Across nearly five decades, Jackie Chan has broken his skull, his sternum, both cheekbones, and nearly every finger he owns — and he's still signing on for new films at 72. Here are 11 movies that trace that arc.
Jackie Chan is the rare star who's headlined era-defining Hong Kong classics and Hollywood blockbusters alike, often performing his own stunts in both. He's credited with more than 150 film roles across his career, and the 11 movies below are the ones that best explain how he got there — from a scrappy 1978 comedy to a 2025 legacy sequel that finally put two generations of Karate Kid on screen together.
| Film | Release Date |
|---|---|
| Drunken Master | October 5, 1978 |
| Project A | December 22, 1983 |
| Police Story | December 14, 1985 |
| Armour of God | January 21, 1987 (Hong Kong) |
| Police Story 3: Super Cop | July 4, 1992 |
| Drunken Master II | February 3, 1994 |
| Rumble in the Bronx | January 21, 1995 |
| Rush Hour | September 18, 1998 |
| Shanghai Noon | May 26, 2000 |
| The Karate Kid | June 11, 2010 |
| Karate Kid: Legends | May 30, 2025 (US) |
| Film | Worldwide Gross |
|---|---|
| Drunken Master | $16.5 million (est.) |
| Project A | $18 million (est.) |
| Police Story | $18.7 million (est.) |
| Armour of God | $16 million (est.) |
| Police Story 3: Super Cop | $34.4 million (est.) |
| Drunken Master II | $34 million (est.) |
| Rumble in the Bronx | $76 million |
| Rush Hour | $245.3 million |
| Shanghai Noon | $99.3 million |
| The Karate Kid | $359.1 million |
| Karate Kid: Legends | $114.5 million |
| Film | Director | Top-Billed Cast |
|---|---|---|
| Drunken Master | Yuen Woo-ping | Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, Hwang Jang-lee |
| Project A | Jackie Chan | Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao |
| Police Story | Jackie Chan | Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung |
| Armour of God | Jackie Chan, Eric Tsang | Jackie Chan, Alan Tam, Rosamund Kwan |
| Police Story 3: Super Cop | Stanley Tong | Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung |
| Drunken Master II | Lau Kar-leung | Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Ti Lung |
| Rumble in the Bronx | Stanley Tong | Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Françoise Yip |
| Rush Hour | Brett Ratner | Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker |
| Shanghai Noon | Tom Dey | Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Liu |
| The Karate Kid | Harald Zwart | Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson |
| Karate Kid: Legends | Jonathan Entwistle | Ben Wang, Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio |
Before he was an international icon, Chan was a struggling young actor trying to escape the shadow of Bruce Lee. Drunken Master changed that. He plays an undisciplined version of the real-life folk hero Wong Fei-hung, forced into training under a "drunken boxing" master after one too many street brawls. The blend of slapstick comedy and technically precise martial arts gave Hong Kong audiences something new, and it made Chan a star in his own right rather than an imitator of anyone else.
The blend of slapstick comedy and technically precise martial arts gave Hong Kong audiences something they hadn't seen before.
Set in colonial-era Hong Kong, Chan plays a marine police sergeant tangling with pirates and corrupt officials. Project A is best remembered for one moment: Chan falling from a clock tower through two canvas awnings to the ground below, a stunt so dangerous he included multiple takes of it in the end-credits outtakes — a habit that became a signature of his films going forward.
Chan wrote, directed, and starred in this one, and it shows — every stunt feels personal. He plays Inspector Ka-Kui, framed for murder by the drug lord he's trying to take down. The film grossed an estimated $18.7 million and centers on a shopping-mall finale so chaotic and precise that it reset the bar for what a Hong Kong action film could look like. Chan has said in his own autobiography that it's his favorite of his films, for the stunts and fights alone.
Chan has said it's his personal favorite of his own films — for the stunts and fights alone.
An Indiana Jones-style globetrotting adventure that very nearly ended Chan's career — and his life. During a jump from a castle wall to a tree branch, the branch snapped on a second take and Chan fell roughly five meters, cracking his skull on a rock below and driving a bone fragment into his brain. He was in surgery within eight hours and came out of it with a permanent plastic plug in his skull and partial hearing loss. The film itself became the highest-grossing movie in Hong Kong at the time.
Teaming Chan with Michelle Yeoh raised the stakes of the franchise considerably. Super Cop is best known for its helicopter-versus-train sequence, still cited today as one of the greatest stunt set pieces ever filmed, with Yeoh performing her own motorcycle jump onto a moving train. It's the film that proved the Police Story formula could scale up without losing what made the original work.
Credited to Lau Kar-leung, though Chan reportedly took over directing duties partway through production, this sequel reunites Chan with Wong Fei-hung 16 years after the original. Time magazine later named it one of the 100 greatest films ever made, largely on the strength of its finale — a brutal, extended fight against a group of enforcers that remains one of the most acclaimed action sequences in martial arts cinema. It was also Chan's last Hong Kong film before he made his move to Hollywood in earnest.
Time magazine later named it one of the 100 greatest films ever made.
Chan had tried to break into the American market before, without much traction. Rumble in the Bronx is the film that finally worked, giving U.S. audiences their first real introduction to his blend of comedy and death-defying stuntwork and setting up everything that came next.
Rush Hour paired Chan's Hong Kong detective with Chris Tucker's motor-mouthed LAPD partner and grossed $245.3 million worldwide, turning Chan into a genuine Hollywood lead. The sequel outdid it, pulling in more than $347 million to become the highest-grossing entry in the franchise — proof the chemistry wasn't a fluke.
Rush Hour turned Chan into a genuine Hollywood lead — and the sequel proved the chemistry wasn't a fluke.
A different kind of buddy comedy: Chan plays an imperial guard who travels to the American Wild West to rescue a kidnapped princess, teaming up with Owen Wilson's train robber along the way. It's a looser, goofier film than Rush Hour, but it showed Chan could carry a Western-inflected comedy just as easily as a cop thriller.
Twenty-four years after breaking his skull for Armour of God, Chan stepped into the mentor role once occupied by Pat Morita, playing Mr. Han opposite Jaden Smith. Made on a $40 million budget, the film grossed $176.6 million domestically and $359.1 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing entry in the entire Karate Kid franchise — proof that three decades in, Chan could still open a movie built around someone else's story.
Three decades in, Chan could still open a movie built around someone else's story.
Set largely in New York City, Karate Kid: Legends follows kung fu prodigy Li Fong (Ben Wang), who relocates to the city with his mother and draws the unwanted attention of a local karate champion. His teacher, Mr. Han (Chan), reaches out to the original Karate Kid himself, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), to help train him — merging kung fu and karate styles for the first time and finally putting the franchise's two eras on screen together. Made on a $45 million budget, the film grossed roughly $114.5 million worldwide, more than doubling its budget and marking the first time Chan and Macchio have shared the screen.
From a broke stuntman doubling for other actors to a franchise mentor pulling in more box office than the films that made him famous, Chan's filmography isn't just long — it's a rare case of an action star aging into new eras of the genre rather than being replaced by them. With a fourth Armour of God chapter now in production and Karate Kid: Legends already having reunited him onscreen with Ralph Macchio, the question isn't whether Chan still has stunts left in him. It's how many more eras of action cinema he's going to outlast.