The History of Action

The History of Action

1920

The genre of Action started in the 1920. Films of this genre usually involved the actor Douglas Fairbanks. Two of his most well known films are Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro.

1920 -30

Most action films in this period of time were usually based on the Western life and Historical representations.

1940

During this decade western films were growing every more popular; the most famous film produced during this time was Red River, staring Howard Hawks

1960

Bond! In the 1960’s the James Bond series began, overruling all other action films and began the action, taking us out of Western films and into the modern world. These films were a revelation, staring many different gadgets, car chases, fights and many other action packed scenes.

1970

After the huge success of James Bond, another film (which was specifically Asian influenced) was produced which hit off many different actors careers; Enter the Dragon. This film stared actors such as Bruce Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly.

1980

The 1980’s was where the action film genre took over Hollywood which instantly popularized actors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Bruce Willis and even Steven Spielberg began is major career in this decade. This was also the beginning of the Rambo series and in 1985 the film Rambo: The First Blood Part II because the most successful film in the series

1980

One other major film which was released in the 1980s was 24Hours which stared veteran actor, Nick Nolte and rising comedy star Eddie Murphy. This film was then credited as the first buddy cop film, which then went on to influence many other directors and writers.

1990

The 90’s was an era of sequels and hybrid action. Western, Spy and urban action films started to parody themselves. With CGI developing, the amount of environments being produced was growing rapidly. Films in the action genre began to have larger budgets leading filmmakers to create new technologies to create new amazing and desirable films.

1990

In 1989 Batman was made into a film and led to a string of very successful sequels and inspired many to develop other ‘comic-book movies’

2000

Action films finally had their won their rightful place, and now has the sam2 power in the film industry as any other film. Now having massive budgets to product amazing technologies and films to create amazing and realistic effects . Films such as Avatar have now been made which based themselves massively on CGI and other technologies.