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(In no particular order)Final Fantasy XV​​After 10 years of development and go knows how much trailer and rumors, the latest game of the amazing Final Fantasy series is released this years and the massive hype surrounding this game easily make this one of the most anticipated games this year.Game recap: XV takes place on Eos, a world similar to modern-day Earth. All the world's countries—bar the kingdom of Lucis—are under the dominion of the empire of Niflheim. Noctis Lucis Caelum, heir to the Lucian throne, is driven from his home when Niflheim invades Lucis on the eve of peace negotiations between the two nations. Now on the run with his companions, Noctis begins to work towards defeating the forces of Niflheim and rescuing the crystal from their control. The game features an open-world environment and action-based battle system similar to theKingdom Hearts series and Type-0, incorporating the ability to switch weapons and other elements such as vehicle travel and camping.Battlefield 1​​After the disappointing Battlefield Hardline, DICE is answering to the cry of the fps fans to make the game back to WW1 (pretty sure we asked for WW2 though) and make the first AAA games for WW1. The overwhelming hype surrounding it will either makes it finally the CoD killer game EA hoped for or just another AAA fps game.Game recap: Similar to the previous entries in the series,Battlefield 1 is a first-person shooter. It is set in the period of World War I, and is inspired by historical events. Players can make use ofWorld War I weapons, including bolt-action rifles, automatic and semi-automatic rifles,artillery, flamethrowers, and mustard gas to kill opponents. Melee combat was reworked, with DICE introducing new melee weapons such as sabres, trench clubs, and shovels into the game. These melee weapons were divided into two groups: heavy and light. Players can also take control of various armored vehicles, including light andheavy tanks, armored trucks, biplane aircraft, and battleships, as well as ride horses into battle. Destructible environments and weapon customization, features present in the previous games, return in Battlefield.Deus Ex: Mankind Divided​Another Square Enix game here is Deux Ex: Mankind Divided. The leading game series on the cyberpunk genre now gets a fifth game. Awesome tech, engaging and deep story and well nuff said, if you like cyber punk you’re gonna love this, you didn’t like cyber punk? Give this game a shot, it’s awesome.Game recap: Mankind Divided is set in the year 2029, two years after the events of Human Revolution and the "Aug Incident"—an event in which mechanically augmented humans became uncontrollable and lethally violent. Unbeknownst to the public, the affected augmented received implanted technology designed to control them by the shadowy Illuminati, which is abused by a rogue member of the group to discredit augmentations completely. The Illuminati successfully conceal the truth behind rumors and disinformation, while the augmented are now outcasts from normal humans in an era of "mechanical apartheid".The player character is Adam Jensen, an augmented former private security officer now working with Interpol to capture a terrorist group of augmented humans. Jensen secretly works for the Juggernaut collective, a hacker group helping him to confront the Illuminati.Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare & Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare remastered​Let’s see, the most disliked launch trailer in gaming history but is the most liked Call of Duty launch trailer. The launch trailer which gathers massive controversy has been overshadowed by the great comeback at the E3 demo which is suprisingly pretty good and gathers hype to the game again. But seriously Activision, you have three developers here, why does the last 4 out of 5 games is set in the future. I mean i would liked to see another near future CoD or Ghost 2 is good too, well at least the Infinite Warfare seems good. Anyway it’s still one of the most anticipated game.Especially it’s launched with the remastered edition of Call of Duty 4.​Now if only the devs started to remaster their engine.Game recap: Similar to the previous games in the series, Infinite Warfare is a first-person shooter. As the game introduces a new setting, outer space, new gameplay mechanics, such as zero-gravity environments, are included.Assuming control of Captain Nick Reyes, a Tier 1 Special Operations pilot, players will engage in aerial combat with enemies using his transforming fighter, the Jackal. According to Infinity Ward, space combat is one of the game's key focuses, Transition between space combat and boots-on-the-ground combat is described as "seamless". Players gain access to Retribution, a central hub world. In Retribution, players can start main campaign missions, secondary quests which grant them new items and story details, and launch raids on hostile ships.Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice​Now, i understand this is game is pretty much unknown for console or PC gamers. But in the realm of 3DS gamers, this is a must have game. The game is good and especially rhe character development and storyline which is basically guarantee to hook you up or make them grow inside you, besides, what more you can ask then the main protagonist is a lawyer which trademark is point his finger and yell “OBJECTION!” like in the poster.​​It never gets old. Beisdes, this game get much of the series loved character back.​(finally, Maya is back.)​​​And although it’s already been released in Japan, it’s haven’t released yet in West so it’s still pretty much anticipated so to say. And the ios version usually comes a year after the 3ds release like dual destinies but it still hasnn't been confirmed yet.Gears of War 4​Gears of war 4, the only installed of game series where you can chainsaw your alien enemy to death, is finally released this years for Xbox one and (at last) PC. It’s interesting because it’s the first main series game where we didn’t control Marcus Fenix but his son instead, much like the old trilogy pass down the torch to the new one. And the game offers all the good bit of the previous trilogy, so it’s interesting. And the game has already got massive fanbase.Game recap:Gears of War 4 takes place 25 years after the Imulsion Countermeasure weapon destroyed all Imulsion on the planet Sera, taking the Locust and the Lambent with them as well.Unfortunately, this also knocked out the use of fossil fuels, forcing humanity to adapt new ways for survival. The countermeasure also brought the advent of "Windflares", powerful windstorms that form across the planet. Following the aftermath of the Lambent Epidemic, the reformed Coalition of Ordered Governments estimated that only hundreds of thousands of humans are left on Sera. To prevent the population from declining, walled-off cities were built to protect the citizens from the dangers outside. The COG also declared martial law, preventing any travel from outside of city walls. Some human survivors rejected the viewpoints of the COG and formed a group called the "Outsiders" that live outside of the COG jurisdiction, conducting raids on COG territory to gather resources.The game focuses on the son of Marcus Fenix and Anya Stroud, J.D. Fenix (Liam McIntyre), who, alongside his friends Delmont "Del" Walker (Eugene Byrd) and Kait Diaz (Laura Bailey) deal with a new threat to humanity's survival.No Man's Sky.