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Die Hard 2 (1990)
The Moment: The bad guys think they've got away, but their plane has left a tell-tale trail of fuel... and John McClane (Bruce Willis) has a lighter.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? The signature line from the original, finally being used in a suitably action-packed context: "Yippee-kay-ey, mother fucker."
Haywire (2012)
The Moment: Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) twigs that her partner, Paul (Michael Fassbender), has been hired to kill her and whups his ass in their hotel room.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? She doesn't say a word as she fires a gun point-blank into his pillow-muffled face, but she might've asked him, "How pillow can you go?"
Under Siege (1992)
The Moment: Steven Seagal's biggest hit - aka 'Die Hard on a ship' - ends with a knife fight between cook and former Navy SEAL Casey Ryback (Seagal) and renegade Bill Strannix (Tommy Lee Jones).
Does It Feature A One-Liner? "Keep the faith, Strannix" - not exactly a zinger, especially as it only really works in context, as Ryback is responding to something Strannix said during their fight.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Moment: Who says action's a modern trend? Here's Errol Flynn in top form as Robin, in the climactic duel with Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone).
Does It Feature A One-Liner? It's the kind of old-school duel where the action stops for Robin to needle Sir Guy by asking, "Did I upset your plans?"
Ong-Bak (2003)
The Moment: Ting (Tony Jaa) falls foul of a street gang, who chase him through a Bangkok market. Cue a lot of table jumping.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? If this was an English film, Jaa might have said, "You little piggies have gone to market, but this little piggy's going wee-wee-wee all the way home," but it'd probably get lost in translation here.
Speed (1994)
The Moment: Pop-quiz hotshot. You're L.A.P.D. SWAT Detective Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves). You've got to board a bomb-laden bus without allowing it to drop below 50mph. What are you gonna do?
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Passenger Ortiz (Carlos Carrasco) wryly notes, "Man sure has a hard-on for this bus."
They Live (1988)
The Moment: Drifter Nada (Roddy Piper) has twigged that society is secretly controlled by skull-faced aliens and heads to a bank, armed with a shotgun, to start a revolution.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum.”
True Romance (1993)
The Moment: Virgil (James Gandolfini) comes a-calling for the cocaine stolen by Alabama (Patricia Arquette), cueing a brutally realistic scrap in her motel room.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Virgil discusses the art of killing - "the third one is easy, you level right off. It's no problem. Now... shit... now I do it just to watch their fuckin' expression change."
Ronin (1998)
The Moment: Sam (Robert De Niro) pursues Deidre (Natascha McElhone) through the streets and tunnels of Paris, in a car chase notable for often filming the actors in the actual cars (albeit controlled by out-of-frame stunt drivers).
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Everybody's too intense to speak. Maybe Deidre should've said, "There's only one way of driving - my way!" as she takes yet another wrong turn.
North By Northwest (1959)
The Moment: Cary Grant plays Roger O. Thornhill, the first modern action hero - suave, suited and chased by a malevolent crop duster.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Had Arnie Schwarzenegger made this, the demise of the pilot would've been marked by Thornhill paying his respects - "dust to dust."
Mad Max 2 (1981)
The Moment: The mother of all post-apocalyptic car chases, as the tanker driven by Mad Max (Mel Gibson) is pursued by a crazed biker gang.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? There's barely a line of dialogue in the climactic duel. C'mon Max, it wouldn't have killed you to shout "Keep on truckin'."
Enter The Dragon (1973)
The Moment: At a martial arts tournament which is secretly the cover for a drug ring, undercover Lee (Bruce Lee) is paired against evil henchman O'Hara (Bob Wall).
Does It Feature A One-Liner? O'Hara demonstrates his fighting prowess by karate chopping a wooden board. Lee coolly observes, "Boards don't fight back!"
The Wages Of Fear (1953)
The Moment: The world's worst turning circle (a narrow, rotten wooden gantry jutting out over a cliff) isn't the best place to be stuck with a truck full of nitro-glycerine.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? No: everyone's fists are jammed tight into their mouths in terror. Anything they said would be unintelligible.
Hard Boiled (1992)
The Moment: A burning second-storey maternity ward. A baby left behind. What's Officer Tequila (Chow Yun-Fat) to do?
