There comes a time (BOOM!) every now and again when (POW!) you don't want to watch the great performances (CRASH!) or the beautiful cinematography (ZONK!) and you just want to see stuff explode, and 2013 was a great year for the action scene afficiandos!

10. The opening attack on The White House in OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
A massive plane starts shooting up downtown Washington, which then gets shot down and manages to take out The Washington Monument on its way out. Then what appears to be most of the North Korean army arrives to blow a hole in the front of the building, while they kill off most of the security (except, for course, for stab-happy Gerard Butler), and before long The White House is under new management, with the President taken hostage.

9. The tidal wave in THE IMPOSSIBLE
Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and their kids are on holidays in a beautiful south Asian resort, when suddenly a massive tidal wave completely destroys the area, and separates them all from each other. The visceral realism of the scene will have you completely on-edge, as you realise the helplessness we'd all have in the face of a tsunami.

8. The car-chase through downtown Moscow in A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD
Yes, the film was unbearably bad, but the first proper action scene was a diamond in the otherwise quite shitty rough. It was Truck VS Van VS Bigger Truck, with what must've been hundreds of cars getting destroyed in the process. It was a fun, adrenaline fuelled scene that gave us some false hope that the rest of the movie might not be terrible.

7. The first shrapnel field in GRAVITY
After the pristine and false-sense-of-security of the opening space-walk, we're soon told that the Russians have destroyed one of their old satellites, which has caused a massive shrapnel field that is heading straight for Bullock and Clooney. The resulting debris is like an asteroid field, tearing apart their shuttle and sending Bullock out into the depths of space.

6. The barrel sequence in THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG
Despite the presence of a dragon later on, the best action scene in this Hobbit sequel comes when the motley crew escape from capture using barrels to float down a river. Of course, things don't go quite as planned, as the Orcs attack them from the banks, and then the Elves show up to fight the Orcs. Fantastically choreographed and fun in a way reminiscent of old school Indy.

5. The world-hopping climax in THOR: THE DARK WORLD
The Dark Elves have set up shop in London to bring about the end of life as we know it, so Thor pops up to beat him down. Natalie Portman and co have set up some scientific-y things that keep causing everyone to disappear and reappear in a completely different part of the city, country and even universe, which makes for some highly entertaining and often very funny moments in what should be a deathly serious battle for all creation.

4. The attack of Stark Mansion in IRON MAN 3
Tony Stark is so effed off with The Mandarin that he gives him his home address (you would think that someone so famous and with such an OTT pad, they're address would already be common knowledge, but that's another story), and The Mandarin shows up with missile-armed helicopters and blows it to bits.

3. The crash in FLIGHT
There's something wrong with the plane when Captain Denzel Washington is woken from his drunken stupor, so he does what absolutely nobody else would ever think of doing, and inverts the aircraft. That's right, he flies the plane upside down. This is definitely not a good choice for an in-flight movie, because even though he saves most of the passengers, the plane still crashlands.

2. The USS Enterprise VS The USS Vengeance in STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
A gigantically upscaled warship against what is essentially a research vessel, the Vengeance certainly has the upper hand. One firefight later, and there's barely a scratch on the Vengeance, while the Enterprise is on the cusp of falling apart. Two MORE inter-ship action scenes later, and John Harrison decides to kamikaze the Vengeance into downtown San Francisco. This is about twenty minutes of non-stop space explosions, and we just LOVED it.

1. The car-chase on a Spanish motorway and bridge in FAST & FURIOUS 6
It was a coin-flip between this and the never-ending runway that the movie ended on, but we went with this because it was such a middle finger to the idea of realism, never mind gravity in general. Tanks bust out of trucks, cars get squished, bridges get blown up, and Vin Diesel jumps a fifty foot gap to catch Michelle Rodriquez out of the air. It's just sublimely ridiculous, and that's why it's our favourite action scene of the year.