The arthouse action genre is an emerging film genre in contemporary cinema that traces its roots back to Asian and European films. Various sources have recently begun referring to various films under this label. Such titles include Hanna, Drive, Haywire, and Looper.
The genre is often characterized by heavy action and suspense, and dark humor, interlaced with stylized imagery and cinematographic techniques, that convey an overall feeling of surrealism. Most recently, these titles have shown stronger depictions of violence. The narrative of these movies may also be quite surreal, and the viewer is given a strong sense that the movie is not meant to be interpreted literally. While most of these films also have a smaller production cost than most mainstream films, others can be very expensive. The costliest film in this genre is George Miller's 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, with an estimated $150 million production budget.
As of 2016, the most financially successful of these films (not factoring inflation) is Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant, with a total worldwide gross of $532.6 million. However, the most critically successful of the lot is James Cameron's 1984 breakout hit The Terminator, which has a 100% Fresh rating on the Rotten Tomatoes movie review website.
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