There’s always going to be a place for action movies like The Accountant, which ask little from their audience but still deliver plenty of thrills and spectacular set pieces to entertain.
Ben Affleck heads up Gavin O’Connor’s film as a mathematics genius who handles the books for a number of criminal organizations, while also being a highly trained operative.
If you’ve got a lazy weekend coming up, then the following ten movies will satisfy your cravings for fist-fights, shootouts, car chases, explosions and macho one-liners.
10 Criminal Action Movies Like The Accountant
1. The Mechanic (2011)
Jason Statham could make a dozen movies like The Accountant with his eyes closed, but The Mechanic remains one of the action icon’s very best efforts.
Statham’s assassin takes Ben Foster’s loose cannon under his wing as a protege, but the two new allies soon find themselves stumbling on a conspiracy that forces them to put their skills to the test.
Foster’s intensity makes him a great foil for Statham’s stoic charisma, and Con Air director Simon West confidently directs an increasingly slick series of impressive action scenes.
2. 21 Bridges (2019)
A rugged NYPD detective stumbles upon a massive conspiracy, and he finds himself questioning everything he knows as New York cordons itself off in the midst of a citywide manhunt.
The cops and robbers tale is as old as cinema itself, but Chadwick Boseman powers through 21 Bridges like a man possessed, dominating the screen with a powerful performance.
The plot is nothing to write home about, but movies like The Accountant live and die by the quality of action and stylistic flourishes, something Bryan Kirk’s action thriller has in spades.
3. Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Sparks fly between Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx in F. Gary Gray’s incredibly enjoyable vigilante thriller, which delivers the perfect blend of old-school genre elements told through a modern lens.
A grieving father seeks justice for the murder of his wife and child, but ten years later a series of events tied to the deaths rope the lawyer at the center of the case into a deadly game.
A glorified B-movie and all the better for it, Law Abiding Citizen plays fast and loose with the rules of logic and plausibility, and the end result is a violent and enjoyable watch.
4. Peppermint (2018)
Taken director Pierre Morel is no stranger to making movies like The Accountant, and Jennifer Garner takes the lead role in a revenge actioner boosted by a strong lead performance.
A woman awakens from a coma to discover that her husband and child were murdered in the attack, and reinvents herself as a vigilante after the legal system goes easy on the people responsible.
Given her background in the action genre, Garner convinces as the suburban mom who spends years acquiring and sharpening the skills required to take the law into her own hands.
5. Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)
We couldn’t include The Mechanic on our list of movies like The Accountant and omit the sequel, which brings in an entirely new cast with the exception of Jason Statham.
When the woman he loves is kidnapped, there’s no other choice but for the former mercenary to return to the world he left behind to try and get her back from the people responsible.
Inevitably there’s a double cross, causing Statham to barrel his way through a series of well-crafted and smartly choreographed action sequences handled effectively by director Dennis Gansel.
6. Faster (2010)
Movies like The Accountant never boast the most complex of narratives, and George Tillman Jr.’s bare bones action thriller doesn’t even bother to name any of the main characters.
Dwayne Johnson’s Driver is fresh out of prison, and has only one thing on his mind as he seeks revenge for his brother’s murder, and he’s got no issues with leaving a trail of bodies behind him.
To exact retribution he has to deal with a world-weary cop and a sharp-suited killer, and Faster is a full-throttle experience that revs its engine from the word go and never lets up.
7. Sleepless (2017)
An undercover cop finds himself dealing with threats from every angle in Baran bo Odar’s crime story, led by Jamie Foxx in a reliably watchable turn.
Corrupt cops, internal affairs investigators and organized crime are all in the mix, and that’s all while having to deal with the kidnapping of his son as well.
Set across one action-packed and dangerous night, Sleepless is a lot grittier than most movies like The Accountant, but the dive into LA’s seedy underbelly appeals to exactly the same audience.
8. The Foreigner (2017)
Director Martin Campbell reunites with the man he directed as 007 in The Foreigner, but this time Pierce Brosnan is on villainous duties as a British government official with secrets to hide.
Jackie Chan is the unassuming businessman with a dangerous past, who goes looking for answers surrounding the terrorist attack that killed his daughter, and discovers they go right to the top of the food chain.
Both Chan and Brosnan play firmly against type, which only adds to the layer of intrigue in the cat and mouse story, making it one of the rare movies like The Accountant that actively deviates from formula.
9. Colombiana (2011)
Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp built their entire empire on action movies like The Accountant, and in Colombiana Zoe Saldana is given the opportunity to showcase her action heroine credentials.
Fifteen years after watching a crime lord murder her parents, a contract killer has built up a solid reputation as one of the deadliest in the game but still seeks answers and justice for her family.
Director Olivia Megaton is no slouch to helming action fare, but he makes the wise decision to point the camera and let the leading lady do the rest, with Saldana a revelation as the deadly lead.
10. Jack Reacher (2012)
Tom Cruise heads up Christopher McQuarrie’s bone-crunching thriller, which offers a more realistic but equally entertaining alternative to movies like The Accountant.
The former Army investigator is called in by the suspect of an apparently random shooting, setting off a chain reaction that leads him to team up with a defense lawyer to figure out the real agenda.
A refreshing reliance on practical stunts make everything in Jack Reacher feel much more tangible than usual, while Cruise can always be relied on to deliver a strong central performance.