Chuck Norris: 8 Essential Movies

By David Fear

David Fear

Any filmgoer of a certain age — and probably a certain gender — will tell you about the first time they saw Chuck Norris onscreen. It may have been that unforgettable fight with Bruce Lee at the climax of The Way of the Dragon, which was the karate champion’s film debut. It might have been Good Guys Wear Black, which caused legions of suburban kids to attempt to replicate the movie’s famous flying kick (although Norris himself may have possibly outsourced this stunt). Or it could have been any number of his many 1980s action flicks, which not only graced grindhouses and drive-ins throughout America but helped mint Norris as an international star.

Long before Norris, who died on Thursday at 86, was known as Cordell Walker — the tough-talking, literal-ass-kicking hero of the long-running TV series Walker, Texas Ranger — he was a martial-arts cinema legend and a flag-bearer for a certain kind of he-man movie featuring hundreds of punches, millions of bullets, and dozens of lines of dialogue. Even when they were made on the cheap and filled with the sort of jingoistic exchanges that would make an American eagle wince, Norris had a way of using his stoic persona and extraordinary fighting chops to turn these movies into guilty pleasures. In honor of the star of The Octogon, we’ve chosen eight essential Norris movies to memorialize the late actor. Rest in peace, Chuck.

• ‘The Way of the Dragon’ (1972)

  Image Credit: Corbis via Getty Images

  Carlos Ray “Chuck” Norris was already an Air Force veteran, a martial-arts teacher, a middleweight karate champion, and Black Belt Magazine‘s “Fighter of the Year” by the time he made his movie debut in Bruce Lee’s pre-Enter the Dragon film. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that their climactic showdown in Rome’s Colosseum remains one of the greatest screen fights of all time. Once the hairy-chested Norris cracks his knuckles and both men begin limbering up, offering a preview of their respective combat styles — oh, it’s on! The nearly 10-minute sequence is a pure adrenaline rush even before they start trading blows, and when Norris silently waves his finger at his opponent after a melee, it’s like you’re seeing his entire persona as an action hero in embryonic form. The two actors had trained with each other before Lee went to Hong Kong to kickstart his movie career. He later called up his old sparring partner and, as Norris recounted on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, “said ‘I want to do a fight scene that everyone will remember.” Mission freakin’ accomplished.