(Photo by Warner Bros/ Everett Collection)
The 50 Best Action-Comedy Movies, Ranked By Tomatometer
The action-comedy is one of the of the more playful, exciting genre hybrids out there, though it didn’t really come into shape until the 1980s, when buddy-cop films like Lethal Weapon and 48 Hrs. exploded onto the scene, along with Midnight Run, The Blues Brothers, and the rise of Jackie Chan. In Police Story, Drunken Master, and rest of his peak output, Chan is essentially a living, breathing homage to Buster Keaton, whose absurdly dangerous slapstick prowess powered the original action-comedy: 1926’s The General.
Chan and Chris Tucker revitalized the action-comedy formula for the ’90s with the Rush Hour movies. Though they’re fan favorites, the Rush Hour trio were not heavy hitters with critics, so they’ll be absent from this guide to the best-reviewed action-comedies ever, where we’re collecting the top 50 Certified Fresh movies of the genre. What that means is that you will see Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels represented. Lock, Stock was released the same year as Rush Hour and impressed critics and audiences alike by infusing the action-comedy with post-Tarantino grit and swagger.
Hot Fuzz, Tropic Thunder, Kung Fu Hustle, 21 Jump Street, and Bad Boys For Life are among many that have kept the genre going during the past 20 years. And though most superhero movies these days are humorous on some level, we’ll be highlighting the ones that really flex their comedic muscles, like The Suicide Squad and Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds seems molded for this wisecracking genre, wherein he has played the Merc With a Mouth and starred in Free Guy.
Now, see the 50 best-reviewed Certified Fresh action-comedies! —Alex Vo
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