Sisu: Road to Revenge recently hit theaters and racked up a ridiculously high body count for its main character Aatami, played by 66-year-old Jorma Tommila. Tommila originated the role three years earlier in Sisu. And since I have now joined the ranks of senior citizens, I have to say I thoroughly relish seeing older characters not just given the spotlight but also allowed to drive an action film with fierce virility. So that inspired me to highlight the best action films featuring some not-yet-ready-to-retire seniors.
(NOTE: I am not including films in which the stars are obviously old but the films pretend that they are not and their age never comes into play.)
1 – Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Since some people have short memories and only seem aware of films released in their lifetime, I just want to remind them that Danny Trejo was not the first old dude to kick ass. Not sure if Bad Day at Black Rock serves up the O.G. senior citizen action hero but Spencer Tracy was great as a one-armed veteran who arrives in a tiny California desert town to find a man named Komoko. The residents are inexplicably hostile. Then we discover that the racist town bully Reno Smith (played by Robert Ryan) had murdered Komoko years ago and forced townsfolk to help him cover it up. We discover that Tracy’s John Macreedy came to town because Komoko’s son died saving his life and Macreedy wanted to give the medal of honor to the father.
By today’s action standards, Bad Day at Black Rock is tame but we do get to see a one-armed Macreedy karate chop Ernest Borgnine’s thug into submission, and all in the name of justice and tolerance. It was one of the first U.S. films to tackle issues about discrimination against Japanese and Japanese-Americans during World War II. And Tracy is always a joy to watch, especially when he can casually and almost effortlessly take out a bully in a bar fight.
2 – The Wild Bunch (1969)
Sam Peckinpah kicks up the ante in his elegiac Western The Wild Bunch, about an aging outlaw gang that recognizes the changing world of 1913 is likely to make them obsolete. So they decide to plan one last train robbery to retire on. But of course it all goes sideways and the gang, led by Pike (William Holden), heads for Mexico with former gang member Deke (Robert Ryan again) leading a group of bounty hunters hired by the railroad to kill or capture them.
The film is packed with aging Hollywood stars from Holden and Ryan to Ernest Borgnine (also back again), Edmund O’Brien, and Ben Johnson. The film stirred controversy for its graphic and often slow-motion violence, mostly committed by old men. These aging stars are not about to die or fade from the screen without a fight. Holden and Ryan both play characters who seem to understand that they have been discarded by society and are seen as useless. That lends the film a kind of tragic fatalism.
This film feels more modern in tone and style than Bad Day at Black Rock, but both lay the foundation for the more recent senior citizen action films.
3 – Machete (2010) and Machete Kills (2013)
The seeds for Danny Trejo’s Machete were planted in 2001 when he appeared as Uncle Machete in Robert Rodriguez’ Spy Kids. Then the character blossomed in 2007 when Rodriguez created a fake trailer for a Machete movie to run in the faux double feature of Grindhouse. The reaction to the trailer was so overwhelmingly positive that Rodriguez felt compelled to cast the 66-year-old Trejo as the kick ass hero of his own Machete feature.
Trejo was always a dynamic presence on screen but Rodriguez was the first to really showcase him as a leading man that women were hot for and an action star who could dominate any opponent. Trejo is such a badass in the role that he got a sequel and has a third one in development. His Machete might be the pinnacle of don’t write this old man off just yet.
4 – Sisu (2022) and Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025)
Jorma Tommila gives Trejo a run for his money in ove-the-top crazy action shenanigans for a person most people would write off as over-the-hill and past his prime. In the first Sisu film, Tommila’s Aatami is a prospector in the Lapland wilderness who discovers a massive gold deposit just as World War II is coming to an end. A retreating group of Nazis foolishly try to steal his gold but then they realize they have messed with the wrong dude. Aatami turns out to be a legendary ex-commando who will stop at nothing to keep what is rightfully his.
At one point a Nazi soldier asks a local woman: “Do you really believe that he’s immortal?” To which she replies, “No. He just refuses to die. We have a word for that in Finland… but it’s impossible to translate. You see, this is not about who’s the strongest. This is about not giving up, and he won’t, ever… no matter what you bitches are trying.”
Filmmaker Jalmari Helander beats the hell out of his main character in each film but like the Energizer Bunny, Aatami just keeps going and going and then going more extreme each time. As with Machete, these films are ridiculously and gleefully absurd in their violence. I was a little sad that Aatami fights the Red Army instead of Nazis in the sequel but revenge of this scale is always sweet and even sweeter when dished out by a grizzled old man, underestimated by his enemy, but who won’t take shit from anyone.
5 – Harry Brown (2009)
If Machete and Sisu deliver deliciously mindless over-the-top action, then Harry Brown goes for something subtler and more grounded in the real world. Michael Caine is Harry Brown, an aging pensioner, living in a rundown project, and facing life on his own after his wife has passed away. Brown keeps to himself and turns a blind eye to the youth violence that surrounds him. But then his best friend is killed by some punks and that provokes Brown to action and to take the law into his own hands. My friend called it “Death Wish’s smarter brother.”
Caine—conjuring up memories of his Get Carter lethalness—reveals a man who is woken from a slumber to take action. We soon discover Brown’s military training and his service in Northern Ireland as a marine. When confronted with the violence near his home, Brown’s old military reflexes kick in. The film is cold and ruthless in following Brown’s journey to dispense personal justice for a wrong committed, but the film also questions the violence and asks if the vengeance sought is only prolonging a cycle of violence. Caine, who was 76 when he shot the film, gives us a pensioner who holds his own against thugs who are a third of his age and he does it with icy cold effectiveness.
