For Silicon Valley venture capitalists and founders, any inconvenience big or small is a problem to be solved—even death itself. And a new genre of products and services known as “death tech,” intended to help the bereaved and comfort the suffering, shows that the tech industry will try to address literally anything with an app.
Xiaowei Wang, a technologist, author, and organizer based in Oakland, California, finds that disturbing.
“It’s so gross to view people like that—to see situations and natural facts of life like dying as problems,” Wang said during lunch and beers on the back patio of an Oakland brewery in late March. To research a forthcoming book on the use of tech in end-of-life care, Wang has trained as a “death doula” and will soon start working at a hospice.
This approach to exploring technology, grounded in its personal and political implications, exemplifies a wider vision for fellow tech workers and the industry at large—a desire that it grant more power and agency to those with diverse backgrounds, become more equitable instead of extractive, and aim to reduce structural inequalities rather than seeking to enrich shareholders.
To realize this vision, Wang has launched a collaborative learning project called Collective Action School in which tech workers can begin to confront their own impact on the world. The hope is to promote more labor organizing within the industry and empower workers who may feel intimidated to challenge gigantic corporations.
Wang came to prominence as an editor at Logic magazine, an independent publication created in 2016 amid early Trump-era anxiety and concerns about the growing powers of technology. Dismissing utopian narratives of progress for prescient analysis of tech’s true role in widening inequity and concentrating political power, the founders—who also included Ben Tarnoff, Jim Fingal, Christa Hartsock, and Moira Weigel—vowed to stop having “stupid conversations about important things.” (In January, it was relaunched as “the first Black, Asian, and Queer tech magazine,” with Wang and J. Khadijah Abdurahman as co-editors.)
Collective Action School, initially known as Logic School, is an outgrowth of the magazine. It’s emerged at a time when scandals and layoffs in the tech industry, combined with crypto’s troubles and new concerns about bias in AI, have made Big Tech’s failings all the more visible. In courses offered via Zoom, Wang and other instructors guide roughly two dozen tech workers, coders, and project managers through texts on labor organizing, intersectional feminist theory, and the political and economic implications of Big Tech. Its second cohort has now completed the program
At our lunch, Wang was joined by three former students who helped run that last session: Derrick Carr, a senior software engineer; Emily Chao, a former trust and safety engineer at Twitter; and Yindi Pei, a UX designer. All shared a desire to create something that could lead to more concrete change than existing corporate employee resource groups, which they say often seem constrained and limited. And while Big Tech may obsess over charismatic founders, Collective Action School runs in a collective fashion. “I enjoy operating under the radar,” Wang said.
Wang, who uses the pronoun “they,” moved from China to Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1990, at age four. Drawn to science and technology at a young age, they made friends in early online chat rooms and built rockets and studied oceanography at science camps. They also started questioning social norms early on; their mom tells of getting a call from the middle school principal, explaining that Wang had started a petition for a gender-inclusive class dress code.
Years later, they enrolled at Harvard to study design and landscape architecture—at one point lofting a kite over the skies in Beijing to track pollution levels. A few years after graduating in 2008, Wang moved to the Bay Area. They worked at the nonprofit Meedan Labs, which develops open-source tools for journalists, and the mapping software company Mapbox, a rapidly scaling “rocket ship” where an employee—sometimes Wang—had to be on call, often overnight, to patch any broken code. Unsatisfied, Wang left in 2017 to focus on writing, speaking, and research, earning a PhD in geography at Berkeley.
“The person who did my [Mapbox] exit interview told me, ‘You have this problem where you see injustice and you can’t stand it,’” Wang says. “She told me, ‘Sometimes you need to put that to bed if you want to stay in this industry.’ I can’t.”
Many in tech, Wang says, have a fundamental belief in constant improvement through corporate innovation; for these people, technology means “you push a button and something in your life is solved.” But Wang, who practices Buddhism and reads tarot cards, sees things differently, believing that life is all about natural cycles humans can’t control and should accept with humility. For Wang, tech can be rural communities hacking open-source software, or simply something that brings pure joy.
At Logic, Wang penned a popular column, Letter from Shenzhen, which included scenes from their family’s hometown of Guangzhou, China, and the explosion of innovation in the country. It led to a book titled Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China’s Countryside, a striking exploration of technology’s impact on rural China.
During the book editing process, Wang went on a Buddhist retreat, where a teacher remarked that we’re all “looking at the sky through a straw,” limited to our own small portholes of perception. This insight, says Wang, helped frame the final draft. But it also became a metaphor for an entire approach to research and writing on technology: focused, careful consideration of many viewpoints, and the capacity to imagine something better.
Collective Action School, funded in part by the Omidyar Network and a grant from the arts and coding nonprofit Processing Foundation, came together in 2020 as tech worker activism was on the rise. Kickstarter employees’ union drive in 2020 was followed by efforts at Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple, as well as industry-wide campaigns such as Collective Action in Tech (led in part by former Logic editor Tarnoff) and the Tech Workers Coalition. But because Wang avoids the spotlight and believes that only strong communities can remedy the tech industry’s ills, the school is organized in a more experimental way.
Collective Action School offers an antithesis to the “golden ticket” mentality of tech work, with an approach that’s more focused on collective action and culture.
