The 1990s had plenty of action movie superstars, although many of this era’s most notable heroes had lots of movies that have been hugely underrated. While this decade was categorized by major franchises as legendary sequels like Terminator 2 or the dawning of revolutionary series such as The Matrix dominated the conversation, those willing to dig below the surface will be rewarded with incredible hidden gems. As the 1980s stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone continued to hit big at the box office, this was also the heyday for new heroes like Nicolas Cage, Steven Seagal, and Wesley Snipes.
The biggest action movie stars of the 1990s all had several underrated releases that have failed to maintain the same kind of pop culture dominance as their most acclaimed work. This was a real shame, as many of these movies were packed with heart-racing action sequences and spectacular big-budget set pieces that truly hold up upon rewatch. While these movies may not be as well known, they boasted the decade’s biggest action star among their casts and were bursting with 1990s style and energy.
10 Sudden Death (1995)
Jean-Claude Van Damme as Darren McCord
The karate and kickboxing champion Jean-Claude Van Damme first gained widespread recognition after his breakout role in Bloodsport in 1988. However, it was during the 1990s that Van Damme truly made a name for himself as a major action star in beloved movies like Universal Soldier and Time Cop. While Van Damme saw major success working with Hong Kong directors, like John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam, making their Western movie debuts, he also had plenty of underrated releases in the 1990s that were well worth checking out.
Sudden Death represented the best of Van Damme during the 1990s as he played a fire marshal left with no choice but to take on a group of extortionists who held NHL players and 17,000 hockey fans hostage at the Stanley Cup Finals. With his daughter held hostage and the Secret Service unwilling to meet the captor’s over $1 billion demand, Van Damme showed his incredible fighting skills and action star credentials. While Sudden Death underperformed at the box office, it was one of the most exciting action movies of the 1990s and deserves far more attention.
9 Drop Zone (1994)
Wesley Snipes as U.S. Marshal Pete Nessip
Throughout the 1990s, Wesley Snipes established himself as an action star, playing heroes and villains opposite Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, Rising Sun with Sean Connery, and Money Train with Woody Harrelson. Although Snipes was well-known for his visually spectacular turn in the early superhero movie Blade, he also had plenty of underrated releases during this decade. Drop Zone was an example of a Snipes movie that had the potential to become a true classic, yet it received mixed reviews and never built up the acclaim it deserved.
This action movie in the sky kept viewers on the edge of their seats as Snipes played U.S. Marshal Pete Nessip in pursuit of Gary Busey as Ty Moncrief, a criminal attempting to hack the DEA’s mainframe and criminal database. Drop Zone was a high-octane thriller packed with one impressive stunt after another. While audiences may have to suspend their disbelief to truly be astounded by the impressive sequences in the sky in Drop Zone, it’s just so much fun that it swoops audiences away who are ready to be taken along for the ride.
8 The Glimmer Man (1996)
Steven Seagal as CIA Agent Jack Cole
Part of the appeal of Steven Seagal was he had the real-life fighting credentials needed to pull off his role as an action movie star. With a 7th-dan black belt in aikido and as a former martial arts teacher, these skills quickly made Seagal one of the biggest stars of the 1990s with movies like Under Siege and The Patriot. However, one release that should gain more acclaim was his portrayal of the fast-moving CIA operative Jack Cole in The Glimmer Man.
The Glimmer Man had everything a viewer could want out of a Seagal action movie.
The Glimmer Man was a buddy cop action movie that paired Seagal with Keenen Ivory Wayans for a dark and satisfying story of two police officers forced to work together to solve a string of mysterious killings. With several incredible fight sequences that were balanced with a lighthearted sense of humor, The Glimmer Man had everything a viewer could want out of a Seagal action movie. While it didn’t break down any cinematic boundaries, as a swift action-packed 91-minute movie, it just works.
7 Striking Distance (1993)
Bruce Willis as Sergeant Thomas Hardy
While Bruce Willis took the action movie world by storm with the release of Die Hard in 1988, it was during the 1990s that he solidified his stature as one of that decade’s biggest stars. This was an era filled with beloved roles in Die Hard sequels, sci-fi classics like 12 Monkeys, and an iconic turn in Pulp Fiction, but there were also several lesser-known releases like Striking Distance. With Willis as a police sergeant known as Tom Hardy, this was just one of many movies where fictional characters accidentally had famous names.
As the story of a cop pursuing the man he believed murdered his father, Striking Distance dealt with themes of family trauma, hero worship, and the endless desire for justice. While it may not live up to the very best Willis action movies, there’s plenty to enjoy, and it did not deserve to be so harshly dismantled and dismissed by critics at the time of its release. Striking Distance may be slightly generic and bogged down by tropes and clichés, but it featured Willis at the height of his fame with his movie star charisma on full display.
6 Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Keanu Reeves as Johnny
While Keanu Reeves will forever be associated with cyberpunk due to his role as Neo in The Matrix, many viewers may be unaware of his highly underrated performance in Johnny Mnemonic. This 1995 cyberpunk action film was based on a short story by William Gibson, and Reeves played a man who had stored confidential information inside his own head due to a futuristic brain implant. As a depiction of a tech-savvy dystopian future, Johnny Mnemonic was a fascinating exploitation of technological themes that was badly received upon release but has since gained a cult following.
