50 Greatest Action Movies Of All Time

36. First Blood (1982)

First Blood
Orion Pictures

Its easy to forget given that the franchise soon devolved into the typical bullets and biceps model of 1980s action cinema, but Sylvester Stallone's first outing as John Rambo is a much darker and more serious affair than its shoot-em-up sequels.

First Blood paints Rambo as a vulnerable and emotionally-damaged war veteran, as opposed to the unstoppable superhuman he would soon become. Stallone's low-key performance creates a complex character that is forced to take matters into his own hands, and is as much a psychological thriller as a survival actioner.

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