10 Worst Chuck Norris Movies, Ranked

Chuck Norris is many things: martial arts legend, meme immortal, and former denim-clad symbol of American justice. At his peak, he was a mustached storm of punches and one-liners, dispatching enemies with a stoic glare and roundhouse kicks that defied physics. But while his legacy includes genuine action classics like Lone Wolf McQuade and The Octagon, it also features more than its fair share of head-scratching duds.

The following ten movies feel like they were written in the margins of a weightlifting manual. Some of them pair Norris with talking animals. Others have him time-traveling, hunting demons, or solving crimes in a cowboy hat while protecting the President. Because when Chuck Norris fights logic, logic loses.

10

‘Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection’ (1990)

Directed by Aaron Norris

“You want to play games? I’ll show you games.” In Delta Force 2, Norris returns as Major Scott McCoy, though “returns” might be generous—this sequel to the already-questionable The Delta Force drops the airplane hijacking in favor of jungle vengeance. After a South American drug lord named Ramon Cota (Billy Drago in full cackling mode) kills an American agent and kidnaps DEA personnel, McCoy parachutes in to single-handedly dismantle the cartel, one roundhouse kick at a time.

The action is endless, the logic is nonexistent, and the movie seems convinced that one man can defeat an entire nation’s drug operation with a jeep and a stare. Any sense of realism the first film had is completely abandoned here: McCoy shifts from a stoic military man to a quip-spouting action star. The dialogue is filled with corny jokes, and the villain feels straight out of a cartoon. It’s dumb, loud, and, occasionally, accidentally hilarious.

9

‘Braddock: Missing in Action III’ (1988)

Directed by Aaron Norris

“I’m going to get my son.” After storming through Vietnam in the first two Missing in Action films, Norris returns for one more round as Colonel James Braddock, this time on a solo mission to rescue his long-lost son from a communist prison camp. The twist? He didn’t know he had a son until a nun casually drops the bombshell. From there, Braddock gears up, flies into enemy territory, and starts liberating people and blowing up buildings like it’s all in a day’s work.

This movie very much copies Rambo: First Blood Part II‘s homework, but not well. The plot is thin, the action is repetitive, and the dialogue is so wooden you could carve a canoe out of it. Aaron Norris (Chuck’s brother) directs with all the nuance of a sledgehammer, stringing together shootouts with barely any connective tissue. There’s also a weird tonal imbalance: one minute it’s a war drama, the next it’s a violent revenge fantasy.

8

‘The Cutter’ (2005)

Directed by Bill Tannen

“You mess with the wrong man’s past.” Norris leads The Cutter as John Shepherd, a retired cop turned private investigator who gets pulled into a mystery involving stolen diamonds, a kidnapped Holocaust survivor, and a lot of slow-walking gunplay. It’s a bizarre blend of historical trauma, crime thriller, and B-movie action—like someone tried to make Schindler’s List but accidentally hired Norris instead of Liam Neeson.

The film tries to add depth with World War II flashbacks and moral lessons about remembering the past, but it’s all undermined by lazy plotting and stilted line delivery. Norris is also not very convincing as a detective, mostly solving clues by intimidating people into monologues. The final fight takes place in a warehouse (because of course it does), and despite Chuck being visibly slower and stiffer, the bad guys still fall like dominoes. Worst of all, even the trademark witty one-liners are in short supply here.

The Cutter

Release Date

November 21, 2005

Runtime

92 minutes

• 
• 

  Joanna Pacula

  Elizabeth Teller

• 
• 

  Bernie Kopell

  Issac Teller

7

‘Hellbound’ (1994)

Directed by Aaron Norris

“You came from hell, and that’s where I’m sending you back.” Hellbound is Chuck Norris vs. a demon, and yes, it’s exactly as dumb as that sounds. The King of Kicking plays Chicago detective Frank Shatter (yes, really), who stumbles into a supernatural plot involving a resurrected medieval demon named Prosatanos trying to reclaim an ancient scepter. There are fish-out-of-water cop moments, trips to Jerusalem, and a lot of close-ups of Chuck trying to understand why he’s in a horror movie.

Basically, this flick is an unholy amalgam of a buddy-cop comedy and straight-faced biblical horror. Aaron Norris directs it with his usual flair for smoke machines and bland interiors, while Christopher Neame chews the scenery as the demon in question – when he’s on screen at all, that is (he’s inexplicably absent for long stretches of time). What we’re mostly left with is Norris plodding through a generic murder investigation alongside a partner (Calvin Levels) with whom he has zero chemistry.

Hellbound

Release Date

January 21, 1994

Runtime

95 minutes

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  Calvin Levels

  Calvin Jackson

• 
• 

  Christopher Neame

  Lockley

• 

6

‘The President’s Man’ (2000)

Directed by Michael Preece

“I’m the last line of defense.” Joshua McCord (Norris) is a grizzled secret operative who protects the President of the United States (Ralph Waite) from behind the scenes, using stealth, karate, and beard-based patriotism. When terrorists threaten national security, McCord springs into action with gadgets, hand-to-hand combat, and the emotional range of a parking meter. It’s Mission: Impossible with none of the charm and all of the cheese.

Shot like a TV movie (because it is one), the action scenes look like they were choreographed by someone with access to three stuntmen and a trampoline. The cast and crew genuinely seem to think it’s cool when Chuck rides a motorcycle through a cardboard wall. Norris delivers his lines like he’s reading them off a cereal box, and his protégé—because there has to be a protégé—spends half the movie asking questions so our hero can explain how awesome he is. This is the definition of a Chuck Norris made-for-TV ego trip.