​Ever wonder how it feel to explore a vast galaxy and visit every planet to see unique habitants (animals, trees etc) or unique scenarios where maybe you make first contact in the middle of galatic war? Well this is the game, you can explore worlds, planetary systems that have different scenarios and wildlife which is procedurally generated so don’t worry about running out. Actually there’s a limit but it’s on quintrillion so don’t think about it. So in short, you want to explore the space? This is your game.Game recap: No Man's Sky's gameplay is built on four pillars—exploration, survival, combat and trading—in which players are free to perform within the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion (1.8×1019) planets,[a] many with their own set of flora and fauna. By exploring, players gain information about the planets that they can submit to The Atlas, a universal database that can be shared with other players of the game. Players get compensated in currency every time new information is uploaded to The Atlas. Players also gain materials and blueprints to upgrade their character's equipment and purchase a variety of starships, allowing them to travel deeper into the center of the galaxy, survive on planets with hostile environments, interact in friendly or hostile manners to computer-controlled space-faring factions, or trade with other ships.Some activities will draw the attention of Sentinels which will attempt to kill the player-character for killing too many lifeforms or draining too many resources from these planets. Players participate in a shared universe, with the ability to exchange planet coordinates with friends, though the game will also be fully playable offline; this is enabled by the procedural generation system that assures players will find the same planet with the same features, lifeforms, and other aspects once given the planet coordinates, requiring no further data to be stored or retrieved from game servers.Titanfall 2​When some of the developers quit from Infinity Ward(which releases Call of Duty games) and build a new game studio and launch a multiplayer FPS game called Titanfall, not many people know that it will become successful and become good. Now the second game will be released this year and promised to have more content and fun (and a single player campaign).Game recap:Little is known about Titanfall 2, but we do know that the sequel will have a more traditional, single-player campaign that will give players a little bit more story than they experienced in the first game. Titanfall focused on the war-torn groups of people at the the frontier of space exploration. Split into two groups, either the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) or the Militia. It's unclear if Titanfall 2 will continue to focus on these two groups, but in a teaser posted for the game in April, it's made evident that war will continue.Like in the first Titanfall, you'll be playing as a free-running, foot soldier who can board any mechanical Titan you want in order to fight other players. There will be some additional weapons and fighting mechanics added to give it a fresh feel, and a single-player campaign promises that there will be more options for those that want to play offline or just don't want to deal with other peopleWatch Dogs 2​After a very (extremely) disappointing watch dogs (1) game, Ubisoft hoped to finally make a hacking game that will finally be what we hope watch dogs are, instead of downgrade nearly every good thing about it. A lot of well, cynical view on another (potentially) disappointment that follows ubisoft the last few years pretty much kills the hype, but the sheer potential of what Watch Dogs 2 and with the interesting E3 gameplay has managed to keep some people interested and hope that this will Ubisoft redemption. Plus, the game has parkour too, although parkour and hacking are very unrelated but eh, it’s cool.Game recap: Following Chicago, San Francisco becomes the next city to install the ctOS surveillance system, (the Central Operating System), which connects everyone with everything. The game features a new protagonist named Marcus Holloway, who is a young, intelligent hacker from Oakland. He was wrongly framed for a crime he did not commit when he was still a child by the upgraded ctOS system, ctOS 2.0, which connects his personal information to the crime. Realizing the system brings harm to the innocent citizens of San Francisco, he decides to work with the hacking group DedSec to take down the city's ctOS 2.0, and Blume, the creator of the ctOS system.Similar to its predecessor, Watch Dogs 2 is an action-adventure game with stealth elements. Played from a third-person perspective, the game features an open world set in a fictionalized version of San Francisco, for players to explore. The city of San Francisco consists of six differentP.S All game recap is from Wikipedia, except the Titanfall one, whihc is from Julia Alexander’s piece on Polygon.P.P.S It seems i get a little bit carried away at posting Ace Attorney Image. Well, what can i say, it’s the game i most anticiapted this year.

The Mystery of Herxheim: Was an Entire Village Cannibalized?Ritual deposition of human bones Herxheim, Germany ( Museum Herxheim)Of all the screen villains, none is so disturbing as Hannibal Lector, in The Silence of the Lambs. It’s not just that he kills people. He also eats them, proudly exhibiting one of our deepest and most ancient taboos: that to consume human flesh is the ultimate betrayal of our humanity. References to acts of cannibalism are sprinkled throughout many religious and historical documents, such as reports of cooked human flesh being sold in 11th-century English markets during times of famine.[1]But not all cultures have shared this taboo. In ancient China, for instance, human body parts would appear on Imperial menus.[2] Medical cannibalism was all the rage in Europe during the 17th to 18th centuries.[3] Recent research has demonstrated that in the animal kingdom, cannabalism is extremely common.[4]A construction team working in Herxheim, Germany, unearthed something absolutely horrifying in 1996.[5] Underneath the ground where they had intended to build was a massive pit full of skeletons—more than 1,000 in all. The bodies had been resting there for more than 7,000 years. Whatever happened to them, though, was a fate worse than death. They hadn’t just been killed. Their skulls had been scraped clean. Their ribs had been peeled from their vertebrae like a butcher preparing a pig. Some of the bones had been snapped and the marrow inside sucked out.These people, it seems, were scalped, skinned, butchered, and cannabilized.[6] This, though, was no act of desperation by starving people. There were more than 1,000 victims, and the way they’d been skinned was too ritualized. This was not a crime of passion or a temporary lapse of sanity. It was a planned ritual that a whole community had come together to perform.[7]Beginning in 5300 BC, a Linearbandkeramik or Linear Pottery culture (LBK) developed in the region of Herxheim in southwest Germany, one that could be described as an idyllic Stone Age settlement.[8] The houses were the same, the rudimentary farm plots were the same, the small village seemed to be relatively safe from invaders and predators. Yet sometime around 4950 BC, the community abruptly disappeared.[9] The town was abandoned, leaving behind shattered pottery, hundreds of butchered bodies, and a huge pile of bones. Today, researchers are not certain what happened but signs suggest that a rise in ritual sacrifice, and possibly cannibalism, had something to do with it.Map of the Herxheim site. ( These Bones Of Mine)When Herxheim was first excavated in 1996, the huge cache of bones pointed to a ceremonial reburial site. Closer examination revealed disfigurement associated with enemies, suggesting that outside victims were captured and brought back to be killed and eaten.[10]What was intially thought to be a large structure, was found at Herxheim, a large village that was up to 6 hectares in size and surrounded by 80 large ovoid pits dug over many centuries.[11] Some of these pits cut into each other and created triple semi-circular areas that split into three sections.[12] The patterns of pits suggest that there was a predetermined layout, with the pits built and infilled in episodic periods.[13] Early excavations revealed a groundplan in the form of an irregular double ring around the settlement of the Linear Pottery culture.[14]The overall plan of the trenched area that was explored in Herxheim together with the remains of the settlement inside it. (http://www.academia.edu/download/9286533/Zeeb-Lanz_TEA%2034.pdfHowever, the supposed ditches were in fact elongated pits with different depths, lying behind and overlapping each other. Reseachers applied the Rosheim model published by Jeunesse and Lefranc (1999)as a linear concept to provide an explanation of the pits’ puzzling features. In the first phase, a series of elongated pits was dug, each with its own individual measures and cross sections; the pits appear not to have all been open at the same time, but instead were dug successively, with at least some of them already in the process of re-filling while new ones were still made. In a later phase, the pits started to overlap and were sometimes cut within existing backfilled pits.[15]The end product is a rather complex pattern of elongated pits, with highly variable cross-sections and an overlap of different longitudinal profiles at the same location, pits that at first glance were construed as a ditches or possibly fortifications during initial excavations.