When people go to the movies to see a movie on the big screen, they are often looking for an escape. While everyone has their own preferences for what type of movie they like to escape into, the action genre is an immortal territory for many cinema fans.
With significant advances in special effects and filmmaking techniques, the action movie genre has evolved into a digital wonderland, often filled with explosions and lots of gunfire. Few directors embody the essence of the action flick better than Michael Bay. While he isn't always a movie critic's poster child, Bay is renowned for his thrilling movies that draw huge audiences into theaters.
Updated April 12, 2022, by John Charron: Michael Bay has been making audiences lean over the edge of their seats since he first stepped out onto the Hollywood scene in the early 1990s. A divisive director, audiences either seem to love or hate his over-the-top explosive sequences filled with every action movie cliché in the book. His persistent dedication to delivering only the most absurdly ridiculous fight scenes through special effects and some seriously big budgets is simply astounding. Not every single movie of his is worth its weight in gunpowder, some certainly carry a plot better than others. But, even the worst Michael Bay movie will have some pretty wicked car chases and demolitions. However, the best Michael Bay movies really do stand out as a collective pinnacle of the modern action movie genre.
15 Transformers: The Last Knight (15%)
Bay's bread and butter has been the Transformers franchise for some time, with this 2017 release being the fifth installment in the movie series. This time around, Optimus Prime and Mark Wahlberg enter the realm of fantasy, roping in the legend of King Arthur with the robots in disguise. Certainly a daring concept, the movie just can't seem to find its footing with the story and the resulting product is quite silly, despite being an explosive spectacle.
14 Transformers: Age Of Extinction (18%)
The Transformers series might not be known for high critical praise, but there is no denying that audiences seem to adore the Autobots and Decepticons blowing up city after city. This fourth installment in the series swaps the previous lead, Shia LaBeouf, for Mark Wahlberg and introduces some new giant mechs called the Dinobots. While the exhilarating special effects have been praised, the script and characters noticeably lack human qualities.
13 Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (20%)
There seems to be a running theme with critics disliking the Transformers series and fans flocking to the theaters to see them anyway. This box office hit is the first sequel to the initial movie and brings back many of the same characters from the original. Despite the fan service and bombastic special effects, the movie is too big for its own shoes, falling into the category of drawn-out nonsense with no sense of order or purpose.
12 Bad Boys II (23%)
In many ways, Bad Boys II is the quintessential Michael Bay movie. Explosions, gunfights every 15 minutes, stupid one-liners, and crass humor fill this epic movie to the brim. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as two Miami cops with a penchant for destructive methods as they attempt to stop drugs from pouring into their city. While critics have bashed it as offensive dribble, fans of mindless action flicks still embrace it as something of a holy grail.
Many consider this to be the quintessential Michael Bay movie, the best one that covers all the bases: from the insane final climax to the outrageous jokes and cameos. It might not be every movie-goer's favorite, but it is certainly better than the licensed game that was released beside it.
11 Pearl Harbor (24%)
Michael Bay movies tend to be fiery and explosive, so in a way, it is only logical that he tries his hand at a war movie. Following a handful of real-life historical characters and some fictional ones wrapped up in a romantic triangle, the movie displays a melodramatic retelling of the attack on Pearl Harbor that sent the United States into WWII.
The movie has some intense moments displaying the brutalities of battle, but the three-hour running time and awkward dialogue make this one of the more forgettable war pictures in recent memory.
10 Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (35%)
The third installment in the Transformers finds the Decepticons up to their old tricks as they attempt to take over Earth through an evil robot army concealed on the Moon. The movie improves on certain aspects of the series, heavily emphasizing an innovative 3-D experience, more engaging characters, and strong voice-acting, but the story and main characters still fall flat. Regardless, the movie was a huge success when it hit theaters and is still one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
9 6 Underground (36%)
Michael Bay's most recent picture marked his entrance into the streaming game with this Netflix spy thriller starring Ryan Reynolds as a billionaire who fakes his own death to create a vigilante squad to take down terrorists. The movie features some stunning locations from around the world and marks Bay's return to a "realistic" narrative that isn't overrun with giant robots. Nonetheless, the movie tends to be marked by a rehashed plot that lacks significant depth beyond things being blown up.
8 Armageddon (38%)
Bay's movies tend to be star-studded, but Armageddon turns it up to eleven with a celebrity-packed collection of actors, including Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Steve Buscemi in a sci-fi disaster romp about deep-sea oil drillers tasked with saving the planet from a giant asteroid.
