Liam Neeson’s Action Classic is a Silent Top 10 Hit on Streaming

There are certain films that do not just launch careers. They completely redefine them. For Liam Neeson, that moment arrived in 2008 when he stepped into the role of Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative who tears through Paris to rescue his kidnapped daughter in what would become one of the most influential action thrillers of its generation.

Before ‘Taken’, Neeson was an Oscar nominee best known for prestige dramatic work, including his acclaimed lead role in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Schindler’s List’. He was well over 50 when he took the role of Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent who had lost his family to the job and was trying to reconnect with his almost-grown daughter Kim. French filmmaker Pierre Morel directed the film, which was co-written by ‘The Fifth Element’s Luc Besson.

Now, nearly two decades later, ‘Taken’ is proving that its grip on audiences is far from loosened. According to FlixPatrol, ‘Taken’ is currently sitting inside Paramount+’s Top 10 most-streamed movies in the United States, having been added to the platform’s catalogue in June. On the current Paramount+ chart, the film holds the number eight position, landing quietly but firmly among titles like ‘Scream 7’ and ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, without a single marketing push behind it.

The original success of ‘Taken’ was nothing short of remarkable. The film grossed more than $226 million against a modest $25 million budget, and at just 90 minutes long, it earned a reputation as a fast-paced thriller with no fat. That commercial success eventually gave rise to a full franchise, with ‘Taken 2’ and ‘Taken 3’ following, and the entire Taken franchise going on to gross $929 million in total, making it the highest-grossing film venture Neeson has led.

Despite the cultural footprint ‘Taken’ left behind, the film received mixed reviews from critics at the time. It currently holds a 60% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, though its audience score tells a very different story, sitting at a far more enthusiastic 85%, reflecting just how deeply the film connected with general viewers. That gap between critical reception and audience love is arguably one of the defining features of ‘Taken’ as a cultural artifact.

The film’s current streaming resurgence also arrives at an interesting moment for the action genre itself. While ‘Taken’ helped define an era of revenge-driven thrillers built around a lone skilled operative, that template has gradually been eclipsed by the John Wick style of action film, which trades in higher-concept premises and more elaborate choreography.

The formula Neeson and Besson pioneered made ‘Taken’ the grittiest and most impactful of Besson’s action productions, a film that showcased action stars underserved by American cinema and gave Neeson an entirely new career trajectory.

In the years since the ‘Taken’ franchise went dormant, Neeson has continued starring in similar films such as ‘Ice Road’ and ‘Run All Night’, giving audiences no shortage of Bryan Mills-adjacent thrills. Yet there is clearly something irreplaceable about the original, something that keeps drawing new and returning viewers back to where it all started.

Whether you are revisiting it for the fifth time or discovering it fresh on Paramount+, ‘Taken’ still lands with the same bruising efficiency it always has, and that says everything about why it refuses to leave the charts. Are you someone who keeps coming back to ‘Taken’ every few years, or is this your first time catching Bryan Mills in action on Paramount+?