The best action movies on Prime Video Australia
Assassins, adventurers, superheroes, cops, spies…Prime Video’s got ’em all.
From assassins to adventurers, superheroes, spies and more—here’s a selection of the very best action movies now streaming on Prime Video, picked by critic Luke Buckmaster.
See also
* Best new movies & series on Prime Video
* All new streaming movies & series
Civil War (2023)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOAlex Garland’s dystopian vision of a violently besieged America feels more like a premonition than a fever dream. This one-of-a-kind disaster movie, about a small group of journalists travelling to war-ravaged Washington to try to interview the President, has an electrically unsettling energy, exploiting the shared contemporary feeling that humanity is heading cataclysmic or even apocalyptic events. The gap between this world and ours feels dangerously small.
The Dark Knight (2008)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOWhen you remember Christopher Nolan’s second Batman movie your mind goes straight to Heath Ledger and his amazingly theatrical interpretation of the Joker. Ledger really gets the film smoking: every appearance is high voltage, every scene electrifies. Like other middle-trilogy classics such as The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight has no real beginning or end. But as a collection of scenes, it’s one hell of a showcase.
Deepwater Horizon (2016)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOPeter Berg’s riveting, pressure-packed dramatisation of America’s worst oil spill is The Towering Inferno for a new generation, with a politically salient message against oil companies and a strong leading performance from Mark Wahlberg as a technician fighting to save himself and his colleagues. What could be more American than a disaster movie about workers scrambling to save their lives because of multinational corporations making cost-cutting decisions?
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOTom Cruise plays an alien-fighting US solider who cannot die and experiences the same day over and over, Groundhog Day style, in Doug Liman’s rootin’-tootin’ video game-esque sci-fi . The fight/die/repeat format keeps a ferocious pace and doubles as a comment on the infallibility of the Hollywood hero.
The General (1926)
Watch on Prime VideoNobody who’s watched Buster Keaton balancing precariously on a cowcatcher at the front of a train could ever forget that image; it is an everlasting imprint from one of cinema’s first action-comedy masterpieces. In his magnum opus the brilliant comedian trots off to the Civil War as a train engineer, chasing enemy troops and thwarting their attempts to derail him—while of course performing virtuoso slapstick.
Gladiator (2000)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThe roar of the crowd in Ridley Scott’s hell-unleashing swords and sandals epic isn’t just the sound of people clamouring for spectacle, but a through line to the film’s core political message: about wielding power by winning over over the masses. A mustily styled worn-in look gives the clanging steel and spurting blood a credible veneer, and a pacey momentum compensates for a very chunky running time.
The Green Knight (2021)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEODavid Lowery’s balls to the wall fantasy film begins with Dev Patel’s face exploding into fire—and gets better from there. Patel’s mission to confront the eponymous character is cinematic in a dreamily medieval way, with mist-ensconced mountains and candle-lit castles a-plenty. Lowery is unafraid to hold the frame, deploying ravishing long takes that explore and extend the space.
Heathers (1998)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOA comedy so dark the prefix “black” barely begins to cut it. Michael Lehmann’s cult movie is up there with Election and Mean Girls as one of the great high school-set comedies—but with a more potent air of irreverence. Winona Ryder joins a clique of students called the Heathers while Christian Slater plays the demon on her shoulder, encouraging her to commit dastardly deeds.
Hulk (2003)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOAng Lee’s neglected 2003 superhero movie—starring Eric Bana as the bright green and famously intemperate protagonist—is languidly paced and overlong. But visually it dares to be different, with inventive split-screens and box-like compositions that embrace the comic book aesthetic, suggesting ways this genre could have had a unique cinematic style.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThe second Hunger Games movie evokes a thoroughly menaced tone: the world is broken; people are pushing back; revolution is in the air. Despair and cynicism infuse everything—even the relationship between Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss and Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta, who are used as propaganda tools by the state. They’re sent back into the death tournament arena, where Katniss rises from celebrity contestant to mythical saviour.
Inception (2010)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOChristopher Nolan’s penchant for grandly staged action, combined with a fun multi-dimensional twist, takes the well-worn “dream within a dream” concept to exhilarating places, tiering an espionage narrative with matryoshka doll layers of realities inside realities. Leonardo DiCaprio’s dream-penetrating thief had to go deep inside his own consciousness to prevail—but is he still in some outer realm of the cosmos, watching a spinning top wobble?
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOQuentin Tarantino’s seventh film begins with vintage monologues from Christoph Waltz and culminates with an explode-a-palooza of historical revisionism, the cinema itself the very venue for the demise of Adolf Hitler. Tarantino’s penchant for pop-art cinephilia is on full delirious display, sprucing up a stop-start narrative about—as Brad Pitt so eloquently puts it—”killin’ Nazis.”