While the movie was a tremendous success with theater-goers, critics have noted the scientific inaccuracies and choppy editing as major underlining issues. Nevertheless, this is a fun movie to watch and if audiences can put aside the inconsistencies and just let the wackiness of the story unfold, it is a very enjoyable experience.
7 The Island (40%)
Sci-fi movies are often a reflection of society's values, commonly pitting an individual against an authoritarian entity that restricts freedom. Michael Bay crafts a dystopian world similar to classic sci-fi flicks, TV shows, and games in this harrowing flick involving a man's discovery that his perfect utopian world is not all it seems. While it may lack the distinctive absurdity Bay's movies are known for, the acting and chase sequences assist in keeping the tensions high.
6 Bad Boys (42%)
The buddy-cop movie has been a top-grossing genre for a number of years, and nothing has defined the modern iteration of the style more than the Bad Boys series. It all began with this famed first movie, which was also Michael Bay's first feature-length picture he directed. While it may not rewrite the genre's formula, it polishes it down to a tee, filling every minute with as many explosions, snarky jokes, and flying bullets as possible.
The movie established Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as blockbuster movie actors and Michael Bay as a director capable of filling a theater. The movie was a massive success and has continued to be a cult favorite for decades since it was released. So much of Michael Bay's directing style comes from just this movie, it is truly the genesis of a new kind of action movie.
5 Pain & Gain (50%)
While most of Michael Bay's movies are far-fetched action fests, he proves he is capable of tackling real-life events with Pain & Gain. Based on true events (with artistic liberties taken of course), Mark Wahlberg stars in this heist movie involving three bodybuilders who plan to get what's theirs through a kidnapping scheme that goes haywire.
Trading in the grandiose explosions for big muscles and big money, Bay focuses more on humorous satire and uber-violence in this caper. This is as much a comedy as it is an action movie, and it does show the flexibility of Michael Bay's best movies. Maybe in the future, he will explore other genres and leave the explosive canisters and tricked-out guns behind in favor of something new.
4 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi (51%)
Another Michael Bay movie that is based on true events, 13 Hours is the story of the contracted soldiers who defended the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi from a militant group in 2012. While there is still plenty of explosions and gunfights, this is a much more dangerous movie with a deeper sense of threat.
The script is somewhat confusing and tends to drift aimlessly, but the elements of modern war are quite bitter and realistic. It is rare for Michael Bay to deal with a non-fictional story, although he still adds his vigorous action mindset into the fray, never letting any explosion just go to waste.
3 Transformers (58%)
The movie that sent the Transformers into the modern era. The first of the modern series is a classic among fans for its fun demeanor, colorful cast of characters, and high-octane action scenes. Using state-of-the-art digital special effects, Bay crafts an imaginative world in which alien robots can transform into and out of the shapes of vehicles.
The attention to detail on each robot is impressive and sets forth a creative trend that would continue for the next movies in the franchise. This movie relaunched the franchise of Transformers in ways no fan of the original series could ever have imagined.
2 The Rock (66%)
A brew of the heist genre, the prison escape genre, and the espionage thriller, The Rock is truly Michael Bay's action opus. Starring ex-James Bond actor, Sean Connery, as a political prisoner and Nicolas Cage as a chemical weapons specialist, this movie pits the two unsuspecting partners into government recruitment to infiltrate Alcatraz and stop a renegade group of soldiers from blowing up San Francisco.
Filled with engaging action and high-pressure stakes, this is one of the most timeless "race against time" action flicks of all time. Plus, how often do audiences get to see Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage, and Ed Harris on screen together? Talk about an all-star cast, this movie might feature the best acting performances out of any Michael Bay movie.
1 Ambulance (67%)
Michael Bay's most recent foray into the action movie world has been met with some strong reviews from critics and audiences alike. The movie follows Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as two adoptive brothers who have turned to bank robbing to pay for one of their wife's surgery. Things get hairy pretty fast, and they end up hijacking an ambulance and taking it for quite the car chase.
Critics have noted that the absurd plotline actually works rather well for Michael Bay's style of filmmaking and the acting is top-notch. One long over-the-top chase sequence is just what Michael Bay needed to return to form in this exciting action flick that explores the morality behind what's right and wrong - all while just about everything on screen blows up. This just might be the best Michael Bay movie yet!