Ranked: Top 10 Bollywood Action Heroes Of All Time!

If there’s one skill a quintessential Bollywood actor had to acquire right from the inception of formula quotient of cinema, it was ‘action.’ Right from Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man elegance to Tiger Shroff’s exemplary acrobatic skills today, it’s tough to get action out of an Indian hero. While composition and methods of choreographing action in Indian has changed manifold, the impression that Indian audiences have made about certain actors as action hero is engraved deep.

As we turn the pages of cinematic books to some extent, we make our top 10 picks of best action heroes Hindi Film Industry has ever seen:

10 – Aamir Khan

While Mr. Perfectionist isn’t popularly known to have made a lot of name in the action genre, the kind of experiments he’s done in his realm makes him enter this list. With a breathtaking 'running in front of a train' sequence from Ghulam that set the country going to beefing up like a mad man in Ghajini, Aamir’s stint in action is quite unique. The last we some him in some kind of action was in the blockbuster Dhoom 3.

9 - Shah Rukh Khan

He would probably go down as one of the most iconic romantic heroes the country has seen and yet when we put things in perspective, Shah Rukh Khan has a fairly good record at doing action. From his early days of Baazigar, Karan Arjun and Darr to the recent outings through Ra.One and Don, Shah Rukh has been thoroughly in touch with his action side. More than the physical involvement an actor brings to the table, Shah Rukh’s expression while doing action is what puts him in the list.

8 – Sanjay Dutt

Sanju Baba has mostly been known as an action hero throughout his life and his solid filmography warrants a solid backing. From being a popular muscular man in the 90’s through films like Khalnayak to redefining gangstergiri  and style through films like Kaante, Vaastav, Musafir, Plan, Rudraksh and more, Sanjay Dutt gave an impression of being one of the muscular men in the industry.

7 – Tiger Shroff

Not many would have given this young actor a chance to enter the list of best action heroes of the current time. However given his little contribution in the segment besides being acquiring spellbinding skills in real, he is surely a contender of being the best action star in the future. While he made his intentions clear with his first outing Heropanti itself, he followed it up even better with Baaghi this year.

6 – John Abraham

John has himself come on record so many times to state that he wants to be known as a hardcore action hero of all time. With films like Dhoom, Force, Madras Café, Rocky Handsome and Dishoom, he truly has arrived in the action arena with a bang. With an envious built of physique that is good enough to put any muscular man to shame, John has been an active action star with stunts and high voltage fights in his movies. If he continues to go at this rate, he is likely to climb up the ladder in our next list.

5 – Hrithik Roshan

He has the looks, he has the body, he is a perfectionist and he loves to experiment! Hrithik Roshan’s versatility makes him a very good action hero. Having done a number of action flicks at the start of his career, Hrithik came in full force with films like Krrish and Dhoom 2 and followed it up even well with Bang Bang and Krrish 3. With Kaabil and Krrish lined up as his next two releases, his action stint may go up a notch high.

4 – Ajay Devgn

The quintessential action hero of the 90’s, Ajay Devgn could only be found doing action in the 90’s and even post that. With films like Jigar, Kachhe Dhaage, Hindustan Ki Kasam, LOC and many more, Ajay established himself as a brand in action genre and continues to woo his audiences over and over again. With him going all out to experiment and push limits with Shivaay, things are only going uphill for the actor.

3 – Salman Khan

If wouldn’t be erroneous to state that Salman Khan owes his revival to the genre of action. Though he wasn’t bad of an action hero in the 90’s and even after that, he completely swept people of their feet by going larger than life in the realm of action. His early impressive action work include Judwa, Karan Arjun and Tere Naam, his comeback made him the biggest star in the country with films like Wanted, Dabangg, Dabangg 2, Ek Tha Tiger, Bodyguard, Kick and Sultan. If there’s no action, it can’t be a Salman Khan film.

2 – Akshay Kumar

The actor who with all his heart and soul worked hard to be known as the best action hero of all time did earn that feat for a long time but here he’s going to have to settle with the second rank. Akshay Kumar who only knew to pull of breathtaking stunts without any body double set such high standards in the action arena that surpassing them could only be a very distant possibility. The actor stood on top of a flying aircraft and jumped off from it without a double. His martial arts skills also put him in the top league however he’s letting go of that image quite rapidly now.

1 – Sunny Deol

Whoever not agreeing to Sunny Deol topping this list has either not seen all his films, or they don’t understand the true essence of action. If a hero can believable make the villain piss his pants through his loud scream, it stands to reason why producers wanted him so bad in every action flick. He pulled out hand pump off the ground and freaking made everyone believe it too, what else does an action hero need to do to convince you of his reign? From films like Ghayal, Ghatak, Arjun, Border, Damini, Darr and Gadar, Sunny has a legacy in taking action to an all new level. The style with which he has delivered some of his iconic dialogues, “Sunny Paaji take a bow”!

Hindi cinema defines action and action defines entertainment in all true respect! While some of you must be fuming with some of the names having been left out, let us know what they were and we’ll come back another list soon.