The action genre in 2026 greets us with the usual set: someone grunts, unhurriedly, into retirement, someone saves a daughter, someone turns a mop into a weapon of vengeance, and someone just wants to remain human after meeting a robot. Our selection is six films and six ways to enjoy on-screen fights. In some cases it's even interesting, in others it's just noisy, but it definitely won't be boring.

"Living Fury", 2026

A new teeth-shattering Hong Kong action film starring Indonesian "The Raid" stars Joe Taslim and Yayan Ruhian. The plot is purely nominal: a mute man saves his daughter from kidnappers. But the plot, of course, is not the main thing. The main thing is the crushing fights, which with each new turn of the genre involve an increasing number of household items seemingly not intended for causing harm (for example, bicycles).

"They Will Come for You", 2026

A slasher comedy directed by Kirill Sokolov that made quite a splash in the global box office. It's the story of a maid (Zazie Beetz) who gets a job in an elite high-rise. The building is owned by influential New Yorkers, and of course, everything there is far from sweet: the girl is quickly drawn into mysterious conspiracies involving kidnappings, and she fights back as best she can. And as it turns out, she can fight very well. The filmmakers generously mixed "The Maid" with "John Wick" and "Ready or Not." It turned out dense, but critics noted the film's absolute "craziness," which has room for both dark jokes and excellently choreographed fights.

"Normal", 2026

A bright representative of the B-movie category, taken on by people who know their craft exceptionally well. Ben Wheatley's action film ("Kill List," "Free Fire") is an elegant mix of "Hot Fuzz" and the series "The Lot." Here, the irrepressible Bob Odenkirk is in his element, the shootout action is potent, the darkest humor is skillfully woven into the right moments, and literally every Chekhov's gun in the frame fires one after another. And all this in a stunning hour and a half of screen time. Lately, it's one of the best genre representatives, made without a serious face but with the diligence of a top worker who has thoroughly studied his own craft.

"Shadow Hunter", 2026

What's good about Asian action films? They spare no one: neither friend nor foe. The hits are authentic, the stunts are insane, the characters are charismatic, and genre traditions are preserved. What more could you want? After all, the best representatives of the genre are those that work at the limit of the permissible, ignoring emergency brakes. And so Jackie Chan in Larry Yang's new film about cops and robbers really doesn't hold back, and despite his age, continues to spin the action flywheel at full throttle, fearlessly looking into the mouth of all the lions that threaten him with injury, trauma, and oblivion. Although the latter definitely doesn't threaten him, but who will replace him is a big question. So, grunting, he has to do everything himself. And so far, he's succeeding.

"War Machine", 2026

A solidly built action film starring "Reacher" star Alan Ritchson as an Afghan war veteran who tries with blood and sweat to get into an elite Ranger unit. However, during field training, Ritchson's small squad encounters a giant alien robot that literally incinerates everything around with its latest weapon. Directed by Patrick Hughes ("The Hitman's Bodyguard"), despite its permanent on-screen pathos, the film impresses a couple of times with brutal action scenes, the main one being a jeep escape from the monstrous machine, shot in one take.

"Tasty Morsel", 2026

Another film about the friendly ties of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. These two look so organic on screen that this image can be exploited endlessly and in any genre. This time, the lot fell on a police action/detective film, where Affleck and Damon try to find a rat in the squad, suspecting everyone and everything, including each other. It turned out to be something between "Dragged Across Concrete" and "Miami Vice." And it's precisely this unclear "middle ground" that attracts the most attention, leaving something truly worthwhile off-screen. There's an impression that the actors actively interfered in the process (they are familiar with the director's bread too), so it turned out something not entirely coherent, but a compromise.

"The Punisher" (Special Episode), 2026

Jon Bernthal is back as Frank Castle, aka the well-known "Punisher," an uncompromising and brutal fighter against injustice. The special episode tells about the consequences of Castle's work in New York. After taking down the Nucci crime family, Frank locks himself in a small apartment and again loses his taste for life, tormented by guilt over his murdered family. Meanwhile, in Little Sicily, real chaos is brewing, and a substantial bounty is promised for Castle's head.

Made as if in a hurry, the action film by Reinaldo Marcus Green can nevertheless please fans of hard-hitting action with skillfully staged fight and shootout scenes. True, you need to be a little patient before they come. With a runtime that barely reaches the length of a standard series episode, Green takes surprisingly long to get going. While you wait for Castle to finally smear someone against the wall, you start to wonder: isn't there too much self-flagellation for one person?