Don’t underestimate this septuagenarian.
6 – Logan (2017)
This is sort of an anti-superhero film as the Marvel X-Men franchise addresses the real-life aging of its star. The film opens with a weary and most decidedly older-looking Logan (Hugh Jackman returning yet again). He’s driving a limo and gets into a dispute with some hoodlums and dispenses with them in a fairly efficient and brutal manner—although he’s clearly not at the top of his game.
Jackman’s Logan is older and not in peak physical condition anymore. He gets hurt and suffers physical consequences for his actions in ways that he never had to deal with before. All this makes the action scenes in the film more intense and effective. And Logan ranks as the only official senior superhero on the list. The film serves up an elegiac tale about a man coming to terms with his life and deciding how he wants to go out. And his choice is to, and Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” The film gives us some time to get to know the older Logan and to understand what it means to carry the legacy of Wolverine. We also see how Logan has to care for Charles Xavier, who is in his twilight years and suffers from mental disabilities that take on different dimensions when you were a powerful mutant telepath.
The film gives us a great lens on what it might be like to grow old as a superhero but still be willing to fight the good fight—even if it might prove your mortality.
7 – VFW (2019)
This gets inclusion for gathering a bunch of old geezers (all veterans of foreign wars, hence the title) and letting them tear into a gang of hoodlums with some 80s grindhouse bloodlust. Filmmaker Joe Begos loves old-school grindhouse gorefests and he has a blast letting the likes of Stephan Lang, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, and William Sadler just cut loose and return to glory in order to defend their lives and save their bar.
It has a bit of an Assault on Precinct 13 vibe in how it sets up the standoff, but it plays out with a lot more blood and guts. The vets devise makeshift weapons and traps from whatever they can find, and do so by tapping into what they saw in the Vietnam War. There are plenty of snide remarks about age and underestimating the old guys’ will and strength, so it’s satisfying to see them mercilessly take out the young hoodlums. This offers a satisfying old dudes fight back scenario even though not everyone survives. But no one goes out without a fight and taking a lot of the enemy with them when they go.
8 – Blood Quantum (2019)
Kudos to filmmaker Jeff Barnaby for tweaking zombie genre expectations to deliver something entertaining and clever in the vein of George A. Romero’s Dead films. The premise this time involves the dead coming back to life within the isolated Mi’gmaq reserve of Red Crow. The big attraction in this film is Stonehorse Lone Goeman’s Gisigu. He’s a sword-wielding, zombie-killing grandpa that livens up the film. As he points out, you never have to reload a sword or worry about running out of ammo, and he is impressive in his ability to take out the undead.
Blood Quantum deftly relocates the narratives and political dimensions of Romero’s Dead films onto the reservation. A viral outbreak transforms white Americans into ravaging zombies while the Indigenous people, due to their ancestral blood, remain immune. The reservation becomes a safe haven, but its security and integrity are soon threatened by white Americans who, either dead or alive, once again seek to invade and take the land back as their own. Barnaby’s film replays colonist history through the zombie apocalypse. But, amid the brutality of reservation life—and the gore-soaked, flesh-eating moments—are characters who represent heritage and hope, offering solutions to generational trauma through Indigenous voice and agency.
And most impressively, a lethal grandpa with a sword. Respect your elders!
9 – RED (2010)
RED is based on a comic book series but is not a superhero film. The film stars Bruce Willis as Frank Moses, a former black-ops agent who reunites with his old team to capture an assassin who has vowed to kill him. The film does try to ignore Willis’ age by setting up a romance with a much younger character but his character is definitely old and retired. He’s jolted out of retirement when a hit squad attacks him at his home, and Frank proves his skills are not the least bit rusty as he kills the entire group.
Making up his old team are Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and Brian Cox. Mirren, who always kicks ass, gets to do so within an action film at the age of 76 and within a genre usually reserved for men and decorative young women. So it is great to see a senior action dame who is both classy and lethal. The film leans into action comedy and milks some humor from the age of its characters.
10 – The Expendables Franchise (now at 5 films)
Old action stars never die, they just make Expendables movies. None of these films is great, but they merit inclusion for the sheer number of aging action stars they have employed—it’s better than a retirement home. The films tend to miss opportunities to be truly clever in poking fun at its old action heroes, but the films do exude an appealing sense of camaraderie among the cast.
Sylvester Stallone launched the series and gathered up old co-stars as well as rivals, with a few younger action stars added in for balance. The senior citizens of the franchise include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Wesley Snipes, and Mickey Rourke. So don’t send any old action stars out to pasture, just refer them to The Expendables 6 casting session.
Bonus pick: I wanted to include Original Gangstas on the list because it has such a great cast (Pam Grier, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Ron O’Neal, Richard Roundtree). But I ended up leaving it off because despite the characters being treated as from an older generation, they really weren’t that old and did not look past their prime. But this is definitely a fun one and with solid action from a veteran, if not senior citizen, cast.
Honorable mentions and gold watches to: Jean-Claude Van Damme facing his own aging in JCVD; Mel Gibson as an old Santa Claus who is not afraid of violence in Fat Man; Adriana Barraza as the kick ass grandma with a secret revolutionary past in Blue Beetle; Michael Keaton as a hitman with dementia in Knox Goes Away; Michelle Yeoh as an aging laundromat owner who discovers untapped martial arts skills in Everything Everywhere All At Once; and then a trio of violent men who try to reject their past lives and move on but get pulled back—Keanu Reeves in John Wick Chapter 4, Denzel Washington in The Equalizer 3, and Bob Odenkirk in Nobody. I would have included a Charles Bronson film except I don’t think any ever acknowledged he was old.
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