16: Jushin “Thunder” Liger – Jushin Thunder Liger Fist of Thunder

For those of you not au fait with Japanese wrestling, Jushin “Thunder” Liger is a legendry junior heavyweight who has competed all over the world and is one of the most innovative wrestlers of the last 30 years. He also dresses like a Power Ranger and takes his character from a tie in with a popular superhero anime. In 1995 he starred in this bonkers tokusatu movie, with lots of men in rubber monster suits brawling across cheap sets. Liger played the title character when he was in his superhero guise, but Japanese actor Masaru Matsuda played the role when he was out of costume, as the usually-masked Liger refused to reveal his real face to the public!

15: Jerry “The King” Lawler and Jim Ross – Man On The Moon

In what is still one of the post-modern moments in the history of wrestling, outsider comedian, provocateur and all-round genius Andy Kaufman decided to proclaim himself “Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World”, and start fighting women on the 80s Memphis wrestling circuit, generally just acting like a massive jerk. This provoked the ire of Memphis wrestling icon (and current WWE commentator) Jerry Lawler, resulting in an on-air brawl on Late Night With David Letterman and Lawler supposedly breaking Kaufman’s neck with a piledriver. Of course it was all a work, though they managed to keep that hidden until over a decade after Kaufman’s death from lung cancer. When Jim Carrey played Kaufman in the 1999 biopic Man on The Moon, Lawler would play himself in the recreation of the incident, with his co-commentator Jim Ross also appearing calling the action.

14: Don Frye – Godzilla: Final Wars

When Toho Studios chose to final put Godzilla to rest (at least until Gareth Edwards resurrected him this year), they enlisted cult director Ryuhei Kitamura to give him one big send off. The resulting film is all over the place; with alien invaders controlling nearly every monster Godzilla ever fought to take over the Earth, but the one thing no one expected an American wrestler to steal the show. Don Frye was a successful MMA fighter before spending four years as a bad guy in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and here plays a veteran of the Earth Defence Force (a sort of anti-kaiju SWAT team) and is the only man tough enough to stand up to the aliens. He’s the most memorable thing in the film, and somehow is more imposing than all the rubber-suited monsters around him.

13: El Santo – Many, many movies

It’s impossible to write about wrestlers in movies without mentioning El Santo, the greatest Mexican wrestler who ever lived. It’s tempting to call him the Mexican Hulk Hogan, but in truth he was far more famous and popular in his homeland than Hogan was in American. As well a being a wrestling superstar and a national hero, Santo also appeared in over 50 movies, always as himself. He played a famous wrestler who was also a superhero or sorts, battling mad scientists, monsters, aliens and vampire women. He remained masked throughout all his films (he only removed his mask once in public, a week before his death) even when he wasn’t in his wrestling gear, and the sight of him strutting around in a tweed jacket, turtleneck and wrestling mask never stops being entertaining (especially as none of the other character bat an eyelid). All his films are pretty interchangeable, but it’s definitely worth catching a few to indulge in the craziness of it all.

12: Blue Demon & Mil Mascaras – Champions Of Justice

The greatest Mexican wrestling movie of all time didn’t actually feature El Santo however. Intended to be an Avengers-style team up of the biggest names in Lucha Libre, Santo was unable to appear due to scheduling conflicts, meaning that the Champions Of Justice were headlined by two other Mexican wrestling stars, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras (‘The Man Of A Thousand Masks’). What follows is a non-stop cavalcade of craziness, as the Champions Of Justice ride around on Mexico on motorbikes in their masks and capes, fighting an evil scientist who has developed a process to make dwarf wrestlers super-strong (but he never thinks to try it on regular sized humans), getting into car chases, fights with harpoon wielding frogmen, and jumping out of planes. Oh, and they keep stopping off to judge beauty contests too, for some reason.

11: Andre the Giant – The Princess Bride

Rob Reiner’s adaptation of William Golden’s tongue-in-cheek fantasy novel has rightly become a classic. It’s full of wonderful touches and scenes (Inigo Montoya, Peter Cook’s cameo, the framing story) and Andre’s turn as the friendly giant Fezzik is just as important as any of them. Andre himself made such an impression on Billy Crystal that he later he wrote, produced and starred in the comedy My Giant, inspired by his time with him, in which Crystal plays a huckster who befriends 7ft 7 NBA player Gheorghe Muresan and tries to get him a role in a Steven Seagal move. But don’t hold that against Andre.