Each cohort begins with a “week zero” meeting to get acquainted as a group. Then, for 13 weeks, participants attend sessions covering labor movements, the political economy of innovation, and the impact of technology on marginalized groups. The funding covers all tuition costs for all students. As Pei, one of the co-organizers, puts it, the school offers an antithesis to the “golden ticket” mentality of tech work, with an approach that’s more focused on collective action and culture.
Each week, participants read from a lengthy syllabus and welcome a guest speaker. Past guests include Clarissa Redwine from the Kickstarter union’s oral history project, former Google employees Alex Hanna and Timnit Gebru of the Distributed AI Research Institute, and Erin McElroy, cofounder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. Then they work on a final project; one of the first was Looking Glass, which used augmented reality to highlight the lost Black history of Pittsburgh. For developing it, creator Adrian Jones was named the school’s “community technologist,” a role that comes with a one-year grant to expand the idea. Chao, who formerly worked for Twitter, released a zine about trust and safety issues, and Pei has been working on an affordable housing website for San Francisco.
The organizers see Collective Action School as a community-building project, and open-source syllabus, that can grow with each new cohort. Eventually, the aim is to expand the reach of the school with chapters based in other areas, adding in-person meetings and creating a larger network of workers sharing similar values and aims.
That strategy fills a need within larger tech and labor organizing, says Gershom Bazerman, who volunteers with the Tech Workers Coalition and Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Tech workers have long been told they’re unique, but accurate political fights between workers and leadership—with employees pushing back against contributing to projects used by the US military or immigration enforcement—have set off a wave of ground-up organizing informed by social concerns. Groups like Collective Action School can be a “bridge” between workers seeking such change.
While the readings and interactions aren’t creating a utopia, they are creating a space for students to learn, meet, and commit to more change. Wang hopes they find solidarity and, ideally, bring these ideas and experience back to their companies and coworkers (or find the resources and momentum to move to a job or field more aligned with their values). Some in this year’s cohort live and work in the Global South and have faced layoffs, so classmates created a cost-of-living support fund to help.
Carr has called the experience an “antidote to a specific accumulated toxin” that comes from working in Big Tech. That may be true, but Collective Action School, along with other accurate organizing efforts, also sets out to redefine the experience of working within the industry. “We’re not saying we’re making the perfect safe learning space,” says Wang. “We had a container in which we could have fun, learn from each other, and then grow. I think that’s really rare and special. It’s like committing to each other.”
Patrick Sisson, a Chicago expat living in Los Angeles, covers technology and urbanism.
Founded in 2000, the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) bills itself as “the largest and most comprehensive global information privacy community and resource.” It is more than just a certification body. It is a full-fledged not-for-profit membership association with a focus on information privacy concerns and topics. Its membership includes both individuals and organizations, in the tens of thousands for the former and the hundreds for the latter (including many Fortune 500 outfits).
Its mandate is to help privacy practitioners develop and advance in their careers, and help organizations manage and protect their data. To that end, the IAPP seeks to create a forum where privacy pros can track news and trends, share best practices and processes, and better articulate privacy management issues and concerns.
By 2012, the organization included 10,000 members. By the end of 2015, membership had more than doubled to 23,000 members. According to a Forbes story published that same year, approximately half of the IAPP’s membership is women (which makes it pretty special, based on our understanding of the gender composition for most IT associations and certification programs). Current membership must be between 30,000 and 40,000 as growth rates from 2012 to 2015 have continued, if not accelerated in the face of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into full effect on May 25, 2018. The IAPP also claims to have certified “thousands of professionals around the world.”
The IAPP has developed a globally recognized certification program around information privacy. Its current certification offerings include the following credentials:
All these certifications comply with the ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024 standard, which means they have been developed to meet stringent requirements for analyzing the subject matter and the fields of work to which they apply, along with formal psychometric analysis of test items to make sure that exams truly differentiate those who possess the required skills and knowledge to do the related jobs from those who do not.
All the IAPP exams follow the same cost structure, though charges vary by location. In the U.S., each first-time test costs $550, with a $375 charge for any subsequent retake of the same exam. Those who already hold any IAPP certification pay just $375 for each additional certification test they take. IAPP certification holders can either pay an annual maintenance fee of $125 to keep their certifications current (and meet continuing education requirements of 20 CPE credits every two years) or they must join the IAPP.
If a person joins, they’ll pay an annual membership fee. Currently, that’s $250 for professional members, $50 for student members, and $100 for all other membership categories (government, higher education, retired and not-for-profit). Those who elect to pay the certification maintenance fee need pay only once a year, no matter how many IAPP certifications they earn.
IAPP exams are available at Kryterion testing centers, which may be identified with its test center locator. Exams consist of 90 question items. Candidates may take up to 150 minutes (2.5 hours) to complete any IAPP exam. Payment is handled through the IAPP website, but Kryterion handles date and time windows for exams at its test centers.
This credential is the most likely place for a person working in IT to start their IAPP efforts. The CIPT validates skills and knowledge about the components and technical controls involved in establishing, ensuring and maintaining data privacy. To be more specific, the body of knowledge (BoK) for the CIPT stresses important privacy concepts and practices that impact IT, and makes sure that practitioners understand consumer privacy expectations and responsibilities.
