50 Greatest

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark – The Desert Chase

“I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go.”

The penultimate set piece from Steven Spielberg’s 1981 masterpiece is, like the film itself, an exercise in iconography. From the hero on the white horse to the truck stunt, everything here is a tribute that somehow becomes a new standard.

The Republic Pictures serials of the 30’s and 40’s that inspired Raiders featured, on several occasions, a man jumping from a horse onto a moving truck. Lucas keyed in on this image and built the entire sequence around it.  It makes sense that Lucas would be drawn to this motif given how much of his work derives from the natural fighting the mechanical.

Even the sequence’s signature stunt pays tribute. Stuntman Terry Leonard had previously tried to replicate Yakima Canutt’s famous Stagecoach undercarriage crawl in The Legend of the Lone Ranger.  This did not end well (he almost got his head crushed), so he wanted another shot at the title. Spielberg agreed, and the crawl under the truck was born.

All the film references in the world would mean nothing if the sequence could not deliver its own flavor, and little touches do the trick.  Indy looking in the rear-view mirrors to see German soldiers on either side sets just the right tone, especially with Harrison Ford’s pitch-perfect groan in reaction to what he sees.

As with Die Hard, the hero’s vulnerability plays a vital role in keeping us in the action. Even though he’s one guy taking on an entire Nazi convoy, he’s not a one-man army.  This is not a Schwarzenegger-esque unstoppable killing machine vibe. He gets shot in the middle of the sequence. And it hurts.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this sequence is that it was all shot second unit!  Understand, second unit usually shoots shit like the outside of a building or a close-up of a hand dialing a phone.  So, for the most part, that was not Spielberg behind the camera. He only created the storyboards and watched the dailies shot by a man named Michael Moore (not that one).  Needless to say, I have a new-found respect for second unit directors.

In some cases, less is more, but the score here is in your face and it works. Some of John Williams’ best work, it stands on its own as a piece of music.  You can find an in-depth analysis of it here.

Watch very carefully at the end (on the DVD – the YouTube clips cuts too early).  It took me forever before I realized that the sequence includes a moment of watermelon-on-dog violence.

See also: The Entire Indiana Jones Quadrilogy (yes, even the fourth one).

2. The Empire Strikes Back – Battle in the Snow

“Echo Station 3TA. We have spotted Imperial Walkers.”

Clearly what makes this battle sequence from Irvin Kershner’s seminal sequel stand out is the inimitable performance of Cheers icon John Ratzenberger as the guy who says, “Okay, everybody to your stations! Let’s go!”

The AT-ATs are cool, too.

This sequence excels by giving the audience something they have never seen before. The temptation with a sequel is to give the audience more of the same, just bigger and more expensive. Empire was certainly more expensive, but it took the story in directions the audience never anticipated and gave them action they hadn’t seen in Star Wars or, for that matter, any other action film.

And by hadn’t seen, I mean even in the trailers or the promotional material. I remember as a kid getting a picture book version of the movie a few days before it came out. I didn’t read it, but I looked at the pictures. I also looked at every photo from every magazine article (I still remember it on the cover of Time). No mention of Imperial Walkers. No photos. No one knew they were coming, much less what they looked like. They were as well kept a secret as the identity of Luke’s dad.

As a result, the first part of this sequence dazzles the viewer with the sheer novelty of the machines as much as the pyrotechnics of the actual fight. The element of mystery and surprise is just as important to an action sequence as it is to any narrative, though it rarely gets employed.

This is also a perfect marriage of technique and effect. Using stop motion animation, a very old technology at that point, to render the walkers works well because the practice depicts stilted motion more readily than fluid. That’s why, even by today’s standards, the walkers still look bad-ass.

Which is not to say that these adversaries are entirely original. Lucas based them, in part, on one of the oldest of sci-fi texts, War of the Worlds. The tripods in that tome are the inspiration (along with gantry cranes) for the beasts of this sequence. One of the many reasons this is a good choice is that the very size of the walkers adds to the dimensionality of the fight. If they were just tanks, you’d have the snowspeeders dive bombing them and nothing else. Here the fact that they are tall and have legs means you can have the fighters flying under them, over them, around them, etc. In an action sequence, it helps to have options.

