Image via Universal Pictures
Published Jun 3, 2026, 11:03 PM EDT
Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa. He has been writing professionally about pop culture for eight years. Luc's areas of interest are broad: he's just as passionate about psychology and history as he is about movies and TV. He's especially drawn to the places where these topics overlap.
Luc is also an avid producer of video essays and looks forward to expanding his writing career. When not writing, he can be found hiking, playing Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out with his cats, and doing deep dives on whatever topic happens to have captured his interest that week.
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While martial arts movies aren't as popular now as they once were, the genre has still produced more than a few gems over the last decade. The best of them stand out by nailing the classic ingredients, particularly clarity of choreography and emotional intensity. Some revive the mythic grandeur of classic wuxia epics, others blend martial arts tropes with other genres, and a few simply get more grounded and human with their characters.
With all that in mind, this list attempts to rank the best martial flicks of the 2020s so far, from the bone-crunching brutality of Mortal Kombat to the multiversal mayhem of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Many of these might not reach the heights of the genre's all-time masterpieces, but they have done a remarkable job keeping it alive at a time when audiences no longer seem to appreciate martial arts.
10 'Sakra' (2023)
Image via Well Go USA"To live in the martial world is to carry endless grudges." Genre legend Donnie Yen both starred in and directed this one, a deliberate return to traditional wuxia storytelling. He plays Qiao Feng, a respected martial artist falsely accused of murder and forced into exile while trying to uncover the conspiracy surrounding his identity. He inhabits a world with a heightened fantasy aesthetic, all misty mountains and warriors leaping across rooftops.
Yen's performance is strong enough that it's never overshadowed by the spectacle. He's always physically convincing, and here he gets a chance to play an older, more exhausted warrior than the unstoppable fighters from earlier in his filmography. There's a deep sadness to Qiao Feng that makes him more interesting than your average martial arts protagonist. All in all, a solid star vehicle.
9 'Mortal Kombat' (2021)
"Flawless victory." Mortal Kombat has produced some infamously bad movies over the years, but the 2021 reboot is not one of them. While certainly not flawless, it's an entertaining flick that radiates clear affection for the games. Lewis Tan leads the cast as Cole Young, a washed-up MMA fighter who becomes entangled in the ancient conflict between Earthrealm warriors and Outworld assassins ahead of the titular tournament.
The plot exists largely as connective tissue between characters, mythology, and increasingly violent fights, but that’s perfectly fine because Mortal Kombat embraces its ridiculousness with genuine enthusiasm. The fatalities are grotesque and exaggerated, the powers are ludicrous in the best way, and the characters behave like heightened comic-book archetypes (as they should). Josh Lawson, in particular, steals much of the movie as Kano through his sheer chaotic energy and constant sarcasm.
8 'The Paper Tigers' (2020)
Image via Well Go USA Entertainment"Kung fu without honor is just fighting." In contrast to the fantastical spectacle of Mortal Kombat, The Paper Tigers offers a much more grounded and emotionally real spin on martial arts tropes. Fundamentally, it asks: what happens to kung fu prodigies once middle age, jobs, injuries, and family responsibilities arrive? The story follows three former martial arts students (Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins) who reunite years after drifting apart following the suspicious death of their master.
The fights are intentionally less polished than usual because the characters themselves are older, slower, and painfully out of practice. That physical imperfection becomes part of The Paper Tigers' charm. At the same time, the movie clearly loves classic kung fu films. You can feel the influence of old-school Hong Kong martial arts cinema in the training flashbacks, rival schools, eccentric masters, and emphasis on honor and discipline.
7 'Raging Fire' (2021)
Image via Emperor Motion Pictures"Does someone have a grudge against you?" Raging Fire was the final movie directed by Hong Kong action master Benny Chan, known for flicks like Big Bullet and New Police Story. This one follows principled police officer Bong (Donnie Yen) after a gang of highly trained criminals led by his former protégé Ngo begins carrying out increasingly violent attacks across Hong Kong. What begins as a straightforward cops-versus-criminals thriller gradually becomes something more tragic and personal.
From here, the movie charms us with the martial arts fundamentals: intense performances, juicy melodrama, satisfying practical effects, and grand themes of loyalty, brotherhood, and vengeance. Not to mention, there's a steady stream of brutal, visceral, expertly choreographed fights. Overall, Raging Fire feels like both a throwback and a farewell to the glory days of hard-hitting Hong Kong crime cinema.
6 'The Swordsman' (2020)
Image via Opus Pictures"You're the one who insisted on fighting, don't resent me for dying." Set during the Joseon Dynasty, this South Korean period action movie tells the story of Tae-yul (Jang Hyuk), a former elite warrior living quietly with his daughter (Kim Hyun-soo) after political violence and physical injury forced him into isolation. When his daughter is kidnapped by slave traders connected to Qing envoys, Tae-yul is forced to return to the world of violence he tried to leave behind.
