Best Action Movies of 1978

The Driver specializes in driving getaway cars for robberies. His exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught yet. After another successful flight from the police a self-assured detective makes it his primary goal to catch the Driver. He promises pardons to a gang if they help to convict him in a set-up robbery. The Driver seeks help from The Player to mislead the detective.

A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.

Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau is dead. At least that is what the world—and Charles Dreyfus—believe when a dead body is discovered in Clouseau's car after being shot off the road. Naturally, Clouseau knows differently and, taking advantage of not being alive, sets out to discover why an attempt was made on his life.

Trucker Rubber Duck and his buddies Pig Pen, Widow Woman and Spider Mike use their CB radios to warn one another of the presence of cops. But conniving Sheriff Wallace is hip to the truckers' tactics, and begins tricking the drivers through his own CB broadcasts. Facing constant harassment from the law, Rubber Duck and his pals use their radios to coordinate a vast convoy and rule the road.

World War II, 1943. Mallory and Miller, the heroes who destroyed the guns of Navarone, are sent to Yugoslavia in search of a ghost from the past.

Since the sudden and highly suspicious death of his parents, 12-year-old Damien has been in the charge of his wealthy aunt and uncle. Widely feared to be the Antichrist, Damien relentlessly plots to seize control of his uncle's business empire—and the world. Anyone attempting to unravel the secrets of Damien's sinister past or fiendish future meets with a swift and cruel demise.

Philo Beddoe is your regular, easygoing, truck-driving guy. He's also the best bar-room brawler west of the Rockies. And he lives with a 165-pound orangutan named Clyde. Like other guys, Philo finally falls in love - with a flighty singer who leads him on a screwball chase across the American Southwest. Nothing's in the way except a motorcycle gang, and legendary brawler Tank Murdock.

Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.

Legendary stunt man, Sonny Hooper remains one of the top men in his field, but due to too many stressful impacts to the spine and the need to pop pain killers several times a day, he knows he should get out of the industry before he ends up permanently disabled.

A wanna-be concert pianist spends his days making a living by collecting debts for his Mafioso father, a lifestyle that could eventually ruin his dreams of a musical career.

John, a disillusioned Vietnam War journalist, turns to heroin smuggling. He cons Ray, an equally burnt out veteran into delivering the drugs stateside to his wife. Everything soon falls apart and Ray ends up on the run with John's wife trying to evade crooked narcotics agents.

Fierceful fighting displays the Wing Chun style of kung fu in this tale of revenge. Evil bandit Ma Lung escapes from prison and seeks revenge on retired Wing Chun teacher Lam Chan, who had helped to imprison him. Ma wreaks havoc on Lam's Wing Chun school and kills a few of Lam's students. Lam has no choice but to avenge his students' deaths at a final showdown confronting Ma. Director Wang Ha creates an unforgettable tale of vengeance that won"t release you from its grips until the final credits.

Three Italian-American brothers, living in the slums of 1940's New York City, try to help each other with one's wrestling career using one brother's promotional skills and another brother's con-artist tactics to thwart a sleazy manager.

Twin brothers -- one rough and tough, the other a city-bred milquetoast -- compete for their father's fortune.

David and Carolyn marry in Hawaii and continue to work to find a cure for both their afflictions in a race against time.

General George S. Patton died in a car accident in 1945. However, now speculates that his death was actually a murder carefully prepared by his staff to cover a large theft of gold.

Ken loves to design and build exotic cars. When the High School shop class project car, a fully tricked out dream Corvette, is stolen, he begins searching for it. His search leads him to Las Vegas, where Vanessa, a teenaged prostitute wannabe, helps him try to track it down.

In a mystical desert kingdom, young martial arts fighter Cord loses a contest to determine who will journey to take the powerful Book of All Knowedge from Zetan, an evil wizard. Despite his lack of a sponsor, Cord's rule-breaking nature leads him to try retrieving the book anyway. Help is offered by a mysterious blind man who gives advice as Cord fights his way through multiple opponents, discovering more about himself as he gets closer to Zetan.