A production design element that works well in the Star Wars universe and especially well here is specialization. Whenever Lucas thinks up a new spaceship or vehicle, a new outfit for its driver from the costume department isn’t far behind. This, of course, means they can sell more action figures, but it also helps give each fraction of that universe it’s own identity. The AT-AT drivers are, for some reason, my favorite stormtrooper variation, perhaps because their action figures always looked like they could kick all the other action figures’ asses.

The scene doesn’t settle, however, for new toys. It would suffice, perhaps, for this to be a shoot-em’-up between the snowspeeders and the AT-ATs, but Lucas throws in the wrinkle that shooting them isn’t enough. It’s always a nice moment in sci-fi when the good guys realize that point-and-shoot won’t stop whatever they’re battling, because it forces the characters and, by extension, the action sequence, to be more creative. It encourages the audience to problem solve along with the characters instead of just waiting for them to pull the trigger. Here, our heroes come up with two inventive ways of bringing down the behemoths. The key to some of the best action sequences is to present an interesting physical problem and provide a creative physical solution.

Kershner talks a lot about familiarity in his commentary on this sequence. For all the novelty of the walkers, he ties in to some common action tropes to keep the viewer grounded. There’s the scene of the pilots running to their snowspeeders, reminiscent of old WWII films (a convention evoked by the original Star Wars as well) or the periscope-style device the AT-AT commander uses to target the generators toward the end of the sequence. Even the shtick of Han Solo trying to punch-start the Millenium Falcon is one of the oldest jokes in the book, effective here because we’re not expecting it tied to such “advanced” technology.

See also: Final battle in Star Wars, Spielberg’s take on tripods in War of the Worlds, Something else we’ve never seen before – The door chase in Monsters, Inc.

Next: What a coincidence! The greatest action film of all time has the greatest action sequence of all time!

3. Die Hard – The Roof

“God, please don’t let me die.”

John McTiernan’s 1988 action classic culminates in a sequence that cuts effortlessly between converging narrative threads while making the most of one of the most unconventional action heroes of its day.

With his editors John F. Link and Frank J. Urioste, McTiernan combines four separate stories into one symphony of action. Hans kidnaps Holly downstairs while John fights Karl upstairs while hostages are bullied onto the roof while helicopters come to kill, maybe, 25% of them, give or take. McTiernan punctuates this symphony with little plot points and payoffs, like the discovery of Holly’s true identity, which leads to her kidnapping. The action moves the plot forward, even this late into the game.

Once these threads have combined to place John on the roof a moment before the sequence’s explosive denouement, the film is still combining as many elements as possible. He faces death from three distinct directions. He could die from the fall. He could die from the explosion. He could die from getting shot. All at the same time. That’s tension.

And at the moment where all of this comes together, you have one of the most vulnerable moments in action hero history. “God, please don’t let me die.” When does an action hero say that? Die Hard stood in contrast to it’s 80’s predecessors in that it’s protagonist was not a supercop or supercommando (though apparently this film was originally supposed to be Commando 2). He was an ordinary Joe. Well, he was still a cop, which means he had specialized training, but he came off like a regular guy.

Resourceful. MacGyverish, even. But still scrappy and down to earth in contrast to his cultured Eurotrash adversaries. This even comes through in his fighting style against Karl, played by former ballerina Alexander Gudonov, whose experience informs his character’s relatively graceful fighting style. John is rough and sloppy by contrast.

On the other end of the action archetype rainbow are the FBI guys, who are every bit the cowboys that Hans accuses John of being. And if we weren’t convinced enough that John is vulnerable, he goes through this whole sequence (and movie, for that matter) barefoot.

Ironically, this role was originally intended for one of those beefy, standard 80’s action icons, being offered to Arnold and Sly before they passed.

Even the editing in the film went against the contemporary action grain. McTiernan employs jump cuts and cuts while the camera is moving which, while very popular today, were unheard of practices in American action cinema at the time (they’d been common in Europe for years). The result is a kinetic style that feeds a breakneck momentum.

Speaking of style, does anyone else miss lens flares? McTiernan had to use older cameras to achieve them here. His cinematographer, by the way, was Jan de Bont, who would go on to direct Speed and, um, other films.

