The best action and fight scenes in 2022 movies

It’s been a great year to be a fan of action movies.

Hollywood’s productions bring back old stories in fresh and interesting ways.Maverick is the Top Gun, AmbulanceAmazing, adrenaline-filled projects around the globe (RRR, Thallumaala, Lost Bullet 2These gems are often hidden from the public eye.Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, Baby AssassinsIn 2022, there were many options for action fans.

My favorite action films are Action Movies, which I have spent much time watching this year. There are many I’m excited about and haven’t been able to see yet (looking at you, Bad CityHowever, it wasn’t. Such It was a great year, and there’s bound to be others.

We’ve managed to put our action-loving heads together and put together this list of our favorite action and fight scenes of the year, for you to enjoy at home. We reviewed our top movie scenes from 2022 earlier this week. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Lino’s super car, Lost Bullet 2

Which Lost Bullet The original was a great, by-the numbers thriller that featured a man racing against the clock to prove his innocence. This sequel features a more action-packed thriller and Lino (Alban Lenoir), gets a modified car.

Lost Bullet 2Lino may be a little mad scientist but he is passionate about cars. What is his most remarkable invention? His most exciting invention? A pair of wires that he puts on his front car. They electrify, allowing him to hit other cars then blow them up. The rods rule, much like the movie. —Pete Volk

The final fight, Accident Man 2: Hitman’s Holiday

Scott Adkins’ passion for action films is the Accident Man movies. Adkins, a childhood fan of the comic, co-wrote screenplays for the original. Accident Man and this year’s sequel with his longtime friend Stu Small.

As a big fan of Adkins’ work, I was disappointed by the first Accident Man. The humor was too juvenile for my taste, and even some solid fights (including one where Adkins takes on both Michael Jai White and Ray Park) couldn’t make up for that for me. That’s why I was so surprised and delighted by how much I took to the sequel, which reins in the sophomoric humor and delivers on some of the best-choreographed fight sequences of 2022.

Adkins versus Andy Long, who also served as the fight choreographer in the film’s final fight is what makes this movie stand out. Long is an emerging star in action, best known for the work he did on The TV Show. In the BadlandsAdkins and on Boyka: UndisputedHe gets to showcase all of his talents and is rewarded with a wonderful opportunity. Sarah Chang is also featured in the clip. She’s a great martial artist and gets kicked off to one side. —PV

Athena, the opening scene

This French thriller can be read in just 11 minutes Athena lays out its stakes in stunning, violent clarity: A boy has died in an alleged act of police brutality, and there’s nothing the government can do to stop the trail of dominoes that are now cascading uncontrollably. After a police conference, protestors raid the precinct. Director Romain Gavras then lays out all the raw emotions running through the community in one take. It is an unbroken portrayal of rebellion that shows rage, sorrow and frustration. All of this has been neglected far too often. It’s kinetic action filmmaking that takes viewers from claustrophobic hallways to roaring streets, and it’s also heart-rending drama that introduces the audience to a city that’s been on the brink longer before the film began. —Joshua Rivera

Top Gun, Maverick: The ego test

Thanks to Tom Cruise. There are plenty of regular cinematic reasons to say that this year, and even a few commercial ones, but in this case it’s his ego that saves the day. Another movie featuring a 60-year-old actor, Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s first experience with the pilots of tomorrow would be a bit of a gut check for both sides, where they realize he still has something to teach them and he realizes he isn’t as fast as he used to be. However, Tom Cruise has become faster. It’s funny. Maverick is the Top GunGod knows, dammit.

This is dogfighting heaven. You can see snippets of obviously gifted pilots, who are incredibly charismatic. Of course, it serves a few story purposes, like re-proving Maverick’s bona fides to us, showing off the personalities and flying styles of the new recruits, and introducing us to a few key dogfighting terms. But more importantly, it’s just brilliant aerial photography and people in planes pushing them way past their limits in the spirit of unfriendly competition and what more could you possibly want from a Top Gun movie than that? —Austen Goslin

RRR – The ideal meeting

If you haven’t already seen the joyously over-the-top Telugu action movie RRR But, you can stop reading and just go to watch RRR already! It’s an absolute banger, it’s our number one movie of 2022, and if you’re the kind of person who reads lists of incredible action scenes, you’re the kind of person this movie was made for. Besides, I don’t want to spoil this sequence for anyone who hasn’t already seen it. RRR is absolutely packed with giddy action, including a double-decker human jailbreak, a deliberately engineered chaotic animal jailbreak, and a sequence where one man fights an entire raging mob just to get his boss’s attention.

