Best Action Movies of 1979

In the ravaged near future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them. But they underestimate one officer: Max Rockatansky. And when the bikers brutalize Max's best friend and family, they send him into a mad frenzy that leaves him with only one thing left in the world to live for – revenge!

After Drax Industries' Moonraker space shuttle is hijacked, secret agent James Bond is assigned to investigate, traveling to California to meet the company's owner, the mysterious Hugo Drax. With the help of scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond soon uncovers Drax's nefarious plans for humanity, all the while fending off an old nemesis, Jaws, and venturing to Venice, Rio, the Amazon...and even outer space.

The explorer craft USS Palomino is returning to Earth after a fruitless 18-month search for extra-terrestrial life when the crew comes upon a supposedly lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering near a black hole. The ship is controlled by Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his monstrous robot companion, but the initial wonderment and awe the Palomino crew feel for the ship and its resistance to the power of the black hole turn to horror as they uncover Reinhardt's plans.

In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.

In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father. Vince, a manic fellow who claims to be a government agent, then proceeds to drag Sheldon into a series of chases and misadventures from New York to Central America.

Horsemouth, a drummer living in a ghetto of Kingston, plans to make money selling records. After his prized motorcycle is stolen, his plans fall through and he's forced to adapt.

Three senior citizens in their 70s who live together are slowly decaying in endless days with nothing to do but feed the birds. One of them comes up with an idea - rob a bank. They certainly could use the money if they get away with it and if they are caught, what could happen to three old men?

Widowed Elinor Randall and her young daughter Jerrine arrive in a barren stretch of Wyoming in 1910 after Elinor's application for work as a housekeeper is accepted by Clyde Stewart, a rancher. The work is back-breaking and the isolation is brutal, particularly as winter arrives. Elinor begins to think about homesteading her own property near Stewart's ranch, but Stewart tries to dissuade her with explanations about the killing conditions and poor rewards, especially for a woman with no man to help her ranch. Although their temperaments are different and little affection exists, Elinor and Stewart agree to marry and combine homesteads. What lies ahead is the severest test of all.

When crooks set up operations in a traditional town, a minister and a group of church ladies are willing to do anything, no matter how wacky, to get them out.

Capt. William "Buck" Rogers is a jovial space cowboy who is accidentally time-warped from 1987 to 2491. Earth is engaged in interplanetary war following a global holocaust, and Buck's piloting skills make him an ideal starfighter recruit for the Earth Defense Directorate, where his closest colleagues are Dr. Huer (Tim O'Connor), squadron leader Col. Wilma Deering (former model Erin Gray), the wisecracking robot Twiki (voiced by cartoon legend Mel Blanc), and a portable computer-brain named Dr. Theopolis.

A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.

After a collision with a comet, a nearly 8km wide piece of the asteroid "Orpheus" is heading towards Earth. If it will hit it will cause a incredible catastrophe which will probably extinguish mankind. To stop the meteor NASA wants to use the illegal nuclear weapon satellite "Hercules" but discovers soon that it doesn't have enough fire power. Their only chance to save the world is to join forces with the USSR who have also launched such an illegal satellite. But will both governments agree?

In the early years of the 20th Century, two British yachtsmen (Michael York and Simon MacCorkindale) stumble upon a German plot to invade the east coast of England in a flotilla of specially designed barges. They set out to thwart this terrible scheme, but must outwit not only the cream of the German Navy, but the feared Kaiser Wilhelm himself.

Margaret is a nurse in England during WW2, and married to a secret agent. Things get complicated when she falls for David, an American pilot.

A farm girl's life turns upside down after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She moves to Chicago and becomes trapped in a vicious cycle of prostitution and crime.

During WW 2, a Basque shepherd is approached by the underground, who wants him to lead a scientist and his family across the Pyrenees. While being pursued by a sadistic German.

