Earlier this week, Complex unveiled its definitive countdown of The 50 Best Action Stars In Movie History, and, next Tuesday, we’re going to debut our revamped list of The 50 Best Action Movies Of All Time. Clearly, your Pop Culture team is on a run-and-gun, stunt-tastic high this month, thanks to the release of writer-director Gareth Evans’ adrenaline rush The Raid: Redemption, a film festival champion that many critics are already hailing as an action cinema classic. And, on top of the independently made The Raid: Redemption, Hollywood is giving the genre’s biggest fans some additional options: the overly expensive Disney flop John Carter, and next weekend’s CGI-cluttered sequel Wrath Of The Titans.
But you know what all three of these movies—yes, even The Raid: Redemption—are missing? The action genre’s greatest secret weapon: those snarky, hilarious (whether intentionally so or not), and succinctly timed one-liners. Just think back to the best flicks from tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Willis, and fondly remember how well they capped off grandiose moments of action with a few words. And we’re not talking about lines like The Terminator’s “I’ll be back,” which isn’t so much a one-liner as it is a more straightforward, memorable quote.
To fill the void collectively left by The Raid: Redemption, John Carter, and Wrath Of The Titans, we’ve assembled a collection of The 25 Best One-Liners In Action Movies. Or, one could say, we’ve “lined them up.” Get it? Yeah, we’ll stick to our day jobs.
RELATED: The 50 Best Action Movies of All Time
Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)
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