It also addresses how to bake privacy into early stages of IT products or services to control costs and ensure data accuracy and integrity without impacting time to market. CIPTs understand how to establish privacy policies for data collection and transfer, and how to manage privacy on the internet of things. They also know how to factor privacy into data classification, and how it impacts emerging technologies such as biometrics, surveillance and cloud computing. Finally, CIPTs understand how to communicate on privacy issues with other parts of their organizations, including management, development staff, marketing and legal.
IAPP describes this certification as just right for “the go-to person for privacy laws, regulations and frameworks” in an organization. This audience may include more senior privacy or security professionals with IT backgrounds, but it may also involve people from management, legal or governance organizations whose responsibilities include data privacy and protection concerns. This goes double for those involved with legal and compliance requirements, information management, data governance, and even human resources (as privacy is a personal matter at its core, involving personal information).
Because managing privacy and protecting private information is often highly regulated and subject to legal systems and frameworks, the IAPP offers versions of the CIPP certification where such content and coverage has been “localized” for prevailing rules, regulations, laws and best practices.
There are five such versions available: Asia (CIPP/A), Canada (CIPP/C), Europe (CIPP/E), U.S. Government (CIPP/G) and U.S. Private Sector (CIPP/US). As of this writing, the CIPP/E perforce offers the most direct and focused coverage of GDPR topics. That said, given that GDPR applies to companies and online presences globally, such material will no doubt soon make its way into other CIPP versions in the next 6-12 months. The U.S.-focused exams are already scheduled for a refresh in August 2018, as per the IAPP website’s certification pages.
For example, the CIPP/US page includes the following materials:
Each of the other regional versions of the CIPP has a similarly large, detailed and helpful collection of resources available to interested readers and would-be certified professionals.
The CIPM is a more senior credential in the IAPP collection. It seeks to identify persons who can manage an information privacy program. Thus, the focus is on privacy law and regulations and how those things must guide the formulation of workable and defensible privacy policies, practices and procedures for organizational use. The CIPM BoK covers the following topics:
In general, CIPMs play a lead role in defining and maintaining data privacy policies for their organizations. They will usually be responsible for operating the privacy apparatus necessary to demonstrate compliance with all applicable privacy rules, regulations and laws for the organization as well.
The IAPP also offers two other elements in its certification programs. One is the Privacy Law Specialist, which aims at attorneys or other licensed legal professionals who wish to focus on privacy subjects in a legal context. The other, called the Fellow of Information Privacy (FIP), aims at those at the top of the privacy profession and is available only to those who’ve completed two or more IAPP credentials, including either a CIPM or a CIPT, and one or more of the CIPP credentials. It requires three professional peer referrals and completion of a detailed application form. We won’t discuss these credentials much more in this article, except to note here that the Privacy Law Specialist garnered a surprising 200 hits in our job board search (see below for other details gleaned thereby).
Finally, the IAPP website recommends the combination of CIPP/E and CIPM as the possible credentialing for those wishing to focus on GDPR, shown in this screenshot from its Certify pop-up menu:
We visit four job posting sites to check on demand for specific credentials: Simply Hired, Indeed, LinkedIn and LinkUp. Here’s what we learned.
| Certification | Search string | Simply Hired | Indeed | LinkUp | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIPP | CIPP | 668 | 745 | 1,064 | 401 | 2,878 |
| CIPM | CIPM | 187 | 198 | 260 | 191 | 836 |
| CIPT | CIPT | 146 | 155 | 276 | 210 | 787 |
The breakdown for CIPP fell out like this: CIPP/A 27, CIPP/C 287, CIPP/E 351, CIPP/G 154 and CIPP/US 401. As you’d expect, the U.S. categories combine for a majority, with Europe a surprising second ahead of third-place Canada.
Salary information appears in the next table. We collected low, median and high values for each credential, finding surprisingly little difference between the CIPM and the CIPP. Given that a CIPM is likely to hold a management position, this shows that the CIPP holds considerable value in employers’ estimations. It’s also interesting that the median values show the CIPT and the CIPP are close to one another too. This bodes well for IT professionals interested in pursuing the CIPT.
| Certification |
Low |
Median |
High |
|---|---|---|---|
| CIPP | $33,969 | $66,748 | $131,156 |
| CIPM | $41,069 | $73,936 | $133,106 |
| CIPT | $32,131 | $62,279 | $120,716 |
| Privacy Law Attorney | $46,146 | $89,026 | $171,752 |
Typical positions for privacy professionals are very much one-offs. We found a risk management and compliance manager position at a South Carolina government agency charged with defining and implementing security and privacy policies for the department of corrections. That position paid $120,000 per year and involved security and audit compliance, business continuity and disaster recovery planning, and risk and incident management. By itself, the requested CIPM would not be enough to qualify for that job.
The next position was for a healthcare services director position in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which involved auditing, risk management, and contract and vendor negotiation. Its pay range was $140,000 to $190,000 per year, and it required serious management chops, along with IT governance and risk and compliance experience, with calls for knowledge of tools like Archer and Clearwell. The third position was for a senior data privacy associate at a Washington law firm, which sought a person with a CIPP/E, CIPP/US and CIPT, with pay in the $120K-$150K range.
