15 Best Action Movies Of The Last 10 Years

In 2011, the producers of the floundering Fast & Furious franchise stumbled upon a game changing secret: they were free to make their car worshipping extravaganzas very, very silly indeed. The films had always had a silly element, of course, but this was mostly inadvertent, a result of taking far too seriously stories about loyalty, betrayal, and driving really fast.

With Fast Five, they cut loose, and embraced the nonsense at the heart of the series. Fast Five started off the cartoonish era, which has turned Fast & Furious from a collection of badly numbered repetitive car movies to one of the most commercially successful and surprisingly beloved franchises in Hollywood.

A large part of this is down to the ever-growing cast. The masterstroke here is hiring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the lawman antagonist. Johnson persistently straddles the silly/serious line as an actor and as a human, and his investment in the role and undeniable charisma add a huge amount to the series (he’s now essentially the face of the franchise, to the reported chagrin of Vin Diesel). Each follow up has made huge bucks – they’ll be producing these until the end of time.