[16] Dating based on the typology of the pottery indicates that the site was constructed and used from the Flomborn phase to the final phase of the LBK.[17]Due to their age, the pits have eroded considerably; the fragments of structures inside the pits have also eroded over time- not many still exist. The pits around the settlement at Herxheim, contained the remains of both human and animals. The pits contained material goods, such as bone and stone tools, pottery, and decorative artifacts. Interestingly, remains of whole dogs have been found intact in some of these pits.[18]In the infill of these pits, a considerable number of human skeletons were found - some 500 skeletons that were deformed and/or broken in various different ways. Using a quantification theorem known as the “minimum number of individuals,”[19] , the researchers decided that the site contains up to 500 humans, ranging from infants to the elderly. However, only half the site has been excavated to date. Few human remains in the pits are intact, and many were shattered and had been dispersed across a pit.It has been suggested that the ring-like ditch-structures were basically burial grounds, for the inhabitants of Herxheim.[20] Zoning the perimeter of LBK settlements, as grave-yards, has hygienic benefit; but, also, implies that the deceased were apparently perceived as protecting, safe-guarding, or otherwise ensuring, the borders & boundaries of LBK settlements.[21] Perhaps this suggests some sort of ancestor worship, wherein the ancestors were perceived as "watching over" the living ?Undermining this proposal is that continued excavation has failed to discover passages or entryways through the rings to the exterior of the community.[22] Surely no one walked over the graves, of their own (or their neighbors') ancestors? So, there must have been a break, in the ditch-structures, through which some sort of "main-street Herxheim" once ran? If half of Herxheim has been excavated, with no known indications of any such gate-ways through the rings; then probably no more than one (or two) such entry-ways existed.Since research was implemented on only about half of the area, it is believed that there may be up to 1000 individuals buried there. Such a large number of bodies could hardly have come from the surrounding settlements, characterized as small in both their scale and duration.[23]The people who resided in Herxheim in the Neolithic period were known to practice a style of burial called “secondary burial”[24] This means that the whole of the corpse or partial pieces of it are removed and placed elsewhere. “Standard” burials in a crouching position occurred only minimally.[25]It is also possible that they practiced “sky burials,” in which some parts of the decomposing bodies may have been allowed to be carried off by scavengers.[26]In 2006, osteological analysis revealed that many had been intentionally broken and cut apart, either at death or just after, and stone tools were most likely used to achieve the observed fractures.[27] The study concluded that Herxheim was most likely a ritual mortuary center, otherwise known as a necropolis, where the remains of the dead were destroyed, for reasons as of yet unknown.[28]In 2009, excavations unearthed a mass grave with hundreds of human remains, belonging to at least an additional 500 people and possibly over 1,000.[29] The bones were of men, women, and children, as well as infants and fetuses. Tool marks on the bones show that the flesh had been carefully scraped off while larger bones were broken, possibly to get at the marrow.[30] Even the skulls were broken, providing access to the nutrient rich brains.(r/UnresolvedMysteries - The dead of Herxheim, mystery from 4950 BC.)As in previous excavations, researchers attributed the presence of predominantly incomplete skeletons to the fact that these were probably secondary burials, whereby the body or a portion thereof was transported from another location.[31] The bones also bear traces of sawing, scraping or having been hit. Such marks found on animal bones would be considered an indicator of butchery. These signs clearly indicate the separation of the soft tissues, scalping, the removal of the brain, the separation of the tongue, chipping the ribs, etc.Researchers asked themselves how do you butcher a cow? First you cut the meat off the bones. You start by severing the muscles from the joints with a sharp knife. The fibrous meat can then easily be scraped off, from top to bottom. After you've removed the flesh there's still a lot of goodness left. Deep in the long bones and vertebrae lies the marrow. To get at this delicacy you smash the bones and scrape out the marrow or simply boil it out in water. What's left is a pile of naked bones with traces of scratching and scraping as well as the small debris of bone that likely contained marrow.[32]Concerning the Herxheim skeletons, cannibalism is a likely suspect.The butchering all occurred shortly after the victims’ death and was clearly done by someone who knew what they were doing. The butchering was done with the same practiced techniques of slaughtering cattle or sheep, leading researchers to speculate what became of the human flesh.[33] Some believe the villagers of Herxheim ate the meat; others say that it would have been buried along with the bones as part of the ritual.[34] One researcher suggested that some of the victims could have been spit-roasted.[35]Anthropolgist Bruno Boulestin conducted a close examination of the bone fragments, from one pit eight meters long.The pit contained a total of 1,906 bone fragments from at least 10 people. Two of them were infants or still-born children, one was a fetus in the 34th to 36th week of pregnancy, there were two children aged six and 15 and six adults, at least one of whom was male.[36]r/UnresolvedMysteries - The dead of Herxheim, mystery from 4950 BC.All of them -- babies, children, adults -- were butchered by expert hands while the bones were still fresh, as indicated by the breaks and cuts. Boulestin concluded that the human bones bore the same marks as those of slaughtered livestock, and that the dead of Herxheim were prepared as meals. [37] He believes that marks on the bones indicate that body parts were cooked on skewers.[38] His conclusions contradict other researchers who believe the meat was taken off the bones as part of a burial ritual, and wasn't consumed.[39]Until now, the only convincing evidence of Neolithic cannibalism in Europe came from 6,000-year-old bones at Fontbrégoua Cave (southeastern France).[40] A 1986 report concluded that the remains of various animals and at least six people were butchered and discarded there.[41] The analysis of these bones strongly suggests that humans were butchered, processed, and probably eaten in a manner that closely parallels the treatment of wild and domestic animals at Fontbrbégoua.[42] Again, others suggest reburial rather than cannibalism may explain those findings.[43]Besides the cannibalism hypothesis, another hypothesis postulates that the dead were manipulated in this anomalous way for ritual or religious reasons.[44] The latter hypothesis is definitely supported by the special treatment of the skulls, which as a general rule were reduced to skull caps.[45] But it cannot be denied that there are also strong arguments for the cannibalization of the individuals deposited in the ”concentrations”.A view into one of the pits associated with the apparent trench in Herxheim where there is a concentration of human bones and fragments of pottery and parts of stone grinder.(Herxheim - the Centre of a Cult, of Bloody Rituals or of Other Ceremonies?)Archaeologists expected the number of dead to be twice as high, even though such a large number is highly peculiar for a small village with only 10 buildings. Carbon-14 dating analysis confirms that the bones found at the Herxheim site are the last known inhabitants of that settlement.[46]The artefact assemblage within the long fosses is dominated by pottery with a considerable proportion of complete vessels. Flaked stone tools of flint and chert were present, accompanied by ground stone artefacts and a number of mill stones.[47] Bone, antler and tooth artefacts like pendants and saddle querns were frequent elements within the animal bone inventory.[48]The silex raw material, as well as the pottery decoration styles, is widespread in origin. Analysis of 482 silex artefacts showed 50 percent of high-quality flint, the main variants of which can be found at a distance of at least 250 km to the north of Herxheim in the Netherlands, though some of the other flint at Herxheim originates in the Paris Basin and Champagne region. Another considerable quantity of imported raw material is unspecific Jurassic hornstein from the Swabian and/or Franconian Alb; nearest deposits are located about 100 km SW of Herxheim.