Thus, it appears there are plenty of opportunities – some with high rates of pay – for those willing to climb the IAPP certification ladder. Both the job boards and the individual postings speak directly to strong and urgent need in the field for qualified privacy professionals at all levels.
IAPP courses are available through many channels, including classroom training through the IAPP and its partner network. Online training classes are also available, for lesser charges. The IAPP provides ample references and resources, with authoritative and supplemental texts, websites, legal references and statutes, and more for each of its credentials. There’s also plenty of self-study material for those who prefer that route.
The IAPP also offers practice exams (which it calls trial questions) to help candidates prepare for exams. Surprisingly, there is even something of an aftermarket for IAPP books and materials, as a quick trip to Amazon will attest.
Whether it's playing catch with cars, running from robots or mastering martial arts, few things can get your adrenaline pumping as much as a good action movie.
Of course, there are plenty of action movies to choose from. There are the classics like Enter the Dragon and Top Gun, superhero films such as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Shazam! Fury of the Gods and spy movies like Casino Royale — which all promise thrilling story lines, intense fight scenes and nonstop excitement.
Looking for something a little more mind-altering? Tune into The Matrix. How about a flick that's just as comedic as it is action-packed? Leave it to David Harbour in Violent Night.
Whether it is explosions, muscle cars and mayhem or treasure hunts you are after, you're sure to find an action movie you love. Here are the best action movies you can stream right now.
In the heady third installment of the Jason Bourne film series, Matt Damon returns as the titular former CIA hitman grappling with psychogenic amnesia. As he faces the danger of a new assassin program, Operation Blackbriar, Jason plunges into a globe-trotting quest to outsmart formidable enemies and unlock memories from his past.
Watch The Bourne Ultimatum on Max
Bob Odenkirk — best known as self-sabotaging attorney Saul Goodman on Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad — may seem like an unlikely action hero, but he makes it clear in Nobody that even an Everyman has his limits.
Odenkirk revealed that the film was partially inspired by his personal experience. "I think most people watching this movie will not realize the level of autobiography there is in it," he told Jimmy Kimmel in 2021. "I had two home break-ins in Los Angeles... Nobody is very related to my real experience of having someone in the house, threatening my family, trying to keep the damage to a minimum."
Watch Nobody on Amazon Prime Video
Based on Alan Moore, David Lloyd and Tony Weare's graphic novel of the same name, V for Vendetta stars Hugo Weaving as V, an anarchist vigilante who rescues Evey (Natalie Portman) and enlists her in his chaos. The themes of fascism and authoritarianism are both timely and timeless, and the action is nonstop. As dark as the film can get, its ultimate message is one of hope.
Amazon Studios/Courtesy Everett
In a high-stakes mission, boxing gym manager Réda (Ramzy Bedia) recruits his friends, Stan (Franck Gastambide) and Chafik (Anouar Toubali), to rescue his kidnapped brother from a dangerous narcos cartel in the titular city. With a simple and reckless plan, Réda brings his team on an action-filled adventure — involving conflict with drug ring leader El Diablo (Raymond Cruz) — that none of them could have anticipated.
Watch Medellín on Amazon Prime Video
Marv Films/Kobal/Shutterstock
Nerdy outcast and comic-book buff Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes it upon himself to become a real-life superhero despite lacking any superpowers. Going by the pseudonym “Kick-Ass” and sporting an internet-thrifted suit, the namesake hero fights crime alongside father-daughter vigilante duo Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), which catches the attention of opposing forces in New York City. This 2010 black comedy also stars Evan Peters, Garrett M. Brown, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Elizabeth McGovern and more.
StudioCanal/Shutterstock
All of the Terminator movies have killer action scenes, but Judgment Day is a nonstop ride with high stakes and state-of-the-art special effects that blew its 1991 audience away and still holds up today. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and a young Edward Furlong deliver stellar performances, and James Cameron's sci-fi flair will keep you on the edge of your seat for the entire 136-minute runtime.
Watch Terminator 2: Judgement Day on Netflix
Bruce Lee delivers the performance of a lifetime in Enter the Dragon, both for his acting and for the inimitable fight scenes he choreographed himself. This was Lee's final completed film before his tragic death in 1973 at just 32 years old. Widely regarded as the best martial arts film of all time, Enter the Dragon is also one of the most profitable movies in history, making 400 times its budget at the box office.
If you like your "family" movies to have muscle and muscle cars, you're in luck. The fifth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise is a departure from drag racing in the streets, instead leaning into heists, gunfights and government agents, the latter led by none other than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in his Fast debut as Luke Hobbs.
When idling musician Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) meets the woman of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), he has to defeat seven of her evil exes through arcade-style battles in order to be her boyfriend. Packing punches left and right, this 2010 action-filled adventure features an ensemble cast including Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza and more.
Watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on Amazon Prime Video
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett
Dive into the phantasmagorical depths of James Cameron's Avatar universe with this 2022 sequel. Following a decade after the first film's events, Way of Water sees the Sully family fleeing their home to reside with the oceanic Metkayina clan, where they have to defend themselves and their hosts against brutal aggressors through a flood of action-packed battles.
