Action! If there’s one word associated with cinema, the tension of movie sets, and the focus of attention, it’s this one. Action is very often at the heart of popular cinema: Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock hands in Safety Last! (1923), Cary Grant threatened and strafed by a plane in North by Northwest (1959), Franka Potente gasping for air in Run Lola Run (1998)... Westerns, swashbuckler films, martial arts or adventure flicks, thrillers, all these genres rely on action—sometimes frenetic, sometimes meticulously measured.
From movies by Sergei Eisenstein to Gilles Carle, from John Ford to John Boorman and Werner Herzog, via Paul Verhoeven, Kathryn Bigelow, Park Chan-wook, Érik Canuel, and Nicolas Winding Refn, this series will take you through the full range of emotions, from laughter to thrills, from fear to satisfaction.
Winner of two Academy Awards in 1995
A psychopath plants a bomb on a bus full of civilians, which will explode if the vehicle slows down below 80 km/h. After managing to board the bus in time, a SWAT officer does everything in his power to save the passengers. One of the biggest action movie hits of the 1990s, driven by its relentless pace, Jan de Bont’s tense direction, and the performances of Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, and Dennis Hopper. It is a remake of the Japanese film The Bullet Train by Jun’ya Satō, also featured in this cycle.
Jon de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch director, cinematographer, and producer. He studied film in Amsterdam and was interested in all aspects of the field. After working on a few short and documentary films, he turned to photography, and chose to specialise as a cinematographer. In 1970, he was hired by Paul Verhoeven for a short film and went on to work on six of the director's films. In the 1980s, he established himself in the United States as a leading cinematographer and worked on several major productions, including Die Hard (1988), which brought him international acclaim. Building on these successes, he made his directorial debut in 1994 with Speed, a critical and commercial hit that launched the careers of the then-virtually unknown Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Steven Spielberg then entrusted him with Twister (1996), a film he produced. Jan de Bont followed that up with a sequel to his debut film (1997), the horror film The Haunting (1999), and the action film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003). Since then, he has not directed any more films, choosing instead to step back from the industry and devote himself to photography.