A psychiatrist becomes the new Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth in order to battle an evil Sorceress from the past.

The former leader of a commando rescue attempt into Vietnam tries to discover why his squad members are being murdered, one-by-one, after the war is over.

When an extortionist threatens to force a multi-suicide unless a huge ransom is paid, only Peter Parker can stop him with his new powers as Spider-Man.

The plot is set on a group of bank robbers, who are both violent and successful, strangely getting away each time with an amount around the £60,000 mark, and often leaving behind cash in excess of this sum. The robbers are willing to kill their own team, to get away. As Jack Regan himself puts it after the first raid in the film: "I've never seen so many dead people". Armed with gold-plated Purdey shotguns, they evaded Regan and the Flying Squad for quite some time, before Regan finds encouragement from his Detective Chief Superintendent who was sent down for corruption because Jack wouldn't testify in court for him.

Officer Jim Wade is a loose cannon on the force with a reputation for roughing up suspects, informants, witnesses, and just about everybody else who rubs him the wrong way. When women start being killed by a mysterious serial murderer called The Slasher, Wade vows to put a stop to the killing spree, regardless of whether through legal means or not.

A group of crooks plan a heist to steal twenty million dollars from a Security Firm counting house.

Lonigan and his partner Tony, two drug dealers, shoot two cops who attempt to set them up, and run away with a million bucks and the drugs, which they stash in a red Corvette Stingray in a used car lot. When they attempt to recover their stash with their leader, Abigail, they find out that two happy-go-lucky dudes, Elmo and Al, have bought the car. They quickly pursue the two along with the police who think that the car's new owners are the criminals.

Like the legend of Samson, Tao gains his strength from his long tresses, and it is his strength, combined together with the skills taught by an old monk, that has enabled Tao to defeat many well known knights. Jealous at this success, one man seeks to destroy him. He sends a girl to seduce Tao, shear his locks during his sleep, and murder him.

The noble Ten Tigers, one woman and nine men, protect their Cantonese region the villainous Lord Yung and his underlings. When Yung kidnaps the wife of one of the Tiger's students, the Tigers disguise themselves as a Princess and her followers in an attempt to gain access to Yung's palace on his birthday.

This epic adventure-drama based on James Michener's best-selling novel concerns a young American embassy official who is sent into the Middle-Eastern desert to find the missing daughter of a US Senator. The young woman has left her husband, a Colonel in the Shadom - she was his number two wife - and has opted for the lifestyle of a nomadic tribe. When the diplomat locates the girl he joins the caravan and attempts to persuade the girl to return.

Singapore's top policewoman, Miss Cleopatra Wong, who heads the Seasian Interpol Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.), teams up with her Filipino counterpart to bust a counterfeit currency operation that threatens several Asian countries with bankruptcy. Their dangerous quest takes them from Singapore to Hong Kong and finally Manila where they locate the counterfeit ring's Asian headquarters, which is being run by local nuns, forced into slave labor.

When the deadly Iron Swallow (Chia Ling) sets out to avenge her past in this classic martial arts film, audiences are about to find out that it is revenge, not time, that truly heals all wounds. As the Iron Swallow sets out to enforce her own deadly brand of justice, a mysterious killer (Wong Wing San) charts her every move in a desperate attempt to frame her and prevent her from realizing her bloody dream. Now, as the limbs fly and the blood flows, friend will fight friend in an all-out battle to the death where the only rule is survival.

A corrupt Shaolin assassin, a master in Iron Claws, is hired to threaten members of the Ching Dynasty into resigning a secret letter for the restoration of the monarchy. The plot is unravelled when a police chief captures one of the assailants. The Shaolin Iron Master must be destroyed...

