The Best R Movies to Watch (+Mood: Action-packed)

The story of the Von Erich family is excruciatingly sad, but Iron Claw doesn’t dive right into the tragedy. Instead, it takes care to paint a picture of a close-knit family that’s filled with just as much warmth, jealousy, affection, and resentment as the next bunch. Durkin masterfully draws you into their circle so that […]

The journey of transitioning can be tough, but it’s not likely to be as wild as the journey undertaken by the titular rich mob boss of the crime thriller romance musical Emilia Pérez. It’s pretty surprising, with the incredibly stylish and totally unpredictable ways the plot unfolds, all made possible by the ridiculous all-or-nothing methods […]

The Order is set in the 1980s, but it may as well have taken place in the present; the terror of white supremacists and the desire to storm the Capitol are eerily relevant. However, as political as The Order is, it works better as a cop drama. Director Justin Kurzel has the thrill of the […]

Often deemed as South Asian John Wick, Monkey Man, of course, has plenty of the stylish action that’s been captivating today’s filmmakers and audiences alike. Dev Patel, now writing and directing alongside leading the film, created a crazy combination of action sequences that mess around with perspective, that’s fuelled by insane choreography, and that take […]

When it wants to be, City Hunter is a fun neon-lit buddy cop comedy that giddily and at times gorily takes us through the seedy underbelly of Tokyo. Leading man Ryo is charismatic, the perfect blend of cool and comedic, while leading woman Kaori is just as adept and charming. The film is also as […]

More shooting and spectacle than story, Sisu is a stunningly shot and unapologetically gory action film set at the tail end of World War II in Finland. It follows former commando turned prospector Aatami (nicknamed “Koschei” or immortal by the Russians) as he retrieves his stolen gold from the Nazis who’ve occupied and pillaged the […]

They Cloned Tyrone is a genre-bending gem. It combines Deep State conspiracy theories with sci-fi and social commentary, all while looking like a futuristic 1970s Blaxploitation film. It’s outrageous good fun and pleasing to look at (here is a film that knows how to properly light Black actors), but there are times when it feels […]

An all-female action comedy that doesn’t get self-serious about the way it’s subverting the genre — Wingwomen feels like a breath of fresh air. It wisely grasps that plot isn’t paramount for a movie like this, and so it joyously dunks on cerebral scenarios with its unabashedly silly story convolutions, like when its professional thieves […]

More streamlined and more technically ambitious than its predecessor, yet even less interested in developing an interesting setting or characters, Extraction 2 takes the most predictable route available for an action sequel. The first film’s attempts to center its narrative on the unnecessary loss of life of children is nothing but an inconsequential footnote in […]

One wouldn’t expect to see Count Dracula’s youthful-looking helper at your local 12-step self-help group for people in codependent relationships, but Renfield holds more than one surprise up its sleeve. By translating the working relationship (or master-slave, since the latter doesn’t get any pay) into the vocabulary of common relationship counselling parlance, the film actually […]

Surrounded has the bones of a revenge-style Western. It turns the table on the white cowboy hero and gives us (on paper, at least) complex leads in Mo and Tommy. Mo is a young Black woman whose experience as a Buffalo Solider lends her not only the skills of an expert gunslinger but also the […]

The Outfit doesn’t need to do a lot to be as sleek and surprising as it is. In fact, much of the film takes place in a single place while consisting of only a few (albeit memorable) characters. It’s deceptively simple, but the tricks it hides up its sleeves are plentiful and pleasurable. It’s a […]

Surprisingly heartwarming and enjoyable, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent turns its over-the-top premise into a tribute to the one and only Nicolas Cage. Playing an unfulfilled and broke version of himself, Cage’s next gig is an appearance at eccentric billionaire Javi Gutierrez’s (Pedro Pascal) birthday party. They strike up an instant bond over their […]

Between Overhaul’s frequently nonsensical blend of truck racing and vehicular heists, and its focus on found families, the comparisons to the Fast & Furious series are undeniable. This also means that this Brazilian blockbuster is also much less engaging than it thinks it is; the stakes don’t feel particularly urgent, and the near indifference of […]

This crazy adventure thriller was Colombia’s nomination for the 2020 Oscars. “Monos” translates to monkeys, the nom de guerre of a group of teenagers holding an American hostage in an isolated bunker. Other than the occasional visit from their supervisor, they’re left to their devices, forming relationships, smoking weed, drinking, and eating psychedelic mushrooms. One […]

On their drive back from a Tinder date that was only average, a couple are pulled over by a racist police officer. Things escalate unexpectedly and the couple, one of whom is a lawyer aware of the corruptedness of the system, start a life on the run together. This thrilling set-up mixing social commentary and […]

A crazy, anxiety-inducing thriller that turns Adam Sandler into a thrill-generating machine, which in its own speaks volumes about the rhythm of this movie. It follows a jeweler who gets himself in trouble with what feels like all of New York – a gang, Kevin Garnett (the NBA player), other jewelers, his family, odd twins […]

