John Wick

This will never be the true end to John Wick — there's already a spinoff show, with the possibility of a fifth movie coming down the pipeline — but John Wick: Chapter 4 felt like a proper send-off for the decade's most beloved and badass action hero. Keanu Reeves, with decades of action iconography already attached to him, has fashioned his most cutthroat, brutal, and perhaps relatable character to date. The man loved his wife, and he loved his dog. The John Wick franchise draws stylistically and thematically from different eras of movie history, with references ranging as far as Hong Kong cinema of the 80s and 90s, to the American DTV era. It's great filmmaking and the pinnacle of mainstream action today, with a central character (and actor) nobody can help but root for.

Do you like dogs? Find a better series of dog movies, I dare you. Or, if you're simply a fan of action movies, these will do the trick like few others. What are you waiting for? Brutal, thrilling, and by the end, emotionally poignant in a way few might expect at the beginning of the journey.

Reminiscence. All four John Wick films play out over roughly a couple of weeks in the world of the character. Now, over nine years since the release of the first film — at the time, a low-budget actioner with very few expectations — people the world over have grown to love the Wick movies. Each installment has gotten bigger and bolder, and John Wick: Chapter 4 plays like the final act of a towering symphony. Now, we can only look back and appreciate how far it has come.