Are you looking for the best martial arts movies on Netflix? You are on the right page. Since there is no martial arts category on Netflix, most martial arts movies are under the action category and you may have a tough time finding what you need. The selection below should help you.
Here is the list of 13 best martial arts movies on Netflix right now:
1. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
Director: Chia-Liang Liu
Starring: Chia-Hui Liu, Lieh Lo, Chia Yung Liu
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is an old kung fu film and it follows a young man who devotes himself to learning martial arts in the Shaolin temple so he can fight against the oppressive government.
It’s often considered as one of the best kung fu movies.
2. Five Deadly Venoms (1978)
Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery
Director: Cheh Chang
Starring: Sheng Chiang, Chien Sun, Phillip Chung-Fung Kwok
In this cult Hong Kong martial arts movie, a kung fu student is instructed by his dying master to find the teacher’s five ex-students and check if they are using the skills for evil purposes. Each of the five kung fu fighters knows a special lethal style of kung fu: Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, and Toad. The final student knows a little of each style and he must team up with another good student to track down the evil ones. The problem is that all five students wore masks on training so nobody knows how they look.
3. The Karate Kid (1984)
Genre: Action, Drama, Family
Director: John G. Avildsen
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue
Daniel and his mother are new in town. As he struggles to fit in, a group of karate students starts to bully him. As it happens, his landlord is a Japanese grandmaster in karate. Daniel finally convinces Mr. Miyagi to train him, but not to go and fight the bullies, but to compete with them in a karate championship.
4. Undisputed (2002)
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Director: Walter Hill
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Ving Rhames, Peter Falk
Heavyweight boxing champion George “Ice Man” Chambers (Rhames) ends up in a maximum-security prison, but the prison has its own champion. Monroe Hutchens (Snipes) has been the undefeated heavyweight champion for ten years. The match is organized and two men will fight to see who the real undisputed champion is.
5. Unleashed (2005)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime
Director: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Jet Li, Bob Hoskins, Morgan Freeman
A man is raised by a mob boss who practically enslaved him and used him in underground martial arts fights. The only thing Danny knows how to do is fight. When he accidentally finds himself away from his boss, Danny will learn how it looks to live normally.
6. Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing (2006)
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Director: Isaac Florentine
Starring: Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, Ben Cross
In a sequel to the Undisputed from 2002, a boxing champion George “Iceman” Chambers is played by Michael Jai White. This time, during his visit to Russia, he is framed for cocaine possession and sent to Russian jail. There are illegal mixed martial arts matches organized and a prison fighter Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is an undisputed champ. Mob boss Gaga and the Warden want to set a fight between Boyka and Iceman. If Chambers accepts the fight, he will get out of jail.
The film is followed by two sequels: Undisputed III: Redemption (2010) and Boyka: Undisputed (2016).
7. The Legend of Bruce Lee (2008)
Genre: Action, Biography, Drama
Director: Lee Moon-ki
Starring: Danny Kwok-Kwan Chan, Michelle Lang, Ted Duran
This is actually a TV series, but it has only one long season. It stars Danny Chan as Bruce Lee on his incredible journey from a young boy fighting in the streets of Hong Kong to becoming a martial arts movie star.
8. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
Genre: Action, Drama, History
Director: Andrew Lau
Starring: Donnie Yen, Alex Ahlstrom, Qi Shu
This is a Hong Kong superhero martial arts film. Donnie Yen stars as Chen Zhen (which was also the role played by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury) who returns to China after fighting the Germans in Europe during World War I. The story is a sequel to Fist of Legend from 1994 where Jet Li played Chen Zhen. At the end of Fist of Legend Chen has faked his death. Now, back in Shanghai seven years later, Chen is disguised as a masked superhero and joins the underground resistance to fight the Japanese Empire.
9. Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)
Genre: Action, Drama, Sport
Director: Michael Jai White
Starring: Michael Jai White, Dean Geyer, Alex Meraz
In a sequel from the 2008 film by the same name, MMA instructor and former champion Case (Michael Jai White) is preparing four fighters for a competition called the Beatdown. When one of them betrays the mentor and gets him into trouble with some crooked cops, the rest of them will teach him a lesson in a Beatdown.
10. Warrior (2011)
Genre: Drama, Sport
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Starring: Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton
Two brothers, a former Marine and boxer Tommy, and a former MMA fighter turned school teacher Brendan, are participating in the same tournament. Their alcoholic father is training a younger son, Tommy. Brendan is estranged from both of them because of some past events. The brothers will meet at the tournament finals and set aside their differences in the ring.
11. Here Comes the Boom (2012)
Genre: Action, Comedy, Sport
Director: Frank Coraci
Starring: Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler
Scott Voss (Kevin James) is a biology teacher at Wilkinson High. Because of budget cutbacks, his school is about to cancel the music program which means that his friend and teacher Marty Streb will be laid off. While moonlighting as an instructor for his citizenship class he meets Niko, a former mixed martial artist. That gives him an idea to start to compete in MMA to raise money for the school program, with Niko as his coach. As a collegiate wrestler back in the day, he thinks it shouldn’t be that hard, but it turns out that it is.
12. Boyka: Undisputed (2016)
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Director: Todor Chapkanov
Starring: Scott Adkins, Teodora Duhovnikova, Alon Aboutboul
Boyka: Undisputed is the fourth installment of the Undisputed film series and the sequel to Undisputed III: Redemption from 2010. In this one, Boyka accidentally kills his opponent in the ring and now he is trying to redeem himself by finding the man’s wife and offering her the money he earned. It turns out, the woman has problems with the mob.
13. My Beloved Bodyguard (2016)
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Director: Sammo Kam-Bo Hung
Starring: Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Jacqueline Chan, Qinqin Li
My Beloved Bodyguard (also known as The Bodyguard) stars Sammo Hung as a retired bodyguard Ding Hu with early dementia living in a small town near the Russian border. He often takes care of a little girl next door whose father is a gambler. When the girl’s father gets in trouble with the local crime lord, which endangers the girl, Ding must recall his forgotten skills and help.
10 Best Martial Arts Movies on Netflix According to IMDb
According to IMDb, these are the 10 best martial arts movies on Netflix (from the list above):
- Warrior (2011) – 8.2
- The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) – 7.7
- The Karate Kid (1984) – 7.2
- Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing (2006) – 7.1
- Five Deadly Venoms (1978) – 7.1
- Boyka: Undisputed (2016) – 7.0
- Unleashed (2005) – 7.0
- The Legend of Bruce Lee (2008) – 7.0
- Here Comes the Boom (2012) – 6.4
- Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010) – 6.3
5 Best Martial Arts Movies on Netflix According to Box Office
- Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010) – $136 million
- The Karate Kid (1984) – $100 million
- Here Comes the Boom (2012) – $73 million
- My Beloved Bodyguard (2016) – $52 million
- Unleashed (2005) – $51 million