This Oscar-nominated French movie is set in Montfermeil, the Paris suburb where Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables but which today is a rough neighborhood. Inspired by instances of police violence that happened in 2008, the movie follows a squad of police officers who try to keep the neighborhood under control. Their methods, or lack thereof, […]

The Witch hardly reinvents the thriller wheel. In fact, part of the fun in watching it is calling out the cliches. Cold-blooded villain? Check. Antihero who defies death? Check. Senseless, bloody killings for minutes on end? Check, check, check. The Witch has everything you’d expect from an action movie, and yet, the viewing experience is […]

In Fatih Akin’s In the Fade, Katja is seeking justice after the killings of her Turkish husband and their young son in a terrorist bomb attack. Diane Kruger in the role of Katja delivers a powerful and rather grueling performance, for which she was awarded Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival. Her grief is vivid […]

Kathryn Bigelow has a knack for action-packed scenes without compromising on the affective qualities of film style. It is precisely this combination that makes her a rare gem in American cinema, where the values of entertainment soar high. Point Break is one such example of controlled chaos, impeccable framing, and a convincing use of fast-paced […]

We love to see Colin Farrell playing an unlikeable guy, it feels like there is balance in the universe. Stu is quite annoying and often offensive, and he’s been having an extra-marital affair, which he then gets punished for. Phone Booth carries over this remnant of 2000s morale with a sadistic twist, but that’s not […]

In the sexy, slick, and sharp-witted Out of Sight, a never-better George Clooney plays Jack Foley, a career bank robber who pulls off heists based on pure charm alone. His charisma is so powerful it even turns the cat-and-mouse game he plays with federal marshal Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) into a seductive dance. Karen is […]

Admittedly, The Man from Nowhere can feel a bit derivative. A quiet and mysterious stranger befriending a child, and ending up enacting his revenge when the child gets kidnapped… It feels like writer-director Lee Jeong-beom took two certain film plots and stitched it together into one. But where the film lacks in original story, The […]

This Park Chan-Wook classic is the third part of a trilogy of films around the theme of revenge, following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy. While ultimately unique, Lady Vengeance is a thriller set in a prison, in the vein of films such as the Japanese action drama Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion. After being framed […]

It’s been acclaimed as one the best Kung Fu movies ever made. You are probably wondering why this contemporary movie made that short list when its genre had its peak decades ago: it is visually striking and at the same time surprisingly story-oriented. As you would expect of course, there is quite a fair amount […]

The Western had its heyday in the 60s, but the decades have proven that there’s still stories from the deserts that we haven’t heard yet, and gems that twist the genre on its head. The Proposition is a unique Western, being from the East, in Australia where the Brits have started to form colonies. As […]

Zodiac is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that knows exactly when to be slow and when to pick up the pace. Director David Fincher delivers what he was admired for in movies like Se7en and Fight Club (and more recently Gone Girl), and that is an intelligent, not necessarily satisfactory, gripping film. The ensemble cast including a surprisingly fitting Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. gives a great […]

If you are a fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, you probably already know who Jet Li is. The iconic action star has plenty of great titles in his filmography but the work that shot him to continent-wide stardom was Once Upon a Time in China, and for good reason. His competitive background in […]

So far, chemical waste hasn’t mutated amphibious creatures enough to create giant monsters large enough to swallow people whole… yet. This sort of monster film premise is familiar, especially for fans of 1950s sci-fi movies, but in the hands of director Bong Joon-ho, The Host transforms what could have been B-movie schlock into a drama […]

The film that catapulted Kevin Costner to fame, No Way Out, is based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing, “The Big Clock”, and is also preceded by a film adaptation of it, around 40 years prior. Director Roger Donaldson found himself in charge of a film, haunted by the Cold War and spy thriller tropes, but […]

An offbeat film with a more than decent amount of suspense. To that it adds really good music and unexpected animation, to make for a very audacious, interesting and mostly fun film. It uses all this to show how life can change in a twist and how it can be influenced by weird connections of […]

This movie is pretty much in every regard a Norwegian Kill Bill. It’s a dark gory comedy where, naturally, the substitute for Uma Thurman doing damage is an emotionless Stellan Skarsgård. After his son is killed by a drug gang, Skarsgård’s character, fresh off a win of a “citizen of the year” award, embarks on […]

David O. Russel (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) is one of those directors who the more you dig into his past, the more you are rewarded. I Heart Huckabees is a great example of this, as is The Fighter (both are must-watch if you haven’t seen them). But it is Three Kings that truly presented […]

Snowpiercer is an under-the-rader post-apocalyptic thriller that offers the grittiness that many times only Asian cinema may achieve. South Korean director Joon-ho Bong forces audiences to forget that Chris Evans was ever a Marvel superhero, as he leads a revolt of his fellow “low-class” citizens against the self-appointed gentry in a train that contains all remaining […]

A War (Krigen) is a Danish war drama that focuses on Commander Claus Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) as he leads a company of soldiers in modern day Afghanistan, while his wife at home in Denmark struggles to care for their three children. During a mission to rescue a family from Taliban threat, Claus’ unit is overcome […]