[49]Linearbandkeramik assemblage from Herxheim, Germany (english)The high- quality pottery found associated with the human remains in the latest phase at Herxheim creates both similarities and differences. Besides a local Palatinate style, a large number of northern and eastern late LBK pottery styles can be observed, though there is no evidence of imports from the NW or west. The origins of the pottery styles found at Herxheim are widespread[50] : Plaidt and Leihgestern types are present, as well as pottery from the Lower Main, the Rhine-Neckar, and the Elster-Saale group.The most distant styles come from Bohemia and the Elbe valley, about 400–500 km away.[51]However, analysis of the artifacts found in the pit has revealed that the victims were not natives of the village. Indeed, they came from all over Europe, including the Moselle River region (some 62 miles (100km) away) and the Elbe River region (some 250 miles (400km) away).[52]Strontium analysis provided crucial data, indicating a non-local origin of the buried individuals. In addition, this corresponds with the findings in regard to ceramic analyses.[53]LBK ceramic assemblages can be stylistically attributed to eight geographical areas that were as far apart from each other as 400-500 km.Sr isotopes of tooth enamel have been analyzed to establish the possible origins of the individuals at Herxheim. Initial results for individuals found in the regular Bandkeramik burial position and for samples from a concentration of fragmented skeletons indicate the presence of a significant amount of non-local individuals, in proportions higher than reported for other LBK settlements to date.[54] Nevertheless, the strontium analysis indicates that these people originated in mountainous areas, while the “standard” burials were probably of people of local origin.[55]Figure 3 from “Widely travelled people” at Herxheim? Sr isotopes as indicators of mobility - Semantic ScholarExperts have deduced this anomaly by the fragments of pottery, typically considered luxury wares, lying between each victim’s ribs.[56] The strangers brought only the finest pottery from their home regions -- in many cases even more beautiful than the pottery they placed inside the graves of their own dead at home. But the pottery was intentionally smashed to pieces and scattered over the bones, along with brand new millstones and stone blades.[57]In addition to the broken pots, there were some smaller relatively undamaged containers, the handles of which had been intentionally broken off.[58] Everything was hacked to pieces, broken up, mixed together and poured into pits. Most of the shards were subjected to intense fire, whilst some of the shards from the upper layer retained their original composition.[59]Who were the dead? The dead were not killed in battle, they were not sickly, and they were not malnourished. Many were not even old. Conquered enemies perhaps? Probably not, because the bones showed no signs of battle wounds. None of the skulls found were smashed, and there were no arrow heads between the ribs. The dead of Herxheim appear to have been in good health when they died. Their joints weren't worn down, their teeth were in exceptionally good condition and there was no signs of malnutrition.[60]One scholar has suggested that the Herxheim inhabitants purchased people, along with the finer wares of LBK vessels, from distant communities, amongst the LBK culture-continent.[61]The theory of conquered enemies[62] also seems unlikely given that the small group of Herxheim villagers is unlikely to have vanquished people hundreds of kilometers away and dragged 1,000 of them back to their little hamlet in the space of just 50 years. Researchers postulate that people volunteered to come here and be ritually sacrificed.[63]V(otum) S(olvit) L(ibens) M(erito)Researchers believe that the answer to the Herxheim mystery lies in the victims’ skulls. The breaking of the skulls was completed by a practiced hand. After peeling off the skin, each skull was carefully struck via percussion, in a way that caused them to fracture into symmetrical shapes.[64] The lower third of the skull was removed, leaving behind the vault of the skull as a sort of cap or drinking vessel. Given the fragile nature of human skulls and the basic stone tools the butcher had at his or her disposal, only an expert could have done this. The skull caps/cups were then carved with intricate symbols.[65] Currently, historians are unable to decifer the meaning behind the incisions. It was part some kind of ritual, most likely of religious significance. All of the skulls were found piled together in one location.[66]Human Skull ‘Cups’ and Butchered Bones Lead Archaeologists to One Conclusion – Neolithic CannibalsArchaeologists speculate that no-one drank from the skulls. Even with grinding the fresh breaks, the edges are still so sharp that one would cut one's lips on them.[67] It is not known at this point why these people used such a ritualistic method of burial. It's clear that it wasn't hunger that drove the inhabitants of this mysterious hamlet to carve up humans. What they did with their victims was part of a ritual, a religious ceremony. Many theories are being shared about why this site exists, including ritual sacrifice or religious use, but it is still very unclear at present.No one is certain how such a small village could have become so popular over such a short time. That over 1000 people made the pilgrimage over great distances to Herxheim represents a significant logistical and communicational feat. But by 4950 BC, whatever was drawing people to Herxheim abruptly ended.[68]Near the end of the occupation period, within a brief time-span, of only 2-10 years, roughly 1000 foreigners, from mountainous regions, up to 250 miles away, were killed & cannibalized, in an oft-repeated ritual of sacrifice.[69] The foreigners included men, womem (including pregnant ones(, and children[70] Plausibly, the foreigners were relic remnant populations, of mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The sacrificial slaughter, of pregnant women & children, suggests seeking the annihilation & extirpation of a people.After about 4950 BCE the ditches were no longer cleaned out, but were intentionally filled in. And not with dirt -- they were filled with a mixture of human bones and artifacts, obviously the remains of great rituals. Researchers theorize that “50 years is the maximum occupation history for the site, based on ceramic sequencing. It could all have happened in just two years or even a few weeks.”[71]Without horses having yet been tamed, traveling 250 miles, on foot, could have taken weeks, each way. And, the ritualistic slaughter, of a thousand persons, in a few years, represents hundreds of persons per year. The larger sacrifices involved roughly 10 persons. So, several hundred sacrificial rituals, of several persons per each (on average), occurred quickly, in several years. So, perhaps such rites were undertaken at a rate of about a hundred per year. Such seems an extreme spree of sacrificial slaughter. Soon afterwards, Herxheim was abandoned, seemingly without any indications of conquest, raids, burning, fire, or fighting.Many sensational articles published on Herxheim proclaim cannibalism. However, the excavation’s leader Zeeb-Lanz cautions against such astonishing conclusions. “We mustn't forget that this was no giant settlement. Who is supposed to have eaten all this?”[72]The complex in Herxheim is considered as being a necropolis of another type, one that is associated with ritual practices and perhaps also with a religious background.