This sequence also has some of the best punching sounds in movie history. Bruce Willis sounds like his fists are made of guns.

For all it’s assets, the scene’s stunt doubling sometimes falls short. You can pretty much tell when it’s not Bruce. That having been said, they use him for a good portion of the explosion, padding his back and gelling the rest of him to absorb as much heat as possible when things go bang.

See also: The entire Die Hard Quadrilogy

Next: The inspirational power of gantry cranes.

4. The Matrix Reloaded – Freeway Chase

“You always told me to stay off the freeway.”

Andy and Larry Wachowski’s 2003 sequel to their 1999 classic may not have launched itself into the action canon with the furor of its predecessor, but it certainly matched its ambition for groundbreaking action. This sequence is a prime example, combining what are arguably the three fundamental action sequence forms – gunfight, fistfight and chase – into one blistering set piece.

Beginning with a gorgeous weapons battle (not an official part of the sequence, but still awesome) the Wachowskis launch us into a car chase that includes some of the most exquisite slow-motion tableaux ever committed to film. There are probably twice as many of these shots as necessary, but they’re still beautiful.

The sequence makes the most of not taking place in the real world to the same extent that sequences like this one make the most of “keeping it real.” This allows the Wachowskis to include villains like the Twins, making the action all the more creative for having straight-razor-wielding psychos phasing in and out of cars in the middle of a high speed chase.

This leads to a nice moment of internal/external jeopardy as our heroes fight one twin inside their car (using a seatbelt for defense with MacGyverish ingenuity) while agents chase (and ultimately pounce upon) them outside.

That simultaneous struggle emerges from the relative complexity of the sequence’s premise. Our heroes try to evade (a) two phase-shifting killers, (b) two super-powered agents, (c) the cops and (d) all the innocent bystanders, any of whom could accidentally run them over or morph into (b).

It all culminates in one fabulous bullet-time shot, a bigger-budget progression of the vision-warping technology introduced in the original.

For all of its achievements, the scene still suffers from some of the shortcomings that hamper the rest of the film. Link’s audience-proxy exclamations are, for example, a bit much.

The story of the creation of this sequence is pretty amazing, involving a fruitless search for a freeway that could be shut down for 10 weeks leading to the decision to build a mile-and-a-half long freeway in Alameda. I recommend the featurette devoted to the subject on the Matrix Reloaded Bonus Disc.

Now with Spanish subtitles! ¡Excelente!

Part One:

Part Two:

And, just for fun, that weapons battle I mentioned:

See also: Minivan freeway chase in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, big-ass truck accident freeway chase in To Live and Die in L.A., remote control freeway chase in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Next: The roof. The roof. The roof is on fire.

5. Hard Boiled – Teahouse Shootout

(Image reversed for reasons beyond comprehension.)

“We got some great birds.”

The blistering opening sequence to John Woo’s 1992 masterpiece represents the gold standard for Hong Kong gunplay. But it adheres to universal principles that heighten all action sequences.

The first principle is the slow build. The movie begins with jazz. Jazz! Our main characters are two members of a trio we see playing in a club as issues of Exposition Weekly fade into view lamenting rampant gun running that’s ruining Hong Kong. Our hero, Tequila (Chow Yun Fat – De Niro to Woo’s Scorsese), plays the clarinet. The clarinet! We are not expecting this guy to kick anyone’s ass.

We are then taken to a teahouse, a fairly innocuous setting made even more so by the Chinese tradition of bringing in birds (tying in nicely to Woo’s bird obsession). This tradition, incidentally, stopped a number of years ago. Three guesses as to why. But the dulcet tones of birds chirping lay the incongruous groundwork for what will soon be a cacophony of gunfire.

This particular teahouse, it should be noted, is the sole reason this sequence exists. Woo didn’t have a script when he shot this. He didn’t even have a story. And as that is often the problem with most action movies, here it doesn’t seem to matter.

Woo and his crew heard that this location, the historic Wun Loi Dai Cha Lau teahouse in Mong Kok, was about to be torn down. This meant two things. One, they had the opportunity to preserve it on film. Two, they could completely fuck it up without having to worry about putting it back together when they were done.

