10 Beloved Action Movie Stars (& Their Highest Rated Movie On Rotten Tomatoes)

As franchises have dominated Hollywood as of late, and characters like Iron Man draw more crowds to movie theaters than A-listers like George Clooney, the movie star has somewhat fallen out of favor. Intellectual properties are the film industry’s new favorite currency and the idea of the star might eventually disappear altogether. In fact, Sylvester Stallone seemingly created The Expendables franchise as an excuse to drag long-forgotten action movie stars out of the woodwork.

But the action genre still has plenty of star power. What drew audiences to The Meg wasn’t its source material, it was the promise of Jason Statham fighting a 75-foot shark. In this spirit, here are some of action cinema’s most beloved stars and their highest-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes.

10 Jason Statham – Spy (95%)

Jason Statham is the kind of actor who is widely adored by audiences, but often receives negative reviews from critics. With a movie like Crank 2 or Transporter 3, Statham’s fans know what they’re getting and they’re alright with that.

The actor’s highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is actually a deconstruction of his usual persona. In Paul Feig’s Spy, Statham plays an invincible, but incompetent 007 type opposite Melissa McCarthy.

9 Chow Yun-Fat – The Killer (98%)

From A Better Tomorrow to Hard Boiled, Chow Yun-fat’s collaborations with John Woo, the founding father of the “gun-fu” action subgenre, have made him one of action cinema’s most formidable legends.

Unsurprisingly, his highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is a Woo picture: the near-flawless opera of heroic bloodshed that is 1989’s The Killer.

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8 Keanu Reeves – Toy Story 4 (97%)

After getting his initial big break with Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and then scoring a career comeback with The Matrix, Keanu Reeves is currently enjoying a second career renaissance, thanks to a little neo-noir action thriller called John Wick.

In addition to launching its own lucrative franchise, John Wick has made Reeves one of the biggest stars in the world, opening him up to cameo appearances like his role as daredevil action figure Duke Caboom in Toy Story 4.

7 Pam Grier – The Big Bird Cage (100%)

One of the defining entries in the “women in prison” subgenre of exploitation cinema, The Big Bird Cage (along with The Big Doll House, which also starred Pam Grier) established a lot of the tropes that the very specific subgenre is now remembered for.

Both of these women-in-prison classics were directed by Jack Hill, who went on to pioneer the blaxploitation genre with Grier’s starring roles in Foxy Brown and Coffy.

6 Sonny Chiba – Kill Bill: Volume 1 (85%)

Quentin Tarantino littered his early movies with references to Sonny Chiba. In True Romance, Clarence meets Alabama at a Street Fighter trilogy marathon. In Pulp Fiction, Jules’ Ezekiel 25:17 speech isn’t taken from the Bible, but rather a Chiba movie’s epigraph.

When he helmed Kill Bill, his two-part homage to martial arts cinema, Tarantino tapped Chiba to play Hattori Hanzō, the legendary swordsmith who comes out of retirement to create one last weapon for the Bride.

5 Sylvester Stallone – Creed (95%)

As a young struggling actor, Sylvester Stallone gave himself a big break by writing the script for Rocky and taking a pay cut to ensure that he could play the title role. The Oscar-winning mother of all underdog sports movies remains a close second on Stallone’s Tomatometer rankings.

However, his top-rated movie, just one percentage point higher, is Creed, Ryan Coogler’s reboot of the Rocky franchise that successfully explored Balboa’s twilight years while keeping the focus on a new fighter played by Michael B. Jordan.

4 Sigourney Weaver – Alien (98%)

Sigourney Weaver broke new ground for women in action movies with her turn as Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott’s Alien. What could’ve been a haunted house movie in space was elevated to a groundbreaking masterpiece by Scott’s command of suspense, H.R. Giger’s chilling designs, and most importantly, Weaver’s convincing performance.

While not quite as highly rated on the Tomatometer, James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens, did a terrific job of raising the stakes of the action and expanding on Ripley’s characterization.

3 Jackie Chan – Supercop (96%)

Jackie Chan isn’t just one of the world’s greatest action movie stars, he’s one of the greatest action movie directors, too. As a perfectionist, he’ll demand take after take until each action beat is just right, and his stunt performers don’t complain because he’s also the star in front of the camera keeping up with his own directorial demands.

His top-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is Supercop, the third installment in Chan’s brilliantly crafted Police Story franchise, which paired him up with the great Michelle Yeoh.

2 Arnold Schwarzenegger – The Terminator (100%)

James Cameron was so sure that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the perfect actor to play the titular cyborg in The Terminator that he delayed production to wait for Arnie to fulfill his contractual obligation for a Conan sequel.

Schwarzenegger made an icon out of the T-800 and became one of the biggest movie stars in the world (both physically and metaphorically) throughout the 80s and 90s.

1 Bruce Lee – Enter The Dragon (94%)

During his tragically short life, Bruce Lee accomplished more than most people do in 100 years. In addition to being one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived and a true philosopher, Lee singlehandedly kickstarted a wave of kick-ass martial arts movies in the 70s.

He starred in a handful of bona fide classics, from Fist of Fury to Way of the Dragon, but his highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is his final work, Enter the Dragon, which premiered a month after he passed away.

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