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Best Chuck Norris Movies Ever

Alien vs Predator vs Chuck Norris could have been one of the best Chuck Norris movies ever, but no one would pay to see a 14 second movie.

By Heather JohnsonPublished 10 years ago 13 min read
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Chuck Norris: The man needs no introduction but deserves one anyway. There are entire websites dedicated to Chuck Norris jokes. Fans enjoy pursuing these websites as much as they enjoy watching him take on Bruce Lee. All the stories surrounding Chuck Norris are 100% true and extremely badass.

On the day created Adam and Eve, Chuck Norris stopped by with a tray of cookies. When he does pushups, he doesn’t push himself up; rather, he pushes the world down. Chuck Norris doesn’t cry, but if he did, those tears would cure cancer. His punches are so fast they move backwards in time and his chest hair can stop bullets. He is universally feared by thugs, corrupt guys in cowboy hats, evil truckers, ninjas, Vietcong regulars, Colombian drug lords, and school bullies everywhere.

He is a former US Air Force police officer, a master of Tang Soo Do and the founder of the Chun Kuk Do fighting system—making him a certified bad-ass. After a long string of tournament wins in the sixties, he began a distinguished career as an action film star. If you like beards, cheesy one liners, and hand to hand combat, you are likely to be a fan of his flicks. However, there are not enough lists pointing out the great man's famous films. In honor of the man, the myth, the beard... we humbly present you with our favorite chuck norris movies.

Based on the exploits of the real Army Special Forces unit of the same name, Norris plays Major Scott McCoy, a disillusioned officer recalled to service by the military. When a commercial flight is hijacked by Lebanese terrorists, his unit is deployed to pacify the situation. After some gunfire and brutal bone breaking fight scenes, the hostages are flown to Israel. Although his comrade Pete Peterson was killed in action, the Major joins the families of the hostages in their celebration in a rousing rendition of "America The Beautiful". This film is proof that Lebanese terrorists were watching Miami Vice, and that no matter how many bad guys are running at you, you will be victorious if you just spin around in a circle while firing an Uzi. Marvel as he takes on an entire platoon of terrorists on a Suzuki dirt bike, modified with built in rocket propelled grenade launchers!

Mr. Norris plays Josh Randall, the head of security in a Hong Kong casino called The Lucky Dragon. When an organized crime syndicate kills his employer, he embarks on a non-stop karate-kicking rampage against the men responsible. He punches, stabs, and shoots his way through half the criminals in Hong Kong before one final climactic battle with the mob boss, Koo. Right up until the very end, the high stakes martial arts action never stops! Cowboy hats in China? Why not? Stringing up a mob boss by the rigging of his own boat? Oh yes!

It is a film worthy of the Chuck Norris legend. Imagine him standing there in all his glory, his porn star mustache flowing in the breeze. With a final battle including swirlies, the use of a toilet as a projectile, and an evil old man in a wheel chair, the need to see this movie is apparent.

This might be one of the most "meta" film concepts ever devised. This is a film about a boy who daydreams about being a sidekick to Chuck Norris. When he is awake, he's an asthmatic kid being bullied between classes. In his dreams, he's right there with Chuck, dishing out hot plates of whoop-ass on villains that look suspiciously like the bullies who do the same to him in real life. The young man, played by Jonathan Brandis, begins learning martial arts from an old man named Mr. Lee. When Mr. Lee can not compete with him in the tournament, guess who steps in to help his biggest fan! Even though the villain is played by Joe Piscopo, I find this to be a heart-warming tale. Go back to a simpler era, where daydreams of violent revenge against school bullies were considered endearing. The final showdown between Chuck Norris and Joe Piscopo was a gritty war, mullet versus mullet! If you want to see a man kicked in the face so hard that he does an involuntary triple back flip, put this bad-boy in your Netflix queue.

What do you get when a kung fu fighting trucker clashes with a corrupt judge and his minions? A whole bunch of ass kicking. The town of Texas City, California has a nasty reputation for entrapping truckers. As JD Dawes, he enters the lion's den in search of his little brother, Billy. When JD himself is arrested, his girlfriend fires up the CB radio and calls for help. Before you can yell "We got a smokey!" the town is flooded with dozens of angry truckers, ready to tear the town to shreds! When the cavalry comes in their big rigs, it looks like a bad bootleg of the last Transformers movie. Want to see a man in bell bottoms side kick a drunken cop in the chest repeatedly in front of a very surprised looking horse? If that's a big ten-four, this is definitely the film for you!

