5 Movies With Better Fight Scenes Than John Wick

better fight – John Wick helped set a gold standard for modern action, but five other films—ranging from Jason Statham’s prototype-hitman style to Gareth Evans’ Jakarta siege intensity—arguably deliver even sharper, more memorable fight sequences.

When people talk about Keanu Reeves’ return as a hitman. they usually start with John Wick—the 2014 landmark packed with fights that feel slick. lethal. and strangely elegant. But the longer you sit with action cinema. the clearer it becomes: even after that comeback elevated the genre. filmmakers kept raising the bar.

These five movies don’t just borrow from the same world. They hit with their own rhythm—grittier, more kinetic, or more cinematic—sometimes outshining the best moments Reeves made famous.

The Transporter is the prototypical John Wick

In 2002, Jason Statham officially became an action star when he headlined The Transporter. He plays the eponymous elite courier. Frank Martin. who gets roped into a human trafficking operation when he releases one of his “packages.” Drawing on his past as a special forces operative. Frank fights and shoots his way through a veritable army of henchmen. with the actor’s own martial arts training shining each time.

The film’s fight scenes read like the prototype for the John Wick style of action—gritty close combat paired with improvised martial arts. The bus fight and the greased-up battle against a team of goons are the ones viewers remember. because Statham makes Frank Martin feel invincible. taking even less damage than Reeves’ antihero. Once you include the elite driving scenes too, it starts to feel more versatile than Chad Stahelski’s breakout.

The Raid: Redemption still influences Hollywood action today

2011’s The Raid marked a turning point. Gareth Evans created the Indonesian classic that kicked off an action movie comeback, and it begins with a simple premise that turns brutal fast: an elite SWAT unit is sent into a Jakarta apartment building to capture the ruthless gang leader who lives there.

Sgt Rama gets separated from his team. What follows isn’t a fight that pauses for breath. He’s forced to battle his way to safety, soon having to ditch his weapon and fight hand-to-hand with a veritable army of henchmen in the tower.

The escalation is built like a video game: moving from level to level. adjusting from one kind of combat to the next. Each new corner forces Rama to adapt—from close-up hand-to-hand to elaborate martial arts—just to survive what comes next. When it was released. it flew under the radar of mainstream audiences. but it has since been recognized as a cult classic masterpiece that helped influence a decade of Hollywood action flicks.

Kill Bill elevated action into something more cinematic

In 2004. Quentin Tarantino translated decades of masterful Japanese and Chinese martial arts cinema for American audiences when he made Kill Bill. The movie is Tarantino’s official foray into action and it centers on a former elite assassin dubbed “the Bride” as she wakes from a coma her old flame Bill put her in.

Her grief isn’t background flavor—it drives the entire mission. She’s grieving the loss of her unborn daughter, and she arms herself with a new sword to begin battling her way through those who wronged her.

Tarantino’s love of kung-fu action shows up not only in the moves. but in the way the choreography is staged. Even the training sequences feel intense. Scenes like the House of Blue Leaves showdown land with such cinematic scope and style that they remind John Wick fans it was never only about grit—it was also about framing a fight like a story. Stahelski’s gem is fantastic. but it was never going to hold a candle to the Whole Bloody Affair: a sprawling four-hour saga packed with katanas and gravity-defying combat.

Ip Man pays homage to a martial arts legend

Ip Man takes viewers back to 1930s-era China. to the city of Foshan. where a Wing Chun master lives in peace as the greatest fighter around. His life shatters when an enemy invasion sparks the Second Sino-Japanese War. A brutal officer then forces the local martial artists to compete against his men. and Ip Man steps up as the champion of his people.

Ip Man and its sequels are treated like the pinnacle of modern-day Chinese martial arts cinema, with Donnie Yen doing what he does best. Between the initial friendly matches and the stunning finale, the movie shows audiences the exploits of a real fighting legend—the man who trained Bruce Lee.

If the fight sequences in Hollywood can sometimes ask you to keep up, this movie doesn’t let you look away. For anyone looking for a film whose sequences command full attention, the fast-paced execution of Wing Chun beats out almost everything from Hollywood.

The Matrix ushered in a new millennium of sci-fi action

Everything shifted for sci-fi and action alike in 1999. when the Wachowskis made The Matrix and gave Keanu Reeves his greatest project—at least. the one audiences would later point to when talking about his range. The movie focuses on Neo, a hacker who learns his existence is a lie contained within an artificial reality.

He joins Morpheus and begins his quest to save as much of humanity as possible from the rule of AI machines, battling its agents along the way.

Fifteen years before Reeves became a hitman icon, his role as Neo already carried a stylish, anime-like superhero origin story. The film uses a mix of martial arts. close-quarter combat. and epic shooting sequences. while slow-motion helps turn impact into spectacle. Twenty-seven years later. The Matrix is still treated as the gold standard of action movies—and as a reminder that Reeves’ best form wasn’t born in John Wick.

The through-line across all five films is hard to miss: action that looks great is only the start. The best fights stay in your body—through close combat, through escalation, through cinematic staging—until you feel like you’re watching technique become legend.

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