The best action movies have plenty of action scenes, but they also contain good characterization and a plotline that doesn't confuse the audience or make viewers roll their eyes. A good action movie has to have a protagonist the fans hope to see succeed, whether the hero is a straight shooter, a wiseass, has style or is simply so darned competent that his fights are simple artistry. Of course, great action movies have to have memorable movie villains.

I've tried to collect a list of my favorite action films. You might call them the greatest action movies ever made, because I have such excellent taste in cinema. Seriously, I'll tell you what I look for in an outstanding action movie, by telling you what I hope to avoid. I don't like so many of the action films these days, where the fight scenes involve the film crew shaking the cameras to create a sense of energy. Maybe a real fight scene is chaotic and hard to see, but these aren't real action scenes we're talking about.

I like fight scenes where you can see every move by the opponents, where it builds anticipation towards the knockout shot or the killing blow. You don't get that when the camera shakes so much that it gives you a headache.

I'm not going to include westerns and sports movies involving boxing and such. I'm going to leave out most of the CGI-inspired comic book movies, because those tend to be more about the special effects than the moves. I want to feature movies with shootouts, car chases and martial arts battles. I will include movies that have great gunplay or memorable fight scenes. I want action.

Now that I've established my old school credentials, here's the 20 Best Action Movies to rent or buy on blu-ray or DVD.

1. Die Hard (1988) - The movie that made Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman movie stars. This is still the best action movie ever made, because it had everything you could want: classy villain, cool action hero, memorable supporting characters and action scenes that kept you on the edge of your seat. Die Hard also had two other things going for it: great lines and lots of humor. In between the fights, you could laugh at the characters and get to like both heroes and villains. You ended up caring what happened to these people.

And Die Hard had all kinds of great dialogue and great one-liners. "Now I have a machine-gun. Ho! Ho! Ho!" "Yippie Kay-Yay, Mother Fucker!" "Just like fucking Saigon!" "It's a Rolex." "You ask for a miracle and I give you the F.B.I." "He's still alive...only John can drive somebody that crazy."

Die Hard was such a great movie, that it spawned on entire 10 years of copycat action movies. There was a hero trapped with villains on a bus, on a boat, on a airplane (multiple times), on a train, in a hockey rink and on and on and on. None of them had half the heart of Die Hard, though.

2. The Matrix (1999) - Okay, The Matrix had its incomprehensible moments and its pretentious moments; I'll give you that. But the action scenes in The Matrix were so revolutionary and influential that I forgave whatever flaws there were in the other scenes. Besides, for the first Matrix movie, at least, the metaphorical stuff was kept to a certain tolerant level. Once we'd seen The Matrix copied a dozen times, the Matrix sequels weren't all that special. But sequels almost always suck anyway, so I'm not counting off here.

The Matrix was envisioned as a live-action film trying to capture the crazy possibilities of the anime movies of Japan. Using mostly old-fashioned camera tricks and a lot of care, the Wachowski Brothers and their production crew made an action movie tour de force. I still enjoy putting The Matrix in the blu-ray player and watching that action scene in the lobby every once in a while. Just so badass.

The Matrix was about the only movie from the Nineties about the Internet and virtual reality that didn't really suck. That's because most of those other movies showed people hook up little Walk-Man like plugins to their temples and showed people mainly spaced out. The Matrix got it right: in a virtual world, anything you can imagine is possible. The Matrix opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

3. Lethal Weapon (1987) - The buddy movie existed before Lethal Weapon, but Lethal Weapon made the buddy cop movie into a Hollywood trope. Less entertaining movies like Tango & Cash, Bad Boyz and all those crazy Rush Hour movies owe a lot to the Lethal Weapon franchise. I've said before that, after Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, every action movie for ten years was a ripoff of one or the other. Interestingly enough, both Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are also Christmas movies.

Lethal Weapon is the classic story of a veteran police detective about to reach retirement who "brings in a new partner" on his last case. This new partner is a burnout from homicide whose wife recently died, and who apparently has a deathwish. They can't agree on tactics. They can't get along, even arguing about whether one can smoke in the other's car. Like all action movie heroes of the 1980s, both are Vietnam veterans with a past. That becomes important when one of the cops' old war buddies begins to blow the whistle on The General, Mr. Joshua and Shadow Company. If you ever wanted to see a man get shot while drinking egg nog, Lethal Weapon is the movie for you.

Besides several good fight scenes and a ton of great movie lines, Lethal Weapon has more than its fair share of humor. Through it all, Riggs and Murtaugh go on to become the best of buddies, friendly enough to stay on for three sequels.

