Back in Action: April 1991
A look at the major new action movie releases (and trends) of April 1991 and April 2026
This year, I’m taking a month-by-month look at the action movies released globally in 1991, talking about the trends and individual titles that made the year in the genre and comparing them to the releases in 2026. You can read the previous monthly entries here.
Let’s take a look at the state of action in April 1991 and April 2026, with expanded thoughts on specific movies at the bottom for paid subscribers.
The numbers
I found 28 action movies released in April 1991 from nine filmmaking nations. (Here’s a Letterboxd list.)
In April 2026, I found 40 action movies from 15 filmmaking nations. (Here’s another Letterboxd list.)
Similar to other months, the April comparison shows how India has closed the gap to the US in the global action movie leaderboard, and how many more nations are making action movies in 2026. I’ll also add the same caveat I did in March for China – I only found three Chinese action movies released in April 2026, but I would be extremely shocked if there weren’t quite a few more that aren’t on the American database sites.
As for sub-genres, crime and police movies were by far the most popular action sub-genre in April 1991, making up about half of the released titles globally. Crime was still the most popular action sub-genre in April 2026, but less so (closer to 40%), and there was generally a wider spread of sub-genres. Also of note in April 2026: We have our second “Taken (mom variant)” movie of the year (Rio de Sangue, following March’s Protector), and we’re starting to see more movies that use cyber crimes and scams as narrative frameworks and justifications for violence.
A less fun trend in April 2026 – a few movies popped up that were either entirely, largely, or partially AI-generated. I found a group of straight-to-streaming action shorts in China that were entirely AI-generated, one Indian release that was restored with AI, and an American movie that I can’t find direct sourcing on re: the nature of the production, but a lot of audience reviews have been complaining it was largely AI-generated.
Who were we fighting?
In April 1991, around 30% of all action movie protagonists were cops, which tracks with the genre trends. Interestingly, students were the second most popular, with a lot of action movies about young people. Other common protagonist types that showed up this month were soldiers, criminals, and heirs to family legacies. On the antagonist side of things, more than half were criminals of some variety, with the majority from an organized crime structure.
Despite the lingering popularity of crime and police movies, the #1 protagonist type in April 2026 action movies was Normal Joe, my catch-all category for any job not normally associated with action. Notable Normal Joes from April 2026 included an influencer, marketing executives, a grieving mother, and a film director. It’s an interesting potential trend that I will be keeping tabs on for the rest of the year – is it a one-month anomaly? Could it be reflective of a desire for more “relatable” stories? Could it represent waning trust in the social and political institutions action heroes usually come from? On the antagonist side of things, criminals were still the most popular action opponents in 2026, but once again there was more variety than 35 years ago: corrupt officials, evil corporations, and Normal Joe (bad variant) all showed up in multiple April 2026 action movies.
America
April 1991
The most significant American action release of April 1991 by far was Steven Seagal’s cop/vengeance thriller Out for Justice. It led all in-month releases at the box office (across genres) and was Seagal’s third straight #1 movie. Out for Justice also joins what is now a growing handful of 1991 American action movies about the crack epidemic.
The other American actioner that performed at the box office was the “Die Hard meets Dead Poets Society” prep school action movie Toy Soldiers. The directorial debut of Beverly Hills Cop and Turner & Hooch screenwriter Daniel Petrie Jr., it’s a post-Goonies, pre-LOTR action role for Sean Astin, starring with Wil Wheaton during his Next Generation era.
Also of note: Street Wars, the last movie from L.A. Rebellion filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka, and Journey of Honor, a historical epic hoping to capitalize on the success of NBC’s 1980 Shogun miniseries. Starring Sho Kosugi (the man most responsible for the ninja boom of the 1980s), his son Kane (a future action star in his own right), and, somehow, Christopher Lee, John Rhys-Davies, and Toshiro Mifune, Journey of Honor has a shockingly small digital footprint for a movie at this scale, with this many known names. As far as I can tell, it never really got a US release, despite definitely being an American production. A bizarre situation all around, and I’d love to read more about it, but it’s hard to find any reliable information.
April 2026
The most significant American action release at the April 2026 box office was Bob Odenkirk’s police thriller Normal, a movie that has grossed less than a fifth of Out for Justice’s first-month haul (and that’s not even accounting for inflation). Other notable American action releases include a straight-to-streaming Mark Wahlberg+Paul Walter Hauser doofus action comedy (Balls Up), a remake of the Norwegian dark action-comedy The Trip from Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone (Over Your Dead Body), a DTV-adjacent Kiefer Sutherland “military vs. cartels” thriller (Brothers Under Fire), the 12th (!!!) entry in the Sniper franchise (Sniper: No Nation), and a historical epic about 14th century conqueror Timur (Rise of the Conqueror).
Of the eight American-made action movies of April 2026, only two played in American theaters, as far as I can tell – Normal and Over Your Dead Body. Curiously, Rise of the Conqueror only played in Central Asian theaters, despite being made in English by an American studio and director.
South Asia
April 1991
April 1991 saw the release of the most expensive Bollywood blockbuster yet – the superhero epic Ajooba, an Indian-Soviet co-production starring Amitabh Bachchan, who we caught up with in February in the very fun Hum. Ajooba was made in the wake of two successful Indo-Soviet collaborations – Alibaba aur 40 Chor and Sohni Mahiwal – but bombed so horrifically at the Bollywood box office that such collaborations stopped shortly after. (Though, I’m sure the collapse of the Soviet Union and its film industry didn’t help.)