So, without a script or a story, they just walked in, looked around, and figured it out. As soon as Woo saw the stairway leading up to the teahouse, he envisioned Chow Yun Fat’s historic two-fisted slide down the banister. That’s right. One of the most iconic images in Hong Kong cinema history was made up on the fly.

Another fundamental action principle Woo exploits adeptly here is the power of the moving camera. In a word, Woo’s cinema is kinetic. He never uses a still shot when a moving one will do. And even the pace of the movement within the frame is up for grabs. He’ll cut to slo-mo without missing a beat, or even slow the action down within the same shot. For him, slow motion is not some gimmick. It’s as much a part of the language as the close-up.

It should come as no surprise that Woo was a talented dancer in his youth. To him, action choreography really is choreography. And he dances with his cinematographer as much as his stunt coordinator. As in the greatest movie musicals, the camera dances as skillfully as the dancers themselves. That the term “bullet ballet” was popularized in reference to Woo’s oeuvre is no coincidence.

While moving the camera is hardly new, Woo was one of the first to really bring it to this kind of action sequence. Spielberg’s fairly staid camera in the nonetheless stellar shootout in Raiders comes to mind. Another relatively fresh element Woo brings is the myth of the bulletproof bystander. In most movie shootouts, the crowd is immune when lead gets sprayed. Peckinpah helped to corrode this convention, but Woo just tears it to shreds. Instead of the cliché of the bad guy pushing people out of the way as he runs, he shoots them out of the way. A lot.

One cliché Woo does not improve upon is the partner signing his death warrant by talking about his family while the hero encourages him to get out of town. He might as well say he’s just bought a new boat called the Live-4-Ever.

And now for a bit of completely unsubstantiated film theory: Tequila’s pancaked face at the end represents the identity confusion inherent in the film (vis a vis Tony Leung), echoing the identity confusion inherent in Hong Kong at the time, as it was five years shy of being handed back to China from Britain. So Tequila is, for a moment, British on the surface but Chinese beneath.

Okay, I’ll stop that now.

See also: The rest of Hard Boiled, bar shootout in Desperado, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” sequence in Face/Off, all of The Killer.

Next: The highest-ranking sequence from a non-classic on this list.

6. King Kong – The V-Rex Battle

“(Sound that a V-Rex makes)”

The epic brawl between King Kong and a trio of dinosaurs in Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake is an exercise in upping the ante. We begin with Ann Darrow hiding from one Foetedon (big-ass iguana-lookin’ mofo), then two. Then, after a brief foreshadowing of the nasty insect sequence to come, we upgrade to one V-Rex (Skull Island’s extra-evolutionary answer to a T-Rex), then two. Finally, by the time Kong arrives on the scene, Jackson throws in a third V-Rex for good measure.

Jackson refuses to be satisfied with an already sensational premise. He begins with a remake of the classic 1933 battle between Kong and a Tyrannosaur. Giant ape vs. giant lizard. Fair enough. But then he starts asking questions. What if Kong had to take on two of those guys? If two, why not three? Who’d see that coming? And instead of Ann waiting safely in a tree screaming the whole time, what if Kong had to hold her while fighting? (This produces the single most bad-ass move by a giant ape in film history – the mid-battle hand-to-foot blonde toss.)

Most storytellers at this point would say, “You know what? We’ve got a pretty good scene here. Let’s get lunch.” But Jackson says, “Oh, and then they fall into a giant patchwork of vines.”

For all his innovation, Jackson doesn’t forget where Kong comes from. At the end of the sequence, he returns to the simplicity of the original fight, bringing it back down to one giant animal enters, one giant animal leaves, and goes so far as to give Kong the same finishing move – that sickhouse jaw break.

There’s no lack of visual technique at work here. Jackson takes his time with his reveals, introducing each new danger in unexpected ways. And rather than allow his CG creatures play on a static stage, he keeps the camerawork fluid while maintaining the geography of the action.

Aside from proving that CG action choreography can be just as sophisticated as in any martial arts film, the scene also establishes a core dramatic element on which the rest of the film will rely – how much Kong and Ann mean to each other. I’ll pause while you snicker.

But, seriously, dude, how many people would you take a V-Rex chomp for? Or two? Or three? (They chew on his arm a LOT.) But Kong never lets go. He defends Ann to the end, demonstrating that she’s not just another pretty face in a bone necklace that he’ll eventually crush absent-mindedly once he becomes bored with her.