4. Seven Samurai (1954) - Akira Kurosawa's classic story of seven lordless ronin hired by a village of peasants to fight off the bandits. You get to see a master who is willing to take his time to tell a story. You get to see seven unique personalities put aside the general greed of the mercenary samurai to defend something elemental, the farmer's sacred soil. You get to see the most pathetic looking peasants you will ever see in a movie. Somehow, the villagers seem to have walked right out of the medieval Japanese landscape (well, at least how Kurosawa and I envision it).

When I watch Seven Samurai and think about what was being made in the United States at the same time, I think of the maturity of the characters and the story itself. The samurai are worldly men who have known loss and hunger and seem to have an unspoken camaraderie that comes from some unspoken struggle or lost war or maybe the knowledge that they will all die on the battlefield sometime and someplace. "You're overestimating me. Listen, I'm not a man with any special skill, but I've had plenty of experience in battles; losing battles, all of them. In short, that's all I am." "As a matter of fact, I'm preparing for a tough war. It will bring us neither money nor fame. Want to join?" "So. Again we are defeated. The farmers have won. Not us."

5. Terminator 2 (1991) - T2 is when action movies began to change. James Cameron had the bankroll to make CGI a huge part of his sequel to the Terminator, and he made great use of the tool. We get an old model of the original Terminator robot sent back in time to protect the boy who would become the man who would lead the war against the robots. And we get a much more advanced killer robot who can take any form he wants, mimic any person and is made of a semi-solid substance that is almost impossible to destroy. Sounds like the perfect set-up for a whole lot of fighting, and that's what it was.

Sure, there was a little too much robo-humor in the movie, with the kid teaching Robot Arnold how to say lots of silly stuff. But the battles and the car chases were first rate, and Linda Hamilton was suitably intense for someone who went through the hell she went through with that first robot incursion from the future.

6. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1982) - Mel Gibson's quiet intensity (about a dozen lines of dialogue) in fighting mutant punks looking for the last bit of gasoline in an action-packed Australian post-apocalyptic future. Settlers at a oil refining plant are besieged by gangs of roving bandits who appears in a small horde of vehicles, and nobody but Mad Max can save the day. This is the sequel to the original Mad Max movie, about an Australian cop trying to maintain order as gangs of highway criminals terrorize the few remaining civilized people. Mad Max is a great movie, but as far as action goes, Road Warrior is far superior. The car battle at the end of the movie is probably the greatest car chase in film history.

7. Enter The Dragon (1973) - A madman has a martial arts tournament on an island and Bruce Lee turns up to take part. This is straightforward ass-kicking martial arts action at its finest. Enter The Dragon was not only the movie that made Bruce Lee a martial arts icon in the United States and Europe, but it was also the final movie before his mysterious death. Watching this movie, you wonder what might have been.

8. Predator (1987) - Predator was another great action movie from 1987. This is one of the most testosterone packed films you'll ever come across, where you have body-builders with machineguns running around the jungle. You'll hear Carl Weathers talk about the competition on set to pump up the most, and how he snuck into the gym before shooting scenes, so he would be more pumped than the other actors. Arnold Schwarzenneger and Jesse Ventura were also part of the cast. And then there was that crazy alien predator with the hair like all those NFL athletes these days.

Check out these man quotes from the original Predator movie: "I ain't got time to bleed." "If it bleeds, we can kill it." "You're all a bunch of slack jawed faggots! This stuff will make you a sexual Tyrannosaurus. Just like me!" "You're ghostin' us, mother fokaa! I don't care who you are back in the world, you give away our position one more time, I'll bleed ya, real quiet. Leave ya here. Got that?"

9. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - Like Star Wars, the original George Lucas concept was to create a throwback movie like the action films Lucas watched when he was a boy. Star Wars was supposed to be like the movie serials that played before the main feature. Raiders of the Lost Ark followed the same idea, except it captured the pulp adventure tales that were popular in that time.

Indiana Jones, as directed by Steven Spielberg, had a modern feel to him, since he got more and more battered as the movie went along. "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." He also wasn't above cheating to win, but cheating in a charming kind of way. Thrown in the Nazis, who always add a special little touch of evil to the movie villain, and you have a first rate action tale. Raiders of the Lost Ark has good fights, good chase scenes and great escapes.

10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) - Like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is another movie which tried to mimic the kind of superhuman fight skills you might see in an anime. Chow-Yun Fat is the central badass of the story, though there are a couple of strong female characters, played by Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh. The action takes place in 18th century China. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winner of 4 Oscars and the highest-grossing foreign film in U.S. movie history, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon created a major stir in America after its release.

Ironically, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is based in the traditional Chinese wuxia stories and focuses heavily on themes most Americans (including myself) weren't likely to catch on to at all. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen and the fight scenes are breathtaking. This movie deserved every accolade it received.