Jackie Pruit is the girlfriend of notorious gangster Joe Bomposa. When it looks as if Bomposa's goons are threatening Jackie's life, the FBI moves in to protect her, hoping that she'll have incriminating evidence. Veteran agent Charlie Congers is assigned to watch over Jackie, and while it soon becomes apparent that she knows almost nothing about Bomposa that would be of any use to the FBI, he falls in love with her. Bomposa decides it would be more convenient to have Jackie out of the way, ordering her to be executed. Bomposa's henchmen slip through FBI security and murder her, but now they have to answer the angry and vengeful Congers.

A group of people converge on a barren Arctic island. They have their reasons for being there but when a series of mysterious accidents and murders take place, a whole lot of darker motives become apparent. Could the fortune in buried Nazi gold be the key to the mystery? Donald Sutherland and Vanessa Redgrave investigate

Aviation disaster-prone Joe Patroni must contend with nuclear missiles, the French Air Force and the threat of the plane splitting in two over the Alps.

Dr. Anansa Linderby is kidnapped in a medical mission in Africa by a slave trader. From this moment, her husband will do anything to recover her and to punish the bad guys, but that will be not an easy task.

While on a fishing trip, Shao Lung's father is killed by Wu Pa Feng in front of the young man's eyes. Lung takes shelter with his uncle's traveling group of Kung Fu acrobats and begins honing his skills so he can one day have his revenge.

A British mercenary arrives in pre-Revolution Cuba to help train the corrupt General Batista's army against Castro's guerrillas while he also romances a former lover now married to an unscrupulous plantation owner.

A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.

Karate champion Matt Logan is enlisted by the police to train officers in self-defense after narcotics agents are killed by an assailant using the martial arts.

Anthony Hope's classic tale gets a decidedly 'un-classic' treatment at the hands of Peter Sellers. Following the story somewhat, friends of the new King Rudolph of Ruritania fear for his life, and switch him with a look-a-like London cabby. Throw in two(!) lovely blondes, treachery, and a battle for life and honour, and enjoy life at its zaniest.

Retired cop and celebrity DJ Tucker Williams (aka The Disco Godfather) takes to the streets as a dangerous hallucinogenic drug called Angel Dust begins to take hold of the neighborhood.

A champion drag racer clashes with the unscrupulous oil-company executive who sponsors his team.

The hunter becomes the prey as a Vietnam veteran (Perry King) tries to ferret out the real culprit after being tagged as the prime suspect in the murders of his former Army pals.

A freewheeling drag racer enters a local championship meet and finds himself head-to-head with the tyrannical town boss who has already arranged for his own son to win.

It's Meng Yuan-wen (star of The Master Strikes) versus Kuan Feng in this wild and wacky wushu saga of a priceless pole with a spectacular secret. A master martial artist's silly disciple struggles to save it from an evil white slaver, the slaver's duplicitous wife, and even his own bone-headed, but greedy, companion. Hsu Hsia choreographs the abundant action, as he had for both Five Superfighters and Drunken Master. The result is both sublime (for its kung-fu) and engagingly ridiculous.

A mercenary is hired by the FBI to track down a powerful recluse criminal, a woman is also trying to track him down for her own personal vendetta.

A "Dragon Claw" master returns from Manchuria where he became a traitor to China. He's after the coveted Dragon Claw Golden Tablet that will force people to bow down to him. He challenges the Grand-master who has a checkered past of his own. The Grand-master happens to suffers from a terminal chronic injury related to his evil past. The traitor kills the grand-master, causing his wife and son the go into hiding. The wife seems to really be the Dragon Claw master in the family and she vows to train her son the kung fu secrets. The son finds that one of his friends has learned a strange style of kung fu from a filthy medicine man. The son seeks him out to improve his kung fu and defeat the traitor.

Real-life kung fu master Nathan Ingram stars in this gritty, low-budget martial arts epic as a local karate school owner who clashes with a gang of drug traffickers posing as the owners of a rival dojo. Director Charlie Ahearn (who helmed the landmark hip-hop film Wild Style) used the housing projects next to his New York Lower East Side apartment as his central location in this 1979 classic, shot on a vintage Super 8 camera.

A group of old friends on an outing re-live various traumas and tragedies via flashback whilst trapped high above a ravine in a disabled cable-car.

