When Keanu Reeves signed on to star in the action movie John Wick, there was a chance it could end up as yet another low-budget, straight-to-video action flick. However, thanks to inventive filmmaking and a great turn from Reeves, the movie was a surprise hit, bringing the movie star back into the spotlight.
Of course, Keanu Reeves isn’t the first movie star to make a triumphant return as a new-era action hero. John Wick also isn’t the first straight action movie to become a successful franchise. Here is a look at 10 more action movies to watch if you loved John Wick.
THE EQUALIZER (2014)
Denzel Washington starred in The Equalizer in 2014, a remake of a classic television series that starred Edward Woodward. The film saw Washington re-teaming with director Antoine Fuqua, who led Washington to an Oscar for Training Day.
This movie sees Washington as Robert McCall, a retired Marine and former Defense Intelligence Agency officer who takes his specialized skills and uses them to help people in need. A sequel was released in 2018.
SPEED (1994)
John Wick wasn’t the first time that Keanu Reeves took on the role of an action hero. While he was a hitman — one of the best in the world at what he does — in John Wick, two decades before, he was on the other side of the law.
In Speed, Reeves starred as Jack Traven, an LAPD SWAT officer who found himself aboard a bus that would blow up if it moved slower than 50 mph. In a very impressive feat, Speed proved that a film that took place on a bus could be just as tense and action-packed as any blockbuster action movie.
JACK REACHER (2012)
While fans of the famous Lee Child novels were not happy with the casting of Tom Cruise as the title character, Jack Reacher ended up as a fun action movie with one of the best movie stars in the world leading the way. Much of the success also has to go to director Christopher McQuarrie, one of the best action directors working today.
Jack Reacher is a former military police officer in the U.S. Army who always seems to get into trouble. Cruise and McQuarrie also worked together on two Mission: Impossible movies, including the best in the series, Mission: Impossible - Fallout in 2018. A sequel arrived in 2016.
LA FEMME NIKITA (1990)
In 1990, action movie maestro Luc Besson released one of his best movies in the crime film La Femme Nikita. The movie stars Anne Parillaud as a hitwoman named Nikita. She was arrested as a child for murder and was given the chance to live if she became an assassin.
Nikita then took on intense training and became one of the top assassins in the world. However, when a mission at the embassy goes wrong, Nikita finds herself fighting for her life. The movie ended up with two different TV series adaptations.
THE MATRIX (1999)
Keanu Reeves enjoyed his biggest success as an action hero in the 1999 movie The Matrix, a science fiction action movie that saw Reeves living in a world that turned out to be completely fake. Computers defeated the humans on Earth and had taken over, using humans as batteries, while leaving them in a dream world created by the machines.
When Neo learns the truth, he is brought back by a rebellion that lives under the surface of the Earth. The sequels took the movie to a complex level, with many fans tuning out, but the original film was one of the best action movies of all time.
MAN ON FIRE (2004)
The late Tony Scott directed Denzel Washington in the 2004 action movie Man on Fire. This movie, adapted from a 1980 novel by A.J. Quinnell, saw Washington star as John, a former U.S. Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance officer who runs a security firm in Mexico.
A wealthy businessman hires him to protect his nine-year-old daughter Pita (Dakota Fanning). After she is kidnapped under his watch, John sets out to find and rescue her by any means necessary.
WANTED (2008)
In the case of Wanted, the 2008 movie is based on a comic book by Mark Millar. In the comic book story, there used to be superheroes in the world, but they are now extinct, as all the world’s villains teamed up to defeat and destroy them. Now, the criminals run the world from behind-the-scenes.
The son of one of the assassins joins the Fraternity, learning there is danger even when working on the side of the villains controlling the world. James McAvoy stars as Wesley, the young new member, while Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman headline the cast of assassins.
THE JACKAL (1997)
One of the more obscure movies on this list, The Jackal hit theaters in 1997 with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere starring. Willis is a professional hitman known as Jackal, one of the best in the world, when a high-level mobster hires him to kill the FBI Director.
There is one person who knows Jackal better than almost anyone, and the FBI turns to him, a former IRA sniper named Declan (Gere). Declan agrees in exchange for a possible release from prison and sets out to find and eliminate Jackal.
CRANK (2006)
One of the most surprising balls-to-the-wall action films of the century came in 2006 with Jason Statham’s Crank. The film, directed by the duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, had Statham star as a hitman named Chev Chelios, who works for a crime syndicate.
When Chev pulls off a hit for his boss, a younger hitman agrees to kill Chev to stop an all-out war. To do this, they inject him with a drug that will kill him when his heart drops below a specific rate, and he has to keep his adrenaline up as he looks for revenge and a possible cure.
DESPERADO (1995)
Fans who want to see a great crime movie should check out Robert Rodriquez’s debut film El Mariachi, a Spanish-language crime epic about a mariachi player who accidentally ends up with a guitar case full of guns. However, more accessible for U.S. viewers might be the sequel, Desperado.
Antonio Banderas steps into the role of the mariachi from the first movie. The lone mariachi player is on the search for Bucho to gain vengeance for the death of his girlfriend. Salma Hayek also stars in the film that helped turn Rodriguez into a powerhouse. There was also another sequel called Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