[73] Groups of incomers from the wider surrounding region brought with them the bodies of their dead, which were then handled as part of a special ceremony. Fire can have an important role in regard to ritual behaviour. What can be considered safely is the deliberate destruction of various types of artefacts and handling human remains, perhaps associated with cannibalism.Footnotes[1] Thinking about Cannibalism[2] http://Key Ray Chong (August 1990). Cannibalism in China. Hollowbrook Publishing. [3] The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine[4] Cannibalism—the Ultimate Taboo—Is Surprisingly Common[5] Evidence of mass cannibalism uncovered in Germany[6] Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones[7] Mass cannibalism in the Linear Pottery Culture at Herxheim (Palatinate, Germany) | Antiquity | Cambridge Core[8] An Introduction to the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture[9] Controversial Signs of Mass Cannibalism[10] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279294037_Violence_on_the_living_violence_on_the_dead_Evidence_of_a_crisis_on_the_human_remains_from_Herxheim_Germany&ved=2ahUKEwjF-9P2_6jjAhURac0KHQ5RD2cQFjABegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0ezc6f5FzSNcZdAOgAt04J[11] Herxheim - DFG-Projekt Bandkeramische Grubenanlage[12] Neolithic, Grim Feast Found - World Archaeology[13] Imgur[14] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Herxheim-Linear-Pottery-Culture-settlement-a-site-location-in-Germany-b-plan-of_fig1_49132749/amp[15] Population Dynamics in Prehistory and Early History[16] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41053236[17] The LBK settlement with pit-enclosure at Herxheim near Landau (Palatinate). First results. [18] Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones[19] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFH0004669/Tran_Vu_N_201408_BA.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjRhMS3__viAhUlB50JHeyXCiAQFjAHegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3FOUYiEuKCxRlhSA_Ryzyy[20] Herxheim cannibals c. 5000 BC[21] Religion 101: Ancestor Worship in Ancient Europe and the Arctic[22] Talheim Death Pit - Wikipedia[23] Herxheim cannibals c. 5000 BC[24] Skull Retrieval and Secondary Burial Practices in the Neolithic Near East: Recent Insights from Çatalhöyük, Turkey[25] Early Neolithic executions indicated by clustered cranial trauma in the mass grave of Halberstadt[26] Herxheim archaeological site[27] Ancient site reveals signs of mass cannibalism[28] The LBK Enclosure at Herxheim: Theatre of War or Ritual Centre? References from Osteoarchaeological Investigations in: War and Sacrifice[29] Herxheim, an archaeological site in southwest Germany, was a ritual center and mass grave from the Neolithic Era[30] http://Orschiedt, J., and M. N. Haidle. 2007. The LBK enclosure at Herxheim: Theatre of war or ritual centre? References from osteoarchaeological investigations. Journal of conflict archaeology 2: 152–167.[31] Controversial Signs of Mass Cannibalism[32] German Excavation Reveals Signs of Mass Cannibalism[33] http://Schmidt, K. 2004. Das bandkeramische Erdwerk von Herxheim bei Landau, Kreis Südliche Weinstrasse. Untersuchung der Erdwerksgräben. Germania 82: 333–349.[34] Evidence of mass cannibalism uncovered in Germany[35] Evidence of mass cannibalism uncovered in Germany[36] Mass cannibalism in the Linear Pottery Culture at Herxheim (Palatinate, Germany) | Antiquity | Cambridge Core[37] German Excavation Reveals Signs of Mass Cannibalism[38] Mass cannibalism in the Linear Pottery Culture at Herxheim (Palatinate, Germany) | Antiquity | Cambridge Core[39] Ancient site reveals signs of mass cannibalism[40] Page on revolvy.com[41] Cannibalism in the neolithic.[42] Europe’s Hypocritical History of Cannibalism[43] Stone Age Cannibals Engraved Marks on Human Bones[44] http://Zeeb-Lanz, A. 2009. Gewaltszenarien oder Sinnkrise? Die Grubenanlage von Herxheim und das Ende der Bandkeramik. In Krisen – Kulturwandel – Kontinuitäten. Zum Ende der Bandkeramik in Mitteleuropa. Beiträge der internationalen Tagung in Herxheim bei Landau (Pfalz) vom 14.–17. 6. 2007, ed. A. Zeeb-Lanz, 87–101. Rahden: Leidorf. [45] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fa38/e333a2f54519da73a23d3db0f151e2030d70.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiR0vas7aPjAhWbZs0KHW9EDesQFjAQegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2NagdJp0l8Oh4nUhFMtsEd&cshid=1562539074056[46] http://Häusser, A. (ed.) 1998. Krieg oder Frieden? Herxheim vor 7 000 Jahren Herxheim: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege. [47] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.projekt-herxheim.de/literatur.htm&ved=2ahUKEwjnnLauiaTjAhWWUs0KHd7VCzYQFjADegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw0JbnfIPJIjNDu_kSPQP_qM[48] Creating Communities[49] Das bandkeramische Grubenwerk Herxheim/Pfalz[50] The LBK Enclosure at Herxheim: Theatre of War or Ritual Centre? References from Osteoarchaeological Investigations[51] S. Van Willingen's research works[52] http://Lost Cannibals of Europe. Prod. National Geographic. Perf. Andrea Zeeb-Lanz. Chris Meloni Narrates National Geographic Lost Cannibals of Europe. National Geographic, 07 Apr. 2011. Web. Chris Meloni Narrates National Geographic Lost Cannibals of Europe [53] http://Turck, R., B. Kober, J. Kontny, F. Haack, and A. Zeeb-Lanz. 2012. „Widely travelled people“ at Herxheim? Sr isotopes as indicators of mobility. In Population dynamics in prehistory and early history. New approaches using stable isotopes and genetics, eds. E. Kaiser, J. Burger, and W. Schier, 149–164. Berlin: De Gruyter. [54] “Widely travelled people” at Herxheim? Sr isotopes as indicators of mobility - Semantic Scholar[55] “Widely travelled people” at Herxheim? Sr isotopes as indicators of mobility[56] Herxheim, an archaeological site in southwest Germany, was a ritual center and mass grave from the Neolithic Era[57] German Excavation Reveals Signs of Mass Cannibalism[58] Conveying Archaeology to the Public via Television – The Experience “Herxheim goes National Geographic TV”[59] Herxheim cannibals c. 5000 BC[60] http://Adams, Nene. "Village Of Cannibals: Herxheim, Germany."KnowledgeNuts. Jamie Frater, 28 July 2013. Web. 02 Oct. 2016. Village Of Cannibals: Herxheim, Germany - KnowledgeNuts[61] Herxheim cannibals c. 5000 BC[62] V(otum) S(olvit) L(ibens) M(erito)[63] These Bones Of Mine[64] Earliest Directly-Dated Human Skull-Cups[65] Human Skull ‘Cups’ and Butchered Bones Lead Archaeologists to One Conclusion – Neolithic Cannibals[66] Warfare in Neolithic Europe[67] Skinned, Carved And Boiled Skull Cup Reveals Cannibalism In Neolithic Spain[68] Cannibalism at Herxheim, or, Events in the Distant Past[69] Herxheim cannibals c. 5000 BC[70] Mass Cannibalism in the Linear Pottery culture at Herxheim (Palatinate, Germany)[71] Mass cannibalism in the Linear Pottery Culture at Herxheim (Palatinate, Germany) | Antiquity | Cambridge Core[72] http://Zeeb-Lanz, A. 2009. Gewaltszenarien oder Sinnkrise? Die Grubenanlage von Herxheim und das Ende der Bandkeramik. In Krisen – Kulturwandel – Kontinuitäten. Zum Ende der Bandkeramik in Mitteleuropa. 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It doesnt really matter what you have watched and what you havent, all that matters is your passion for movies/tv shows. So Let me list out to you the best action movies and tv shows you can start watching.25. “Bad Boys II” (2003)Love him or hate him (and it’s increasingly difficult to love him), few would deny that Michael Bay is a master of action. Perhaps Bay-Max’s finest hour, at least in this century and before he entered the ‘indistinguishable pieces of colliding metal’ phase of his career, is “Bad Boys II.” A thoroughly reprehensible, morally appalling, deeply queasy piece of entertainment, the film values excess to the exclusion of all else, like most of Bay’s work. But this cop flick, which pits Will Smith and Martin Lawrence against Cuban Ecstasy dealers (not that it matters), is also stuffed with thunderingly good action sequences, from shootouts to not one but about five freeway chase sequences, including one where the villains literally throw cars at our heroes, and a metaphorically insane recreation of the opening of Jackie Chan’s “Police Story” as a humvee demolishes a shanty town. In other words, shit just got real.24. “Unstoppable” (2010)He was unquestionably one of the modern-day action masters, but only the most insistently vulgar auteurists would suggest that much of the late, greatTony Scott’s 21st century output was up to his best. Fortunately, the filmmaker went out on a high with “Unstoppable,” a throwback disaster movie that mixed old-school genre tropes with his own hyperactive style to surprisingly effective effect. The premise couldn’t be simpler: a high-speed train (“a missile the size of the Chrysler building”) is out of control, and only engineers Denzel Washington and Chris Pine can stop it. But Scott gets a surprising amount of variety and tension out of a film that’s literally on the rails —it looks spectacular, and it’s full of fun little performances from Rosario Dawson and Kevin Corrigan. It might be a cliched journey, but it’s one that leaves your knuckles white in the best sense, and a reminder of how much