After "The Poseidon Adventure", in which the ship got flipped over by a tidal wave, the ship drifts bottom-up in the sea. While the passengers are still on board waiting to be rescued, two rivaling salvage parties enter the ship on search for money, gold and a small amount of plutonium.

Down on his luck, our unlikely hero is trying to save enough money to afford to be trained in kung fu. He joins a group of misfits in hopes of earning the money by performing for crowds in the street. However, he keeps running into trouble and a mysterious kung fu master. Will he be able to overcome the challenges that lie in front of him? Or will he die trying?

CIA agent Harry Wargrave is sent to aid Gen. Marenkov, a senior Russian official, who is defecting to the west. Wargrave decides they should travel to safety on a train across Europe, the "Atlantic Express". During the journey, they must survive attacks by terrorists and an avalanche, all planned by Russian spy-catcher Nikolai Bunin.

The Crane Fighter is set just after the majority of the Shaolin monks have been outlawed and killed by the, I think, Ching Dynasty. A few have escaped, and live secretly among the common people. One old guy has a daughter that he has forbidden to learn kung fu, but she does so anyway, by watching some other monks in a nearby temple.

Two novice thieves are plotting to rob a bank in Vancouver. A photographer snaps a shot of one thief as he is carrying the bank building's blueprints. The would-be thief then begins a relationship with the photographer and attempts to retrieve the photos. Meanwhile, the thieves' plot consists of this: one man will enter the bank building after dark, while the other man sits in a van and uses a computer to unlock the building's doors. The final step involves transporting the cash to a freight ship waiting on the docks, for transportation to a money launderer in Macau.

A group of celebrants find themselves trapped in an amusement park that is being torn apart by a hurricane during a Fourth of July holiday. The real Ocean View Park in Norfolk, Virginia, scheduled for demolition by the city, actually was blown up and burned down during the filming.

Pete, Linc and Julie are called back to the force when a series of sniper attacks are made on their old boss. But the three soon discover that they themselves are the intended targets of a gunman who lives in their old "flower child" world of the 1960s.

A government agent discovers a plot by a cartel of seven gangsters to take over the state of Hawaii. He hires a team of seven hitmen to stop them.

An ex-employee of a city oil refinery creates an explosion at the facility which starts a chain-reaction of fires that engulf the entire city.

A World War I deserter competes in the first long-distance motorcycle race.

Sung Shao Chong (Billy Chong) traverses the Arizona desert, helping those in need on the way to meet his old friend Kum (Lam Hak-Ming) in a small western town. Once there, he runs into a group of men who terrorize the town and extort the local businesses. Meanwhile, a trio of three bank robbers need a place to hide until the heat dies down from a recent heist. They pick the home of a black farming family and subsequently kill them, leaving only the severly injured eldest son Tommy (Carl Scott) to escape. Tommy is found by Chong and Kum and is brought to the home of Doctor Ko (Leung Siu-Chung), who heals his injuries. Eventually Tommy learns kung fu from Ko, and sets out for payback. Luckily for Tommy, Chong is also bent on revenge after the bandits hire the local troublemakers and some Japanese samurai to kill him.

Mike Catton was once a world-renowned construction foreman (at least in the construction world), but an accident left him with a serious fear of heights. Unable to climb the big skyscrapers while under construction, he retired and became a truck driver. But when an old friend needs him to help put up a building, and when the old friend gets harassed and threatened by an Evil Corporate Type, he comes out of retirement and assembles the creme de la creme of the construction world. Together, they race against time to finish the building while the Evil Corporate Type tries to stop them.

A deranged engineer, bent on revenge for the deaths of his wife and daughter, sets two passenger trains on a collision course, and con-man Robert Fuller puts his life on the line to ward off the crash.

Lighthearted tale of a 10-year-old girl who, when her boxer father dies, strikes up a relationship with a struggling fighter who was his sparring partner and takes on the job of managing him from obscurity to the championship.

A model and a private eye help a New York insurance investigator on a deadly case in Acapulco.