No one will admit they still exist! You want ninjas? This movie literally has them crawling up the walls! Scott James is a martial artist with a mission, to take revenge for the death of his childhood friend. In his search for the killers, he finds the mysterious crime ring known as The Octagon. Furthermore, he uncovers a secret ninja plot to train terrorists throughout the world! What follows is an hour of Ninja-killing excellence like only Chuck Norris could provide! Epic training sequences and monster fight scenes make this a must watch. The Ninja compound is the obligatory maze of death, where silent assassins pop out from behind every corner. For a secret society, there sure are a lot of them! The final battle is chock full of clashing katanas, flying shuriken, and ninjas being kicked through large burning wooden objects!

Garret, a hard boiled Seattle cop goes into deep cover as a hit man in order to infiltrate the syndicate that killed his partner. He takes on the persona of Danny Grogan, a ruthless killer looking for contract hits. He works his way through the territory, gradually getting closer and closer to mob boss, Marco Luganni. In the process he develops a relationship with Tim, a young black kid, teaching him martial arts to defend himself from a racist bully. When Luganni and his goons leave Tim in a coma, the gloves come off! I had never seen so many shots of a man emerging from fog while wearing a duster before I saw this film. It is worth watching just to check out Chuck's righteous mullet as it drifts behind him while he kicks people in slow motion! He does that... a lot. One man kills the entire mafia, single handed. It is quite amazing what can be accomplished with nothing but some stubble and a sawed off shotgun.

Chuck Norris and David Carradine going head to head in a knuckle cracking, foot snapping, martial arts battle royale? Sign me up! As JJ McQuade, a former Marine and Texas Ranger who prefers to work alone, he takes on a local arms dealer by the name of Rawley Wilkes. When Wilkes kidnaps McQuade's daughter and demands that he kill a rival arms dealer in Mexico, the action really takes off! Of course, it all leads to one final contest when the two martial arts legends go head to head in a vicious slug-fest. The grizzled hero and the smooth villain trade blow for blow, until Wilkes dares to strike his opponent's daughter. Bad idea! This is the movie that proves that it is possible to be menacing in a sweater vest. It is rare to see Chuck doing his Clint Eastwood impression and his Sylvester Stallone impression at the same time, which made me squeal with joy when he took down an entire gang of Mexican horse rustlers with his patented spinning in a circle with an Uzi technique... wearing a sheriff's badge no less! The movie definitely took a page out of the John Wayne classics and other spaghetti westerns, but that makes it all that much more enjoyable. Our favorite Chuck moment: where McQuade walks into the frame, silhouetted by the sun behind him as he faces off against Wilkes. Money shot!

Colonel Braddock is a vet with a score to settle! Ten years after escaping a Vietnamese prison camp, he returns to find his comrades. He arrives in Ho Chi Minh City, along with a team of investigators. When he learns that there are still prisoners of war being held by Vietcong General Trau, he takes it upon himself to rescue them. Traveling to Thailand, he reunites with his commandos and they delve deep behind enemy lines towards the inevitable confrontation with the general. This is one of Chuck Norris' most popular films, despite negative reaction from critics calling the film derivative of the Rambo film series. Really, the only difference between this film and Rambo: First Blood Part II is the absence of the word "Yo!" from Mr. Norris' dialogue. Watch him unleash every type of munition known to man... in the opening scene. You won't believe your eyes when he unleashes the "double grenade jump", or when he shows us all that the best way to haggle is to point a fifty caliber machine gun at the salesman! If this film teaches us nothing else, it is that one must always check the closet for knife wielding assassins before getting dressed in the morning.

Sean Kane is an undercover police officer assigned to the narcotics division of the San Francisco Police Department. In the beginning of the film, there is an undercover operation, involving an informant, and things go sour when Norris' partner is killed. He resigns from the SFPD, and his partner's girlfriend, a TV news reporter, is murdered. Unknowingly to Norris is that the assignment that he was working undercover on was connected to a smuggling operation involving the Chinese Tong, and the deaths of his partner and his girlfriend are connected to an investigative report that involved the smuggling operation. In this Dirty Harry-like film, Norris goes beyond the law and goes after those responsible for the deaths of his partner and girlfriend.

