The arthouse action genre is an emerging film genre in contemporary cinema that traces its roots back to Asian and European films.^[1][2] Characteristics of arthouse action films include stylized action, an arthouse atmosphere, metaphysical subtext, psychological characterisation and a disjointed, fragmented narrative with more complexity than the typical action film.^[3] These come together to create a sense of "dreamy surrealism." ^[1][2]

List of films

• The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)^[4][5]
• Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)^[1]
• Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)^[6]
• Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa, 1962)^[6]
• Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)^[1]
• Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)^[7][5]
• Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)^[8][9]
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter R. Hunt, 1969)^[8]
• Trial of the Road (Aleksei German, 1971)^[10]
• Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976)^[11]
• Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977) ^[12][5]
• The Exterminator (James Glickenhaus, 1980)^[13]
• Gloria (John Cassavetes, 1980)^[1]
• The Soldier (James Glickenhaus, 1982)^[13][5]
• Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985)^[14][15][5]
• Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)^[1][16][17]
• The Killer (John Woo, 1989)^[18]
• El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992)^[18][5]
• Léon: The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994)^[18][5]
• Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)^[19]
• Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)^[8]
• Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)^[18]
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jim Jarmusch, 1999)^[1][5]
• The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman, 2002)^[20][21]
• Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)^[22]
• Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)^[16][5]
• Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)^[23][8]
• Apocalypto (Mel Gibson, 2006)^[24]
• The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)^[25][26]
• Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)^[27][28]
• Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) ^{[29][8][30][31][5]}
• Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011)^[32]
• Haywire (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)^[33]
• Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012)^[34][16]
• The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-Wai, 2013)^[35][5]
• Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013)^[36]
• Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)^[16]
• You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay, 2017)^[37]
• The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022)^[38]
• Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniels, 2022)^[39]
• The Killer (2023 film) (David Fincher, (2023)^{[40][failed verification]}

Notable directors

• Wong Kar-wai^[5]
• Seijun Suzuki^[41][42][5]
• Robert Rodriguez^[5]
• Akira Kurosawa^[6]
• Kathryn Bigelow^[25]
• James Glickenhaus^[13]
• Jim Jarmusch^[5]
• Nicolas Winding Refn^[2]
• Steven Soderbergh^[43]
• Joe Wright^[44]
• Quentin Tarantino^[45][46]
• Christopher Nolan^[47]
• Luc Besson^[5]