we’ll miss Scott.23. “Lucy” (2014)In the early ’90s, after “Nikita” and “The Professional,” Luc Besson looked like he might be the next big action director, but he produced a string of misfires, and though he was more successful than ever as the producer of the “Taken” series, he had seemingly stepped away from directing. And then came “Lucy,” a $500 million sleeper hit that must number among the strangest blockbusters ever. Scarlett Johansson plays the title character, a naive ex-pat who’s forced into being a drug mule, only for the drug to, essentially, turn her into a god. Careening into increasingly trippy territory until a third act that’s probably best experienced on some kind of hallucinogen, Besson makes the whole thing look great on a relatively slim budget, and more impressively, pulls off the trick of making the action thrilling even when there are little stakes involved.22. “Blackhat” (2015)The biggest flop of 2015 so far is also one of the best action movies in quite some time. Michael Mann’s divisive techno-thriller just edged out “Miami Vice” for a slot on this list (“Collateral” and “Public Enemies” also have some stunning sequences, but we wouldn’t classify them as ‘action’ in the same manner), but really the two films are something of a piece: both are propulsive actioners shot virtually entirely in gorgeous nighttime, where the romance is just as important as the bullets flying. For our money, “Blackhat,” in whichChris Hemsworth famously plays a blackhat hacker named Hathaway who teams with the Chinese to take down a mysterious figure who’s caused a nuclear meltdown and may have worse planned, takes the honors. Mann pushes further into a kind of action-movie expressionism than ever before, driven by mood, atmosphere and sound, and the results are glorious.21. "The Good, The Bad, The Weird" (2008)Hollywood may have given up on the Action-Western (and if they hadn’t before “The Lone Ranger,” they certainly have now), but Korea hasn’t, as Kim Jee-Woon’s agreeably nutty “The Good, The Bad, The Weird” makes abundantly clear. Like Sergio Leone directing a mash-up of “Treasure Of The Sierra Madre” and “Raiders Of The Lost Ark,” the film’s convoluted plot sees the title characters (Jung Woo-sung, Lee Byung-hun and Song Kang-ho) tussling over a treasure map in 1930s Manchuria. Beginning with three cracking sequences in a row —a train robbery, a siege and a heist— the film barely lets off the gas from there, until the epic closing horse and motorcycle sequence. With the tone-juggling magic that often characterizes Korean cinema and Kim’s killer skills behind a camera, it’s essential for anyone that loves Westerns, Asian action flicks or cinema in general.20. “All Is Lost” (2013)No, it’s not really an "action film" in the Steven Seagal sense. It doesn’t have the set pieces, fistfights or chases that characterize the genre. But JC Chandor‘s gripping one-man-show, in which Robert Redford battles the elements and his sinking boat in the middle of the ocean with no means of communication, is, on another level, the purest action film on this whole list: all it is, from punchy beginning to harrowing, waterlogged end, is action. This can almost be to the detriment of the film as a classic entertainment piece: we get next to no characterization of the Redford character aside from him being essentially the personification of the will to survive, and there is no arc of change or growth to speak of. But Chandor more than makes up for it with his clinical, procedural attention to the minutiae of wave, rope and cleat, and some astonishing editing and scoring that amount to the viewer feeling as alone, stranded, weather beaten and breathless as our near-wordless hero.19. “Elite Squad” (2007)The first fiction film for Brazilian documentarian Jose Padilha (whose “Robocop” remake was more interesting than it had a right to be, and whose “Narcos" comes to Netflix next month), “Elite Squad” is a tough-as-fuck cop movie that takes a look at the "favelas" from the other side of the law in Brazil, and more specifically the BOPE, the special-forces unit who essentially undertake urban warfare against the country’s citizens. Shot in an arresting but mostly clear hand-held manner, it’s as focused on the internal politics of the unit (led by the excellent Wagner Moura) as on shootouts, but each work neatly alongside each other, leading up to a gripping couple of hours that unsurprisingly made Padilha a hot property. Controversial at the time (it was condemned as fascistic by some, only for Costa-Gavras’ jury to give it the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival), it also led to a marginally inferior sequel a few years later.18. “Sleepless Night” (2011)A Jamie Foxx-starring remake is on the way in 2016, which makes this the perfect time to catch up on this terminally underseen French actioner from a few years back. Written and directed by Frederic Jardin (who surprisingly hasn’t been snapped up for blockbuster duty yet), "Sleepless Night" starsTomer Sisley as a corrupt cop who rips off a drug deal, only for the dealer who owns the merchandise to kidnap his son to get it back, and for the coke to then disappear as well. Set almost entirely in a single location, a nightclub owned by the dealer, and deviously plotted, it’s got a killer momentum from the first scene and mixes a certain Michael Mann-ish vibe with brutal realism (the fights are positively vicious) that packs a punch. Add in a surprisingly well-realized father-son storyline, and you have one of the great overlooked genre pictures of the last few years.17. ”Ong Bak" (2003)Complete with a daft plot involving a sacred icon stolen from a small village and the purehearted local sent into Bangkok’s seamy underbelly to retrieve it, "Ong Bak" won’t win any prizes for thematic complexity. But it serves a much higher purpose: it was the international audience’s solar-plexus introduction to the martial art of Muay Thai, and its foremost filmic practitioner Tony Jaa. The action sequences in this film, whether street brawls or successive one-on-one underground fights, are little short of revelatory, and Jaa is simply Bruce-Lee-beautiful to watch. Regular director Prachya Pinkaew serves his grace and atheticism perfectly —arguably, he’d do so even more in the "Ong-Bak" prequels and the "The Protector" series ("Where’s my elephant?"), but without "Ong-Bak," none of that would have been possible. But don’t trust us on this —trust legendary MMA champion Anderson Silva, who first came to UFC attention by felling an opponent with an elbow strike he learned from Jaa in this very film.16. “Fast Five” (2011)With "Furious 7"’s insane box office performance ($1.5bn+, 5th highest grossing film of all time worldwide), it’s possible to see franchise high watermark "Fast Five" as somewhat quaint: aww, it only took $650m! But theJustin Lin film reinvented the "Fast and Furious" series by bringing it out of the street-racing ghetto and into the vehicular heist movie territory it now occupies. And female ciphers aside, it’s still the best installment, combining a buddy dynamic between series stalwart Vin Diesel and crucial new additionDwayne Johnson ("I’m in, Toretto") with a ludicrous plot whereby they literally drag an entire vault out of a building and go careening down city streets with it bumping along behind, magically only taking out the bad guys. If the sky is now the limit for this franchise (and maybe not even that after the plane-drop scene in "Furious 7"), it’s really due to the good-humored, testosterone-soaked nonsense repped first and best by "Fast Five."15. “Why Don’t You Play In Hell?” (2013)Sion Sono’s batshit-crazy mash-up “Why Don’t You Play In Hell?” signalled a shift from the heavier fare he’d been making to more genre-inflected territory, and served as a love letter both to both the action movie and to filmmaking in general. The movie sees the collision of a group of action-loving amateur filmmakers called the Fuck Bombers, mobster Boss Muto and his actress daughter Mitsuko, with the former enlisted to make an action movie that immortalizes both Mitsuko and the big gang battle. Both slapsticky and strangely sad, it’s an extraordinary mix of tones that shouldn’t work at all, but does tremendously well —Sono clearly relishes the action sequence, particularly in a demented, blood-soaked final battle. Follow-up “Tokyo Tribe,” a hip-hop musical, arguably has even better action, but it’s also exhausting and queasily misogynistic, so this is definitely our pick.14. “Hero” (2002) / “House Of Flying Daggers” (2004)We’re breaking our own