But it’s hard for any of them to top the moment where heroes Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Raju (Konidela Ram Charan) first meet, in an explosive spectacle designed to establish both of them as superhero-level figures who are entirely on each other’s wavelength. When a train derailment threatens a child, a vast crowd of onlookers wring their hands and play the “Someone should do something!” game. In the chaos two strangers look at one another and immediately recognize that they have to help the little boy. This scheme involves poignant national symbolism, a lot jumping through the air and perfect coordination. It’s absurd. It’s hysterical. And it’s utterly satisfying, in the way recognizing a possible soulmate for the first time always is. —Tasha Robinson

The Northman, the first Berserker Raid.

The Northman Although there are some great action scenes in the film, perhaps its best scene is the one where the raiders attack the village. Alexander Skarsgård was born to play a giant terrifying viking and director Robert Eggers knows how to use the actor’s impressive physicality to full effect. Skarsgård’s brutal in this scene, hunched over, full of menace, and a potent reminder that oftentimes it wasn’t about how sharp a medieval weapon was but how hard you swung it that mattered. He swings his ax very hard.

This scene pays close attention to blood, which is often overlooked in action scenes. The squibs in this scene are frequent and graphic and absolutely cover Skarsgård by the time he tears a man’s throat with his mouth and wolf-howls about his own victory. It’s bloody, wet, disturbing, muddy, and gross all at the same time, which is exactly how a viking revenge epic should be. —AG

Ambulance, Los Angeles river chase

If we’re talking about an ambulance speeding down the L.A. river while being chased by helicopters, there’s no person on Earth I’d rather have behind the camera to capture it than Michael Bay. This year, the patron saint of bombastic action emerged from his Transformers-sequel cage to deliver one of the best chase movies of the decade and there’s no greater showcase of its greatness than the chase through the L.A. river.

This scene is actually a ballet of cars and helicopters. The police helicopter buzzes the two thieves, Jake Gyllenhaal (left) and Yahya Abul Matteen (3 right), and chases them as soon as the ambulance is landed. Soon after Gyllenhaal is seen hanging from the sideline of the car and shooting at the pair with his assault rifle, while holding onto the other hand for dear life. Bay’s stunning, wide-angle drone shots capture both the drama of the moment as well as the precision needed to film it.

All this chaos finally culminates in a singularly iconic shot of the ambulance speeding through the river and kicking up plumes of water water into the choppers while Gyllenhaal hangs out the windows spraying every bullet he’s got. That’s cinema right there. —AG

Knife fighting on a boat in Avatar: Way of the Water

Image: 20th Century Studios

James Cameron is an expert at sinking boats. He did it with 1997’s Titanic — which is still the best historical period drama meets tragic doomed romance meets epic disaster movie of all time — and in this year’s The Way of Water AvatarCameron decided that he wanted to go all out. What if the boat was sinking, but also most of the characters were blue cat-like space aliens, but also they were all fighting to the death, but also they were fighting to the death with knives, but also there’s a thread about fathers and sons and the sins and grudges we inherit, but also someone uses magical jelly fish to breath underwater, but also —

It just rules, is what I’m saying. —Petrana Radulovic

Never dirty up someone’s fresh white kicks, Thallumaala

Malayalam Movie Thallumaala It is one those hidden gems of 2022 that Americans have not been paying attention to. It’s a nonlinear story about a man who goes viral after kicking ass in a brawl at his wedding that traces all the events that led to that moment — how he met his bride-to-be and how he got his group of friends (by fighting them. Their shared passion for fighting was what brought them together.