5

‘Breaker! Breaker!’ (1977)

Directed by Don Hulette

“You hurt my truck, you hurt me.” Breaker! Breaker! was Norris’s first starring role, and it shows. He plays J.D. Dawes, a stoic trucker and karate expert who rides into a corrupt town called Texas City after his brother disappears. There, he uncovers a kangaroo court run by a sadistic judge, exposes the local tyranny, and kicks a lot of dudes through doors.

The story combines CB radio culture, vigilante justice, and martial arts into something that never quite feels like a movie but more like a fever dream filmed in a parking lot. At one point, Chuck uses his truck as a weapon of vengeance, driving through town like a mildly annoyed Terminator. Some parts even swerve into Deliverance territory. Overall, Breaker! Breaker! is a relic of its time and the cinematic equivalent of a truck stop sandwich: bland, greasy, and somehow still a little satisfying in its own goofy way.

Breaker! Breaker!

Release Date

April 1, 1977

Runtime

86 minutes

• 
• 

  George Murdock

  Judge Trimmings

• 

  Terry O’Connor

  Arlene Trimmings

• 

4

‘Yellow-Faced Tiger’ (1974)

Directed by Lo Wei

“You’re good, but you’re not fast enough.” The awfully titled Yellow-Faced Tiger is a weird East-meets-West cop thriller where Norris plays the bad guy, an American mobster named Chuck Slaughter (subtle). The plot centers around a Chinese cop named Wong (Wong Tao) trying to clean up the streets of San Francisco, only to discover Chuck’s Slaughter is behind the city’s crime wave. What follows is a mix of awkward police procedural, clunky kung fu, and a final showdown that exists purely so Chuck can take off his shirt and scowl while punching people in bell-bottoms.

Shot in the early ’70s but released later to cash in on Chuck’s fame, the film has the grainy, disjointed feel of a VHS bootleg. Dialogue is badly dubbed, choreography is uneven, and Chuck (sporting a terrible mustache and menacing stare) seems to have wandered in from a different movie entirely. Plus, the movie strives to make a serious statement on police violence, but does so without much nuance (shocker).

3

‘The President’s Man: A Line in the Sand’ (2002)

Directed by Eric Norris

“A line in the sand is more than a metaphor—it’s where I draw mine.” This sequel to the already questionable The President’s Man sees Norris once again saving America as secret operative Joshua McCord. This time, he’s up against a terrorist group threatening to detonate a nuclear device on U.S. soil. The stakes are high, the script is low-effort, and Chuck spends most of the movie slowly walking through hallways, teaching his protégé about punching terrorists in the name of democracy.

Despite being released in 2002, the production feels dated in the worst way, probably due to the abundance of clumsily inserted stock footage. Then there’s the cheap sets, elevator music (generic hip-hop and that soulless late-’90s/early-2000s TV techno), and extras who don’t even try. It’s all very silly, but somehow still bland, meaning that it’s not even that ironically entertaining. All in all, this one is best avoided.

2

‘Top Dog’ (1995)

Directed by Aaron Norris

“He’s a tough cop. With a new partner… who’s a real dog.” If the words “Chuck Norris buddy-cop movie with a dog” don’t immediately make you question reality, you haven’t seen Top Dog. In this baffling PG-rated action comedy, Chuck plays Jake Wilder, a lone-wolf cop forced to partner with a police dog named Reno to take down a group of white supremacist terrorists. Yes, it’s a children’s film about domestic terrorism. The tone whiplash is real, from cartoonish gags to bomb threats, dog stunts to neo-Nazi conspiracies.

In other words, Top Dog is like someone mashed together Beethoven and Die Hard and forgot to pick a target audience. Chuck looks deeply uncomfortable in every comedic scene, and even more confused when the plot suddenly expects you to care about the characters’ feelings. Reno, the dog, is easily the best actor in the movie, doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of charm and timing.

Top Dog

Release Date

April 28, 1995

Runtime

86 minutes

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• 

  Michele Lamar Richards

  Savannah Boyette

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  Carmine Caridi

  Sgt. Lou Swanson

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  Clyde Kusatsu

  Capt. Callahan

1

‘Forest Warrior’ (1996)

Directed by Aaron Norris

“Nature always wins.” Forest Warrior features Norris as a magical, shape-shifting protector of the forest, who comes back from the dead to help a group of kids stop evil loggers from destroying sacred wilderness. He communes with animals. He turns into a bear. He stops chainsaws with his bare hands. It’s as if Captain Planet fused with Walker, Texas Ranger and then got lost in a pine-scented shrooms trip, but with the squeaky-clean vibe of an after-school special.

This is truly one of the strangest entries in Chuck’s filmography. The villain (Terry Kiser) wants to clear-cut Thunder Mountain, which, of course, unleashes the wrath of Chuck in denim. The environmental message is so over-the-top it borders on parody, and the film constantly cuts between wide-eyed child actors and slow-motion shots of Norris doing something mystical in the woods. The best part? He delivers motivational speeches to squirrels. Forest Warrior isn’t just dumb—it’s mythically dumb.

Forest Warrior

Release Date

November 5, 1996

Runtime

93 minutes

Director

Aaron Norris

Writers

Galen Thompson

Cast

• 
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  William Sanderson

  Paul Carpio

• 
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  Michael Friedman

  Lewis Burdette

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