Feature

Top 20 Manliest Movies

Mark

23rd February 2007

5. COMMANDO (1985)
Commando on DVD
With the highest onscreen body count of any film ever made upon release, this curt, 86 minute blood fest has the ultimate plot: revenge. The McGuffin is the Governator's daughter, with nary a sign of a mother figure. Gasp as Arnie punches his way across the world! Grit your teeth as he jumps out of planes without a parachute into crocodile infested waters with nary a scratch! High five as he puns his away across a series of ever gorier death scenes! And finally, camp it up as John Matrix faces off against Vernon Wells' Bennett, the campest bad guy in cinema history. It's none-too-subtle face-off - raging hetero versus raging homo, but breeder was always going to beat bummer. A bad episode of 80's action TV writ large it may be, but it's got balls the size of goddamn Sherman tanks.

Manliest moment: Matrix impales Bennett on a large pipe - heterosexuals for the win!

4. GOLDFINGER (1964)
James Bond Goldfinger on DVD
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!" Bond's only appearance on the list comes in the form of this, widely acknowledged as his greatest moment. A daft and compelling spy thriller, Goldfinger walks the tightrope between dumb and deft with the plot to rob Fort Knox of its contents. What appears almost credible soon becomes the work of deranged imagination: women are painted to death, golf becomes a lethal duel and Sean Connery - the male archetype and still the best Bond by a mile - heroically ploughs through a mountain of muff. James Bond is the man everyone in possession of a penis wishes he was, and Goldfinger sees him at his most manly, none more so when his jaffas are threatened by a laser beam and he's lusted after by a woman called Pussy Galore. You know you've done the opening gun thing in the mirror.

Manliest moment: "Run along now... man talk!" James Bond slaps the arse of passing female.

3. JAWS (1975)
Jaws on DVD
Part of being a man is knowing that life is finite and ultimately pointless, but staring it straight in the eye nonetheless. Jaws' slender plot explores this theme to its ultimate conclusion: a shark, nothing more than rows of teeth and a digestive system, tries to eat an entire town. Presumably driven into a blood frenzy by menstruating women, this nameless blue-finned abyss of carnage merrily chomps its way through anything and everything. It's up to just three men to stop it, and all they've got is a wooden boat and balls of steel. By the film's explosive climax, it's just Man and Shark in a battle of wits on a sinking boat, as an unstoppable force meets the immovable object - and there can be only one survivor. So manly, the testosterone stings the nostrils.

Manliest moment: Comparing scars on the ocean waves, a quintessentially male pastime.

2. PREDATOR (1987)
Predator on DVD
Here we have a film so manly, it's been reported that women who've watched it have seen their breasts shrink and their vagina close up as a result. If paintballing in the woods is a natural male hobby (women can't shoot guns, it's been proved in labs) then Predator takes the concept and injects it with pure man-juice - there can be no manlier activity than half a dozen muscle-bound hunks running around the jungle with their weapons out. The enemy they face is from another world, but Dutch and his compadres know that if they fire guns big enough for long enough, it can't stand up to their sheer man-power. Arnie comes out on top (it's sheer coincidence that he had to strip to the waist to do so) and the movie climaxes with an explosion so big, it'd make Don Simpson pop a boner from six-feet under.

Manliest moment: "I ain't got time to bleed." Women take note.

1. FIGHT CLUB (1999)
Fight Club Definitive Edition on DVD
The ubermensch film for ubermen, David Fincher's Fight Club is everything a man could ever want from a movie. Paranoid, violent, anarchic and so hip it's practically an athelete, Fight Club was a wake-up call for man at the end of the century. "You are not the contents of your wallet... you are not your fuckin' Khakis," rants an aggressive Brad Pitt, directly addressing all the wet blanket males in the audience who think Jude Law is an aspirational figure. The narrator, an unnamed, existentially-challenged wimp transforms into a primal beast at the hands of his mentor Tyler Durden, with the two aiming to reclaim humanity and free the corporate slaves from their IKEA-induced stupor. Immense in stylistic and anarchic ambition, unstoppable in its violent vision and awash with soap, Fight Club is THE manliest film of all time. Anyone who disagrees? I'll meet you at... well... we're not supposed to talk about it.

Manliest moment: Jarod Leto gets a face full of fist and is pounded into a pulpy, bloody mess.

Like this? You'll love the Top 50 Greatest Movie Deaths

Mark / Ali

More:  Top10  Action
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