The biggest appeal here is the sword fight choreography. The blade work feels sharp and deliberate, with many fights unfolding in long, readable motions that allow the audience to appreciate the technique and timing. The clash of steel on steel is fast but always clear and clean. The final confrontation is especially memorable because it balances beauty and brutality so effectively.
5 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' (2021)
Image via Marvel Studios"You can't outrun who you really are." Here, the MCU fully embraces martial arts cinema. At the beginning of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the title character (Simu Liu) is living quietly in San Francisco and working as a valet while hiding from the criminal empire ruled by his father Wenwu (Tony Leung). But when his past inevitably catches up to him, Shang-Chi is pulled back into a world of assassins, mystical villages, and unresolved family trauma.
Once again, Shang-Chi is far from perfect, with some narrative and tonal missteps that make it fall short of its potential. However, the lead performances are undeniably strong, and the wuxia-inspired fight scenes are impeccable, often feeling dance-like and symbolic rather than purely brutal. The choreography between Wenwu and Ying Li (Fala Chen), for example, resembles a romantic conversation expressed through, well, violence.
4 'John Wick: Chapter 4' (2023)
Image via Lionsgate"Those who cling to death live. Those who cling to life die." At this point, the John Wick series has evolved beyond ordinary action filmmaking into something closer to violent choreography as abstract art. The fourth go-around sees the legendary assassin (Keanu Reeves) continuing his war against the High Table while seeking a path to freedom. The plot is relatively straightforward, but that simplicity allows the film to focus almost entirely on atmosphere and action.
Every combat sequence is designed around a distinct visual concept, from neon-drenched nightclub fights to overhead tracking shots that resemble a live-action video game. Refreshingly, in contrast to the hyperactive editing of most action blockbusters, John Wick: Chapter 4 frequently allows fights to unfold in wide shots and extended takes, giving viewers the chance to actually appreciate them.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
3 'Monkey Man' (2024)
Image via Universal Pictures"My whole life, I have felt invisible." Dev Patel made his directorial debut with Monkey Man, in which he stars as Kid, a young underground fighter climbing through the criminal underworld seeking revenge against the corrupt elites responsible for destroying his childhood village. That's fairly straightforward narrative terrain for the genre, but Patel elevates it into something unusually raw and personal, throwing in political elements, religious references, and unusual character depth.
Indeed, the protagonist is no one-dimensional superhero. He begins as a damaged man barely surviving from one day to the next, carrying immense grief and rage tied to childhood trauma and systemic corruption. That emotional foundation gives the violence real weight, and the action itself is intense and tactile. The fights in Monkey Man are messy and dirty, emphasizing sweat, blood, cramped environments, and physical exhaustion.
2 'Polite Society' (2023)
Image via Focus Features"I am the fury!" Another quirky genre hybrid, Polite Society combines kung fu action, coming-of-age comedy, family drama, and Bollywood-inspired absurdity into something completely its own. It centers on teenage martial arts enthusiast Ria Khan (Priya Kansara), who becomes convinced that her older sister Lena’s (Ritu Arya) engagement is deeply suspicious and decides to stop the wedding by any means necessary. The premise sounds intentionally ridiculous, and the movie wisely embraces that ridiculousness with total confidence.
Characters launch into exaggerated fight scenes, over-the-top training montages, and stylized, anime-inflected confrontations. Visually, the movie has a colorful, kinetic style that perfectly matches the subject matter. Editing, fantasy sequences, handwritten visual flourishes, and sudden tonal shifts create a heightened world filtered through Ria’s highly specific perspective. Yet beneath all the chaos is a genuinely touching story about sisterhood, cultural expectations, and self-belief.
1 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' (2021)
Image via A24"In another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you." Far and away the most feted martial arts movie of the decade, Everything Everywhere All At Once gleefully mashes a million ideas and references into a family-focused fantasy action odyssey. Michelle Yeoh is perfectly cast as Evelyn Wang, an exhausted laundromat owner who discovers she can access the skills of alternate-universe versions of herself while attempting to stop a multiversal catastrophe caused by her daughter Joy.
From here, the movie pivots nimbly between genres and tones, one moment leaning into sci-fi comedy, the next tugging at your heartstrings with layered family drama. Yet, somehow, it maintains emotional coherence throughout. Not to mention, the fight choreography is impressively inventive, transforming fanny packs, office cubicles, and mundane household objects into weapons. In short, it is an endlessly creative banger.
English (US) ·