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By scene · 25 models

Best AI image generator for action scenes

25 models compared (November 2026)

Best for action scenes: Luma Uni-1 Max (7.5 out of 10), ahead of Recraft V4.1 Pro and Nano Banana 2, from our scores for prompt adherence, realism and film look.

We sent the same prompt, word for word, to the 25 best-ranked AI image models and put every result side by side. One image each, no retouching, no picking the best of several. Each card shows the model, its maker and its benchmark score.

The prompt

Low-angle wide shot from the roof of a speeding wooden carriage, an outlaw mid-leap across the gap to the next carriage, centred against the sky with room to crop on both sides. A wiry man in his thirties in a sweat-stained cotton shirt, leather braces and a battered felt hat is fully airborne, coat flaring, arms flung forward; behind him a woman in her late twenties with a red neckerchief crouches, ready to follow. Coal smoke and steam stream back from the locomotive over a blurred scrubland plain. The key is late-afternoon sun at 4000K from camera left, raking across the riveted roofs, with a warm rim on the leaper's shoulders and cinders glowing in the smoke. Panavision Millennium DXL2, Panavision C-Series anamorphic 50mm at T4, a 180-degree shutter blurring the background and the flapping coat while faces stay sharp, ochre and slate-blue palette, light grain, a frame from a big-budget frontier adventure. Real wear on wood and leather, no CGI look. No text, no logos, no watermarks.

Shape
16:9, or the nearest a model offers
Made
Models
25
How we ran it and ranked it

Every model got the prompt exactly as written above. Where a model can rewrite or expand a prompt before it draws, that was switched off, so each one worked from the same words. We made one image per model at 16:9; a model that cannot make 16:9 made its nearest shape, and its picture is trimmed slightly at the edges to fill the frame. Where a model drew black cinema bars into its picture, the bars are cut off for display. Nothing was retouched or chosen from several tries. A model that failed was tried once more; if it failed again, its card says so and why.

The order is the models' benchmark rank, not our opinion: their score in the Artificial Analysis text-to-image arena (human preference Elo, checked 8 November 2026), or, for a model Artificial Analysis does not score, the Arena text-to-image leaderboard (checked 6 November 2026). The two boards use different scales, so each score is placed by the share of its own board it beats. A model sold under two names is one model, shown once under both.

Only models whose pictures may be used commercially are included.

The answer at the top and the notes under What we noticed come from our own scores, not the benchmark. Each picture was scored 1 to 10 on prompt adherence, realism and film look, and the scores were checked by an independent cross-review.

The 25 results

Ranked by benchmark. Select a picture to see it full size, then use the arrows or your arrow keys to compare.

  1. #1

    Nano Banana 2

    · Google· AA Elo 1142
  2. #2

    Muse Image

    · Meta· AA Elo 1128
  3. #3

    Nano Banana Pro

    · Google· AA Elo 1119
  4. #4

    Qwen Image 3.0 Pro

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1095
  5. #5

    Qwen Image 3.0

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1073
  6. #6

    FLUX.3 Klein

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1043
  7. #7

    FIBO 2.0

    · Bria· AA Elo 1039
  8. #8

    Seedream 4.5

    · ByteDance· AA Elo 1030
  9. #9

    FLUX.2 [flex]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1028
  10. #10

    Recraft V4.1 Utility

    · Recraft· AA Elo 1028
  11. #11

    Luma Uni-1 Max

    · Luma AI· AA Elo 1026
  12. #12

    Grok Imagine Image

    · xAI· AA Elo 1024
  13. #13

    FLUX.2 [max]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1021
  14. #14

    Seedream 5.0 Lite

    · ByteDance· AA Elo 1019
  15. #15

    Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro

    · Recraft· AA Elo 1018
  16. #16

    Wan 2.6

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1018
  17. #17

    FLUX.2 [pro]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1003
  18. #18

    FLUX.2 [dev]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1000
  19. #19

    FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 996
  20. #20

    Luma Uni-1

    · Luma AI· AA Elo 994
  21. #21

    Recraft V4.1 Pro

    · Recraft· Arena 1132
  22. #22

    FLUX.2 [dev] Flash

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 989
  23. #23

    HunyuanImage 3.0 Instruct

    · Tencent· AA Elo 988
  24. #24

    Wan 2.7 Image

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 988
  25. #25

    Cosmos 3 Super

    · NVIDIA· AA Elo 987

What we noticed

Our read of these pictures. It's one image per model, so treat it as a snapshot, not a verdict.

  • Strongest: Recraft V4.1 Pro. Weakest: Wan 2.6.

    Recraft V4.1 Pro has the only true low angle: the leaper centred against the sky over the gap, the woman crouched behind him on the departure roof, smoke and cinders, and real peeling wood and grain. His fists are pumped rather than flung forward, and no locomotive shows. Wan 2.6 drops the woman and locomotive, invents a fringed jacket and a holster with a white revolver, and gives the carriages a glossy, game-art finish.

  • The leap itself

    Most models put the man genuinely off the roof, with Nano Banana 2 and Hunyuan Image 3.0 Instruct showing a clear gap between two carriages. Qwen Image 3.0 Pro leaps with no second carriage to land on, because its locomotive runs on a parallel track. Nano Banana Pro and Luma Uni-1 are the exceptions: the man reads as striding or running along a single roof, so the story beat of the jump is lost. FLUX.3 Klein and FLUX.2 [pro] jump over one roof rather than across a gap.

  • Light and the warm rim

    Seedream 4.5 is the clearest on the light direction: a low sun at left and sun raking across the rivets. But its warm rim is drawn as literal flames on the coat shoulders, with invented blood spatter on the shirt, so it is an artefact, not a lighting win. Muse Image and Nano Banana 2 also hold a late-afternoon warmth with ochre against slate-blue. FLUX.2 [flex] leans toward clear-blue daylight with little rim on him, so the late-afternoon mood is weaker.

  • Extra or missing people

    The brief asks for one woman, crouching behind him. FLUX.3 Klein adds a second woman, so two crouch at the roof's edge. Wan 2.6 leaves her out altogether. Cosmos 3 Super shows her airborne rather than crouched, while Recraft V4.1 Pro gets her right, crouched behind him on the departure roof.

  • Framing and lens

    Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro and Recraft V4.1 Pro return a taller, roughly 3:2 frame, and Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro adds a fisheye look that stretches the man's limbs, well away from a 50mm anamorphic wide shot. Luma Uni-1 Max has the most filmic grade of the set, but the man is small in frame and his face is soft.

See how these models rank across all 10 scenes

Head to heads featuring these models

Two of the models above on the same film scenes, judged pair by pair.

Other scenes

The same 25 models on another film shot.

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Sold under more than one name, shown once: Nano Banana 2 (Nano Banana 2, Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview); Nano Banana Pro (Nano Banana Pro, Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview).