9 Best Action & Crime Thrillers on Netflix Right Now — Ratings, Reviews & Trailers
Netflix's action row is stacked this year — cartel wars, prison riots, a killer robot, and a one-man army who refuses to die. Here's a full breakdown of nine titles worth your watchlist: quick facts, ratings, our honest take, and every official trailer, plus a direct link to stream each one.
1. El Chapo (2017–2018)
Genre: Crime Drama | Seasons: 3 | Starring: Marco de la O, Humberto Busto | Our Rating: 7/10
A dramatized true-crime chronicle of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's rise from a Guadalajara Cartel foot soldier in the 1980s to the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, tracking his empire, his capture, and his infamous prison escape. It's less blood-and-bullets than Narcos and more character study of power and betrayal.
Our take: Where Narcos leans on style, El Chapo leans on procedure — it's more grounded and closer to the real timeline of events, even if the pacing sags in the middle season. Worth it if you want the history over the spectacle.
▶ Watch on Netflix2. Counterattack (2025)
Genre: Action / Military Thriller | Director: Chava Cartas | Starring: Luis Alberti, Noé Hernández | Our Rating: 6/10
A mother and daughter stumble on a cartel's mass grave near the US–Mexico border and are rescued by Special Forces Captain Guerrero and his squad, the "Murciélagos." That rescue makes Guerrero's team the top target of a ruthless cartel leader who wants the burial site — and every witness to it — erased.
Our take: It doesn't reinvent the cartel-thriller formula, but at under 90 minutes it never overstays its welcome. Solid popcorn action if you just want gunfire and momentum with zero homework required.
▶ Watch on Netflix3. Prison Cell 211 (2025)
Genre: Crime Drama | Episodes: 6 | Starring: Diego Calva, Noé Hernández, Gerardo Taracena | Our Rating: 6/10
A Mexican remake of the acclaimed Spanish film Celda 211, reimagined as a limited series. Human rights lawyer Juan is visiting a client in a border-town prison when a full-scale riot erupts. To survive, he poses as an inmate — and the longer he keeps up the act, the more the prison's factions and violence unravel who he really is underneath.
Our take: Diego Calva carries it well, and the prison politics are genuinely tense, but it never quite escapes the shadow of the original 2009 film. Watchable, not essential — go in with tempered expectations.
▶ Watch on Netflix4. My Name Is Vendetta (2022)
Genre: Action / Crime | Director: Cosimo Gomez | Starring: Alessandro Gassmann, Ginevra Francesconi | Our Rating: 5.5/10
Italy's answer to Taken. Santo has spent years hiding a past as an 'Ndrangheta enforcer from his teenage daughter Sofia — until a careless social-media post reveals his location to old enemies, who kill her mother and uncle. Santo and Sofia flee to Milan, and the quiet father-daughter relationship becomes a shared campaign of revenge.
Our take: Gassmann is convincing as a reluctant action hero, and the father-daughter dynamic gives it a bit more heart than the average revenge flick. The script is thin and the twists are predictable, but it's a decent one-night watch.
▶ Watch on Netflix5. Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025) — Leaving Soon
Genre: War / Action | Director: Jalmari Helander | Starring: Jorma Tommila, Stephen Lang | Our Rating: 8/10
The sequel to the 2022 cult hit Sisu. In post-WWII Finland, "the man who refuses to die," Aatami Korpi, returns to rebuild the family home where his wife and daughters were murdered — only for the Red Army commander responsible to track him down, sparking a brutal cross-country chase and one of the most over-the-top revenge sprees put to film this decade.
Our take: This is pure, gleeful excess — tanks get flipped, trains get slaughtered, logic gets thrown out the window, and somehow it all works. Critics loved it even more than the original. If it's leaving Netflix soon, don't wait.
▶ Watch on Netflix6. The Last Days of American Crime (2020)
Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller | Starring: Édgar Ramírez, Michael Pitt, Anna Brewster | Our Rating: 4/10
In a near future where the US government is about to broadcast a signal that makes it neurologically impossible to knowingly commit a crime, a bank robber joins a crew for one last historic heist before the window closes forever.
Our take: Be honest with yourself here — this one's a genuine misfire. The premise had real potential, but at over two hours it drags, the tone is muddled, and the pacing kills any tension the heist should have had. Only for genre completists.
▶ Watch on Netflix7. The Equalizer 3 (2023)
Genre: Action Thriller | Director: Antoine Fuqua | Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning | Our Rating: 7.5/10
The closing chapter of Denzel Washington's Robert McCall trilogy. Recovering in a quiet town on the Italian coast, McCall discovers his new neighbors are being quietly strangled by the local mafia — and finds he can't stay retired while the people who took him in are being terrorized.
Our take: The best-reviewed film of the trilogy, and it earns it — the Italian setting is a genuine breath of fresh air, and Washington plays a wearier, more reflective McCall. The plot is still formulaic, but it's a satisfying send-off.
▶ Watch on Netflix8. War Machine (2026)
Genre: Sci-Fi / Military Action | Director: Patrick Hughes | Starring: Alan Ritchson, Dennis Quaid, Jai Courtney | Our Rating: 7/10
During the brutal final stage of US Army Ranger selection, a combat engineer known only as "81" (Alan Ritchson) leads a training exercise that turns into a massacre when the squad stumbles onto a hulking, otherworldly killing machine — and discovers it's only the first of thousands.
Our take: Ritchson keeps proving he's one of the better action leads working right now, and the sound design carries a lot of the tension. It's not a smart movie, but as a lean, brutal survival thriller it delivers exactly what it promises.