10 Most Influential Action Movies Ever Made
1. Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa's 207 minute epic is one of the single most influential movies ever made, introducing storytelling and visual techniques that would go on to become commonplace across all genres of cinema, and has regularly been cited as a direct inspiration by many filmmakers over the last 63 years.
The progenitor of the 'men-on-a-mission' movie, the relatively straightforward plot of a reluctant hero gathering a disparate group of individuals to battle a common threat became one of the most well-worn tropes in the industry a long time ago.
Whereas action had previously been depicted on film with a simple 'point and shoot' mentality, Seven Samurai's use of multi-camera setups, quick edits and use of slow-motion to make the set-pieces a vital part of the story established the template for action cinema that quickly became the industry standard.
Besides Hollywood remake The Magnificent Seven, the sheer volume of directors that have admitted to taking visual or narrative cues from Seven Samurai is nothing short of astonishing; Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, Sam Peckinpah, Steven Soderbergh, Zack Snyder, Peter Jackson, John Lasseter, George Miller and many, many more have all paid homage to Kurosawa's classic in one way or another.