rules here for a split entry, but who could possibly pick between Zhang Yimou’s gorgeous, extravagant wuxia epics? The two were released just months apart in the U.S. (due, it may not surprise you, toHarvey Weinstein) and make perfect companion pieces. “Hero” is the artsier of the pair to some degree, a narratively tricksy story of a Nameless warrior (Jet Li) relating to his king how he killed three assassins, while “House Of Flying Daggers,” set a few hundred years later, is the more straightforward action movie, with police captains Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro utilizing a blind dancer to lead them to a rebel group. The films have different DOPs (Christopher Doyle shot “Hero”), but both are spectacularly colorful and every-frame-a-picture beautiful, feature some of the most thrilling martial arts sequences put on film and showcase some of Asia’s biggest stars at their best.13. “Casino Royale” (2006)His track record in other movies might be troublesome (see, or rather, don’t, “Vertical Limit” and “Green Lantern”), but if you’re looking to bring back Bond,Martin Campbell is your man. Eleven years after revamping 007 with Pierce Brosnan and one of the best films in the series for “Goldeneye,” Campbell repeated the trick with the series’ first Daniel Craig film. “Skyfall” might have been more successful, but “Royale’ is simply the better movie: it has a great villain in Mads Mikkelsen, a great love interest in Eva Green, and is the rare Bond film where the quieter moments are just as memorable as the set pieces. Not that the action’s lacking, though: the opening parkour sequences might still be the high watermark of the Craig era as far as sequences go. It runs out of steam by the time that it gets to Venice for the conclusion, but this is top-tier 007 otherwise.12. “Apocalypto” (2006)What do we talk about when we talk about "action"? Generally speaking, in how the word is used in a Hollywood context, it means fights and/or chases. "Apocalypto" is essentially one long chase, interspersed with several fights, all the more remarkable for taking place during the end of the Mayan era, in 16th century Guatemala. As his idyllic life as husband, father, and son of the tribe’s chief is threatened by invading forces, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) must battle his way back to his hidden family through unforgiving jungle and enemies seen and unseen. But the real greatness of Mel Gibson‘s film (and no matter how persona non grata he may be, this film proves his directorial chops even more than his more celebrated movies) is in the kinetic pacing of its foot chases, which become every bit as thrilling as the explosions, gunplay, and car crashes that the genre usually deals in.11. “Gladiator” (2000)It’s easy to forget many Oscars and hundreds of millions of dollars later, but “Gladiator” was hella risky on paper: a director who hadn’t had a hit in a decade, a genre, the swords-and-sandals picture, that hadn’t been in fashion since the 1960s, and an untested star best known for playing a chubby grey-haired man twenty years older than him in “The Insider.” But even fifteen years on, Ridley Scott’s film still thrills. Using CGI to bring a vision of Ancient Rome like little that had been seen before, telling a characterful, textured story, and stacking the cast with great actors, from fresh faces like Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix to sozzled veterans like Oliver Reed and Richard Harris, it works on almost every level, not least in the blood-splattered, hugely influential action sequences. It inspired a dozen imitators, but from “Alexander” to “300,” none hold a candle to Maximus.10. “13 Assassins” (2010)You know that odd/even rule about “Star Trek” movies? Imagine that, but if there was no rhyme or reason to whether the movies were good or not, and if a “Star Trek” movie came out every four months, and you begin to understand what it’s like to follow Japanese actor/director/general superstar Takashi Miike. But every so often, something like “13 Assassins” comes along, and you remember why you loved Mr. Miike so much in the first place. A “Seven Samurai”-style epic about a baker’s-dozen of badasses planning to kill a mad aristocrat, it’s a slow-burner, but one that explodes gloriously when the climax comes with a giant battle sequence (featuring Hollywood-level production values) that Kurosawa would be proud of. Perhaps if Miike slowed his output a little, we’d have more like this, and less like, well, “Zebraman 2,” the director’s other 2010 picture.9. “Crank” (2006)If part of the value of any action film is in how well it sets up its thrills, there is a zen-like purity to the premise of "Crank" (and, to a lesser extent, its even-more-gonzo sequel "High Voltage") that must place it high on any list of action greats. Here, the enormously underrated Jason Statham, revelling in the awesome moniker Chev Chelios, through a completely preposterous series of events, must keep his adrenaline levels elevated…or die! Cue a frenetic series of skits, courtesy of no-holds-barred absurdity merchants Neveldine/Taylor, in which Chelios tried to find the bad guys, while picking fights, snorting coke, stealing police motorbikes, having sex in public, and generally engaging in the most reckless behavior he can — anything to keep the blood pumping. Massive props would be due for devising this event-horizon action plot hook even if the film were less fun — but it’s also an inventive, hilarious blast.8. “John Wick” (2014)A pair of stunt co-ordinators-turned-directors’ debut film, an unashamedly B-movie premise, starring an actor whose most indelible recent contribution to the pop culture scene came in the form of a meme in which he morosely eats a sandwich? Can you blame any of us for being blindsided by just how much funChad Stahelski and David Leitch‘s "John Wick," starring Keanu Reeves, turned out to be? Taking a leaf from the less-is-more plotting of classic films like "Point Blank" and "Le Samourai, ‘ and bundling it up into a revenge Western archetype, the film delivers lean, taciturn, gun-fu thrills in abundance, and shows off exceptional fight choreography and editing (Stahelski and Leitch are both experienced second-unit helmers too). Many have predicted a "Taken"-style renaissance for Reeves as a result, but frankly ‘Wick’ is miles better than the Liam Neeson vehicle, not least because chief among its virtues is a sly awareness of its own silliness, however straight it’s played.7. “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” (2011)While previous entries all had their moments — even the terrible second film had that great rock climbing sequence at the start — ‘Ghost Protocol’ simply strung more of them together in a more coherent form than any of the other films. So we get sandstorm chases, Kremlin bombings, alleyway assassinations, and, of course, Tom Cruise breaking into a high-up room in the Burj Khalifa, from the outside. But maybe most impressively, Bird managed to invest the often rather weightless franchise antics with some actual heft — there is a visceral sense of the real possibility of physical harm that is thrilling, and moments where even Teflon super spy Ethan Hunt seems amazed he’s still on his feet.6. “The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007)We, or rather our spy franchises, live in such a post-Bourne world these days that it can be easy to overlook just what a tectonic shift the series represented in terms of how big-budget action films could be approached. While Doug Liman‘s first entry, "The Bourne Identity," did the work in terms of establishing a new, real-world tone, it is really Paul Greengrass‘ nervy handheld docudrama style that redefined the action landscape, and of his two go-rounds, ‘Ultimatum’ is the more satisfying film. It also contains the single best action set piece of the series to date, a neat encapsulation of everything ‘Bourne’ did differently from the glossy, gadget-driven spy-jinks of yore: the foot chase through a crowded Waterloo station. Simply a masterclass in gritty action, it uses nothing more than tense cutting, comprehensible sight lines, and hundreds of extras in an enclosed space to create one of the most thrilling and genuinely perilous-feeling action sequences in recent memory.5. “Exiled” (2006)He’s never had the Western breakthrough that someone like John Woo got, but anyone who knows anything about the genre knows that Johnnie To is one of the best and most reliable names in the action genre, and he could have easily taken up four or five slots on this