The other most notable Indian action releases of April 1991 were the Tamil revenge story Captain Prabhakaran, about a customs officer whose life is ruined by a smuggler, and the Malayalam action comedy Aanaval Mothiram, which sounds a lot like the recent Dave Bautista vehicle The Killer’s Game – a cop mistakenly thinks he has a fatal disease and tries to die in action to get his family an insurance payout. It’s actually loosely based on the 1990 Dabney Coleman movie Short Time!
April 2026
March’s Dhurandhar: The Revenge continues to loom large at the Indian box office, crowding out most of the action competitors. The biggest April hit seems to have been the action-romance Dacoit: A Love Story, which was initially scheduled to open the same weekend as Dhurandhar but was smartly moved a month back.
Also worth mentioning: the long-delayed Rajinikanth movie Hum Mein Shahenshah Koun, filmed in 1989 but never released, finally came out thanks in part due to AI-assisted restoration. There was also the first major Nepali release of the year, the vigilante drama Ram Naam Satya.
East Asia
April 1991
After some busy months to start the year, this was kind of a quiet month for Hong Kong action – the biggest hit at the box office was the gangster biopic To Be Number One. I found three Hong Kong action movies released in April 1991, with the most significant being Stone Age Warriors, one of quite a few Hong Kong movies of this era about hidden treasure held by a violent tribe. It was the directorial debut of Stanley Tong, who could go onto make multiple movies with Jackie Chan (including Police Story 3: Super Cop the following year), and co-stars Louis Fan Siu-Wong, who will show up later this year in the bloody cult classic Riky-Oh.
Japan had its usual crop of V-Cinema releases – including a new installment of the Freeway Speedway franchise, V-Cinema’s Fast and Furious before The Fast and the Furious. There was also a new mecha anime (Ariel Deluxe), and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style sci-fi horror action movie Skyscraper Hunting.
April 2026
Time for that China caveat again, as I found just three DTV releases from China’s super active action industry in April 2026 (most notably The Sin Trade, from frequent DTV star Ashton Chen and Striking Rescue director Cheng Siyi).
In Japan, there were three new action releases, all IP-related: a tokusatsu superhero movie (Agito: Superpower War), a new Detective Conan installment (Fallen Angel of the Highway), and the live-action adaptation of the action comedy anime Sakamoto Days. South Korea also had three new releases, including Girl’s Judgment, a coming-of-age movie about a high school vigilante taking on bullies. In Taiwan, the action crime thriller Dead End was released, about a disgraced baseball player who discovers a "death betting scheme" and tries to flee and save his father.
Everywhere else
April 1991
There were two action movies from the Philippines – your typical “cop who takes revenge on the crime syndicate leader who killed his family” thriller (Ganti ng Api) and your less typical “unauthorized musical-comedy superhero parody” (Alyas Batman en Robin). Initially intended for a 1989 release to capitalize on the Michael Keaton movie (but clearly parodying the old TV show), the colorful musical comedy was delayed after WB strenuously objected to the use of their IP. I don’t know whether WB eventually gave their blessing, but it did finally come out two years later.
Other notables from around the world that came out in April 1991: the Thai supernatural action comedy Magic Moon, and the Italian movie Indio 2 - The Revolt. The sequel to what can only be described as a Spaghetti Rambsploitation movie, Indio 2 stars former star boxer Marvin Hagler as a Marine who helps indigenous tribes fight against a corporation and its gang of mercenaries, who are building a highway on the tribes’ land and killing them in the process. It’s directed by Antonio Marghereti – if that sounds familiar, he is directly referenced in both Inglourious Basterds (as Eli Roth’s character’s Italian alias) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (as one of the directors who worked with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in Italy).
April 2026
Arguably the most notable April 2026 action release was the Saudi-produced mega-flop Desert Warrior, a long-gestating (and extremely expensive) historical epic starring Anthony Mackie that finally released this month and made almost no money at the box office. Nothing else in the genre really made a huge splash this month, so being an all-time flop counts for something.
Australia produced two action movies in April 2026 – the fight movie Beast (review here), and the Tim Roth-led Seven Snipers. Canada also produced two, including the very interesting-sounding Ballistic, where Lena Headey plays a grieving mother who learns her son was killed by a bullet made at the factory where she works and resolves to take revenge. Ukraine also produced two action movies, including one specifically about American-Ukrainian cooperation (Killhouse).
Also of note: Mayhem star Nassim Lyles returned in the French action-comedy Bagarre, a new modern pirate blockbuster out of Indonesia (The Hostage’s Hero), and New Zealand’s Sgt. Haane looks like a fascinating combination of documentary footage and dramatic re-enactments.
Best poster:
Gotta go with Street Wars. It tells you exactly the vibe of the movie.
For paid subscribers, I’ve written some thoughts about all the action movies I watched from April 1991 (Street Wars, Out for Justice, Ajooba, and Toy Soldiers) and April 2026 (Beast, Sniper: No Nation, Rise of the Conqueror, and Brothers Under Fire). I’m also keeping lists ranking the 1991 action movies and 2026 action movies I’ve watched while doing this project. And here’s a preview of the movies I’ll be looking at for May 1991 and May 2026.