Watch Avatar: The Way of Water on Disney+ on June 7
Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett
Directed by David F. Sandberg, this 2023 DCEU sequel to Shazam! (2019) finds teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and members of his "Shazamily" — who all can transform into their superhero alter egos just by saying "Shazam!" out loud — fighting against a trio of ancient gods who've come to earth with a vengeance for those who stole their magic powers. Fury of the Gods stars Zachary Levi, Jack Dylan Grazer, Rachel Zegler, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, Meagan Good, Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren.
Watch Shazam! Fury of the Gods on Max
Being Amazon Prime Video's first original movie from Africa, this 2023 Nigerian action-thriller is worth a watch. Jade Osiberu's Gangs of Lagos follows a group of three best friends who witness their father figure's murder, and join the gang led by his cold-hearted partner Kazeem (Olarotimi Fakunle). The film stars Tobi Bakre, Iyabo Ojo, Adesua Etomi, Chioma Akpotha and Demi Banwo, among others.
Watch Gangs of Lagos on Amazon Prime Video
Directed by John Badham (Saturday Night Fever), this 1989 action flick stars Roy Schnieder as Frank Murphy, a Vietnam War veteran and Los Angeles police officer who is assigned to trial a technologically-advanced helicopter called the "Blue Thunder." While giving the chopper a spin, he quickly learns its role in a government conspiracy, as it's designed to spy on others and destroy the masses.
This 2023 Vietnamese action thriller — and prequel to 2019's Furie — follows three women who bond over shared traumas and are trained to defeat a '90s Saigon gang that traffics and assaults other women. Filled with rip-roaring violence and dynamic fight sequences, this film is a tough yet heady watch.
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett
You better watch out, you better not cry! Stranger Things' David Harbour ditches his Hawkins police uniform and slips on Saint Nick's suit in this 2022 holiday action thriller. When Santa Claus comes to town, delivering presents to a Connecticut mansion, he discovers that mercenaries are holding the residing family hostage and comes to their rescue with brutal force.
Watch Violent Night on Amazon Prime Video
Black Panther brought much-needed Black representation to the superhero genre. Chadwick Boseman's indelible mark on cinema as T'Challa cannot be overstated, and Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger is as sympathetic and complicated a villain as they come. The supporting cast's performances, especially Angela Bassett and Sterling K. Brown, are just as moving.
Enhanced by its stunning actors, the movie's action is a blast to watch. Whether you're watching Okoye (Danai Gurira) tossing her wig in a fight scene, Shuri (Letitia Wright) showing off her genius or a mixed martial arts battle, every element works.
Watch Black Panther on Disney+
Eli Ade/Marvel/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett
Securing Marvel its first Oscar win (three, in fact) with the first Black Panther film, this 2022 sequel earned another for Best Costume Design — yet there is so much more to take in, including the feature's eye-catching thrills. Following King T'Challa's (Chadwick Boseman) death, the mourning Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Princess/scientist Shuri (Letitia Wright), fellow Wakandans and allies strive to protect the kingdom from outside (and underwater) forces. Former War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and CIA agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) are back to help ensure the continuing legacy of the Black Panther.
Watch Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on Disney+
Welcome to the party, pal! Whether or not you think Die Hard is a Christmas movie, the 1988 thriller is easily one of the best action movies of all time. Bruce Willis' introductory jaunt as John McClane has all the makings of a classic: a working-class hero, a hard-to-get love interest (Bonnie Bedelia), a dangerously charismatic villain (Alan Rickman), earnest sidekicks Alan (Reginald VelJohnson) and Argyle (De'voreaux White) and some of the best catchphrases in the game. Did we mention McClane saves the day while barefoot?
What do you do when one monster attacks? Unleash another one, of course. In Godzilla vs. Kong, the real monsters aren't Godzilla or Kong — they're conspiracy theorists and technology. While the action is stellar when the larger-than-life creatures go after each other, the excitement is unstoppable once they team up.
Watch Godzilla vs. Kong on Max
Eli Ade/Sony Pictures Entertainment/Courtesy Everett
Based on Adam Makos' book — Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice — this aerial war drama revolves around the real-life friendship between U.S. Navy fighter pilots Jesse Brown (Creed III's Jonathan Majors) and Tom Hudner (Top Gun: Maverick's Glen Powell, who's also an real licensed pilot) and their time served together during the Korean War. With a supporting cast including Serinda Swan, Joe Jonas and more, Devotion honors the bond of a brotherhood forged in the early 1950s among racial and global tension.
Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022, this German anti-war drama — adapted from Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 eponymous novel — tells the timeless story of a young man named Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) who eagerly joins the German Army to fight in World War I. But when he and his comrades find themselves amid unforgiving and inhumane violence, their once-patriotic notions of war are shattered as they make every effort to survive.
Watch All Quiet on the Western Front on Netflix
Inspired by real events, this AAFCA-winning historical action flick centers on the Agojie, an all-woman army of the West African kingdom of Dahomey. In a dazzling performance, Viola Davis stars as highly-trained General Nanisca, who has to prepare a new generation of warriors to fight a foreign invader threatening their civilization.
Watch The Woman King on Netflix
If you feel the need for speed, Tony Scott's fighter pilot action flick should be your first choice. In 1986's Top Gun, Tom Cruise soars as smug hotshot Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell," who strives to be the top naval pilot in his class — causing friction between him and rivaling classmates such as Iceman (Val Kilmer) — and swoop the flight instructor (Kelly McGillis) off her feet. From its classic soundtrack to its iconic beach volleyball scene to its fast-paced thrills, this blockbuster will "take you right into the danger zone."
Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett
Thirty-six years after Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) graduated the TOPGUN Naval aviation program, he's invited back as an instructor for a new generation of fliers, including Miles Teller's Bradley ("Rooster") and Glen Powell's Jake ("Hangman"). Earning over $1 billion dollars at the global box office, 2022's Top Gun: Maverick is not only a triumphant sequel to its iconic predecessor, but is also a "love letter to aviation," as it impressively cranked up the action without VFX and filmed stunts with real U.S. Navy pilots flying top-quality fighter jets.
Watch Top Gun: Maverick on Paramount+
From Deadpool to Red Notice, Ryan Reynolds is a bona fide action star who never fails to bring the laughs. Also starring Jodie Comer, Taika Waititi and more, the 2021 action comedy follows a bank teller named Guy (Reynolds), who discovers he's a trivial background character in a violent multiplayer video game and strives to be a winning hero when faced with conflict.
He kneels before no one. In this 2022 Shazam! spin-off Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars as the eponymous DC Comics character, who's freed from imprisonment and uses his almighty powers "born out of rage" for revenge, but is intercepted by heroes from the Justice Society, such as Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell).
Based on the first book in a YA dystopian series, The Maze Runner follows 16-year-old Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), who wakes up in an elevator with zero recollection of his past and finds himself among a group of boys (and one girl) trying to form a community on an area of land they call the Glade. And if they want to escape, they have to run through a constantly-shifting maze that's patrolled by killer cyborg creatures.
Famous faces like Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sandra Bullock and Bad Bunny were all on board for this off-the-rails action comedy. Based on Kōtarō Isaka 2010's novel, Maria Beetle, 2022's Bullet Train follows five cutthroat assassins, who are all assigned individual missions that are somehow connected, on a Japanese high-speed train.
In this 2022 war fantasy, Chloë Grace Moretz stars as a WWII flight officer who battles with an evil creature on her mission. Also starring Taylor John Smith and Nick Robinson, Shadow in the Cloud is a bumpy ride with several jump-scares lurking in its shadows, and tells a wildly complex story about female strength.
Watch Shadow in the Cloud on Hulu
This 2009 post-apocalyptic action comedy follows a group of surviving humans — played by Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin — who have to avoid becoming "human Happy Meals" for bloodthirsty zombies while making their way to an alleged safe haven.
If you like your action with a side of belly laughs, tune into Adam McKay's The Other Guys. The 2010 buddy cop comedy is a send-up of the entire genre and pairs Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as clumsy wannabe detectives. They're backed by a seriously star-studded supporting cast, including Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Michael Keaton and Eva Mendes, plus cameos from Derek Jeter, Tracy Morgan and Ice-T.
Watch The Other Guys on Amazon Prime Video
From quintessential action movie director Michael Bay comes a romantic war drama that fictionalizes the historical Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This 2001 feature follows two childhood best friends (Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett), who enlist in the military as pilots during WWII and a love triangle unfolds between them and a nurse (Kate Beckinsale).
Though Salt was originally written with Tom Cruise in mind as the title character, the 2010 film was reworked for Angelina Jolie. The spy thriller has high tensions, high stakes and endless twists, plus great supporting performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Liev Schreiber. Of course, the action and fights are ferocious, especially one scene involving handcuffs.
Marvel movies always have a ton of great action sequences, but Captain America: Civil War brings together major characters in conflict with each other in exciting ways — and the questions raised about surveillance and the police state continue to resonate. Chris Evans' fight as Captain America with Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark was instantly meme-able, and the introduction of Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther and Tom Holland's Spider-Man make Civil War a fan favorite.
Watch Captain America: Civil War on Disney+
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Marvel Studios/Courtesy Everett
Avengers, we love you 3000. Bringing back fan-favorite characters and ending several beloved MCU story lines, the epic conclusion to the Avengers saga chronicles the titular superhero group's final battle with Thanos, the demigod who destroyed the universe in Infinity War. Shattering box-office records, the 2019 superhero film became the second highest-grossing film of all time next to 2009's Avatar.
Watch Avengers: Endgame on Disney+
In addition to its prescient themes of machines distracting, subjugating and feeding off of human energy, The Matrix revolutionized action movies thanks to two words: "bullet time." Keanu Reeves dodging bullets became an iconic image, and the visual effect has been used in countless action and superhero movies since.
Road House might not have been an immediate hit with critics or audiences at its theatrical release, but it developed a cult following in the cable TV and streaming eras. The 1989 film has absolutely no frills — but with Patrick Swayze serving roundhouse kicks to curb corruption, do you really need any?
David Bukach/Hulu/Courtesy Everett Collection
A prequel to the original Predator, Prey follows Naru (Amber Midthunder), a fledgling fighter trying to protect the Comanche Nation from the extraterrestrial hunter. Set 300 years before the events of the 1987 classic, the film features an almost entirely Native and First Nation cast and is available to stream entirely in Comanche. At its debut, Prey became Hulu's biggest streaming premiere ever.