list, at least. In the end, just edging out “Election” and the more recent “Drug War,” we went for the terrific “Exiled.” Set in the fascinating location of Macau, it sees four hitmen come to the city to kill a retired gangster, kicking off a gloriously complex plot of twists and turns that owes as much to the spaghetti Western as to classic Hong Kong action cinema. From the stunning opening sequence to the later shootouts, among the finest examples seen since Woo was last on form, this is To in tip-top form, and with a soulfulness that isn’t always in his work too.4. “The Raid” (2011)Similar to some other entries here, the chief competition for Gareth Evans‘ "The Raid"’s slot was its own sequel. But as in those other cases, we’ve leaned towards the original, not just out of anti-sequel bias, but out of recognition that the first film is the one that allows the next to exist. So, without the breakout success of "The Raid"’s pared-back minimal plot, wall-to-wall action, in which an Indonesian SWAT team led by Iko Uwais must work its way through a Jakarta slum-block’s worth of enemies (including the awesome Mad Dog, played by Yayan Ruhian), we’d never have got the wilder, more sprawling, no less impressive "The Raid 2." Introducing the world to Pencak Silat, a martial art that involves every part of the body and uses weaponry too, it’s also a gauntlet thrown down in favor of practical action as opposed to whatever the latest Hollywood CG-fest. Not bad for a $1m-budget Indonesian-language movie.3. “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” (2000)It’s always been tricky to predict Ang Lee’s next move, but few thought that he would follow up acclaimed ’70s indie drama “The Ice Storm” and unloved Civil War epic “Ride With The Devil” with… a martial arts movie. But “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” wasn’t ready to be confined to simple genre boundaries: it picked up seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and to this day stands (by some distance) as the biggest foreign-language film ever in the U.S. Teaming megastars Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh (neither of whom spoke Mandarin), the film’s pairing of swooning period romance and stunning wuxia action (from the great choreographer Yuen Woo-ping) wasn’t new, but has rarely been better melded or refined than it is here, and the fight scenes and bamboo-forest-chases still rank among all-time action movie highlights.2. “Kill Bill” (2003/2004)After a six-year absence, Quentin Tarantino returned to refute accusations that he was all mouth and no trousers with his epic, formally inventive two-part roaring rampage of revenge that marked a new phase in the helmer’s career. Tarantino’s muse, Uma Thurman, plays The Bride, an ex-hitwoman who goes on an international quest to wipe out her former colleagues (Lucy Liu,Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah) and her boss/ex-lover, the titular Bill (David Carradine). Perhaps for the first time, in part because he had a bigger budget, Tarantino was able to indulge all his peccadilloes, from theShaw Brothers and anime to lingering close-ups of feet, and the result is like the delirious fantasy by the smartest, funniest, most knowledgeable fourteen-year-old boy you’ve ever met. In a good way. And though he’d had little experience with action before, the set pieces sing, particularly the instantly legendary House Of Blue Leaves battle.1. “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015)We would ordinarily be opposed to a film this recent topping a list like this; ordinarily, we like to give a movie a few years to age before anointing it a classic to this degree. But there can’t be that many people with a brain, a heart, and an adrenal gland who came out of “Mad Max: Fury Road” back in May who don’t consider it among the finest action movies ever made. George Miller(aged 71, for the record) took the template of his “The Road Warrior” and went completely mental with it, with a densely-realized world, a gloriously progressive agenda, and an understanding of framing, cutting, and blocking that puts directors half his age to shame. Extraordinarily designed, excellently performed, terribly subversive, and sometimes just staggeringly weird (remember when it turns into a Bergman movie in the middle for the blue-tinged section with the tree?), the only problem is that we’ve got 85 years of the 21st century left and we’re not sure anyone can top it.Honorable Mentions: So what did we leave out? Well, a ton. We tried to avoid anything already appearing on one of these Best Of The Century lists, which meant things like “Edge Of Tomorrow,” “District 9,” “Star Trek,” “Inception,” “Minority Report,” “Attack The Block,” “Hot Fuzz,” “Gravity,” “Battle Royale," and “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.” We also tried to avoid superhero movies, because we may do a separate piece for those at some point, and also because it’s not like they need the help. We also excluded war movies (“Black Hawk Down,” “The Hurt Locker”) and thrillers (“Collateral”), which would only muddy the waters further, and stuck to theatrical releases, so missing excellent DTV movies like “Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning."Even then there’s plenty we couldn’t fit in. Briefly (and excluding sequels to other films mentioned above), there was also “Ip Man,” “Avatar,” “The Rundown,” “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” “The World’s End,” “Hanna,” “The Last Stand,” “Brotherhood Of The Wolf,” “Kung Fu Hustle,” “Zatoichi,” “Torque,” “Red Cliff,” “300,” “Grindhouse,” “Chocolate,” “Pineapple Express,” “District 13,” “Let The Bullets Fly,” “Welcome To The Punch,” “Fulltime Killer,” “A Bittersweet Life,” “The Man From Nowhere,” “The Nest,” “Dredd,” “Point Blank,” “Fearless,” “Unleashed,” “Taken,” “Sherlock Holmes," and “The Matrix Reloaded.”1. The Flash (2014 TV Series)8.2/10Barry Allen wakes up 9 months after he was struck by lightning and discovers that the bolt gave him the power of super speed. With his new team and powers, Barry becomes "The Flash" and fights crime in Central City.Action | Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi43 mins.2. Arrow (2012 TV Series)8/10Spoiled billionaire playboy Oliver Queen is missing and presumed dead when his yacht is lost at sea. He returns five years later a changed man, determined to clean up the city as a hooded vigilante armed with a bow.Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi42 mins.3. Banshee (2013 TV Series)8.4/10Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), an ex-con and master thief assumes the identity of a murdered sheriff where he continues his criminal activities...Action | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller60 mins.4. Vikings (2013 TV Series)8.6/10The world of the Vikings is brought to life through the journey of Ragnar Lothbrok, the first Viking to emerge from Norse legend and onto the pages of history - a man on the edge of myth.Action | Drama | History | War44 mins.5. Person of Interest (2011 TV Series)8.4/10An ex-assassin and a wealthy programmer save lives via a surveillance AI that sends them the identities of civilians involved in impending crimes. However, the details of the crimes--including the civilians' roles--are left a mystery.Action | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller43 mins.6. Legends of Tomorrow (2016 TV Series)7.2/10Focuses on time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter, who has to recruit a rag-tag team of heroes and villains to help prevent an apocalypse that could impact not only Earth, but all of time.Action | Sci-Fi42 mins.7. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013 TV Series)7.5/10The missions of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.Action | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller45 mins.8. NCIS (2003 TV Series)7.9/10The cases of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's Washington DC Major Case Response Team, led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.Action | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller60 mins.9. Daredevil (2015 TV Series)8.8/10Matt Murdock, with his other senses superhumanly enhanced, fights crime as a blind Lawyer by day, and vigilante by night.Action | Crime | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller54 mins.10. Prison Break (2005 TV Series)8.5/10Due to a political conspiracy, an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother, who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out, from the inside out.