10 Best Action Movies That Are Under 80 Minutes Long, Ranked

2 weeks ago 15

Published Feb 11, 2026, 8:09 AM EST

Jeremy has more than 2300 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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Some action movies get by with being very long, and there are even classics within the genre that exceed three hours. Hell, Seven Samurai might well be the greatest and most important action film ever, and that one nears three and a half hours. Two hours or under might traditionally be a better/sweeter spot to hit, if you're making an action movie, but long ones can indeed work.

Long ones are not what we’re here for today, though. Below, you’ve got the opposite, really. These movies all belong wholly or in part to the action genre, and clock in at under 80 minutes each. Well, a couple are technically 80 minutes. But just don’t watch all the end credits and you'll be done in, like, 78 or 79 minutes. Also, no short films, and here, a short film is considered anything under three quarters of an hour long.

10 'Showdown in Little Tokyo' (1991)

Brandon Lee and Dolph Lundgren in Showdown in little tokyo

This one keeps things simple, as a martial arts movie, but most of the movies here are inevitably simple, because there’s only so much you can work into a movie on the shorter end of things. Showdown in Little Tokyo is kind of just a buddy cop movie but with some martial arts thrown in to spice things up, with the criminals being associated with the yakuza, so it makes some sense.

Well, it makes enough sense. It makes the sense it needs to. Showdown in Little Tokyo is otherwise most notable for being the second most well-known movie Brandon Lee starred in, after The Crow, which is much better, but is also quite a bit longer, so you're not going to find it here. Also in Showdown in Little Tokyo, Dolph Lundgren. For better or worse, Dolph Lundgren. That is all.

9 'Zatoichi and the Doomed Man' (1965)

There are 26 main movies in the Zatoichi series, and Zatoichi and the Doomed Man is the shortest, at just 77 minutes long. It’s the eleventh one overall, and is probably lesser in the overall scheme of things, quality-wise, though it’s still reliable enough if you tend to enjoy the blind swordsman at the heart of this series getting into some kind of adventure and/or helping someone downtrodden.

That’s what happens here, as usual. The doomed man is a prisoner who’s sentenced to death, and he convinces Zatoichi to help prove his innocence, which eventually leads to some inevitable swordplay and action. It’s going through the motions, as a samurai movie, but it’s fine. Movies #10 and #12 in the series were also pumped out in 1965, and the first movie had only come out in 1962, so if one of them every now and then felt like the cinematic equivalent of filler, that was generally forgivable.

8 'Who Killed Captain Alex?' (2010)

A person jumps into the air and does the splits in Who Killed Captain Alex.

Who Killed Captain Alex? has a deserved reputation for being one of the wildest action movies ever made, but even calling it an action movie does it something of a disservice, because it’s entirely its own thing. It’s its own thing in a way that makes it hard to even describe, because there isn't really much of a plot here, and the question the title asks isn't even addressed.

Or if it is addressed, it’s hard to come away knowing who killed Captain Alex. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is everything else, and there’s a lot here by way of chaos and unpredictability, so it’s a good time if you like seeing creative movies pulled off with little to no budget. Honestly, the lack of production value here is what makes the movie what it is.

7 'Samurai Wolf' (1966)

Another short and sweet samurai movie, Samurai Wolf does a lot you’ve probably seen before, if you’ve seen your share of samurai films, but that’s okay. It takes place in a small village and involves a warrior trying to defend a woman from various enemies, and said enemies enlist the help of another skilled warrior to battle the first.

Samurai Wolf might be like the equivalent of a B-grade samurai flick, yet it still satisfies enough with action and competent drama/storytelling.

There were so many movies like this made in Japan during the 1960s, which might well have been the golden age of the samurai genre, and they didn’t all have to be Seven Samurai or Harakiri-level to be good. Samurai Wolf might be more like the equivalent of a B-grade samurai flick, yet it still satisfies enough with action and competent drama/storytelling… plus if you're underwhelmed by the short runtime, it has a sequel of a similar length you can watch right after, and that sort of turns the whole thing into more of an epic, clocking in at about two and a half hours.