Although Chuck was the bad guy in this one, I must acknowledge that this movie contains one of the most legendary fight scenes in the history of film. Bruce Lee, The Dragon himself, takes on mobsters trying to extort money from his uncle's Chinese restaurant, located in the heart of Rome. Of course, Bruce easily handles these thugs, forcing them to find their own expert. You guessed it, Chuck Norris! What ensues is a blaze of feet and fists in the fight of both their lives! Eventually, Norris is defeated, but both parties are worse for wear. I think it is unlikely that we will ever see such an epic match up again. It is rumored that the two legends were fighting for real to decide who was the king of martial arts action film. This epic match contained one of the funniest moments in martial arts cinema. I dare you to watch Bruce Lee tear off a patch of Chuck Norris' chest hair and hastily shake it off of his hands without laughing. I dare you!

A more recent title, this star-studded film gave the audience a roundhouse kick to the face…and not necessarily in a good way. It wasn’t the greatest movie to grace the box office due to its plot and dialogue being lackluster at best, but it was still overall much better than The Expendables. Chuck Norris killed it, of course, as he reprised his role as Booker, a retired military operative on a mission to save his old teammates.

Captain Cordell Walker, a cool-ass dude that practices martial arts, is a Texas Ranger. In this made-for-TV movie based off the beloved series, Walker finds himself in the middle of a bank shoot-out that ends in 2 criminals dead and 1 on the loose and seeking revenge. Meanwhile, there’s a plot by 3 Korean guys to steal a super-secret weapon. On top of that, Walker’s buddy ranger Harper is in trouble with the law and the gang has to prove his innocence. We bet Walker could have just solved everyone’s problems with his fists, but you know…someone has to pay writers to do something.

Probably the lowest rated movie on the list with a 0% on rotten tomatoes, Hero and the Terror finds Chuck Norris playing Danny O’Brien, a cop that likes to work alone and never waits for backup. He is dubbed “Hero” for taking down a serial killer called “The Terror” in a slap-stick comedy kind of fight scene in which The Terror knocks himself out. Or maybe O’Brien scared him so badly that he figured that would be the only way he’d survive a fight with the baddest cop in town. We could see ourselves doing that.

Major Scott McCoy and his Delta team take down cocaine kingpins in the fictional South American country of San Carlos. He does this with the finesse of a rhino ballerina – that is, he gracefully and seamlessly barges his way through the South American terrains and kills all baddies within sight. Even though there wasn’t a lot of transition from the first movie, it was enjoyable as a standalone in that Chuck Norris campy vibe.

Another made-for-TV movie, Logan’s War features Chuck Norris at his Chuck Norris-ing-est. This time he plays as Logan Fallon, who watched his entire family get murdered when he was just 10 years old. Since he’s about so sense danger, he escaped with his life and was taken in by his uncle. He then learned how to fight thanks to his uncle’s affinity for martial arts and general badassery. With his skills and special talent, nothing can stand in Logan’s way.

Matt Hunter once took down a crazy terrorist named Mikhail Rostov. In an act of mercy, Hunter let Rostov live, which haunted the Soviet operative. He then went bat-shit insane and led a bunch of murderous missions in order to goad Hunter out of retirement. It worked, but instead of Rostov exacting his revenge for…something, Hunter destroyed him for bothering him. Guess another baddie had to learn the hard way that you just don’t mess with Chuck!

The inspiration for his namesake in The Expendables, John T. Booker was part of an elite group of CIA assassins that the government needed to eliminate. They sent Booker and his team into the jungles of Northern ‘Nam on a fake mission to rescue American POWs. All of this was a setup, however, and the CIA assumed that they wouldn’t make it out alive. They assumed incorrectly, as they underestimated Booker’s surviving/killing abilities. Years later, they try again – since they don’t apparently learn from their mistakes. Badassery ensues.

In this straight-to-DVD movie directed by Aaron Norris, John McKenna, a mountain man who plays by his own rules was killed century ago was magically brought back to life and given the power to transform into various woodland creatures. Because of course.

Joshua McCord has a difficult job in this made-for-TV movie. McCord is a secret service agent who is training his replacement for the action-packed, adrenaline-inducing occupation that is protecting the first family. All was going well until the first lady was captured by terrorists, and his protégé gets the training of a lifetime while shadowing McCord in this mission to get her back.

Legends Never Die

Chuck Norris is, and always will be, the man. He could be in the worst movie on the planet and we would still love him. His all-powerful ways and BAMF status are just too much for us to not adore. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re gonna dust out our VCR player and relive our childhoods through the cheesy magic that is Chuck Norris.

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About the Creator

Heather Johnson

Carried a hand-held console in her back pocket (now purse) since the 3rd grade. Currently works for Bandai in the marketing department.

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