10: Hulk Hogan – Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Hogan’s finest celluloid performance came with this his cameo in Joe Dante’s wonderful sequel to the original Gremlins. Desperate for a follow-up to the ultra-successful first film, Warner Bros. eventually convinced Dante to come aboard by basically giving him carte-blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted to with part two. The resulting is one of the most out-there and anarchic Hollywood movies ever made. In possibly the most audacious piece of fourth-wall breaking in the movie, midway through a scene the film burns up and is replaced by black and white stock footage. We then cut to the cinema you are supposedly watching the film in, where it’s revealed that Gremlins have taken over the projection booth, and are choosing to show old volleyball movies instead. Luckily however, it turns out Hulk Hogan is in the audience with you, and Hulkster turns to the both and cuts a promo threatening the Gremlins, who not knowing what they would do if Hulkamania did indeed run wild over them, put the film back on. This scene was replaced with a different one for the VHS release of the film, incidentally.

9: The Rock – Southland Tales

Okay, so Richard Kelly’s apocalyptic sci-fi follow up to Donnie Darko is messy. But that’s not to saw there aren’t some wonderful bits in there to enjoy, even if none of them actually add up to anything. Not least The Rock playing a amnesiac action film star with a neurotic twitch, on the run from the government. It’s a bizarre, unexpected, not quite successful but unforgettable performance, kind of like the film itself.

8: Ernest ‘The Cat’ Miller – The Wrestler

Unsurprisingly considering the subject matter, Mickey Rourke’s Oscar-nominated comeback features a host of real-life wrestlers. A lot of the film was shot at Ring Of Honour shows and a lot of that promotion’s roster can be seen in the background (including current WWE superstars Cesaro and R-Truth). Indie hardcore grappler Necro Butcher also gets a spotlight during a sickening no disqualification match with Rourke’s Randy the Ram. The guy who gets the biggest role though, surprisingly, is Ernest ‘The Cat’ Miller, who mostly played a short lived comedy character in WCW dancing in the ring more than he wrestled. Miller plays ‘The Ayatollah’, an old school Arab themed bad guy in the vein of The Iron Sheik, Rourke’s old rival from his 80s heyday. Miller actually gives the Ayatollah, or Bob most people call him in real life, a real dignity as a happy guy who now owns a car dealership, contrasting with Rourke’s washed up and desperate Randy The Ram.

7: The Rock – Welcome To The Jungle aka The Rundown

Welcome To The Jungle (or The Rundown, as it was originally titled on its US release) might just be The Rock’s greatest action film. On paper, it’s a standard buddy movie, with mercenary The Rock and rich kid Shaunn William Scott getting stuck in Latin America and end up having to battle evil diamond harvester Christopher Walken. But it’s just loads better than it has any need to be. The comedy is genuinely funny, the cast is great and the action is tight and genuinely exciting. Chalk this down to director Peter Berg, a smart guy whose films are always a lot clever than they first appear (apart from maybe Battleship), but it’s also one of the first films where The Rock felt like a true leading man, especially in the fantastic finale, where his character, er, learns to love shooting people with guns again.

6: Kevin Nash – The Punisher

The Tom Jane version of the Marvel vigilante is a weird, uneven film but has moments of genius, none more so that the brief appearance on Kevin Nash, the early 90s superstar formerly known as Diesel. Main bad guy John Travolta does the whole “Get the best assassin we got to get this guy” bit and calls in ‘The Russian’, played by Nash. Nash only appears in this one scene, to have a wordless smackdown with the Punisher, and it would be a standout scene in any action movie you care to mention. It runs through several cliches (there’s “big guy who don’t react when you hit him,” and “violent action scene contrasting with ironic classical music soundtrack,” and also “there’s music playing so side characters don’t hear the fight and joke about in the other room obliviously”), but it’s just so effective, and well-staged, and funny, and brutal. It’s superbly edited, has great sound design and every little body movement and facial expression is spot on. Nash just pops up, has this fight, and then dies.

5: Jesse Ventura – Predator

Jesse Ventura’s most iconic screen role is without a doubt his turn in John McTiernan’s muddy soldiers versus invisible alien hunter classic. Despite being part of a squad that includes such badasses as Arnie, Apollo Creed and Commando’s Bill Duke, Ventura still manages to come off as possibly the coolest, carrying a gigantic gun called ‘Ol’ Painless’ and describing himself as a “god damned sexual Tyranosaurus”.

