How do the movies of Jean-Claude Van Damme rank from worst to best? Hailing from Brussels, Belgium, Bloodsport.
The success of the movie led to Van Damme steadily growing in popularity with other low budget hits like Kickboxer and Cyborg, and he rose to mainstream action movie recognition in the '90s in action films like Universal Soldier and the Universal Soldier movie franchise.
Van Damme has since announced his retirement after what he's declared to be his final action movie in the forthcoming What's My Name? With decades of doing fight scenes and splits in front of the camera and even a few times in the director's chair, Jean-Claude Van Damme will leave behind an astonishing action movie legacy. Here are Jean-Claude Van Damme's movies ranked from his weakest to his strongest.
50. Desert Heat (1999)
Also known by the title of Inferno, Desert Heat follows Van Damme as Eddie Lomax, a suicidal former soldier who finds himself facing a local gang after the theft of his prized motorcycle. One of Van Damme’s early straight-to-video movies, Desert Heat has some decent ideas on its mind with Eddie as a neo-Western anti-hero. Unfortunately, the drama of Eddie’s gradual healing process doesn’t and the sparse martial arts fight scenes with Logan.
49. Derailed (2002)
A low-rent riff on Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Derailed sees Van Damme as NATO officer Jacques Kristoff, who finds himself navigating a terrorist takeover of a train with his family on board (Jacques’ son also played by Van Damme’s real-life son, Kristopher Van Varenberg.) The dull Derailed is the complete opposite of what the straight-to-video action subgenre would eventually rise to, while the exterior shots of the train could’ve been pulled out of Thomas the Tank Engine. Despite a handful of decent martial arts fight scenes, Van Damme and the ing cast, including Laura Harring as thief Galina Konstanin, just don’t have much to work with, leaving Derailed with sadly little to offer as an action movie.
48. Second in Command (2006)
When the U.S. embassy in Moldova comes under attack, U.S. Navy SEAL Sam Keenan (Van Damme) is the only hope of stopping the terrorist plot. Yet, despite the stakes of the story, there's little to recommend in Second in Command. The action scenes do little to impress, making very flat use of Van Damme's talents, while the story and characters fail to give viewers much in the way to hang on to. As it is, Second in Command might barely have been a blip on the radar without Van Damme's involvement, and it stands as one of Van Damme's most generic action movies.
47. We Die Young (2019)
In the commendable but largely average We Die Young, Jean-Claude Van Damme takes on the role of military veteran Daniel, who becomes a guardian of kids in a rough Washington D.C. neighborhood ruled over by drug lords. Daniel's bond with the kids he seeks to protect including Lucas (Elijah Rodriguez) emotionally invests viewers in the younger character's well being, but We Die Young doesn't bring a great deal to elevate its anti-drug message more than the many that have come before it. We Die Young falls squarely into the average subsection of Van Damme's filmography.
46. Black Water (2018)
Another Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren team-up is the order of the day in Black Water, with the two action stars playing Scott Wheeler and Marco as they try to escape a CIA black site aboard a submarine. The low-budget restrictions of Black Water are never far from view, but the dedication of the two leads keeps the story and close-quarters action scenes afloat. The Raid on a submarine.
45. In Hell (2004)
The title says it all in Van Damme’s 2003 prison movie In Hell, in which he plays Kyle LeBlanc, sentenced to life in a Russian prison after avenging the murder of his wife. With MMA just starting to go mainstream at the time, In Hell changes up Van Damme’s fighting style with a much greater emphasis on grappling. In Hell is a genuinely unenjoyable slog that will likely leaves viewers feeling like they’re in prison right alongside Kyle despite being Van Damme's Undisputed series is much more highly recommended than In Hell.
44. Swelter (2014)
Half-Western and half-crime caper, Swelter zeroes in on one-time criminal Bishop (Lennie James), whose old gang, ing him as "Pike," re-enters his smalltown life in their search for missing cash. James is as strong a screen presence as he is on Fear the Walking Dead, but the rote script doesn't rise about its routine beats. Van Damme is on hand as one of Bishop's old associates Stillman, but the movie doesn't rate high on Van Damme's latter day career. Despite a strong cast to include Alfred Molina, Swelter doesn't leave a terribly lasting impression.
43. Legionnaire (1998)
One-time Predator star Jean-Claude Van Damme made another foray into dramatic work with Legionnaire, with little real impact coming out of it. Set in 1925, French boxer Alain Lefèvre (Van Damme) s the French Foreign Legion after the tragic outcome of refusing to throw a fight, and finds new purpose with his brothers in arms. Legionnaire was Van Damme's beginning in straight-to-video land, and not a particularly great start with the film's melodrama and periodic bursts of overacting. Despite Van Damme giving it his all, Legionnaire is not in the "essential viewing" column of his long career.
42. Until Death (2007)
Falling into the more middling corner of Van Damme's 21st century straight-to-video work, Until Death sees him as drug-addicted detective Anthony Stowe, whose experiencing in a coma after a brush with death leads him to re-evaluate his life and approach to police work. Until Death might be called a noir thriller, but that'd be giving it excess credit when its really a dark and emotionally flat crime drama. While not an outright failure, Until Death doesn't live up to the redemption story of a man who gets a second chance that it sets out to be.