11. Speed (1994) - Keanu Reeves makes his second appearance on this list, this time with one of those films influenced by Die Hard. Actually, Speed was the best Die Hard knockoff, because it added its own unique twist. Instead of being trapped in a skyscraper, Keanu Reeves is trapped in a bus, and if that bus gets below 50 miles per hour, it will explode. That's all the excuse you need for all kinds of high speed action and drama. Speed is the rare movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time, while Sandra Bullock adds a dash of spunk and humor to the proceedings.

12. Spider-Man 2 (2004) - Though I really loved the original Spider-Man movie, I think Spider-Man 2 had the better action scenes. The battle between Spidey and Dr. Octopus on the train is still one of the best, especially the touching scene where the l-train commuters see Spider-Man with his mask off, realise he's just a kid and, thankful he just put it all on the line to save their lives, agree to keep his identity secret. Great stuff.

Despite the chili bowl haircut, Sam Raimi and company actually made Doc Ock look pretty cool on the big screen.

13. Fist of Legend (1994) - I wanted to put a Jet Li movie on this list and so I placed my favorite Jet Li movie, Fist of Legend. FoT is a remake of the Bruce Lee movie, Fist of Fury. The high-wire fight scenes were influential on the later Matrix series. Set during the Japanese invasion of China in the pre-WWII years (or WWII, depending on when you figure the start of the war), Fist of Legend is a beautifully filmed movie and brutal as hell. If you enjoy great martial arts movies, you can't miss this one. I know Hard-Boiled usually makes these lists, but I just didn't think Hardboiled was as good.

14. Robocop (1987) - Robocop is the third of three films on this list from 1987. You might notice there are a lot of films on this list from the 1980's. No doubt, the Eighties were the golden age of action movies. That was before the school shootings, when nobody seemed to mind rogue cops going on rampages through city streets. It was also during the heyday of the drug wars, which seemed to offer a million story ideas to action movie writers. And it was before CGI made superhero and sword-&-sorcery movies such a force in Hollywood, largely replacing the old cop/martial artist action movie.

Robocop is about a cop who is turned into swiss cheese on the job, on the verge of dying and therefore ready for medical experiments. An evil corporation turns him into a cyborg law enforcement officer, and we get to see the Robocop cut through criminals and evil-doers the rest of the movie. Of course, Robocop is bound to turn against the evil corporation who created him.

15. Goldfinger (1964) - You can't really have a best action movie list without having a mention of James Bond. We go all the way back to the early days of the James Bond movies for our selection. Goldfinger was played by a real life Nazi (though a Nazi Party member who hid a Jewish family during the Holocaust, saving their lives at much risk to his own). Goldfinger's henchmen were classics like Oddjob and Pussy Galore. And the Goldfinger movie had Sean Connery at the height of his powers as 007.

All in all, Goldfinger is still one of the most memorable James Bond movies, memorable enough to be spoofed by Austin Powers. They say Ian Fleming named his villain after an architect who screwed up the design of the house he was living in. I don't think it would have worked as well if the architect had been named Schwartz.

16. Gladiator (2000) - Russell Crowe has been wronged and he's going to kill his way all the way back to Rome. That's pretty much the plot of Gladiator, but it works like hell. Russell Crowe brought smoldering intensity to his role as the Roman general turned Roman gladiator who wants one chance to assassinate the emperor who wronged him. His gladiator embodies a number of roles we associate with intensity: athlete, soldier, killer, avenger.

There's just enough plot to keep us interested in the fate of these characters. And Roman emperors always seem to be excellent candidates for people who deserve what they get. On top of all that, Gladiator is beautifully filmed. While I'm not sure Russell Crowe deserved an Oscar for this role, he was really good in this movie.

17. Drunken Master (1978) - One of the early Jackie Chan movies and certainly one that shows Chan's genius for staging memorable fight scenes. Drunken Master tells a story of the Chinese folk hero, Wong Fei Hung, who lived in the late-19th and early-20th century and was one of the Ten Tigers of Canton, the most famous martial artists in all of Southern China. Due to their real life exploits, the Ten Tigers had their stories embellished in the retelling, to the point that their skills became legendary. Wong Fei Hung is perfect for Hong Kong action cinema, so it's no surprise the master of Hung Gar martial arts has been depicted numerous times.

The Drunken Master in the story is Beggar So, who's known to cripple his students, which is why the young Wong Fei Hung wants no part of training under this teacher, who supposedly teaches "drunken boxing". Wong Fei Hung only agrees to learn under So when he is humiliated in a martial arts battle. With all kinds of colorful moves like the Devil's Shadowless Hand and the Devil's Kick, this film is perfect for Jackie Chan's movie martial arts virtuosity.