In this obscure 1978 thriller Maurizio Merli is cast somewhat against type as a professional killer. I say somewhat because, as we soon learn, he's not really a bad guy and more a victim of circumstance: a Vietnam veteran who grew tired of the war and deserted, he found himself in Italy where he was forced into working for businessman-cum-criminal Micheli, played by Mel Ferrer.

A double amputee known as Mr. No Legs oversees a drug syndicate while cavorting around in his double shotgun-equipped wheelchair. When one of the syndicate's drug dealers accidentally kills his own girlfriend—whose brother is a cop—after she announces plans to leave him, the game is on to bury the evidence, protect the syndicate and evade the long arm of the law.

Coming back from an extended business trip, Frank discovers that his girlfriend Janie is now working at a new resort hotel where the owner has given her a permanent place to stay, as well as other gifts, in exchange for her affections. The two of them get into a fight and things quickly get out of control and the police are called and in turns into a hostage situation...

A retired safe cracker is recruited by a young conman to return to the "business" for a million dollar heist.

Dino and Marco are two brothers who live alone with their sick father. Marco is on drugs, and Dino becomes involved with a gang of dangerous criminals and is roped into pulling a bank heist with them.

Lassie is claimed from his family by a "former owner" and then braves a cross country trip to rejoin the ones that love her.

A gang war/drug story set in a Los Angeles ghetto about the coming of age of a 15-year-old black youth.

A victim of circumstance, country and western musician Paul Ramsey finds himself on a Southern chain gang.

Story of a group of drag races and the young boy and girl who join them.

When a rash of targeted hijackings threatens to derail the independent trucking business, rig driver "Iron" Duke and his visiting friend Rane put the brakes on the bad guys by taking the law into their own hands. But their vigilante plan involves going toe-to-toe with powerful trucker boss King Carroll and his henchmen, who've been driving everyone out of the game.

At the New York State University, one of Peter Parker's tutors has accidentally given three students all the materials they need to create an atomic bomb. While Peter Parker tries to find out what's happened, the police suspect him of the crime, and Peter has to deal with an attractive journalist determined to get an interview with Spider-Man. Then dastardly millionaire Mr. White shows up, and will stop at nothing to get his hands on the atomic bomb. Spider-Man must defeat this scheming villain and stop him blowing up the World Trade Centre.

After a wave of unsolved car thefts, an insurance company calls in a private investigator to solve the case. While the chief of police isn't thrilled about having an outsider come and show up his men, one of the officers is a former girlfriend who's more than willing to help him out in any way she can.

Australian stuntman Grant Page goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. He uses his spare time to lend his expertise to rock band Sorcery. Page helps the band develop pyrotechnic magic tricks for their shows, and also recounts to his own exploits as a stuntman and daredevil as well as various stunts by other greats.

An old trucker steals his truck for one last cross-country run, with a madam and her crew on board.

Three Colorado girls decide to hop on their motorcycles and head to California. On the way they get mixed up in drugs, rape and stolen motorcycles.

1000 years into the future, after the Great Neutron Wars, the world is divided into desert wastelands and isolated city-states. Notorious "Desert Ranger" Kaz is forced to fight in the DeathSport, dueling on futuristic motorcycle "Death Machines". With the help of renegade vixen Deneer, Kaz must face his past and fight to save himself and his people.

Leon Isaac Kennedy is Doug Russell, an American who steals a shipment of gold in the Philippines with two Vietnam War buddies, who cut his throat and throw him overboard. Russell washes ashore an island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers stranded there since World War II. They nurse him back to health and he is taught martial arts and the art of the samurai. Back in the States, his treacherous pals, Marelli and Maghee, use their loot and viciousness to muscle their way into Los Angels mafia turf.

No. 1 is fearless, irrestible, and licensed to kill. No. 1 is assigned to capture a madman killing international financiers. Before getting the bad guy, No. 1 encounters mercenaries from the evil organization K.R.A.S.H. (Killing, Rape, Arson, Slaughter, and Hit).