When you hear the words "action movie," you probably instantly think of a movie that has a ton of fighting, excitement, and action scenes. Typically, that's a fair assessment. Action movies often live or die by how good their action scenes are, and often, having several great action scenes spread throughout a movie is the best way to keep viewers glued to their seats, especially if each set-piece is bigger and better than the last.

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Some action films, on the other hand, take a more minimalist approach. It's surprisingly possible for action movies to succeed by having just one action scene, and if it's built up well enough, or exciting enough, or takes up a large chunk of the movie, audiences are often okay with such an approach. To highlight how action movies can get by with just a single action scene, here are 10 films that save all their action for one main sequence.

'Godzilla' (2014)

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Image via Warner Bros.

2014's Godzilla is somewhat infamous for the way it teased action scenes, only to back out of showing them at the last minute. There were times when human characters at ground level were about to see something get destroyed, or two monsters getting into a fight, only to be whisked away at the last minute, with the camera following them instead of whatever they were looking at.

Some viewers may have been unwilling to forgive such extreme teasing on the part of the filmmakers, but at least patient viewers were rewarded for their patience with a great climactic smackdown. Godzilla takes on two MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) near the film's end, and the sequence is glorious. It's a fantastic monster battle, being both visceral and awe-inspiring, and a worthy ending for a film that's otherwise surprisingly light on action.

'Harakiri' (1962)

Tatsuya Nakadai ready to fight in Harakiri
Image Via Shochiku

Harakiri is a very dark samurai film, using its story of honor and revenge to comment on the hypocrisies of the samurai who were usually depicted more positively in Japanese popular culture, prior to 1962. Harakiri is a film that aims to show samurai in a more realistic - and pessimistic - light, and one way it does this is by being far less action-packed than most samurai movies.

Much of the film deals with a despondent man telling an increasingly tragic story to a clan of samurai, with it becoming clear near the film's end that he has a personal vendetta against them. It's then that the film explodes into a bloody and memorable climax, with one of the most brutal extended scenes of samurai combat ever put on film.

'Kill Bill Vol. 2' (2004)

Kill Bill Vol. 2 - 2004

Kill Bill Vol. 2 stands out from Vol. 1 for having far less action. The Bride's quest for revenge sees her get into two extended one-on-one fights in Kill Bill Vol. 1, as well as one drawn-out (and extremely gory) battle where she takes on the Crazy 88: a gang of assassins so large they're almost a small army.

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The roaring rampage of revenge continues in Vol. 2, but one of her targets is taken out by someone else, and another features her engaging in a lengthy verbal battle, with the physical fight itself over so quickly it barely counts as "action." She does have an extended fight inside a trailer with Elle Driver, though, which is the film's sole pure action scene. It's a great one, too, with the claustrophobic setting working to make things extra violent, tense, and darkly comedic.

'Death Proof' (2007)

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Sort of like Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino's intentionally rough and dirty Grindhouse throwback, Death Proof, is also a story of two halves. Here, however, they're not divided into volumes. Rather, each half is distinguished by a different set of young women who the film's antagonist, Stuntman Mike, attempts to stalk and kill in his muscle car.

The first group is dispatched quickly enough that it's more of a thriller (or even horror) scene, rather than a proper action sequence. The second group, however, fights back, leading to a truly excellent car chase that might well be the best one of the 21st century so far. The stunts are thrilling, the car-on-car combat looks genuinely dangerous, and the way it spectacularly ends has to be seen to be believed.

'Scarface' (1983)

Al Pacino firing an assault rifle in Scarface
Image via Universal Pictures

Scarface is more of a crime-drama than an action movie, but it does have a fast pace and plenty of violence... enough to make it arguably an action movie. When Al Pacino is at his loudest and most intense - and chewing as much scenery as he does here - maybe it's inevitable that there's going to be blood spilled.

Either way, the film concludes with one of the most memorable shootouts of the 1980s. Tony Montana has lost everything by this point, and with a small army descending on his mansion to take him out for good, he decides to go out with a bang. And go out with a bang (plus hundreds of bullets fired) he most certainly does.

'Seven Samurai' (1954)

Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai is a 3.5-hour-long epic that sees a village recruiting a ragtag band of samurai to defend themselves against violent and greedy bandits who've been terrorizing them. It's quite neatly divided into three thirds: the first part sees the samurai being recruited, the second part involves preparing for the inevitable attack on the town, and the third and final part is a long, drawn-out battle scene, after the bandits finally attack.

Because of that structure, it's a film that saves its action for its climax. However, the battle is long enough to provide enough combat and excitement for several action scenes, and the buildup of the first two acts ends up being as engaging as the dramatic climax. The length and emphasis on character development also help you care more for the samurai and the townspeople, making the action at the end all the more intense and captivating.

'Zero Dark Thirty' (2012)

Zero Dark Thirty - 2012 - raid

Zero Dark Thirty is a suspenseful political thriller for much of its runtime. The film primarily deals with the long, drawn-out manhunt for Osama bin Laden in the years following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, with numerous false starts and setbacks, given it was a search that was underway for close to a decade.

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Eventually, he's located, and that's where Zero Dark Thirty's one action scene comes into play. There's an extended scene depicting the raid on Bin Laden's compound, and it's the film's most suspenseful and action-heavy set-piece, managing to be nerve-racking, even though viewers are almost guaranteed to know how it ends in advance.

'Oldboy' (2003)

A scene from the hammer scene in Oldboy
Image via NEON

Oldboy is a grim, violent thriller that deals with revenge, but despite the high-stakes storyline, it's not a film with a ton of action. Most of its violent scenes aren't necessarily violent because of characters fighting, and the film is ultimately more focused on its central mystery, its plot twists, and the internal struggles of its main character, Oh Dae-Su.

However, it does manage to have one extremely memorable action scene, at approximately the film's halfway point. It involves a hallway, a hammer, and a gang of thugs who have no idea what they're in for... and even more impressively, it's all pulled off in one shot. It's a fantastic scene, and impactful enough that Oldboy doesn't even need to have any other full-on, genuine action sequences.

'Free Fire' (2016)

A group of well-dressed characters next to a van in a warehouse

Free Fire is a movie that arguably contains one action scene, because the whole movie is a single action scene of sorts. That might make including it here cheating a little, but the film does take place in real-time, in one location, and features its characters in constant peril, due to the film being like one long Mexican Standoff.

It naturally feels a little repetitive and ridiculous at points, but it ultimately does a decent job of keeping viewers invested in its out-there, ambitious premise. There aren't many movies that are just one long action scene, but Free Fire might well be one of them.

'Top Gun: Maverick' (2022)

Maverick flying a plane from Top Gun Maverick

Clearly, viewers in 2022 don't mind action films with infrequent action, given how much money Top Gun: Maverick has earned at the box office. It's a film where the characters spend most of the film preparing for one daring mission, and then spend the film's final act executing that mission.

Of course, this still means there's plenty of action; it's just all condensed into the film's final third, with the earlier aerial scenes being more about training and flying instead of actual combat and action. It works though, because the action - when it arrives - is spectacular, and well worth the wait.

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