Although the wedding scene is fantastic (although it’s not on YouTube), I wanted to emphasize this scene. This scene sees Waseem (Tovino Toms) meet Jamshi (Lukman Lukku), who soon will be his best friend. When Waseem puts his muddy shoes on top of Jamshi’s pristine white sneakers, not even all the patience in the world can keep him from holding back. —PV

Baby Assassins, the convenient store opening

Baby Assassins is one of 2022’s many happy surprises. Yugo Sakamoto, director, collaborated with Kensuke Sonomura (one of the most talented action choreographers today) to create this hilarious slice-of life action comedy. It has great fight scenes as well as plenty of teenage angst all in one movie.

Baby AssassinsTwo teenage girls are struggling to make their mark in the world when they get to the point where they have to leave home and find a job. It’s not that they need the money — on the contrary, they make a tidy living as assassins. Their problem is that they don’t have any social skills. They tend to take the easy way out and kill others in order to fix their problems.

One of the girls attempts to apply for work at a convenience shop job in the opening sequence. When it goes wrong, mayhem ensues in a beautifully choreographed sequence that makes full use of the store’s geography and clutter. —PV

The Hive Day Shift

Netflix’s Day ShiftJ.J. Perry is J.J. Perry’s first directorial effort. It features great fights and legendary stuntman J.J. Perry. I think the best scenes for me include the opening scene, in which Jamie Foxx faces an old lady who is a vamp inside an L.A. home, as well as when Dave Franco, Foxx and the Nazarian brothers, (our old friend Adkins & Steve Howey), face a bunch of them inside the house.

This sequence shows Day Shift’s blend of action, comedy, and horror, but also the unique way Perry chose to have the vampires move. In a sea of vampire films and television this year, the film’s unique blend of gymnastics and contortionism gives it an edge and makes its action scenes stand apart. —PV

The Roundup: The bus fight

Ma Dong-seok (also known as Don Lee) is an extraordinary screen presence. American moviegoers may recognize him as Gilgamesh. Eternals?, oder Sang-hwa Busan: Train, but he’s also the lead in a pair of very popular police crime dramas. This is the first. The OutlawsThe movie,, was an instant hit in 2017. It was followed by the sequel. The RoundupThe highest grossing Korean movie of all time in 2022 is ‘The Godfather.

Ma’s screen presence and charisma is undeniable, as anyone who has seen any of his movies can tell you. However, what is it that makes him so unique? The Roundup Leans so much into, it is his unique frame. He is huge. His shoulders are about as wide as a semi-truck’s width, while his arms look like tree trunks. The Outlaws And The Roundup It was a great experience framing him and allowing me to use this in fight scenes. This fight on the bus, which is cramping and forcing our large lad to work in small spaces, was my favorite scene from either movie. —PV

Pushpa’s river brawl

Pushpa: Part OneIt is a thrilling crime thriller featuring amazing dance sequences and great fight scenes. Allu Arjun gives an impressive lead performance. The movie also features an intriguing animation scene at the start. This scene, where Pushpa goes ham on some dudes in a river with the backdrop of red sandalwood trees, is a solid representation of the visual approach of the movie and Arjun’s undeniable charisma. —PV

Hansan Battle of Hansan: Rising Dragon

This sequel is to the hugely successful Korean naval blockbuster The Admiral: Rising Currents, which takes us back to the past, replacing Choi Min-sik by Park Hae-il, as well as Yi Sun-sin, the famous military general. The climactic naval battle is terrific, alternating between immersive chaos on the ships involved and bird’s eye view shots that allow us to take in the whole scope of the battle. For a movie focused so heavily on battle tactics, it’s an excellent choice that keeps the movie’s long battle sequence gripping. —PV

An honorable mention:

Final, heavy-mirrored fight scene The assistant

Scott Adkins’ introduction in the casino, Section 8.

Hallway fightThe Big 4

Scene of the hay being burned Medieval

The restaurants scene Weird

It was a hallway battle Vikram

Fighting…on ice Black Crab

It’s possible to escape. Ben & Jody

Highway chase Carter

The dual opening Dual

The stowaway wakes, Project Wolf Hunting

This is the rescue. Treisteen Lives

Black Adam takes down an entire platoon Black Adam

Krang vs. Leo Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – The Movie

Elsa Pataky fights the movie’s second unit director, Interceptor

Waymond fights outside an elevator Everything, Everywhere at the Same Time

Joey King twists a dude’s helmet so hard she breaks his neck, The Princess