A good action thriller presents a uniquely exciting sort of film experience. Combining the explosive mayhem and set pieces of a pure action picture with the taut, twisted plotting of a suspenser, this kind of movie can truly grip you from start to finish. Some of the most popular and well-liked, ageless movies in history fit into this subgenre, from Hollywood blockbusters like The Matrix, Kill Bill, The Dark Knight, and Speed, to international cult-classic fare like Oldboy and The Raid: Redemption.
It’s hardly a secret that the Academy doesn’t always get it right. Hell, you could easily argue that they don’t more often than not. The Oscars’ voting body also has a long history of a bias against genre films, despite the fact that these are the kinds of pictures that, at their best, really prove to stand the test of time. The following four action thrillers are bona fide masterpieces of the subgenre, and with hindsight, they absolutely deserved to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, whether they were nominated or not.
‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981)
Lost to ‘Chariots of Fire’
The brainchild of George Lucas in the immediate wake of the success of the original Star Wars picture, Indiana Jones, originally conceived as Indiana Smith, was a tribute to the serialized adventurers of the filmmaker’s youth. This became his friend Steven Spielberg‘s directorial follow-up to the critically and commercially disappointing 1941, and the biggest worldwide and domestic smash of 1981. Harrison Ford, the biggest breakout star of Star Wars, delivered his other most iconic performance here as the cavalier swashbuckler, an instant icon who’s considered one of the best film heroes ever.
To the Academy’s credit, sort of, Raiders of the Lost Ark was far from ignored on Oscars nomination morning, netting nine nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. However, it would ultimately lose top honors to the English sports drama Chariots of Fire. That’s a fine-enough, undeniably stuffy period film, with a catchy Vangelis score to boot, but who the hell would deny that Raiders of the Lost Ark deserved to beat it? To this day, Raiders remains the undisputed benchmark for adventure films. It’s hard to imagine it could ever be outdone.
‘The Matrix’ (1999)
Lost to ‘American Beauty’ (not even nominated)
Suggesting perhaps that many great filmmakers wanted to have the final word before the new millennium, 1999 is now regarded by many as the greatest year in film history. There are dozens of all-time classics across all genres, with experimentation and stone-cold craftsmanship largely hand-in-hand. An R-rated sci-fi action film from relatively unknown directors was never going to win the Oscar for Best Picture, but these days it’s pretty clear The Matrix was the very best and most consequential film of a landmark year. Keanu Reeves‘ fame and renown reached new heights following critical and commercial smash directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, a mind-bending yet heart-pounding thriller set in a dystopia where machines have defeated and industrialized the human race.
The Matrix hasn’t aged a day over 27 years; it’s timeless and you could easily argue it only gets better. It’s certainly worth mentioning that it was highly esteemed, especially for a genre film, at the time, winning each of its four Oscar nods in technical categories, even beating Best Picture winner American Beauty in Best Film Editing. For some reason, Sam Mendes‘ twisted suburban drama gets an unfairly bad rep these days, and perhaps it’s mostly because it won Best Picture in this particular year. American Beauty is still a really good movie, but The Matrix was the best movie of 1999, period.
‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
Lost to ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (not even nominated)
Christopher Nolan‘s follow-up Batman Begins was released in a months-long shroud of dark mystery and intrigue following the tragic death of Heath Ledger, shortly after he’d filmed his scenes as Joker. Nearly two decades later, it’s entirely possible to remove oneself from the mythology that surrounds the film and see that it is simply, entirely on its own merits, one of the best movies ever made. The high-water mark for superhero cinema, and the most influential movie of the 21st century. The Dark Knight owes as much to Michael Mann‘s crime thriller Heat as it does to comic books. Audiences were wowed, and this became the third movie in history to make a billion at the box office.
Danny Boyle‘s India-set crime drama Slumdog Millionaire is a masterpiece in its own right, so it’s hard to get super mad about it sweeping on Oscars night. Still, The Dark Knight‘s exclusion from top categories on Oscars nominations morning, despite the fact that it was not only the highest-grossing movie of the year but also near-universally considered the year’s best film, was unforgivable. It is not a coincidence that the Best Picture category was extended beyond five nominees the following year.
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Lost to ‘Spotlight’
Australian Oscar-winner (for Happy Feet!) George Miller‘s decades-delayed fourthquel in his defining franchise survived one of the most arduous, drama-ridden productions in memory to become a wildly acclaimed landmark that many, including Collider, have christened the single greatest movie of the 21st century. Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron star in the relentless action epic that’s essentially a 120-minute car chase on the surface. There’s a magnificent emotional depth beneath the pyrotechnics and stunts, which entirely re-set the bar for action filmmaking.
Mad Max: Fury Road was nominated for an impressive 10 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, though many have balked at the Best Actress snub for Theron as Imperator Furiosa. At the end of the ceremony, Fury Road walked with six wins, sweeping virtually all technical categories in which it was nominated except for visual effects (Ex Machina was an inspired win there). Despite the staggering technical achievement of The Revenant, did Alejandro González Iñárritu really deserve his second directing Oscar over Miller here? God no. Has the admittedly well-made, splendidly acted Best Picture winner Spotlight retained one one-hundredth the cultural imprint of Fury Road over the last 11 years? God no.
