We discuss 10 Movies like Rambo you must watch. Add these well-recommended and highly-rated films to your watch list.
The Rambo franchise starring incredulous cinematic boxer and septuagenarian reality star Sylvester Stallone has an incredible legacy that has managed to remain popular with fans even today.
The violent franchise started out as a relatively small-scale survivor thriller, and producers quickly realized there was more mileage in the character, so a whole slew of sequels were launched.
Love them or loathe them, you have to admit that these films became iconoclastic in the movie world, and when that happens, you are always going to get copycats.
So with that in mind, here are ten films just like Rambo you must watch.
10 Movies like Rambo
John Wick (2014)
All around Hollywood A-Lister Keanu Reeves takes the tone of John Rambo and transposes it over a modern-day hitman revenge tale. John Wick, like John Rambo, finds himself being dragged back into a violent world of murder and survival, just like Rambo did in the original 1984 classic First Blood.
John Wick would also spawn a list of sequels, so it had to be included in our list.
Commando (1985)
Ex-barbarian and robot assassin from the future Arnold Schwarzenegger continued a 1980s explosion in action thrillers with this tale of another retired military man, pulled back into action when his daughter is kidnapped.
Coincidently, Arnold plays another John in this blockbuster, that faced some censoring due to its over the top violence.
Extraction (2020)
Marvel laughing stock and rubbish man in black Chris Hemsworth plays badly named Tyler Rake in this Netflix thriller.
A mercenary on a desperate mission, trapped in a hostile environment on a rescue that seems impossible, has a lot of tropes similar to Rambo, and there are some stunning set pieces that might make this the start of another thrilling franchise.
Deadly Prey (1987)
Here’s a real shlocker from the eighties, that does its absolute best to mimic First Blood.
Marine beefcake Mike Danton finds he has been kidnapped by a sadistic secret military organization, that uses people in their training camp as real prey.
However, Danton is no ordinary piece of canon fodder and joins forces with another marine to take the operation down.
Uncommon Valour (1983)
Here is a strangely overlooked entry in the genre, starring the best Lex Luthor ever Gene Hackman, and everyone’s favorite dirty dancer Patrick Swayze.
Colonel Jason Rhodes gets a group of ex-Vietnam vets, just like Rambo, together to form an extraction team determined to rescue ex-soldiers trapped in Laos.
The premise has been used so many times since this movie, so it’s odd it isn’t referenced more, but it definitely needs to be mentioned on our list.
Die Hard (1988)
Similar only in its tone, Die Hard would propel ex-Blue Moon Detective Agency employee Bruce Willis into the stratosphere as John Maclean, a New York cop thrown into a desperate mission to save his ex-wife, and a bunch of other people, from a tower block under siege by a madman.
Willis launches a one-man attack, taking down the enemy one at a time, in a John Rambo-esque style.
Under Siege (1992)
Mental Walter Mitty direct to video maestro Steven Seagal stars in a tale of a US military ship, taken over by a band of terrorists, looking for an unlikely hero to save the day. Seagal is the ex-marine, now the ship’s cook, that finds he is all that stands between the terrorists and disaster.
A classic slice of nineties nonsense that would help Seagal become an action hero, but not for long.
Invasion USA (1985)
Bearded real-life martial artist and Expendables member Chuck Norris has a whole catalog of movies behind him, and this is just one of them that fits the list.
Norris becomes a one-man army, like Rambo, to stop an old adversary and terrorist that plans on bringing America to its knees with his own personal army.
Missing in Action (1984)
Before Chuck saved America in 1985, he went full John Rambo in this eighties shoot-’em-up. Chuck is James Braddock, an ex-prisoner in a Vietnamese POW camp, who knows that there are others still imprisoned there.
Along with his old army buddy Tuck, the two men launch an attack to free the Americans that are still trapped there.
Men of War (1994)
Ex-Russian murderous boxer Dolph Lundgren stars in this piece of nineties nonsense, as Nick Gunar. Washed up and jaded Gunar is an ex-mercenary not really living his best life, and despite himself gets dragged back into doing just one more job.
He gets a team together and they have to reclaim a mineral-rich island for their corporate overlords, but when they arrive their perspectives start to change as things are not always what they seem.
Do you have any other recommendations for Movies like Rambo? Let us know in the comments below.
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