I do have to mention some of my own though:

-Any…ok most James Bond movies.
-The Bourne series. I’d say one of the best hand to hand combat scenes ever. Two guys fight TO THE DEATH! broken libs bones and all with books, pens, and common items found in a study/office.(I need to watch these again)
-The Great Escape/Heart’s War. Similar type movies, a classic and a modern PoW escape story.
-Saving Private Ryan. Ok there a lot of war movies I’ll leave that there.

and what about girl bad asses?

-Resident Evil
-Underworld
-Ultraviolet
That list goes on too… Any ways, I guess movies are just awsome! lol

I do understand where you were comming from with your list though, but we watched a few of those together.

Oh ya how could have almost forgotten any…almost anything with Jedi in it…

Other notables that haven’t been mentioned:
Clive Owen in Inside Man
Russell Crowe in Gladiator
Wesley Snipes in the Blade trilogy
Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (different sort of badass)

1. Lethal Weapon
2. Die Hard
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark
4. Leon: The Professional
5. Snatch
6. Commando
7. Shooter
8. Iron Man
9. Remo Williams the Adventure Begins
10. Enter the Dragon

Correction to one comment I made, I had two movies post-’87, as The Killer hails from ’89.

A few more titles to add to your “to watch” list of bad-assery: The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers from the ’70s (best swordfights EVER); Grand Duel (Lee van Cleef spaghetti western); The Road Warrior (how did we both leave that one off???); and another samurai classic, Sword of Doom.

I’m not stating those films AREN’T deserving to be on my list, these are just my personal favorites. It certainly isn’t THE list by any means.

The whole list started because of the trailer for 44 Inch Chest, which I thought was fantastic. I sat down to think about movies I consider good company for a film like that. I’m the first to admit movies like 300 and Seven aren’t really the same types of movies, I’m just a huge fan.

Why aren’t there any movies before 87? The obvious answer is the fact that I’m 26 but I’m not going to hide behind my age because all of those movies are readily available to watch at any time.

Instead, I’ve made my own list, started a discussion and now I can take a closer look at the films you put on yours. I’d watch them all if I had the time to do so. So they may not be on my list yet but they are definitely on my list of films I like to see. (I’ve seen a few of them but not all.) Which one do you think has the best chance of knocking a movie off my list?

Oh and in this case I’d define the term Bad Ass Movie simply as an awesome movie I adore. I should probably make an Old School Bad Ass movie list as well and dig deeper into the classics. Next time.

Yours is a good companion list though. Although I disagree about Terminator and selecting Kill Bill over Tarantino’s earlier films. That’s just personal preference. You are correct about Tarantino though, he needs to be on the list somewhere.

First: no movies at all from before 1987? Seriously?

Second: you are missing a long list of badasses who belong on ANY list of badasses. Bogart. John Wayne. Lee Marvin. Lee van Cleef. Burt Lancaster. Chow Yun Fat. Toshiro Mifune. Charles Bronson. It’s rather appalling that NONE of these make your list.

Third: I’m curious about your definition of “bad ass”. Seven is a very well-made movie, and stylish, and certainly takes sadistic joy in messing with the viewer’s expectations. But there is no thrill, no uplift, to it, no masculine ideal to which it aspires. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Walker intended John Doe to be the hero of the piece — and John Doe is many things, but bad ass he is not. Diabolical, yes, and brilliant, and fiendish, but not bad ass.

So, permit me to answer your list with an alternative:

10. Where Eagles Dare. Clint Eastwood. Machine gun in each hand. Mowing down a hall full of Nazis. Case closed.

9. Terminator It’s just a stronger story than 2. Toss-up between this and Aliens.

8. OK, if you’ve GOT to have Tarantino in here, let’s make it Kill Bill.

7. The Killer. Bad ass cop. Bad ass killer. Ten thousand bullets. Case closed.

6. Sahara. Bogart commands a tank in WWII that’s lost, alone, low on gas, and practically out of ammo and water. Finds out they’re behind enemy lines, and ends up having to outwit an entire German regiment. And does. (Lots of Bogie films to choose from, I went relatively obscure.)

5. The Dirty Dozen. I mean, come on.

4. The Searchers. It’s flawed and uneven, granted. But John Wayne’s character shoots the eyes out of a dead Indian because the Indian would believe it would condemn his soul to wander lost forever.

3. The Train. “You should be paid. How much for the damage?” “One hundred francs.” “How much for saving my life?”

2. Once Upon a Time in the West. “I saw dusters like this recently. Inside the dusters were three men.” “So?” “Inside the men were three bullets.”

1. Yojimbo. “Fool! I can’t die yet, there are still quite a few men I have to kill!”

Call it a companion list, as mine only has one movie made after ’87 on it.

But seriously, they made movies before 1987. And no few of them were bad ass. I swear.

(And I am well aware that I left Lee van Cleef out of my list, too. Perhaps substitute The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for Where Eagles Dare, to keep Clint on.)