With a cast that includes Alexander Skarsgård (who gained 20 pounds of muscle for the role), Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy and Björk, The Northman is a take on the Norse folk tale of Amleth — the very legend that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet.
When King Aurvandill (Hawke) is murdered by his own brother (Claes Bang), Prince Amleth (Skarsgård) vows to avenge his father's death — but there's far more to the treasonous slaying than meets the eye. With elements of Norse mythology and killer battle scenes, The Northman is a must-see.
Watch The Northman on Amazon Prime Video
The 2005 action anthology Sin City is as much an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novels as it is a love letter to classic film noir. Visually stunning thanks to its mostly monochromatic palette, director Robert Rodriguez deliberately stayed as close to the source material as possible. With standout performances from Mickey Rourke and Elijah Wood, Sin City paved the way for the later comic book movie revival as a whole.
Are you not entertained? Russell Crowe won an Oscar for 2000's Gladiator, which also won Best Picture. Inspiring speeches (one of which Crowe penned himself) and rousing colosseum battles abound, and Joaquin Phoenix delivers an understated and nuanced performance as the corrupt Commodus.
Watch Gladiator on Amazon Prime Video
Christian Bale is a great Bruce Wayne, but it was Heath Ledger's final completed performance as the Joker that brought The Dark Knight its critical acclaim and commercial blockbuster status. From the opening bank heist to the impossible choices the Joker thrusts upon both Batman and Gotham City, Christopher Nolan's sophomore outing for the caped crusader raises resonant questions about the nature of man.
Matt Reeves' The Batman, released in 2022, is less like a superhero epic and more of a detective thriller. Robert Pattinson plays a tortured Bruce Wayne and a brooding Batman equally well, while Zoë Kravitz brings Selina Kyle to life as a sensual, cynical Catwoman. Paul Dano is chilling as the Zodiac Killer-inspired Riddler, and he worked very hard to get there: He was such a perfectionist that Reeves said Dano filmed 200 takes of a single scene.
Daniel Craig, with his grizzled demeanor and blonde hair, seemed like an unlikely James Bond at the outset — but once audiences saw him as 007 in 2006's Casino Royale, all doubts dissipated. Riveting from the opening bathroom brawl to his final heartbreak at the hands of Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), Craig brought out a side of Bond never seen before: vulnerability and the ability to feel shaken (if not stirred).
Alexa, play Adele's Oscar-winning song "Skyfall." After Agent 007's assignment exposes undercover spies around the globe and forces supervisor M (Judi Dench) to relocate the agency that's now under attack, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is entrusted with tracking down the threat, no matter how dangerous. Javier Bardem plays Raoul Silva, a former MI6 agent–turned–cyberterrorist Bond baddie out for personal revenge on M.
The Old Guard examines a power granted to many superheroes that often goes unquestioned: the loneliness and boredom associated with immortality. Charlize Theron and the rest of the cast kill it in hand-to-hand combat scenes, and it brought some long overdue LGBTQ representation to the superhero genre.
Watch The Old Guard on Netflix
Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg make an unlikely but delightful pair in Uncharted, based on the video game of the same name. Nathan "Nate" Drake (Holland), a bartender-turned-pickpocket, sets off on an adventure to find his lost brother. (Holland worked as a bartender in real life to prepare for the role.) Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Wahlberg) takes Nate under his wing to find a treasure left by Ferdinand Magellan, and it turns out that Sully and Nate are connected in more ways than they realize — and even when their friendship gets tenuous, they need each other to survive.
Oscar winner Ryan Gosling stars as the titular Gray Man, an assassin on the run — with the help of some chewing gum, a precocious child and Ana de Armas — from a former CIA colleague.
After nearly a decade as Captain America, Chris Evans takes a villainous turn — but it's a role he plays so well. Evans chews the scenery as the bad guy in The Gray Man, brothers Anthony and Joe Russo's first Netflix project (they previously directed Evans in four Marvel movies). The film was successful enough to greenlight both a spin-off and a sequel.
A kid-friendly option, The Kid Who Would Be King is as heartwarming as it is adrenaline-pumping. Patrick Stewart is a delight as Merlin (perhaps taking notes from his real-life bestie, Ian McKellen, and his turn as Gandalf) and Rebecca Ferguson is enchanting as wicked sorceress Morgana.
Watch The Kid Who Would Be King on Disney+
While 2017's Justice League — taken on by Joss Whedon partway through production — had an obviously similar story, the stakes immediately feel higher in Zack Snyder's lengthy rendition of the superhero team-up. In the Snyder cut, villain Steppenwolf's motives are clearer, and his defeat of the Amazons proves that he is a force to be reckoned with. Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne is perfectly pensive, Ray Fisher's star turn as Cyborg is fully realized, Jason Momoa's Aquaman makes a splash and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman shows her tougher side.
Watch Zack Snyder's Justice League on Max
Released in 2008, Taken is a thriller brought to life by Liam Neeson and his "particular set of skills." The film, which follows Bryan Mills (Neeson) on a mission to rescue his kidnapped daughter, launched a full-blown franchise, making the Irish actor an action star in his golden years. "I like doing it," Neeson said of being an action hero. "The scripts are good. I'm kind of like a kid in a candy store."