While Johnny Mnemonic failed to live up to the blockbuster expectations of Reeves Speed from the previous year and would be vastly overshadowed by The Matrix, for contemporary viewers, it’s a unique time capsule into the 1990s representation of tech. As a movie released just as the potential for the internet was starting to reveal itself, Johnny Mnemonic represented societal fears about what the future holds and the dangers of information overload. A new edition titled Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White was released in 2022, which Gibson characterized as closer to his original vision (via Screen Slate.)
5 Broken Arrow (1996)
John Travolta as Major Vic “Deak” Deakins
Although John Travolta’s greatest 1990s action movie role came opposite Nicolas Cage in Face/Off, this would not have been possible without his starring role in John Woo’s previous movie Broken Arrow. As a highly underrated release with Travolta and Christian Slater, this highly engaging action thriller saw thieves steal nuclear weapons as the U.S. military authorities attempted to recover them. With an ongoing feud between Travolta and Slater’s characters, tension, high stakes, and a whole lot of style made Broken Arrow a truly engaging cinematic experience.
Broken Arrow represented Woo’s transition from Hong Kong action movies into Hollywood blockbusters and was preceded by his American debut, Hard Target, with Jean-Claude Van Damme the year before. While neither film reached the lofty heights of Face/Off, it showcased Woo’s incredible potential as he consistently carved his now iconic status in the action movie genre. Although this Travolta movie may not be as well known, Broken Arrow was a must-watch for those interested in 1990s action and the unique trajectory of Travolta and Woo’s careers.
4 Crime Story (1993)
Jackie Chan as Inspector Eddie Chan
While the Kung Fu legend Jackie Chan has been acting since as far back as the 1960s, it was during the 1990s that he truly transformed into a global superstar and a major action hero in the West. As perhaps the greatest Kung Fu star of all time, Crime Story gave a glimpse into Chan’s more serious side. While Chan’s unique skills were to blend action movie spectacle, martial arts skills, and slapstick comedy, this underrated release was a far more serious film that many Chan lovers would be used to.
While Crime Story’s more serious undertones may be a reason it is so underrated among action lovers, this was also a major part of its appeal. Chan plays a good cop trying to save a kidnapped businessman, and the more serious aspects of Crime Story come from the fact that it was based on a real 1990 kidnapping (via SCMP). With a career packed with underappreciated and lesser-known releases, Crime Story was a Jackie Chan Hong Kong action movie that’s well worth checking out.
3 Eraser (1996)
Arnold Schwarzenegger as U.S. Marshal John “Eraser” Kruger
When it comes to action movie stars, it does not get any bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger, a performer whose brooding physique, thick Austrian accent, and unique blend of action-star charisma and comedic skill made him a true cinematic icon. While the 1980s saw Schwarzenegger gaining some of his most iconic roles, like in The Terminator, this carried forward into the 1990s with performances in the legendary sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron’s True Lies, and the much-maligned Batman & Robin.
However, among all these well-known roles, one 1990s Schwarzenegger release that seems to get left out of the conversation was Eraser. This was where Schwarzenegger portrayed Kruger, a man specializing in erasing witnesses caught in a massive government conspiracy where even his own men were working against him. With plenty of over-the-top action and some truly awe-inspiring sequences, such as Schwarzenegger somehow catching up with an airplane with his parachute, Eraser was high-octane fun that deserves to be spoken about alongside some of his best work in the action genre.
2 Assassins (1995)
Sylvester Stallone as Robert Rath
As the first produced script by the Wachowskis coming three years before The Matrix, this Sylvester Stallone vehicle was packed with great ideas and had plenty of style. While Brian Helgeland rewrote the script to the point that Wachowskis tried to have their name removed from it (via Collider), this star-studded release with Stallone, Julianne Moore, and Antonio Banderas was an enjoyable offering from the Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner. With fantastically grounded performances from Stallone, it was Banderas as the sweaty, unpredictable, and stressed-out assassin Miguel Bain who gave this film its manic energy.
Assassins was a classic cat-and-mouse game between two highly skilled assassins played by Stallone and Banderas. This was mixed with Stallone’s love story with Julianne Moore as the computer hacker Electra and the delivery of a multi-million dollar computer disk to a mysterious buyer. While it was at times too convoluted for its own good, at its core, Assassins was a pure action movie that’s highly underrated and would likely have been even better had Wachowski’s original vision been maintained.
1 Red Rock West (1993)
Nicolas Cage as Michael Williams
The 1990s were an extraordinary time in Nicolas Cage’s career, as he not only took home the Oscar for Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas, but he also carved out a place for himself as one of Hollywood’s most bankable and unique stars. During this time, Cage starred in three of the best action movies of all time, with roles in Con Air, The Rock, and Face/Off. However, these achievements were just scratching the surface when it came to Cage’s filmography, as those willing to seek out his most underrated releases will be rewarded with pure cinematic gold.
The story involves Cage being mistaken for a hitman in a rural town, and all hell breaks loose when the real hitman (Dennis Hopper) shows up.
The best example of a hidden gem in Cage’s vast filmography was Red Rock West, an action-packed neo-noir Western that oozed style and featured countless twists and turns to keep viewers engaged. The story involves Cage being mistaken for a hitman in a rural town, and all hell breaks loose when the real hitman (Dennis Hopper) shows up. Red Rock West was packed with idiosyncratic characters, a terrific sense of style, and a hilarious script that made it one of the most slept-on movies of the 1990s.
Sources: Screen Slate, SCMP, Collider
