Whether you are dodging holiday stress or settling in for a cozy evening on the couch, losing yourself in the high-octane spectacle of an action movie is a great way to wile away an hour or two. Thankfully, the best streaming services just added hundreds of movies on the first of November, including a ton of action movies to get your adrenaline pumping.
To help you skip the endless scrolling for what to watch and jump straight to the best stunts, car chases, and gunfights, I’ve tracked down every major action movie that just hit Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and other major streaming platforms and ranked them from best to worst according to their critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Here is what’s truly Certified Fresh — and what you may want to skip. Though who amongst us hasn’t indulged in revisiting a bad movie from time to time?
Netflix
‘Looper’ (2012)
Directed by Rian Johnson and with some incredible performances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis, “Looper” is a clever sci-fi thriller that combines time travel, killer action sequences and moral quandaries into one thrilling masterpiece. It’s a standout in a genre with more than its fair share of duds, a thought-provoking take on a familiar concept that doesn’t skimp on the high-octane set pieces.
“Looper” takes us forward to 2074, imagining a world where time travel is invented, but made illegal, and quickly taken up by the mob, who send their targets back in time to be taken out by a “Looper” (aka hitman). Gordon-Levitt’s Joe is riding high atop the Looper ranks when his older self, played by Bruce Willis, comes to cut his career short — setting up an epic battle where the past and future collide.
- Everything new on Netflix in November
- ‘Air Force One’ (81%)
- ‘Fury’ (75%)
- ‘Public Enemies’ (67%)
- ‘Cliffhanger’ (65%)
- ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (44%)
‘Black Bag’ (2025)
I watched “Black Bag” after my colleague Malcolm described it as a cross between “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” and I couldn’t agree more. Tightly crafted, smart, and with plenty of dark humor to spare, the film stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as a married couple who are both spies for the British intelligence service.
Fassbender’s George is a human lie detector, but when his wife’s suspected of being a potential double agent, he’s forced to use his skills on the one person he thought he knew best. “Black Bag” is a sleek and satisfying thriller, and clocking in at just 94 minutes, it nails that ever-escalating sense of tension you’re looking for in an action movie without overstaying its welcome.
- Everything new on Hulu in November
- ‘Meg 2: The Trench’ (27%)
HBO Max
‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ series (HBO Max)
If you never got around to checking out the rebooted “Planet of the Apes” franchise, all four movies are now on HBO Max this month. As far as reboots go, it’s among the stronger ones, with CGI that holds up surprisingly well even now. The first entry, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” follows Will Rodman (James Franco), who is testing a cure for Alzheimer’s disease on chimpanzees, which dramatically increases their intelligence.
One of these chimpanzees, named Caesar (portrayed by Andy Serkis of “Lord of the Rings” fame), becomes smart enough to recognize the injustices faced by his kind. After being placed in an abusive primate shelter, Caesar leads a rebellion of genetically enhanced apes, sparking a war between humans and apes that doesn’t go too well for us. If you don’t mind jumping ahead (each story is pretty self-contained), 2024’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is the latest entry.
Watch“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” on HBO Maxnow (along with its three sequels)
- Everything new on HBO Max in November
- ‘Enemy’ (74%)
- ‘The Wolverine’ (70%)
- ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ (60%)
- ‘The First Purge’ (55%)
- ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (47%)
Paramount+
‘Hamburger Hill’
Vietnam War movies are a dime a dozen, but very few can boast a perfect 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. “Hamburger Hill” can, and once you watch it, you’ll understand why. Set during the last stages of the Vietnam War, “Hamburger Hill” tells the story of a unit of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division led by Lt. Frantz (Dylan McDermott) that, in May 1969, spent 10 days trying to take a hill held by North Vietnamese soldiers.
Five fresh-faced recruits, Beletsky (Tim Quill), Languilli (Anthony Barrile), Washburn (Don Cheadle), Bienstock (Tommy Swerdlow), and Galvan (M.A. Nickles), join war-weary soldiers in an uphill battle that epitomizes the visceral horrors that defined the Vietnam War. They ultimately managed to win the day, but in a pyrrhic victory that’s still considered to be a military disaster by most historians.
Watch“Hamburger Hill” on Paramount+now
- Everything new on Paramount+ in November
- ‘First Blood’ (87%)
- ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (79%)
- ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ (76%)
- ‘The Italian Job’ (73%)
- ‘Twister’ (69%)
Prime Video
‘Wargames’
“Wargames” is a sci-fi techno-thriller that’s only gotten more relevant over the years. A sleeper hit when it debuted in the ’80s, it became a cult classic and even influenced real-world discussions on cybersecurity. It was also one of Hollywood’s best early depictions of hacking that was both thrilling and eerily plausible.
Matthew Broderick stars as David Lightman, a teenage computer whiz who accidentally hacks into a top-secret U.S. military supercomputer, thinking Global Thermonuclear War sounds like a fun new computer game. He runs a simulation of what a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union would look like — one that the computer, known as WOPR, begins to take seriously.
Watch“Wargames” on Prime Videonow
- Everything new on Prime Video in November
- ‘American Made’ (85%)
- ‘Reap The Wild Wind’ (80%)
- ‘The Rundown’ (69%)
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