Top 10 Movie Action Sequences of 2025

Honorable Mentions:

Silver Surfer Chases The Fantastic Four Through Space-The Fantastic Four: First Steps

 

Ice Club Fight-Ballerina

 

Disgruntled Assassin vs. Triads-Fight or Flight

The Team Meets for the First Time-Thunderbolts*

Amusement Park Chaos-Nobody 2

10.Glass Wolverine-Novocaine

A big part of Novocaine's appeal comes from the protagonist Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) having a disorder that makes him unable to feel pain and the film crafting action sequences that take full advantage of Caine's ability to get beat to shit without fully realizing just how hurt he is. While the other fight scenes in the film have more elaborate choreography, there's a particularly gruesome, bone-crunching edge to this one that made it my favorite of the film's many visceral bursts of action. 

9.Safe House Ambush-Heads of State

How about some more Jack Quaid to kick off this countdown? Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry, Nobody) got called up to the PG-13 streaming blockbuster league with Heads of State and made it one of the rare entries in this frowned upon subsection of Hollywood to be a legit good time. Outside of reigniting the tremendous adversarial chemistry that Idris Elba and John Cena built up in The Suicide Squad, the stylized, high energy action sequences like this key setpiece from the second act of the film were the biggest reason why Heads of State succeeded where many others in this space have failed.

8.Kitchen Fight-Love Hurts

As the president of the Love Hurts Fan Club, I'm obligated to feature a scene from it here. The zany, playful choreography here is a throwback to the stuff that Jackie Chan was doing when he first started making movies in English during the mid-to-late 90's and it was refreshing to see this brand of goofy fighting on screen in 2025. 

7.Mister Terrific Introduces Himself to Lex Luthor's Goon Squad-Superman

Just a classic James Gunn action sequence where the CGI/practical elements are brought together seamlessly and a scene-stealing side character gets to wail on a bunch of faceless goons to a cool song. 

6.Average Duck Boat Tour Disturbance -Nobody 2

 

Fair or not, Nobody 2 had the unenviable task of trying to match or top the incredible fight sequences from the first film. Despite ultimately failing to reach the peaks of its predecessor, it's still a really fun movie full of sick action. This particularly goofy sequence makes really great use of its unique setting and the shots of chaos breaking out in the background while the people in the front of the boat are fully locked into the duck boat tour made me laugh pretty hard.

5.All Hell Breaks Loose-Diablo

Diablo appears to blow most of its low budget on this sequence and its big final set piece set at an abandoned factory. If this was indeed the case, it was 100% worth it. What makes me prefer this scene from pretty early on in the film to the finale is the beautifully executed mayhem that organically leads to into the first of the few fights that take place between martial arts legends Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror during Diablo's lethally efficient 91-minute runtime.  

4.Driving Shootout Through the Streets of Nice-Den of Thieves 2: Pantera

Having the big action payoff of Den of Thieves 2: Pantera be an unbearably tense extended chase/shootout through the winding tunnels and mountainsides of Nice, France (or more accurately, Spain's Canary Islands doubling as Nice) is one of the many reasons these movies rip so hard.

3.Tom Cruise Risks His Life for the Movies Part 123-Mission-Impossible: The Final Reckoning

This would've been a spot higher if it had been the first time Tom Cruise had hung from the side of an airplane in a Mission-Impossible movie. Despite its similarity to a famous stunt from Rogue Nation, it remains an exhilarating sequence that helps The Final Reckoning atone for the sins of its first act in the final one. 

2.Grenade Fight-Ballerina

Watching Ana de Armas survive an ambush at an arms dealer's hideout by finding a box of grenades in a locked room was the very moment that I knew that Chad Stahelski had come in and saved Ballerina from being the first movie in the John Wick universe to miss the mark. 

1.Flamethrower Fight-Ballerina

Nothing else I watched in 2025 had an action scene that came anywhere close to matching this one. The John Wick franchise just continues to find ways to pull off creative fight scenes full of unreal stuntwork and pristine editing and this insane climactic fight with FUCKING FLAMETHROWERS is every bit as good as the finest moments from the main franchise.