Must Watch Movies For John Wick Fans:
John Wick is being heralded as the greatest action thriller franchise of the last decade. But Hollywood is vast and endless and if you know just where to look, you will find several other movies that are just as interesting and intriguing. The movies on this list may not be John Wick but they are certainly unique and distinct in their own right. If you like such movies, you should definitely check these out as well.
1. The Equalizer
What happens to the CIA operatives after they retire? What happens to the guy who is supposed to be the best operative the CIA has ever had the chance to use an asset until he too crosses the age limit and decides to take a rain check? The Equalizer stars Denzel Washington, who plays master assassin and ex CIA hit-man Robert McCall. McCall leads a quiet and secluded life in suburban America when a teenage girl he regularly converses with is taken hostage by a Human Trafficking Ring. McCall uses his skills and tricks he learned in the trade to let all hell break loose in this action thriller that is slow-paced but full of twists and turns and totally worth a watch.
2. Atomic Blonde
Atomic Blonde is one of the only two movies featuring a female lead in our list. It stars Charlize Theron as the lead protagonist named Lorraine Broughton. Lorrain works as a spy for the British Intelligence agency MI6. She is sent deep undercover into the deepest and darkest pits of East German Underground right before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Theron’s character is tasked with retrieving a list of names containing the secret identities of all the double agents within the British Intelligence and beyond who will soon find their way back behind the Iron Curtain once the Berlin Wall collapses. It is a very faithful adaptation of the 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City. The most endearing aspects of the movie involve raw and dirty fist-fights.
3. War
This movie features two some of the greatest action stars of Hollywood – Jet Li and Jason Statham. Li plays Rogue, an international assassin who has murdered someone very close to Crawford, played by Statham. Rogue has since returned from hiding to take down the Yanagawa Empire, which is currently one of the greatest crime families in America. Crawford uses his FBI connections to take down Rogue and stop him before he does too much damage. The movie has some of the best fight scenes in Hollywood. A lot of twists and turns in the storyline keep the viewers engaged. War has been renamed as Rogue Assassin to avoid conflict of interest with another movie with the same name.
4. Unforgiven
Any movie that has Clint Eastwood in it is bound to be on a Must-Watch List. Unforgiven tells the story of William Munny. Munny once used to be the greatest gunfighter the Wild West had ever seen. He let that all go and settled down after becoming a family man. He now has a wife and a kind and lives a peaceful life. A person called Schofield Kid comes to his residence and he brings along with him an offer that is so lucrative that Munny just cannot afford to refuse it. What follows is an hour and a half of Clint Eastwood just being a badass on screen. Watch it if you like western cowboy-themed, lone ranger kind of movies.
5. Ninja Assassin
Ninja Assassin, like Atomic Blonde, is one of its kinds on this list. It is the only movie to feature a sole lead who is also a non-white actor. Ninja Assassin is a movie that is based on the neo-noir and martial arts genre. The South Korean Pop sensation Rain takes the role of Raizo, a gifted ninja killer trained since birth in the art of assassination that betrays his own organization and decides to go after the head of the snake of his own clan. Ninja Assassin has amazing CGI supported action sequences. The movie also stars Naomi Harris as Agent Mika Coretti of the Europol. The movie is a perfect combination of mystery, drama, and action.
6. Peppermint
After Atomic Blonde, the second movie to feature a female lead is Peppermint. A relatively recent movie, Peppermint graced the theatres to lukewarm reviews in 2018. It had a very powerful ensemble cast led by Jenniffer Garner. This vigilante revenge action thriller was about a widow trying to exact revenge on the drug cartel that killed her husband and daughter in an act of cold-blooded murder. Peppermint is one of the best moments of Jennifer Garner, who has had zero involvement in action movies after Elektra. She is one of the only women who can carry an action movie on her shoulders and with such women being on extreme short supply in Hollywood, we suggest you give it a watch.
7. Law Abiding Citizen
If the system is the one that wrongs you, whom do you blame?? Law Abiding Citizen is basically what a common man is capable of if he is given uncommon access to extraordinary skills. Clarence Darby is forced to watch his wife getting raped and killed along with his young daughter in a case of Home invasion. The courts decide to let the accused go with a reduced sentence provided he testifies against his accomplice in the act, who was actually not the one who did everything but the other way around. Darby feels cheated by the system and vows revenge. Little does everybody know that Clarence Darby is actually a CIA operative who specialized in assassination! Since he is now willing to take matters into his own hands, the entire city feels the pinch of an angry man.
8. Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino makes the best and bloodiest movies. Kill Bill is probably his Magnum Opus. A Samurai film that was both written and directed by Tarantino, Kill Bill stars Uma Thurman as The Bride, a woman who was shot in the head by a gang of killers during her wedding and left to die. Kill bill is the perfect example of how movies beautify graphic violence. A zenith of grindhouse movies, Kill Bill also takes leaves from other genres like Dark Comedy and Blaxploitation. The movie was so long that it was divided into two parts. In Kill Bill Volume 1, The Bride takes on the might of the Yakuza.
9. Death Wish
Directed by Eli Roth, Death Wish is another vigilante action thriller. It is a remake of the 9174 movie Death Wish that starred Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, the lead protagonist of Death Wish. Bronson’s original Death Wish movie led to the birth of an entire franchise of Death Wish movies. The 2018 remake stars Bruce Willis as Paul Kersey. It is not half as good as the 1974 version, but it does a solid job at making the audience feel the blood splatter as Kersey uses innovative methods to kill his opponents and his methods often almost always involve blood and screams. Paul Kersey, played by Bruce Willis, is a surgeon that is frustrated by how the cops are moving at a snail’s pace after his wife was killed and his daughter was assaulted in their home and decides it is best if he him-self does something about it.
10. Gran Torino
Like we said, any movie that has Clint Eastwood is worth a watch. We cannot repeat it again. Gran Torino is more of a drama than an action thriller. In fact, it has very little action. So why is it on our list? Remember what drove John Wick to return to the life of a Hit-Man? Because he was pushed to the edge of the cliff so much that he lost his balance and fell back right into the abyss. More than 90 percent of Gran Torino is exploring how an old man was pushed so hard that even he could not adhere to the life of pacifism he had sworn to. Gran Torino tells the story of Walt Kowalski and his journey to take down a local gang from corrupting the neighborhood.
