Film

Accident Man

Accident Man is a lean, witty action thriller about a hitman who stages kills as accidents. Scott Adkins plays it cool and funny as much as deadly, bouncing through creative fight sequences with self-aware charm. It's for anyone who wants their action film unpretentious, violent, and genuinely entertaining without apology.

TMDb rating3.2

If you liked this

John Wick2014

The originator of modern hitman cinema: elegant, propulsive, and built on the same engine of a professional's code being broken. Keanu Reeves makes restraint magnetic. Every frame earns its place.

But The emotional core—grief and rage—is treated with dead seriousness. If you want lightness with your violence, you'll find the tone heavier than you expected.

John Wick poster

Atomic Blonde2017

Charlize Theron as a spy-assassin in Berlin, 1989. Kinetic, clever fight choreography, a killer soundtrack, and genuine humour in the margins. Adkins' approach to action feels of the same bloodline.

But The plot is familiar Cold War spy stuff. If you're watching for narrative surprises, you'll spend the runtime waiting for the fights instead.

Atomic Blonde poster

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

Shane Black's debut: a crime noir that knows it's a crime noir, funny and profane and thrilling by turns. Robert Downey Jr. talks you through murder with the charm of someone who enjoys his own company. Pure entertainment.

But The dialogue is extremely dense and fastidious. Some viewers find it exhausting rather than clever, and the plot moves in circles by design.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Accident Man

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Man from Nowhere2010

Both center on a professional killer for whom one relationship rewrites everything. But where Accident Man stays light, this asks what violence costs the person who loves.

A Korean film: Won Bin as a quiet man pulled into ultraviolence to save a child. Brutal, intimate, and visually stunning—it treats action as a language for expressing love and loss. The fights matter emotionally, not just kinetically.

But It's in Korean with subtitles, and the pacing is meditative before it explodes. If you need constant motion, the quiet stretches will feel slow.

The Man from Nowhere poster
More like this (8)

Layer Cake2004

A smart British crime film about a dealer trying one last score. Stylish without being showy, violent without being cruel, funny without winking. Daniel Craig proves he can carry a film on charisma alone.

But It's plotted like a clock and asks you to follow several moving pieces. If you're not engaged in the first twenty minutes, you'll stay lost.

Layer Cake poster

Bullet Train2022

Brad Pitt, multiple assassins, a moving train, and an intentional cartoonishness. Silly, explosive, and committed to the bit. David Leitch directs action like a celebration.

But The tone is aggressively arch and self-pleased. If that feels like showing off rather than fun, nothing in it will convert you.

Bullet Train poster

Haywire2011

Gina Carano as a black-ops operative, shot by Steven Soderbergh with glacial precision. Long sequences of physical action, minimal dialogue, maximum clarity. Proof that a great action film doesn't need noise.

But It's austere and cold. The emotional temperature rarely rises above professional competence, which some viewers experience as distant.

Haywire poster

The Raid 22014

An Indonesian action film of balletic violence: every frame composed, every fight a masterclass in spatial awareness and choreography. Gareth Evans builds sequences like symphonies. Utterly committed to the craft.

But The plot—crime, betrayal, revenge—is thin scaffolding. You're watching for the fights, not the drama, and that won't work for everyone.

The Raid 2 poster

Dredd2012

Karl Urban as a lawman in a mega-city, directed by Pete Travis with sick visual invention and 3D that actually matters. Violent, darkly funny, surprisingly well-designed. Cult favourite for good reason.

But It's visually dense and sometimes hard to parse. The camera moves fast, the fights are chaotic, and if you need clarity, you'll find yourself frustrated.

Dredd poster

Gunpowder Milkshake2021

An ensemble of women (Karen Gillan, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino) in a stylised crime thriller. Bright, playful, committed to the violence as entertainment. Less interested in profundity than in doing it well and having fun.

But The self-consciousness can tip into style-over-substance. If you watch it looking for emotional depth, you'll find the surface polished but hollow.

Gunpowder Milkshake poster

Columbo1968

Both are about a professional whose greatest skill is making the dangerous look accidental. Columbo stages false confusion; Accident Man stages false accidents. Both win by misdirection.

Peter Falk as a detective who stages elaborate deductions as casual conversation. He wins by appearing to lose, killing with rumpled politeness. The inversion of the action film—murder happens off-screen, victory comes from talk and patience, and the genius is in the performance.

But It's a 1970s TV series, so it moves slowly and looks it. If you need contemporary pacing, it will feel like waiting in a dentist's office.

Columbo poster

Harakiri1962

Both feature a master of controlled violence confronting a system that treats killing as spectacle. Accident Man celebrates this; Harakiri indicts it. Watching them back-to-back is watching two artists argue about the same thing.

A Japanese masterpiece: Masaki Kobayashi's film about a samurai forced to ritually disembowel himself, transformed into a savage critique of honour and performance. It looks at lethal competence and asks what it costs—not as entertainment, but as tragedy.

But It's in Japanese, in black and white, and utterly serious. It will devastate you. There is no lightness anywhere in it, and it demands patience and emotional engagement.

Harakiri poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by