6 'Batman: Mask of the Phantasm' (1993)

Though it might emphasize the crime/mystery side of Batman a little more than it focuses on action, you can still classify Batman: Mask of the Phantasm as such… an animated action film, admittedly, but still. Fans of live-action action (and no other kind) need not apply. But this does a lot with just 76 minutes of runtime, being about Batman being blamed for a series of murders and having to prove his innocence.

And, of course, he’s got to find the real murderer, so it’s a bit like an Alfred Hitchcock “man-on-the-run” movie, or maybe reminiscent of The Fugitive (the movie of that name happened to come out the same year as Batman: Mask of the Phantasm). Also, if you only ever watch one animated Batman movie, it’s probably worth making it this one.

5 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924)

Sherlock Jr. on a bike giving directions to a policeman in Sherlock Jr.

If the cut-off for a short film is either 40 or 45 minutes, then Sherlock Jr. might be able to just qualify for “feature-length” status. It’s right on 45 minutes, so maybe that’s a bit of a gray area, but looking at things more positively, it packs so much into that short runtime, offering more than many action movies that are twice as long (or even longer) have offered.

And Sherlock Jr. offered it all more than 100 years ago, with so much of the action and usage of special effects here being very ahead of their time. That’s something that can be said about many of Buster Keaton’s best cinematic efforts, though, and he was indeed a pioneer as far as the action genre’s concerned, especially concerning stunt work. There’s one movie of his that’s also pretty slim runtime-wise that might be even better than Sherlock Jr., but more on that in a bit.

4 'Crazy World' (2014)

It doesn’t have quite as good a title as Who Killed Captain Alex?, but Crazy World is the superior Wakaliwood action movie. It also didn’t become a meme in quite the same way, though it’s funnier and more entertaining, with another very loose plot involving martial arts, crime, and basically whatever the filmmakers wanted to throw into the mix, as the whole thing feels almost improvised throughout.

Again, in a charming way. It’s also got narration all the way through that feels a bit more like someone commentating on a sports match, and that was the same for Who Killed Captain Alex?, elevating both movies to a considerable degree. Crazy World is everything you could want out of an over-the-top action-comedy movie that happens to clock in at just 65 minutes.

3 'Death Race 2000' (1975)

A woman and a man inside a racing car weaing helmets in Death Race 2000 - 1975

It’s hopefully not too controversial to suggest that B-movies are at their best when they're not too long. Enter Death Race 2000, which is sort of a classic one, and it’s right on 80 minutes in length, so there’s very little risk of it overstaying its welcome, even if you're not usually too into this kind of film. As for these kinds of films, though, it’s definitely one of the best.

You could call it an exploitation movie, but without as much line-crossing as you might expect. Still some, though, because Death Race 2000 is about a brutal cross-country race where participants score points for running over pedestrians. It’s one of those dystopian movies that’s kind of satirical and tongue-in-cheek, and it’s even a bit ahead of its time, as a look at violence in the media and society’s seeming obsession with death and destruction.

2 'Run Lola Run' (1998)

Lola and Manni pointing a gun in 'Run Lola Run'

Run Lola Run is about a woman having to run, a lot. That’s because her boyfriend says he’s desperate enough to rob a convenience store, since he really needs some money and has no time to get it otherwise, so she sets off trying to find another way to get cash quickly. There’s only 20 minutes to do so, but the film’s closer to 80 minutes long, so how does that work?

There are multiple timelines, basically. She does something one way, then it goes back in time, and it shows her making a slightly different decision, and then you get to see how many things change as a result. It’s almost a gimmick, but if it is, then Run Lola Run uses such a gimmick perfectly, and either way, it sustains itself and remains entertaining for the whole runtime, so that’s the most important thing.

1 'The General' (1926)

Buster Keaton on the front of a train looking ahead in The General.

A couple of years on from Sherlock Jr., Buster Keaton did The General, and it’s the movie for which he’s most well-remembered. It’s wild to think this one is 100 years old now, because it still holds up as an action movie. It holds up as more than an action movie, really, since it’s also a war film, a comedy, and a romance, all at once.

The premise is wonderfully simple, as a man has both his train and the love of his life stolen from him, so he sets out to get both back. The whole thing is one big chase sequence to a destination, and then back the same way, with spectacle being delivered in a way that you just don’t see in many – or any – other movies made more than a century ago.