And after seeing Kong pwn that last V-Rex, Ann looks like she’s ready to bear his uncomfortably large ape spawn. I know he’s unemployed, but he’s got his own place and, unlike everyone else on the island, he doesn’t just see her as food.

Kong, of course, plays the moment like a champ. He’s all “You’re looking well,” and then starts to walk away making her chase him. Yeah, that fucker’s read The Game.

See also: The rest of the Skull Island sequence of King Kong, The first T-Rex attack in Jurrasic Park, Final battle in Destroy All Monsters, pretty much anything Ray Harryhausen was involved in.

Next: A film with the classic subtitled dialogue, “Situation with babies bad.”

7. Saving Private Ryan – Omaha Beach

“What the hell do we do now, sir?”

The opening 23 minutes of Steven Spielberg’s 1997 war chronicle takes the gritty realism previously reserved for less respectable conflicts like Vietnam and applies them to the Big One. The result is one of the most veteran-lauded depictions of battle ever filmed.

Spielberg, who already had a pretty good handle on how to make an action sequence at this point, abandoned many of his tried and true techniques in order to immerse the viewer in the world of the soldier. Eschewing storyboards in favor of improvisation, he acknowledged that the experience of the soldier was not well plotted out. He knew what happened on June 6, 1944, but the individual moments from point A to point B were more or less devised on each day of shooting. As a result, we get a collection of vignettes as opposed to a clear sequential process.

This makes things all the more visceral because we (a) focus on one moment at a time and (b) like the soldiers, have no idea what will happen next. To further enhance this aspect, Spielberg shot the entire scene (and the whole movie, for that matter) in sequence, with little knowledge of what he would shoot next.

He likewise abandons his reliance on John Williams in order to deliver the sequence without music. Since the soldiers didn’t hear any, neither do you. Another immersive aural element is the occasional warping of sound. It’s as if the blasts have momentarily shattered your eardrums.

Spielberg regular (though a relatively new addition at the time) Janusz Kaminski employs some interesting cinematographic techniques to enhance the experience. Going handheld alone kicks up the intensity. (Spielberg actually does some of his own handheld work here. Again, a rarity for him at this point.) In addition, his high speed shutter allows you to see every grain of sand as it kicks up in the air. Literally a gritty battle sequence.

The choice to leave blood on the lens in one shot both distances and immerses the viewer. On the one hand, it makes the presence of the camera obvious. On the other, as the camera stands in for your eyes, it gets blood on you. Children of Men faces a similar POV conundrum in its final scenes.

Another departure for Spielberg here is the use of gore. He’d been brutal before (Schindler’s List), and he’d tried to gross us out (Temple of Doom), but he’d never engaged in “serious” gore. The difference between the matter-of-fact violence in Schindler’s List in black and white and the same style of violence in color is astounding. There is a primal horror in the sight of a soldier, intestines spilling out, yelling for his mother.

There are plenty of tried-and-true Spielberg hallmarks at work as well. He understands, more than almost any director, how to communicate visually. When Sgt. Horvath collects sand in his jar we get, without words, how long he’s been in this war, how many countries he’s been to and one surprisingly gentle hobby he’s adopted. All in one, brief shot.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

See also: Final battle in Saving Private Ryan, all of Flags of Our Fathers, all of Glory.

Next: David Poland called it “the greatest CG action scene ever.”

8. Apocalypse Now – Helicopter Attack

“If I say it’s safe to surf this beach, Captain, it’s safe to surf this beach!”

At number eight we have what may be the most beautifully shot action sequence in film history. For his trippy 1979 adaptation of Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola combines the visual artistry of cinematographer Vitttorio Storaro with the conceptual audacity of screenwriter John Milius (and, on this sequence, a little bit of consultation from some guy named Kurosawa).

The lush, layered compositions that illustrate the action serve as a framework for the sheer surrealism of the sequence. Complaining that Apocalypse Now is not an accurate depiction of Vietnam is kind of like complaining that Twin Peaks is an inaccurate depiction of the FBI.
That’s not to say it’s a coincidence that the film takes place in Vietnam, but even Coppola says in the commentary that as he shot he realized “This isn’t really a war film after all.”

