Last Updated on 25 March 2024
I searched the Internet for lists of the best or greatest action movies of all time. Criteria included the movies being ranked, not just listed, and generally created by groups, whether teams or committees or based on general public voting (like Ranker.com).
I was able to find 34 lists. I took the 34 lists and added all their content into a spreadsheet, noting the rank of every film. I ended up averaging the rankings each movie got (there were 300 that were on at least 2 lists) and dividing that average by a factor of the number of lists that movie was on. The lowest score meant a high ranking average on many lists. The complete spreadsheet is attached at the bottom.
The movies that were on the most lists (out of 34) were:
- Schindler’s List (1993) – 27 lists
- 12 Years a Slave (2013) – 22 lists
- Apollo 13 (1995) – 19 lists
- Gladiator (2000) – 18 lists
- Braveheart (1995) – 18 lists
- The King’s Speech (2010) – 18 lists
- Lincoln (2012) – 17 lists
- Ben-Hur (1959) – 16 lists
- Glory (1989) – 15 lists
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – 14 lists
Here are links to the lists I used along with dates the lists were created:
- The Numbers – 22 Jul 2023
- IMDb – 20 Jul 2023
- Ranker – 14 Jul 2023 (7.7K voters)
- MovieWeb – 10 Jul 2023
- Insider – 7 Jul 2023
- Best Toppers – 22 Jun 2023
- Bored Panda – 20 Jun 2023
- Filmmaking Lifestyle – 5 Jun 2023
- Daily Choices – 24 May 2023
- Top Tens – 9 Apr 2023
- Parade – 17 Mar 2023
- PureWow – 17 Mar 2023
- Knowinsiders – 21 Feb 2023
- Reads-It.com – 10 Jan 2023
- History Hit – 16 Dec 2022
- GoBookMart – 18 Jul 2022
- TheCinemaholic – 1 Jul 2022
- Good Housekeeping – 29 Jun 2022
- CBR – Most Immersive – 13 Jun 2022
- CBR – Epics – 8 May 2022
- The Teal Mango – 18 Apr 2022
- SlashFilm – 18 Mar 2022
- We Got This Covered – 10 Mar 2022
- The Pioneer Woman – 24 Feb 2022
- Entertainment.ie – 1 Mar 2021
- Australia Unwrapped – 27 Jul 2020
- Den of Geek – 6 Aug 2018
- All That’s Interesting – 2 Nov 2017
- ViewKick – 1 Jul 2016
- Classic Movie Hub – no date
- FlickChart – no date
- Good Movies List – no date
- MetaCritic – no date
- ThroughTheClutter – no date