For years action films had been made in on Indian celluloid where the hero fights with a group of bad men. In the Bollywood movies the abilities of the hero are almost supernatural. He can deal with ten men single-handedly and escape without a scratch. The stories of Bollywood action movies generally revolved around a hero who is wronged by the villain. To take revenge he fights the baddies and comes out victorious.

Some of the first action heroes were Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan and Amitabh Bachchan. Apart from them almost all the actors in the film industry have acted in at least one action movie. Film like Zanjeer, Hera Pheri, Amar Akbar Anthony, Dharam Veer, Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Don, Shakti and others were popular action movies. But the film that set a cult for the action movies was Sholay. Some of the most interesting sequences and superb thrills make the film an all time favorite for the audience.

With changing times the style of the action films changed. The action and thrills were more interesting. In the late1980s and 1990s heroes like Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Sunny Deol, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar emerged on the silver screen. The films of these heroes were made similar subjects. The image of the `angry young man` that was established by Amitabh Bachchan dominated these films too. But the fight sequences were picturised in different ways as most of the leading men were trained in martial arts. At this point of time martial arts was part of these action films. Some of the well known movies of this era are Ghayal, Ajooba, Hum, Phool aur Kaante, Arjun, Saudagar, Sadak, Baazigar, Darr, Kshatriya, Main Khiladi, Tu Anari, Mohra, Karan Arjun, Sangharsh, Sarfarosh, Vaastav, Satya and a host of other films. Another trend that evolved in the mid 90s was the glorification of the anti-hero.

With the advent of technology the scenario changed once again. The special effects and thrills were presented more interestingly and the story lines changed too. A new set of actors evolved who along side the older ones. Sunil Shetty, Bobby Deol, Viveik Oberoi, Hrithik Roshan, Zayed Khan, Akshaye Khanna and others. Films like Nayak (2001), Dus (2005), Main Hoon Na (2004), Dhoom (2004), Dhoom 2 (2006), Krrish (2006), Don, The Chase Begins (2006), Dashavatharam (2008), Shivaji, the Boss (2008), Race (2008) and others.