Hollywood and action heroes, what better combination? To celebrate some of our favorite action movies turning 30 (Total Recall, Die Hard 2 and Predator 2), and a few more turning 20 (Battle Royale and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!), we’ve put together a list of Hollywood’s most deadly actors, according to their on-screen kill counts.
Actor Samuel L. Jackson, best known for his roles in classic films such as ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Jackie Brown’ has been named the deadliest Hollywood actor of all time, with 1,734 on-screen kills.
Top 20 List (with Total Kill Count)
- Samuel L. Jackson (1,734)
- Milla Jovovich (1299)
- Jet Li (1076)
- Dolph Lundgren (940)
- Arnold Schwarzenegger (842)
- Steven Seagal (822)
- Sylvester Stallone (794)
- Jason Statham (718)
- Kevin Costner (670)
- Wesley Snipes (593)
- Nicolas Cage (588)
- Chuck Norris (485)
- Keanu Reeves (387)
- Jean-Claude Van Damme (480)
- Gerard Butler (425)
- Clint Eastwood (382)
- Dwayne Johnson (368)
- Tom Cruise (363)
- Daniel Craig (348)
- Sean Bean (344)
Our Criteria for Eligibility
To be eligible for the list, all actors and actresses had to have featured in at least five action-genre movies, however they didn’t need to play a starring role. Milla Jovovich is the only actress to make the top 20, with nearly 1,300 on screen kills to date putting her in sixth place.
Earlier this year it was revealed that veteran star Samuel L. Jackson was also the third most foul-mouthed movie star, with 301* profanities to his name on film.
Milla Jovovich is the only actress to make the top 20, with nearly 1,300 on-screen kills to date.
Most On-Screen Kills by One Character
The star with the most on-screen kills ever was actor and producer Jimmy Wang Yu, best known for his roles in ‘The Man from Hong Kong’ (1975), Wu xia (2011), and One-Armed Boxer II (1976), has been named the deadliest actor of all time, with 2,477 kills.
The most on-screen kills ever by one character is 150, by Tomisaburo Wakayama’s character Ogami Itto in Lone Wolf Cub: White Heaven in Hell (1974).
Top 3 World Savers
On the opposite end of the scale, the top three actors with the most world-saving films under their belts are Sean Connery with a total of 13 saves, closely followed by Bruce Willis with 10, and Keanu Reeves with nine.
Keanu's John Wick Closing the Gap
With so many cult action films hit the big three-zero this year, we wanted to see just who is really the deadliest action star, and we weren’t surprised to see the list dominated by some of the finest Chinese and Japanese-born actors, many of whom are martial arts masters on and off the screen.
Action is still one of the top genres of TV and film, and more fans than ever before are able to experience these incredible stars and their films thanks to streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, and others.
But the top 10 need to watch their backs as even with all those world saves, Keanu Reeves clearly has his eye on a deadliest top spot considering his current kill count in the John Wick franchise!
