Liam Neeson's $71M Action Movie Surges On Netflix's Top 10 US Charts 9 Years Later

Liam Neeson may not have started out as an action star, but he is certainly considered one now. Though Neeson's '90s and early 2000s career did have a handful of action movies, including Rob Roy (1995), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and Batman Begins (2005), he was just as well known for non-action roles in projects like Schindler's List (1993) and Love Actually (2003). Neeson's career shifted, however, after the release of Taken in 2009.

Taken spawned two less successful sequels, but it also set Neeson down a unique action path. Neeson became the starring figure in a number of mid-budget action movies, with the films usually built around his casting. Notable entries in Neeson's action career include movies like Unknown (2011), The Grey (2011), Non-Stop (2014), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014), Cold Pursuit (2019), The Ice Road (2021), and In the Land of Saints and Sinners (2023). Many Neeson action movies come and go with little fanfare, and such was the case for one 2015 film.

Run All Night Becomes A Netflix Success

The Liam Neeson Action Movie Beats Out Some Big Titles In Netflix's Top 10 List

Run All Night has become a big hit on Netflix's U.S. top 10 list nine years after it was first released. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Run All Night stars Neeson as Jimmy Conlon, a mob enforcer who finds his loyalties split between his estranged son and his best friend, mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). The 2015 action thriller earned mixed reviews from critics and, made on an estimated budget of $50 million, grossed only $71 million worldwide, making it a commercial disappointment.

Now, though, Netflix data reveals that Run All Night ranks as the fifth most popular movie on the service in the U.S. for the week of December 2 – 8. The action thriller beats titles like Little (2019), Mary (2024), and Transformers (2007), but falls short of others like Faster (2010), That Christmas (2024), Subservience (2024), and in the number one spot, Our Little Secret (2024). Check out the full U.S. top list below:

U.S. Netflix Top 10 Movies List (Dec. 2 – 8) 1 Our Little Secret 2 Subservience 3 That Christmas 4 Faster 5 Run All Night 6 Little 7 Mary 8 Transformers 9 Midway 10 We're the Millers

The U.S. is the only country in which Run All Night made the Netflix top 10.

What Run All Night's Netflix Success Means For Liam Neeson

Why The Actor Remains An Audience Draw

Combined with a lackluster box office result, Run All Night has a middling 59% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a 56% from audiences. The fact that the film, which also stars Ed Harris, Common, Vincent D'Onofrio, Joel Kinnaman, and Boyd Holbrook, is now finding success on Netflix does, however, speak to Neeson's enduring power as a leading man. Even if he isn't always enough to get audiences to theaters, his face on a poster (or a streaming tile) is a sign that audiences are in for at least a decently entertaining action flick, if not an acclaimed one.

Related 10 Movies To Watch If You Loved Run All Night Fans of the Liam Neeson crime-thriller Run All Night should check out these similar movies ASAP if they're looking for more of the same action.

Neeson, who is now 72 years old, has revealed that he plans on retiring from action movies in the near future, citing his age and the fact that, at a certain point, it's just not believable anymore. If Neeson's action movies do stop, there is now a long list of films that audiences can revisit, however, and that will live on through streaming services. Run All Night might not be a masterpiece, but it's a serviceable thriller with a reliable Neeson performance and some compelling action scenes, and maybe that's all it needs to be.

Source: Netflix