3. DEMOLITION MAN (1993)-A dystopian sci-fi flick and social satire on one level, an old-fashioned buddy cop shoot up on the other, this movie isn't one to show to anyone to disprove the notion that what Sly does best is fire guns and crack heads for a living.
Nonetheless, his pairing with a young Sandra Bullock offers more gently ironic laughs to offset some blazing action and crackling tension.
4. DEATH RACE 2000 (1975)-A year before Rocky helped him punch his way to the big time, Stallone had a memorable role in this camp, ultra-violent futuristic satire. It's set in a totalitarian near future.
Sly plays a sneering, spitting villain for once, as the curiously besuited main challenger to David Carradine's man-machine champion, and he's said to have done most of his own driving.
5. NIGHTHAWKS (1981)-An overlooked highlight of Stallone's early career, this is more thriller than action movie, with Sly a troubled undercover cop wrestling with a failing marriage.
Sly's emotional range is stretched more than usual here, making for a far more involving movie than it could otherwise have been.
A number of great chase scenes and a cracking ending mean it couldn't fail to hit the spot.
6. CLIFFHANGER (1993)-The Rocky Mountains were always going to be a fine setting for an action movie, and the opening scene alone, which does pretty much what the title suggests, is agonisingly tense, and a shoe-in for any Stallone action-clip compilation.
The plot sees criminals, cops and, erm, mountain rescue teams (headed by Sly) fighting over cases full of cash dropped in an air heist gone wrong, which is promising enough, but the real wow-factor that takes this film out of the ordinary comes from the gravity-defying stunts, and the recurring sense of vertigo only adds to the dizzying thrill of it all.