18. Commando (1985) - Arnold Schwarzenegger plays John Matrix, a retired special operations officer who's tired of all the killing. When the bad guys kidnap Matrix's daughter to force him to do their bidding, the Governator goes on a kill-crazy rampage the likes of which has never been matched again on the silver screen. I would love to see the number of men the commando shoots in this movie. Mix in what would soon become the signature Schwarzenegger humor and you have a classic action movie. Sure, it's not Oscar worthy stuff, but Commando is a quintessential action movie.

Actually, Commando has a lot in common with the later third-person shooters on XBox 360 and Playstation 3. Every step of the way, Matrix kills someone who has another clue, which leads him to his ultimate showdown with the boss villain. It's funny how things are so point-A to point-B in the action movie genre. The next movie has certain plot elements in common with Commando.

19. Taken (2008) - Okay, I know I shouldn't be putting a movie as recent as 2008 on a best movies list, but I want to encourage filmmakers to continue making good, no-nonsense action movies like this. People don't have to see bullets curve and all kinds of other crazy special effects to be entertained anymore. All you need for a top action movie is villains so vile they deserve to die and one lone man who is such a badass that he can get the job done. That's what Liam Neeson is in Taken.

When Liam Neeson's 18-year old daughter on a visit to Paris is abducted by Eurotrash hoping to sell her into slavery, Neeson, a retired CIA paramilitary operatives, springs into action to get his daughter back. Don't say Liam Neeson didn't warn these scumbags, either.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

And he's as good as his word. The villains never say, "You know what? You sound serious. Here's your daughter back." It's much more entertaining when the villains don't go along nicely. The movie is pretty much a case of Liam Neeson kicking ass from there on out, but that's what action movies are all about. They're escapist fun. Don't we all wish we could solve life's problems with a fist to the face, no matter how long the odds are?

20. Last Action Hero (1993) - Scoff if you will, but Last Action Hero is one of the great underrated action movies of all time. Because Last Action Hero premiered the week after Jurassic Park, it got buried at the box office and was considered a huge, embarrassing flop at the time. But Last Action Hero was a fun, smart action movie about action movies.

In fact, I kind of look at Last Action Hero as the natural end of an era. Not only did Schwarzenegger and company poke fun at the action movie genre, but it kind of summed up much of what it was about in the previous 10 to 15 years. And the fact that Last Action Hero flopped in theaters was a sign that CGI blockbusters like Jurassic Park were the future and old style shoot-em-ups were on the way out. With Last Action Hero, the golden age of action movies had ended.

If you haven't seen Last Action Hero since it came out, rent the movie and check it out again. If you loved the old action movies of the 80s and early 90s, you'll probably get a big kick out of this send-up. If nothing else, you'll get to see Ian McKellan play Death.

Honorable Mention Best Action Movies

Marked For Death (1990) - There was a whole string of Steven Segal movies of about equal consideration, from Above the Law to Hard To Kill to this movie on down to Out For Justice. Pretty much, until Steven Segal got too full of himself and too fat to be a credible action movie star, he was great. The early Segal movies saw him snapping bones and hitting people in the head with billiard balls in towels, like a martial arts master is supposed to do. Marked For Death is probably my favorite, since it has the Jamaican mob led by Screwface and Keith David as the shotgun-wielding sidekick, but early Segal is always worth watching for action movie lovers.

The Quick & The Dead (1995) - I decided not to put westerns on this list, though you could say that westerns were action movies before they were action movies. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, The Wild Bunch and The Magnificent Seven would have been up for consideration, otherwise. I place this movie as an honorable mention, because it's a western, but it's a western in the modern action movie sense. The Quick & the Dead features two unknowns in Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, a really hot looking Sharon Stone, a really dastardly Gene Hackman and a whole cast of great character actors. Directed by Sam Raimi, to boot. "Close enough", says Gene Hackman.

Total Recall (1990) - Another great action movie involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, with Sharon Stone in one of her first notable roles. This is a futuristic action flick about a man who may or may not be a "James Bond in space" type spy, and his efforts to recollect his lost memories as assassins chase him from Earth to Mars trying to kill him. A romping good action movie in space.

Hard Target (1993) - The rare Jean-Claude Van Damme movie I'll tout, and John Woo's first big splash in America. When Van Damme is made the target of a "Most Dangerous Game" style manhunt, it's time to make the bad guys pay. I'm not a huge fan of VanDamme, because most of his action scenes seem to involve slow motion and lots of shots of Jean-Claude making silly faces in slow motion. Hard Target is a solid action movie, though, even if it's not quite good enough to make my list of top action movies.

Fight Club (1996) - This movie technically is a kind of action movie, since there's a lot of fighting in it, though I don't exactly place it in that category. Still, I have to address Fight Club on this list, because Fight Club is one of my favorite movies, ever. Whether you're into action movies or just good movies, watch Fight Club.