Angelina Jolie’s Best Action Movies: ‘Lara Croft’, ‘Salt’ And More
Before she became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated dramatic actresses, Angelina Jolie was quietly redefining what a female action star could look and feel like on screen. Physically committed, effortlessly commanding, and capable of making even the most outlandish premise feel entirely believable, she built an action filmography that nobody else in her generation has come close to matching. Here are 6 of her finest.
A high-octane car heist thriller directed by Dominic Sena, ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ follows a legendary car thief who comes out of retirement to steal fifty cars in one night to save his brother’s life, with Jolie playing Sway, his equally skilled and completely fearless partner. She brings a cool, electric energy to a film that is essentially built on testosterone, and every scene she shares with Nicolas Cage crackles with a competitive chemistry that the film uses brilliantly. It is a film that moves as fast as its title suggests, and it is all waiting on Prime Video.
The film that turned Jolie into a genuine action icon, ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’ follows the fearless aristocratic archaeologist as she races a shadowy secret society to recover an ancient artefact capable of bending time itself. Directed by Simon West, Jolie plays Lara as someone entirely at home in danger, bringing a physicality, wit, and complete absence of self-doubt to the character that made it feel genuinely iconic rather than simply lifted from a video game. She spent months training in martial arts, weapons handling, and motorcycle riding for the role, and every single hour of it shows on screen. Stream it on Paramount+ and relive the moment Jolie became an action legend.
A married couple simultaneously discover that the other is a professional assassin and that they have each been hired to kill the other, with Jolie playing Jane Smith as the sharper, colder, and more lethal half of the partnership. Directed by Doug Liman, the film is one of the most stylish and purely entertaining action comedies of its decade, and the friction between Jolie’s controlled precision and Brad Pitt’s looser energy creates a chemistry that makes every scene crackle with something equal parts dangerous and irresistible. It is the rare action comedy that delivers fully on both, and it is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, perfect for a night when you want something slick and endlessly watchable.
A disaffected office worker discovers his father was the world’s greatest assassin and is recruited into a secret fraternity of killers, with Jolie playing Fox, the fraternity’s most feared and enigmatic operative. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the film is gleefully over-the-top and visually relentless, and Jolie brings a stillness and quiet authority to the role that makes her the most compelling presence in every room she enters. She says less than almost anyone in the film and commands more attention than all of them combined; it is on Netflix, and it is exactly as wild as it sounds.
A CIA analyst is accused of being a Russian sleeper agent and goes on the run, leaving her colleagues and the audience entirely unsure of whose side she is actually on, with Jolie playing Evelyn Salt with a physical ferocity and emotional inscrutability that keeps you guessing until the very last frame. Directed by Phillip Noyce, the film was originally written for Tom Cruise, and it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the role after watching Jolie inhabit it with such complete, assured authority. It moves at a pace that never gives you a moment to catch your breath; queue it up on Netflix for an action night that earns every twist.
Directed by Chloé Zhao, ‘Eternals’ follows a group of immortal beings who have secretly lived on Earth for thousands of years, with Jolie playing Thena, an ancient warrior goddess whose fractured mind makes her the most tragic and compelling figure in the ensemble.