Does It Feature A One-Liner? After Tequila's trousers catch fire, the baby helpfully wees to put it out. Tequila says: "You saved the day there, you little pisspot."
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
The Moment: Newly arrived in Moscow, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) finds himself pursued by assassin Kirill (Karl Urban) and the Russian police in a stolen taxi.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? If ever there was a film asking for the hero to say, "The traffic was murder," this is it.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
The Moment: The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) crashes a liquid nitrogen tanker into a steel foundry. Long story.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Arnie deliver the coup de grace - a single, shattering, bullet - with a line he's learnt from John Connor (Edward Furlong): "Hasta la vista, baby!"
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
The Moment: Tom Cruise raises the stakes for movie stars doing their own stunts by clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Yes, he was wearing wires… but we bet you wouldn't do it.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) walks in having missed an intense, skyscraper-hanging rescue mission, to announce of his own efforts, "That was not easy, but I did it."
Aliens (1986)
The Moment: Just when you thought it was safe to go into space... the Alien Queen rips Bishop (Lance Henriksen) in half and zones in on Newt (Carrie Henn). Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) isn't having any of that.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? One mother to another, "Get away from her, you bitch!"
Point Break (1991)
The Moment: Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) catches the Dead Presidents mid-robbery, and engages leader 'Ronald Reagan' (who he now knows is Patrick Swayze's surf-dude Bodhi) in a kinetic, Steadicam-propelled foot chase.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? "Ahhh!" (as explained in Hot Fuzz : "Patrick Swayze has just robbed this bank, and Keanu Reeves is chasin' him through peoples' gardens, and then he goes to shoot Swayze but he can't because he loves him so much and he's firin' his gun up in the air and he's like 'ahhh!'")
Casino Royale (2006)
The Moment: Daniel Craig cements his status as the hardest of James Bond with this vertiginous pursuit of free-running assassin Mollaka (Sebastien Foucan).
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Bond is too in-the-zone for a Roger Moore-style quip, although he remembers afterwards as he's dressed down by M for being caught on CCTV. "Sorry, I'll shoot the camera next time."
Die Hard (1988)
The Moment: An LAPD SWAT team makes an ill-advised attempt to storm the Nakatomi Plaza with an armoured vehicle, but Hans Gruber's men have got it covered with an anti-tank gun.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? A toss-up between Theo's immortal, "The quarterback is toast!" and McClane's pay-off: "Geronimo, motherfucker!"
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
The Moment: Trailing assassin Desh in Tunisia, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) jumps from balcony to balcony before engaging in a violent fight.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Bourne isn't one for talking, meaning he missed the chance to ask his bleeding opponent, "What's read all over? You are!"
The Killer (1989)
The Moment: Assassin Jeff (Chow Yun Fat) and Detective Li (Danny Lee) end up fighting on the same side as Triad hitmen attack their church hide-out.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? "How good a shot are you?" asks Jeff. "I'm a cop, I've got to be good," Li replies, before blowing a round of ammo next to big bad Wong Hoi.
Oldboy (2003)
The Moment: Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is cornered at the end of a long corridor by a gang of knife-wielding thugs. Fortunately, he's brought his hammer.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? No, but the forthcoming U.S. remake has the opportunity to rectify this by having Josh Brolin yell, "It's hammer time!"
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Moment: The final battle in the rain, as the titular defenders let the surviving bandits into the village in order to finish them off.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Amidst the carnage, samurai leader Kambei (Takashi Shimura) ruefully observes to those left that, "Once more we survive."
Heat (1995)
The Moment: Cops and robbers, supersized, as Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) forces Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) to blast his way out of of central L.A.
Does It Feature A One-Liner? It's hard to hear any dialogue over the incessant din of gunfire, but somebody should've yelled, "If you can't stand the Heat, then get out of the motherfucking way!"
Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)
The Moment: The entire House of Blue Leaves sequence, self-consciously intended as one of the greatest action movie sequences of all time - and who are we to argue?
Does It Feature A One-Liner? Typically for Tarantino, the villains get the best lines, especially Gogo: "you call that begging? You can beg better than that!"
