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A good action movie is one of those things that, after you see it, lives with you for the rest of your life. Why? Because it shows the struggle of a person against overwhelming odds and their insane inability to give up when they probably should and, in most cases, their need to ride a badass bike as they mop the floor with bad guys. In the spirit of that badassery, we present you with our top 10 badass action heroes of all time.
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Top 10 Badass Action Heroes
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Nada
In Spanish, his name means “nothing,” but this guy knows everything about what it takes to be a grade-A action hero badass. The main character in John Carpenter’s cult flick, They Live, does everything from undermining a global alien conspiracy to having a 6 minute fist-flinging contest with Keith David. He fights like a champ and never backs down from a challenge. And let’s not forget that he coined the coolest line in action movie history: “I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum.”
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Rambo
John Rambo, a simple Vietnam vet who just wanted to come home after a tough time in the war, but was assaulted by small-minded jackasses. The solution? Be the hardest, most unstoppable rebel to ever walk the streets of the Pacific Northwest.
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Judge Dredd
No, we’re not talking about the piece-of-garbage that was released in 1995 starring Sylvester Stallone. That was about the least badass work Sly’s done in his entire career. We’re talking about the recent Karl Urban flick, released in 2012 and simply called Dredd. This version of Judge Dredd stalks his way up through a hostile tenement building, fighting the world’s most wretched drug dealers and henchmen on his way. In the face of the worst possible situation, Dredd does what action heroes should do, he asks for more.
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Dominic Toretto
Okay, so Vin Diesel’s alter ego didn’t originate as an action movie hero, but, come on, the last 4 The Fast and the Furious movies have had about as much to do with cars as pizza has to do with weight loss. And since those original movies, Dominic Toretto has become one of the most stunt-driven, gun-wielding psychopaths to be featured as a main character in movies today. Of course, you wouldn’t know it by his weirdly too-cool demeanor...
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Snake Plissken
Another John Carpenter movie makes the list in the form of Escape from New York (let’s try not to remember Escape from LA, shall we?) Plissken has an eyepatch, a submachine gun, a sleeveless tee and an 80s mullet that puts Hulk Hogan to shame. Even if he didn’t fight his way through a futuristic version of prison-New York City, he would still be one of the most badass dudes on this list.
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James Bond
The ageless wonder, James Bond has appeared in more movies than anybody else on this list and, for at least 80% of them, he is the an unstoppable action hero. Cracking jokes, jet setting to foreign lands, outwitting some of the most heinous villains or making time for the ladies, James Bond should be our first inductee into the action hero Hall of Fame.
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John McClane
If Die Hard was the only movie in this series to exist, John McClane would still be on this list. Yippee ki yay!
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Ellen Ripley
The person with the biggest balls in the entire Alien series is a person who doesn’t actually have any at all. Ellen Ripley, AKA the alien slayer, has forgotten more about killing the most horrifying creatures in the galaxy than you will ever know.
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The Bride
The two part Kill Bill film is one of the most stylish action movie series of all time. It’s Quentin Tarantino at his bloody, brutal, violent and revenge-driven peak. And the main protagonist in this story is a woman simply known as The Bride. It would only take her weapon of choice being a kitana to get on this list, but her action hero prowess is about one hundred times higher for all of the ridiculous, high-flying battles that this woman survives.
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The Terminator
While not quite a hero in his first appearance, Arnold’s unforgettable portrayal of the killing machine (in T1 and T2 at least) has some of the coolest, adrenaline-fueled action in movie history.
