Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
For non-American Memorable Examples.
Kung Fu Hustle : Stephen Chow's magnum opus, and there's reason it gets referenced as an inspiration everywhere from Exalted to Chuubo's. Incredible action sequences throughout the entire film, incredible clarity and color grading, a great set of character arcs, and defined its own aesthetic. While it wears its western influences on its sleeves (there's a Looney Tunes segment and a reference to The Shining), a very strongly Hong Kong work. It's not perfect -- the CGI is dated in places, the pacing around the denouement is a little too fast, and some of its parody elements are no longer parody enough -- but I don't know of anything better in its genre. If you really like it, Shaolin Soccer and God of Cookery motion around the same concepts and themes, but they don't really hold up.
Drunken Master II (aka Legend of the Drunken Master): the film that put Jackie Chan on the international map. I don't like it as much as Kung Fu Hustle, myself, since it's much stronger for its fight scenes than for its themes or plot, but it's significantly more grounded and less parody.
Princess Mononoke : it's long, it's (cartoonishly) gory, and some of its thematic commentary gets kinda confused, but one of the strongest Ghibli movies and I'd argue the strongest adult action Ghibli movie. Great characters and complex motivations, deep introspection on virtue, and better sense of things existing in a real space during fight scenes than some live-action works. Howl's Moving Castle is a close second in quality and a better introduction to Ghibli in general, and maybe Marnie and the Witch's Flower, but they're far less action-focused.
Ghost in the Shell : the philosophy is a little dated (and way too wordy) at this point, but when the worst you can say about a film like this is that it didn't predict LLMs perfectly, that's praising with faint damns. The more serious problem is just that it's slow-paced and all of the fights are very much curbstomps one direction or the other.
Akira: I'll have to give a disclaimer, here: it does have a famously bad ending, made worse that the original manga's somehow not any better. Like Jet Li's The One, I can't call it good so much as I can call it interesting. Still, there's reason it's inspired a literal generation of animators, and it's still something I like watching.
08th MS Team : technically an OVA instead of a movie, but basically just a movie. Forget all of the newtypes and super prototypes and hyperweapons and one-men armies. It's a war drama as much or more than an action film, and while it's not realistic, it's got an emphasis on realism. If you want a mecha action film that treats fights seriously, this is about as close as you can get, and it's backed up by fantastic animation and great pacing.
I rather liked that feature, since it is pretty true-to-life if there's a significant skill/strength differential, which in a world of cyborg bodies... THERE WILL BE. The art is in portraying that gap in a pleasing way.
Also GitS: Stand Alone Complex is maybe the first anime series I seriously engaged with.
And Kung Fu Hustle is a MUST-SEE.
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I adore Ghost in the Shell and Akira, and probably should have included the latter in the above list. I'm of two minds about including GitS in a list of action films, as I'm not sure that one chase scene and one fight against a tank really an action movie make.
I saw Princess Mononoke for the first time a few months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Far more violent than I was expecting from a Ghibli film.
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