Pre-80's Action Movies!!!!

I understand there are tons of thread dedicated to action movies here.. But I wanted this to be a thread for classic action movies that came before the 80's. (couldn't find a thread for this)


I just watched Sam Peckinapah's The Killer Elite.
Absolutely loved it and now I understand I am missing out on a lot of action movies that came out before I was born (1985).

Few others that I love:
The Mechanic
Dirty Dozen
Point Blank

So recommend & discuss with me some of your classic action movies..
From actors like Bronson to Marvin to Eastwood..
From Martial Arts to Westerns to Gangsters to Cops & Robbers.. Heist, Spies... etc.....

The other must-sees for Lee Marvin actioners, according to me, are...



The Professionals (1966, Richard Brooks)
Prime Cut (1972, Michael Ritchie)
Hell in the Pacific (1968, John Boorman)
The Killers (1964, Don Siegel)
Emperor of the North (1973, Robert Aldrich)
Death Hunt (1981, Peter Hunt)

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For war movies you'll want to watch The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Murphy's War, Operation Crossbow, The Great Escape, Zulu, Hell in the Pacific and Kelly's Heroes.

I'd choose among several westerns The Professionals, The Magnificent Seven, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Little Big Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, My Name is Nobody, Red River and The Gunfight at the OK Corral.

From various other genres I'd include Charley Varrick, The Gauntlet, Deliverance, Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, The Spy who Loved Me and I'm going to have to cut the list short now because I have to leave. I'm sure you'll get plenty more recommendations.

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My IMDb page

Lots of em-- a few of my faves

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
Rollerball
the Warriors
The Driver
The Getaway
Violent City
Vanishing Point

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
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Thanks guys..

Have seen these from your recommendations already:
The Professionals
Hell in the Pacific
Death Hunt
The Guns of Navarone
Where Eagles Dare
The Great Escape
Kelly's Heroes.
The Magnificent Seven
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Goldfinger
From Russia with Love
The Spy who Loved Me

The other suggestions look great.. will try them out.

Have seen The Warriors.. And just realized i forgot to enter it in my Top 100 list.
Been wanting to watch The Getaway & The Driver for ages.. Thanks for reminding me.

Just saw Black Dynamite.

I now plan to catch up on some Blaxploitation films, starting with Black Belt Jones.
Any suggestions on this?

Love Black Dynamite. That was the best comedy I've seen in years. Of course, I don't really like comedy films, so there aren't many that I like.

Pre-80's action films
The Last Hunter
Apocalypse Now
Death Race 2000
Walking Tall
Inglorious Bastards


I'd also second The Warriors, Rollerball and Vanishing Point, though I'm not sure if the last one counts as an actioner.

As for Blaxploitation recommendations:

Shaft
Shaft's Big Score
Shaft In Africa
TNT Jackson
Truck Turner
The Black Caesar
The Black Godfather
The Black Gestapo
The Black Fist
Super Cops
Superfly
The Mack
The Hit
Hit Man
Coffy
Foxy Brown
Black Mama, White Mama
Sweet, Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Get Christie Love!
Cleopatra Jones
Cleopatra Jones & The Casino Of Gold
Car Wash
Undercover Brother

My first ideas were Charley Varrick and The Killer Elite, but you guys got those already. I like a cheesy (well usually pretty cheesy) action flick myself quite often, but most I know of are 80s

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I'm sorry, but in my opinion, nothing beats Seijun Suzuki when it comes to Pre-80's Action:


When Japan's third-best assassin wants you to boil rice for him so he can get a erection before a hit... you best be boiling some mofo-ing rice.

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

&NR=1



I didn't put this scene from the climax of the Wild Bunch from YouTube up directly because the picture is too small letter-boxed and you can go full screen from the site. Still one of the all time great action scenes, brilliantly shot and edited.

You could mention some 80's ones as well...

Well, Dead Bang always comes to mind

Never even heard of this.. Just saw the trailer, it looks damn good.

Me neither.
Here is another little known actioner.

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Sadly, Dead Bang is not very good. Watched it fairly recently after not having seen it in a long time. While a couple scenes are good and there's a memorable moment in the first part of the flick where Johnson's drunken cop vomits on a suspect he just had to run down, overall it is really below average dreck. Despite being helmed by the great John Frankenheimer. Not only full of nothing but clichés, but done with such little energy and clearly on the cheap. It doesn't even pay off in a "so bad it's good" kind of level as it's mostly just dull and plodding.

There are lots and lots of other '80s actioners and police procedurals to see before Dead Bang.

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