterful balance of beauty and bleakness helped make it so acclaimed. Thankfully, that incredible mix of horror and high art is found in a number of shocking and incredible manners throughout this worthy remake, but perhaps no more so than a sequence in which art and terror are interconnected in splendid and terrifying ways. As Dakota Johnson’s Susie Bannion becomes more ingrained in the dark magic found in the Markos Dance Academy, her dancing takes on supernatural powers. As she spins and moves, the tortured body of another dancer, in an adjacent room, gets contorted and distorted in explicit fashion. Removing itself entirely from the romanticism of the original, this sequence is one of the most violent, brutal cinematic moments of the year. And yet, through the appropriately bewitching dancing that takes afoot, you are spellbound, unable to look away from the great art and great evil that co-exist. It is an astonishing moment, and it is the moment that “Suspiria” (2018) firmly proves its equal greatness to its predecessor, much like how this version of Susie Bannion finally proves herself to her instructors. You’ll never think of the phrase “blood, sweat, and tears” in the same way again. – WA

2. “Avengers: Infinity War” – The Battle on Titan
The Russo Brothers did what people thought untenable—assemble dozens of heroes in one film, all fighting to stop a purple bad guy from collecting gems to put on his glove, and actually make it seem realistic, emotional, and above all, entertaining. “Avengers: Infinity War” did that in spades, and if you have to choose one action scene of entire film to show exactly how well it all comes together, then the Battle on Titan is a clear choice. The battle and its goal is simple— the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange have to take on one man, wearing a gauntlet of immeasurable power. What ensues is 10 minutes of absolute pitch-perfect action, incredible special effects, and character moments that pay off lofty promises made a decade ago when Nick Fury told Tony Stark that he was part of a much bigger world. Multiple superpowers are on display, and many in unique and fascinating combinations, such as Doctor Strange opening portals for Spider-Man to teleport through to sucker punch Thanos (while also delivering quips). There’s Iron Man throwing an entire building on Thanos, who then pays it back by literally breaking apart a Moon and heaving it at our beloved heroes. But it’s not all spectacle that makes the jaw-dropping Battle worth the price of admission alone. No, there are emotional character moments, such as the now-infamous Star-Lord scene, where he finds that Gamora (his love) is dead and he makes a hasty, passionate decision that very well probably caused 50% of the life in the universe to die. We could fill a full list of 20 breathtaking moments just from this scene alone. Now, let’s see if they can top it in the ‘Endgame.’ – CB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qfPrsyFmiw

1. “Mission: Impossible – Fallout– The Helicopter Chase, But Also Maybe The Entire Movie
The best action scene of 2018 arguably lasted for nearly two-and-a-half hours, and no one complained one iota about it. The sixth installment in the “Mission: Impossible” series saw director Chris McQuarrie and star Tom Cruise throw caution to the wind and stage some of the most high-octane, genuinely dangerous, makes-you-want-to-applaud-and-vomit-simultaneously action of the decade. To say the film is a masterclass in kinetic, artistic action would be an understatement. You can look at the prolonged sequence from the skydiving-with-lightning cataclysm into Paris, the bathroom brouhaha with shotgun-pumping arms of Henry Cavill and shattered porcelain, the defiant London run, and the mesmerizing imagined ambush sequence told through a singular POV to support your claims here. It’s all bare-knuckled, spine-grabbing movie magic that feels very real, perilous, and intense. Though, the film’s extended and explosive finale, a helicopter duel that cascades onto a fight on a cliff all while other folks on Ethan Hunt’s team are trying to diffuse biological weapons, might be your best example of just how rare it is to stage so much mayhem at once, how to leverage the expansion of time with editing, and do with such viscera and artfulness. It’s a seemingly impossible feat, effortlessly pulled off like the most professional and competent magic trick. – CW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37hzucxGLy4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSRCm5QPozY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRXyf7Iwqes

Honorable Mention
Of course, there’s plenty of other scenes that almost made the cut, namely, the first fight in the ring in “A Prayer For The Dying“; “The Commuter” guitar fight is a lot of fun; the preposterousness of The Rock leaping off a crane into a burning building in “Skyscraper“; the bike paint chase and the backpack theft in “Tomb Raider” are both aces; all the racing scenes in “Ready Player One“; the characters slipping around in blood in “Revenge“; the opening volcano explosion of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom“; the one-take stab frenzy of “Halloween”; plenty of scenes in the Filipino action thriller “Buybust”; myriad scenes of people almost getting eaten in “The Meg“; the chainsaw fight in “Mandy”; the harrowing suicide bomber scene at the grocery store in “Sicario 2” and the riding-the-dog, chasing-down-Hugh-Grant-through-London sequence in “Paddington 2.” You must have thoughts and you know where to put ‘em.

Click here for our complete coverage of the best and worst of 2018.

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