5 Films Featuring the Most Badass Action Heroes

What does it take to stand out in a movie world filled with superheroes?

Apr 11, 2023

There is only one reason to label a character a true “badass” movie hero—and that is to triumph against overwhelming odds. No. Wait. That is not enough. It can’t just be about crushing masses of bad guys, that happens in every Marvel movie. No. There must be more than trashing CGI-generated armies of goons. The fight must make your heart race and want to stand-up right in the middle of the movie theater and cheer. This is one of the hallmarks of truly great filmmaking—bringing together sight, sound, character, and narrative driving an audience crazy.

Badass movie heroes are a lot like mass murder and mayhem—but for a purpose. For example, take the action-hero Bruce Willis film Last Man Standing (1996) directed by one of the industry’s best, Walter Hill. The movie is an adaption of Akira Kurosawa’s classic samurai film Yojimbo (1961). Bruce is outnumbered by a whole town full of gangsters and he cuts them down to a man. Yet, the film is super boring. Why? Because Bruce is in it for Bruce. We want our badass heroes not to just succeed, but to do it for us.

So, what makes for a magic badass hero? Well, for starters there are genres that simply demand them. So that is where we went to look for the best of the best. We picked one from each kind of film that simply demands larger than life heroes.

Superhero movies, by the way, don’t cut it. Those guys and girls cheat. They have superpowers. Only folks of flesh and blood can truly be part of the transcendent badass movie best.

Let’s look at the films that truly make the grade.

#5. Blood of the Dragon (1971)

What kind of badass movie list would not include a Kung Fu hero? For sure, the obvious choice would be Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973), the film that made him an international superstar. To be fair, Lee had help—John Saxon and Jim Kelly. A true badass does it all by themselves.

The better choice is Jimmy Wang Yu as the silver spear, a spear-for-higher-mercenary that pretty much wipes out the entire emperor’s army when they try to take the list of rebels he safeguards with his life. Every great Kung Fu movie has a great tea house scene. This has the tea house slaughter of all times.

#4. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Westerns are also part of the badass movie universe. Virtually every Clint Eastwood film with the exception of The Beguiled (1971) might qualify as a badass movie hero film, but honestly none compare to Josey Wales as a fugitive chased across Indian territory who encounters ever greater adversarial numbers until he faces a one man Little Big Horn.

There were actually really fighters like Wales in the old west, one of the most notable was John Coffee Hays, who once single-handily fought off an entire Comanche war party.

#3. Walking Tall (1973)

Crime films are another place to look for real badass heroes. No film stands taller than Walking Tall. Sorry, not the remake with the Rock, Dwayne Johnson (2004) but the original where a rural sheriff takes on all the bad guys, basically with a club.

#2. Kelly’s Heroes (1970)

War films are another place where we love to see larger than life heroes. Clint Eastwood is back, this time leading a crew of oddballs behind enemy lines in search of a cache of gold.

Basically, The Dirty Dozen (1967), but way more fun. Not to think war heroes are bigger than life, The Dirty Dozen was actually based on a real military unit that fought during World War II.

#1. Lone Wolf and Cub (1970)

Of course, no list of badass movies is complete without a samurai film. Sure, the default pick is another Kurosawa classic, The Seven Samurai (1954), which was remade into a classic badass western The Magnificent Seven (1960), not the lame remake (2016). We can do better. Ogami Itto is a disgraced samurai who wanders the countryside out for vengeance, pushing a baby cart with his 3-year-old son. In this and its five sequels, it’s all mayhem and slaughter no matter what the odds.

You might have noticed that all off these picks are films from the 1970s. In an age of turmoil, and political and social change, is it not to be expected going to the movies, people would be eager for larger than life characters that could right all the wrongs? We want our heroes to win awesome style, for us, because we can’t. We want really big heroes most—when we can’t seem to find them in real life.

Given all that is going on in the world today, maybe the badass movie hero is poised for a big comeback. Maybe that explains Top Gun Maverick and John Wick 4.