Top 10 Jean-Claude Van Damme Movies of the 80s and 90s

Street Fighter was a massive deal in the early 90s. It was the biggest video game going, and when we heard that there was a Street Fighter movie and Van Damme was going to be Guile, the hype was insane.

Now, is Street Fighter a great movie? Heck no. However, this is an absolute guilty pleasure and it is so cheesy and over the top, you can always put it on and laugh with it. Also, while people love to rip on this movie, it does have some pretty awesome fight scenes and there is just something so cool about seeing Jean-Claude Van Damme fight Raul Julia!

What I love about Lionheart is that it has a kind of similar vibe to something like Bloodsport, Kickboxer, or The Quest. It’s Van Damme fighting a bunch of other tough guys in brutal combat. In other words, a perfect action movie.

However, this movie also has a good story to it as well. Playing the role of Lyon, Van Damme runs out on the French Legion to be with his dying brother in the USA. To help his brother’s wife and daughter, he enters the illicit and dangerous world of underground fighting to make money so that they are looked after. This is a bit of a hidden gem and one that is well worth checking out. It is brutal and bloody, but it also has heart. Lionheart.

Sudden Death is a movie that a lot of people have forgotten about or even never seen. By the time this came out, Van Damme’s star was starting to lose a bit of its shine. Yet, despite the professional and personal issues he was having, Sudden Death is a fun action movie with a great and unusual setting.

Set during the events of a hockey game, Van Damme takes his kids to the arena only for bad guys to storm the joint and try to take it hostage! Van Damme is no normal custodian. though. He fights off the bad guys and manages to earn back the love and respect of his son in the process. Sure there is a completely crazy and unrealistic scene where Van Damme ends up in the actual hockey game, but this is Jean-Claude Van Damme we’re talking about. He can do anything!

How could you have a list of the top 10 Jean-Claude Van Damme movies of the 80s and 90s and not feature a movie that has Van Damme playing two roles?  Here we have Van Damme playing the role of twins, Chad and Alex. They were separated when they were young, and now they are forced back together to claim their birthright.

While this is on the list because it’s a Van Damme movie, Double Impact has two other reasons as to why I hold it in such high regard. First of all, Bolo Yeung is here and he has an amazing fight scene with Van Damme. it was so much fun to see these two go at it again! Also, Cory Everson as the villainous Kara is such a highlight here. She is tough, hot, and has these awesome shoes with spurs on that make a roundhouse kick even more deadly!

Fun fact: 1990’s Death Warrant is the first script that David S. Goyer not only sold, but actually got produced. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the man who wrote The Dark Knight movies as well as many other huge hits!

Death Warrant sees Van Damme play the role of a cop who goes undercover inside a prison to try and find out why so many inmates are dying. This is a fantastic movie that has some very brutal fight scenes. It is one of the darker, more violent, and disturbing movies that Van Damme did in the 80s and 90s. The Sandman is one of the more vile and brutal villains that would go head-to-head with Van Damme. I feel that this is a movie that has become more appreciated over the years and it is one that is ideal if you want some hard-hitting Van Damme action.

How can you not love a movie that pits Jean-Claude Van Damme against Dolph Lundgren? The movie starts in the Vietnam War where Van Damme plays the role of soldier, under the lead of Dolph Lundgren. Both men “die” – but their bodies are saved and used in the “present” as part of the Universal Soldier program, where deceased soldiers are brought back to life as war machines.

Van Damme starts to remember things. Before long, so does Dolph Lundgren, and he wants to take control of the Universal Soldiers. This is great sci-fi action and the movie holds up very well. To be fair, Universal Soldier as a franchise is pretty solid and the sequels, while not as good as the original, are also a lot of fun. A neat bit of trivia about Universal Soldier is that the tie-in video game is actually tinkering of the game Turrican 2, but with a Universal Soldier coat of paint on it!

Out of all the movies that Van Damme made, I would make the argument that 1994’s Timecop was the most mainstream. This was probably the height of Van Damme’s star power in the 90s, with both Timecop and Street Fighter coming out that same year.

Van Damme plays the role of Max Walker, a cop who ends up being part of a program to police time after time travel is invented. Max ends up in a conspiracy involving a bad guy who plans to run for President thanks to the money he steals from different time periods. It has some fun mind-bending stuff and Van Damme gets to show how “flexible” he is with some pretty epic fight scenes. Also, the time travel gimmick is used so well, it’s one of the better examples in cinema.

You can’t go wrong with John Woo and Jean-Claude Vann Damme. Here Van Damme plays the role of a drifter called Chance who has some epic fight moves and the most radical looking mullet you have ever seen. Chance is hired by a babe called Natasha to help find her father, who was sleeping rough on the streets and who has gone missing.

Turns out that the bad guys, headed by the awesome Lance Henrikson and Arnold Vosloo, are hunting people for sport on the streets of New Orleans. While I love the action and the story in Hard Target, I always get a kick out of the scene where Van Damme stands while on a motorcycle. Hey, I love John Woo and Van Damme, but this scene looks so fake it’s hilarious. Still, even with that scene, Hard Target is an action-packed thrill ride that I will never get tired of watching.

As a kid, I probably watched Kickboxer and Bloodsport a hundred times. These movies were my jam – my Van Damme Jam, if you will. Kickboxer sees Van Damme play the role of a man called Kurt, whose brother Eric Sloane is a kickboxing champion. On a trip to Thailand, Eric ends up crippled by the villainous Tong Po and this sets Kurt on the road to revenge where he is trained by an old-timey Thai kickboxing master.

From the training to the fighting to the cheesy dance, Kickboxer is pure entertainment from start to end. This is truly some of the best stuff Van Damme has ever done. I think a huge part of the appeal of Kickboxer is that Tong Po has to go down as one of the most epic and dangerous villains that Van Damme ever came across. Oh, I also have to shout out the legend that is Stan Bush. His song “Never Surrender” is a classic and it should be on every gym playlist!

Not only is Bloodsport at the peak of this top 10 Van Damme movies of the 80s and 90s list, but this is one of my favorite movies of all time. I watched the VHS of this as a kid so much that it eventually gave out and I had to get another one. Bloodsport sees Van Damme playing the role of Frank Dux, a military man who goes AWOL to honor his sensei by competing in the ultimate fighting competition, The Kumite.

Along the way, he meets a woman and makes a buddy with the awesome Ray Jackson, played by Donald Gibb. The Kumite champion is Chong Li, played by the ultimate martial arts movie bad guy, Bolo Yeung. This is a movie that is all about the fight scenes and it has some of the most amazing fights of any martial arts movie of the decade. It’s entertaining from the start all the way to the end, and Stan Bush gives us a couple of absolute 80s bangers on the soundtrack here, just like he would do a year later with Kickboxer.