4: The Rock – Be Cool

The belated sequel to Get Shorty, which attempts to skewer the music industry like the original did Hollywood, is generally a pretty wretched film. A cast of past their prime great actors (Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Harvey Keitel) sleepwalk through a laboured plot while some moonlighting musicians (Andre 3000, Christina Milian, Steven Tyler) show why they should stick to singing. The one highlight however is The Rock, in his first notable non-action role, stealing the film as Vince Vaughn’s gay bodyguard and wannabe actor. One of the few wrestler-turned-actors who can genuinely act, he really revels in being cast against type -particularly in a brilliant audition scene where recites a ‘monologue’ from bitchy cheerleading classic Bring It On, doing both the Kirstin Dunst and Eliza Dushku parts.

3: Batista – Guardians Of The Galaxy

Let’s put this in perspective. At this year’s Royale Rumble, Batista returned to the WWE after four years to win a title shot at Wrestlemania. It was a slot that the fans wanted to go to Daniel Bryan, a 5ft 10 upstart from the indies and the biggest breakout star they’d had in forever. But instead they forced the returning big name on the fans, hoping for some crossover success on his name recognition, and the fans reacted badly. Batista was booed out of the building, and quickly became the most hated man in wrestling.

Fast forward to the end of the summer, and suddenly Batista is a proper movie star, and everyone loves him. Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige had spoken about how much effort Big Dave put into winning the part. It seemed like just PR puff, but it turns out it’s all true. He took obscure cosmic character Drax The Destroyer (admittedly brilliantly written by James Gunn) and delivered every scene with perfect comic timing that no one ever knew he had. Everyone knew Batista as the big snarling bad guy – who thought he could be so funny? And loveable? Obviously, he looked the part, but (ironically for an alien character) he made the part so human. The mid credits scene, where Groot dances to the Jackson Five without him knowing, might just be the great summer blockbuster moment of 2014, and it’s all Batista.

2: The Rock – Pain And Gain

In twenty years time, in some quarters at least, Pain And Gain will be an acknowledged classic. It’s just that it’s a Michael Bay film, and everyone (quite rightly) can’t quite appreciate yet that Michael Bay has made something good. The true story on a gang of bodybuilders turned incompetent criminals, who took a guy hostage in an attempt to make a quick buck, it’s almost the best Coen Brothers movie the Coens never made. Either by design or by accident, Bay has managed to capture the narcissistic stupidity of three idiots who think they’re in Goodfellas but are really just auditioning for America’s Dumbest Criminals. It’s a brilliantly savage takedown of the American Dream – people who think their lives are so important that they’re the stars of their own movie. Every character gets their own chance to narrate the film, and they all turn out to be horrible, nasty idiots (apart from maybe Rebel Wilson, who’s just very naïve and unlucky).

It’s the role The Rock has been waiting for his whole career – a genuine character with depth and development, but also that allows for him to show off his brilliant comic timing. It’s also one that only The Rock could play. The problem is he just looks like superhero, and when he tries to play average Joes like in Snitch or whatever, but he just can’t be convincing no matter how good his performance is just because he’ll never look like a regular guy. In Pain And Gain though, he’s meant to be a muscle bound jerk. It works perfectly.

1: Rowdy Roddy Piper – They Live

Despite being nearly 30 years old, the satirical bite They Live hasn’t waned a bit. If anything, with social mobility seeming less possible all the time, it’s maybe even timelier. John Carpenter’s brilliant satire stars Piper as a drifter who happens upon a pair of sunglasses that reveals the truth hidden from us plebeians – that the world is actually controlled by aliens, and billboards and advertising are all just feeding up simple controlling messages like ‘Obey’ and ‘Consume’.

There’s a school of thought that the film would be better is Carpenter’s usual leading man Kurt Russell had taken the lead role. That’s completely wrong. Of course, Russell is a better actor than Roddy Piper, but this film is all about the honest working man. Russell is a good-looking Hollywood star. Piper feels like the sort of guy who would really be in this situation. He is dumb and obvious, and I mean that completely as a compliment. The film needs a simple protagonist, someone who would find out about this alien bourgeoisie conspiracy and wouldn’t take a second to think about the various morality of it all. Instead you need someone who’d be just appalled and want to go and kick their alien asses. Piper is absolutely perfect for the role.

There’s so much to love about They Live – the alien design, the bluesy score, “I came to kick ass and chew bubblegum”, and of course the incredibly long street fight between Piper and Keith David – but at the end of the day, it’ just a brilliant savage satire, and the perfect example of what sly genre cinema can be at its very best.