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What’s the deal with single action vs double action handguns? Well, it’s all about the trigger and exactly what happens when it’s pressed. The only thing the trigger of a single action (SA) handgun does is release a cocked hammer to fire the gun. With a double action (DA) handgun, pressing the trigger cocks and releases the hammer. We could leave the explanation there, but as they say in calculus class, it gets complicated. It gets complicated because both revolvers and pistols come as either single or double action, and because within these two distinctions there are variations that require some explaining. So, here is a full breakdown of single action vs double action handguns.
The single action revolver is the classic cowboy six-gun, epitomized by the Colt Single Action Army or the Ruger Blackhawk or Single Six. With a single action revolver, the hammer must be manually cocked before the gun can be fired. So, the trigger of a SA revolver has a single function; when pressed, it releases the hammer, allowing the gun to fire. Once you have fired a SA revolver, you must manually re-cock the hammer to shoot it again. If you’ve cocked a SA revolver and decide not to shoot, you can press the trigger while holding the hammer back and manually lower the hammer to a safe, half-cocked position. But you’ll have to cock the hammer again when you decide to shoot.
The trigger of a single action pistol works the same as the trigger of a SA revolver. But because the slide of a SA pistol must be manually retracted to load the handgun, and because the slide cycles to the rear after every shot, in both instances it cocks the hammer. So technically, you never really have to cock a SA pistol. But, if at some point you decide to manually lower the hammer, then, just like with a SA revolver, you must re-cock it to shoot it. Because most SA pistols are carried cocked, a manual thumb safety that “locks” the pistol and prevents it from firing, like on the Colt 1911, is generally part of the package. Because some shooters are nervous about carrying a “cocked and locked” pistol, they either avoid SA pistols or carry them with the hammer down, which means they must thumb-cock the pistol before they can shoot it.
For many years, double action revolvers like the Smith & Wesson Model 686 were the most popular sidearms for law enforcement. With a DA revolver, you have options, because the trigger has two functions. If the hammer is manually cocked, the DA revolver trigger works just like a SA revolver trigger; when pressed, it releases the hammer. But if a DA revolver is not cocked, you can pull the trigger and it will cock and release the hammer. This makes the double action revolver faster to shoot and better suited to law enforcement or for self-defense. Also, just like with a SA revolver, you can manually lower the hammer on a DA revolver after it has been cocked.
If a DA pistol is not cocked, a single trigger press will cock and release the hammer. You can manually cock a DA pistol for the first shot, but after a DA pistol has been fired, the pistol’s slide cycles and cocks the hammer for you. Many DA pistols have a de-cocker, a lever that un-cocks the hammer allowing it to safely fall and return the pistol to double action mode. The difficulty with managing DA pistols is that the first trigger press is long and hard because it has to cock and release the hammer, subsequent trigger presses are lighter and crisper because after the first shot the hammer remains cocked. Also, with some DA pistols, if the cartridge fails to fire, you can pull the trigger and try to fire that same cartridge again.
Complicating the single action vs double action conversation are double action only handguns. They are a little different—but only a little. Let’s start with DAO revolvers. The only difference in a double action only (DOA) revolver and a DA revolver is that the hammer cannot be manually cocked because it has no “cocked” notch, because it’s been bobbed, or because it’s shrouded or concealed. A bobbed, shrouded, or concealed hammer is less likely to catch on clothing during the draw stroke, and that’s really the only advantage a DAO revolver offers. The inability to cock the hammer on a DAO revolver circumvents the lighter trigger action associated with firing a revolver in the SA mode, and some believe this makes DAO revolvers safer. The truth is, it’s well-trained humans that make guns safe.
The trigger of a DAO pistol it cocks and releases the hammer—every time—and since there’s no “cocked” notch on the hammer you cannot manually cock it. After you fire a DAO pistol, the slide recoils and pushes the hammer back, but as the slide goes forward, the hammer follows it to a “safe” un-cocked position. Like some DA pistols, most DAO pistols have re-strike capability. If the cartridge in the chamber does not fire you can pull the trigger for another attempt. It’s debatable if this is an advantage or a drawback. In most cases if a cartridge fails to fire, it will not fire in subsequent attempts and that can waste time. A better approach is to get the dud out of the gun as quickly as possible. As with DA pistols, DAO pistols have been largely replaced by striker-fired pistols.
Using computers for checking e-mail, drawing images and playing games seem like common tasks for most people. For the severely paralyzed, however, these undertakings can be beyond their reach. Neurotechnology -- using technology to study the brain -- relies on methods such as CAT (computed axial tomography) scans and deep brain stimulation. In deep brain stimulation, medical devices are placed on the brain in an effort to control brain activity and aid another part of the body. This use of neurotechnology can stop the tremors of people with Parkinson's disease, while cochlear devices can restore hearing. While these examples of neurotechnology insert information into the brain, other applications of the technology involve extracting information from brain signals via neural interfaces, or a communication link set up between a brain and a device, like a computer. This field holds promise for helping paralyzed people reconnect with the world.For some people participating in a clinical...
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Sam Bankman-Fried Goes to Jail, Back to School With A.I. and A Self-Driving Car Update
Sam Bankman-Fried lands himself back in jail.
By Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, Davis Land, Rachel Cohn, Jen Poyant, Sophia Lanman, Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and