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThis audaciously long screwballian classic jumps to life when a group of strangers listen to a dying man talking about buried treasure. The race begins to get it, triggering plotlines all about motion and travelling—by plane, car, truck, foot, girls bicycle, etcetera, often leading to cartoony crash-bang spectacle. Sharp-tongued characters scramble and scheme, giving everything for money that might not exist.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThe third instalment of Peter Jackson’s dizzying Lord of the Rings trilogy is where the shit really goes down, delivering moments of screen-crunching spectacle that bring to a head tonnes of plotlines and backstories. But this choice represents all three films, which are magnificent as a set but flawed in different ways: the first has a lagging setup; the second doesn’t have an ending; the finale has about a dozen.
Love Lies Bleeding (2023)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEORose Glass’ noirish revenge drama starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian as doomed lovers is spunky and sassy as all get-out, dripping with steamy, sweaty, lurid energy. Its plotline springs into gear when O’Brian committs a bloody crime and Stewart’s gym manager helps her dispose the body. Things gather roaring momentum, all the way to a spectacularly strange—and inevitably divisive—finale.
Mad Dog Morgan (1976)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEODennis Hopper’s behind-the-scenes antics during the making of this hardboiled, bush-set Australian classic are legendary; the film itself is pretty wild too. It starts slow but gathers momentum as Hopper’s outlaw protagonist is pursued by authorities, the net closing in, and the ensuing fight ballooning his folk hero status.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThe pace of George Miller’s third Mad Max sequel is beyond frenetic: this sonic-speed symphony of combustion roars out of the gates and never slows down. Tom Hardy defies expectations, bringing a revitalised Max Rockatanksy into the 21st century. But Charlize Theron steals the show as Imperator Furiosa.
The Man From Hong Kong (1975)
Watch on Prime VideoBefore there was Mad Max, there was Brian Trenchard-Smith’s chopsocky Australian action movie—which contains a tremendous eight-a-half minute car chase that must have inspired George Miller and his road warrior. Jimmy Wang Yu plays a kind of Chinese Dirty Harry, infiltrating a crime network run by George Lazenby. From the opening scene Trenchard-Smith directs with jaunty, rhythmic gusto.
Man on Fire (2004)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOEven by Tony Scott’s excessive standards, this Denzel Washington-led hostage action-thriller is hopped-up and hyper frenetic. Washington plays Creasy, a private body guard for a cute little girl who gets nabbed under his watch. They bonded, so This Time It’s Personal. The film is overlong but delivers cold, hard, grunt-filled action with unrelenting force.
The Mask (1994)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOProduced in the giddy era of 90s Jim Carrey comedies, the star’s rubber-faced antics inform the tone and even the aesthetic of this stupidly enjoyable film about a mild-mannered bank clerk who dons a magical mask and becomes a kind of live action cartoon—as Carrey always was. It’s a Jekyll and Hyde story and, in today’s context, a kind of anti-superhero movie, the protagonist transforming into a human pogo stick wreaking Looney Tunes style carnage.
The Revenant (2015)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOLeonardo DiCaprio has never copped it harder than in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s neo-western survival flick: he’s beaten, slashed, shot, mauled, frozen, buried alive, flung off a cliff…and that’s just the first 30 minutes. Emmanuel Lubezki’s strikingly immersive camera work follows poor Leo in close proximity, as he embarks on quest for revenge against rotten old Tom Hardy, slogging his way through American wilderness circa 1823.
Sicario (2015)
Watch on Prime VideoThe words “Benicio del Toro” and “Mexican drug cartel movie” go together like a horse and cart. The actor’s sleepy menace is on fine display in Denis Villeneuve’s dark story about dodgy cops, moral quandaries and Emily Blunt trying to make sense of it all as an FBI agent. Blunt has a lessy showy role but is a commanding anchor.
Snowpiercer (2013)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOA train whizzing around a dystopian climate change-devastated future world becomes a vehicle for class allegory in Bong Joon-ho’s English language debut. Instead of extreme inequality being represented in vertical spatial arrangements (like in Fritz Lang’s classic Metropolis) it’s horizontal, with Chris Evans—relegated to the impoverished back of the train—mounting an uprising and violently pushing forward to the front.
Turkey Shoot (1982)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOBefore The Hunger Games, Battle Royale and Squid Game, Australia launched its own death tournament extravaganza, shot out of the canon of the Ozploitation movement. Brian Trenchard-Smith combines Orwellian ideas with midnight movies vibes in his story of so-called “social deviants” who scramble for life and limb, chased by well-to-do elites hunting them for sport.
Titles are added and removed from his page to reflect changes Prime Video’s catalogue. Reviews no longer available on this page can be found here.
