When it comes to action movie stars, the two biggest names in the game are Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These two muscle-bound badasses rose to prominence throughout the 1980s in some of the most popular action films ever produced. Over the course of their decades-long careers, they’ve brought some of Hollywood’s most recognizable icons to life.

RELATED: 10 Action Movie Legends We Want To See In The Expendables 4
Both of these immensely successful actors have surprised critics who’ve shrugged them off as bodybuilders who spout one-liners with a handful of powerful dramatic performances. Sly alone has three Oscar nominations under his belt. So, here are the five best performances by each actor.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Stallone As John Rambo In First Blood

Thanks to the more action-packed sequels, John Rambo is remembered as an oiled-up badass who sprays bullets from a machine gun. But in First Blood, he was just a soldier who returned from Vietnam and found himself cast out of society. He arrives in a small town and learns that the last of his war buddies has died, then gets driven out of town by the local cops.
As Rambo keeps re-entering the town, he’s eventually arrested, triggering his PTSD, and he flees into the woods, pursued by the cops. First Blood was driven by character, not by action, and Stallone’s performance really made you care about Rambo.

Schwarzenegger As Wade Vogel In Maggie

The post-apocalyptic drama Maggie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man who is deeply conflicted when his daughter gets infected with a zombie virus. Usually, stories about zombie apocalypses revolve around groups of survivors fighting off swarms of the undead, so it was interesting to see a more cerebral take on the premise.
Schwarzenegger proved himself as a dramatic actor in the role of Wade Vogel in this movie, sharing terrific chemistry with Abigail Breslin as his titular daughter.

Stallone As Johnny D. Kovak In F.I.S.T.

Loosely inspired by Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters union, F.I.S.T. was Stallone’s first starring role after his unprecedented breakout in Rocky. This was long before he was known as an action star, and F.I.S.T. gave Stallone a chance to show off his acting chops.
Much like Rocky, F.I.S.T. is a story about the little guy standing up for himself, as a Cleveland warehouse employee gets involved with the top brass at his labor union. Stallone really sinks his teeth into the role of Johnny D. Kovak, bringing his arc to life.

Schwarzenegger As Sheriff Ray Owens In The Last Stand

A lot of Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s latter-day, Expendables-era efforts in the action genre have been disappointing, but the Schwarzenegger-starring The Last Stand was a delightfully ultraviolent neo-western about a small-town sheriff who becomes America’s last line of defense against a drug lord driving toward the Mexican border.
It’s a modern-day take on a story about a cattle baron terrorizing a dusty town in the Old West and incurring the wrath of the grizzled veteran sheriff. Schwarzenegger fills that role spectacularly in Kim Jee-woon’s curious pitch-black comedy.

Stallone As Lt. Marion Cobretti In Cobra

Before it was retooled as a comedy and it became Eddie Murphy’s first starring vehicle, Beverly Hills Cop was envisioned as a dark action thriller with Sylvester Stallone writing the screenplay and playing the lead role. When Beverly Hills Cop changed its creative direction, Stallone reused his material to create Cobra. He starred as Lt. Marion Cobretti, who was conceived as a gun-toting Bruce Springsteen.
RELATED: Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra: 5 Reasons It Would Make A Good Streaming Series (& 5 Why It Wouldn’t)
As a movie, Cobra isn’t perfect, but Stallone’s portrayal of the character as a cool-as-ice, toothpick-chewing, shades-wearing renegade cop makes it an unforgettable ride.

Schwarzenegger As Dutch In Predator

“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” Interestingly, the screenplay for Predator grew out of an inside joke in Hollywood that Sylvester Stallone’s iconic Rocky Balboa character had run out of opponents and would have to fight an alien in the next movie.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in Predator as Dutch, a Special Forces badass who leads his team into the jungle, watches them all get killed by a bloodthirsty extra-terrestrial, and then takes on the E.T. himself when he figures out its survival tactics. This insane movie wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without Schwarzenegger’s commitment to the lead role.

Stallone As Sheriff Freddy Heflin In Cop Land

Sylvester Stallone packed on the pounds to play Sheriff Freddy Heflin in James Mangold’s neo-noir crime thriller, Cop Land. Instead of playing an ass-kicker with the body of a god, he played a regular guy with a beer belly and emotional issues. Cop Land showed critics a whole new side of Stallone.

Schwarzenegger As Doug Quaid In Total Recall

Adapted from a story by sci-fi master Philip K. Dick, Total Recall plays like a gonzo Hollywood version of a Black Mirror episode. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Doug Quaid, a construction worker in the future who pays a company to implant memories in his head of being a secret agent on Mars. Halfway through the process, he snaps out of it and starts yelling about finishing his mission.
From then on, the plot twists get loopier and loopier. The audience only ever knows as much as Doug, and Schwarzenegger plays the character’s confusion brilliantly at every mind-bending turn.

Stallone As Rocky Balboa In Rocky

Sylvester Stallone joined the ranks of Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles when he received Oscar nominations for writing and starring in the same movie. By throwing out traditional screenplay structure and instead focusing on building its characters (particularly its lead protagonist), the original 1976 Rocky movie is a masterpiece.
RELATED: 10 Most Memorable Quotes From The Rocky Franchise
The great thing about Rocky is that it’s not about boxing; it’s a love story. Some of the later installments in the franchise lost that focus, but it’s as clear as day in the original movie.

Schwarzenegger As The T-800 In The Terminator

James Cameron postponed production of The Terminator by a few months to accommodate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s schedule, because he knew that no one else could play the titular killer cyborg as perfectly as the Austrian Oak.
As an A.I., the T-800 speaks with a monotonous robotic voice, and it would be easy to joke that the role doesn’t require any acting, but playing a cold, callous killing machine unencumbered by human emotion is actually a tremendous acting challenge, and Schwarzenegger nailed it.
NEXT: Robert De Niro Vs Al Pacino: Each Actor’s 5 Best Performances