That is to say that the themes of Apocalypse Now are particularly embodied in this sequence. The idea that technology enables us to more wholly unleash our darkness is made apparent by the juxtaposition of the metal helicopters blaring Wagner against the supposedly peaceful, quiet bamboo village blaring, well, nothing. (Of course, they have weapons, too. It’s a complicated metaphor.)

For all the surrealism and highfalutin’ ideas and allegories, there are one or two real things in this sequence. American soldiers in helicopters really would sit on their helmets just in case they were shot at from below.

Speaking of safety, Coppolla threw it out the window while shooting this sequence. You think Frankenheimer was jacknuts? Coppola set off flares in a helicopter while it was flying, with him in it. He also wiped out a half-mile line of trees for one shot (they put up signs warning people to stay away, but still).

At the heart of the sequence is Robert Duvall’s career-defining performance as Kilgore. First off, let’s talk range. Compare this to his other great Coppola-directed performance in The Godfather. Here, he embodies the surrealism of the sequence. The way he just stands there, unquestioning, as the bombs go off around him while everybody else ducks and covers doesn’t seem a question of bravery so much as clear, cool-headed insanity that allows him to survive simply because he accepts human suffering and the infliction of human suffering as part and parcel of his life’s work. He’s like an executive who takes advantage of the fact that he’s on a business trip in a place that has good surfing. You believe the regret in his voice when he says, “Someday this war’s gonna end.”

Incidentally, this is probably the only sequence on our list that has Ferdinand Marcos to thank for its existence. The helicopters used in and to
shoot the scene constituted the entire helicopter fleet of the Filipino air force at the time, and were frequently called away to fight insurgents.

See also: The rest of Apocalypse Now, Pearl Harbor attack in Pearl Harbor, liberation of the prison camp in Empire of the Sun.

Next: 40 barrels of fake blood were used in this sequence, and that was just for the water.

9. The Blues Brothers – 106 Miles to Chicago

“Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved.”

It is exceedingly likely that this is the only action sequence in movie history that required the FAA to decertify a Pinto. But don’t quote me on that. That fact is an example of the brilliant excess that went into the making of the climactic chase from John Landis’ 1980 tour-de-wacky.

The decertification was necessary because the film wanted to drop a Ford Pinto from over a mile in the air over downtown Chicago. The FAA had to be certain that the Pinto was not airworthy and would hit its 50′ x 50′ mark instead of turning into an airfoil and crashing into the Sears Tower or something.

The amazing degree of on-location permissions doesn’t stop there. After Mayor Daley (Richard J., not Richard M.) banned film production in Chicago, filming a sequence like this seemed impossible. After Daley’s passing (a fact noted in a choice snippet of dialogue in the film) things eased up, and Mayor Jane Byrne signed off on shooting in Chicago while the Cook County Board (with some, um, influence from “legitimate businessmen”) signed off not only on shooting in the very plaza named after the contentious mayor, but on driving the Bluesmobile right through the lobby of the courthouse there.

This film, by the way, opened up movie production in Chicago. We would have nary a John Hughes film without the doors opened by The Blues Brothers.

Shooting was performed in the exact opposite way as The French Connection operated almost a decade earlier. Not only were permissions secured, but streets were blocked off for miles by production assistants and cops numbering in the hundreds to ensure no one got hurt. The only pedestrians onscreen were stuntpeople. As a result, those cars could take Lower Wacker Drive at 115 mph with a clear conscience.

At the heart of the sequence (and pretty much all of the action in the film) is the Bluesmobile, which deserves a place with the Mach 5 and KITT as one of the most bad-ass cars in fictional vehicle history. 13 different used cop cars depicted the vehicle, including the one that was set up for months to be able to fall completely apart at the drop of a hat. To maintain the level of carnage for those and the 60 or so other used cop cars in the flick, the production maintained a 24/7 body shop. This film held the record for sheer number of cars crashed, unparalleled until its regrettable sequel.

Another landmark for the truly geeky among you, this is the first use of a pipe ramp (used to launch cars into the air) in film history. This is nice because when cars pile up in this scene, they do so for no reason whatsoever. Cars just fly into shots, already flipping. Just because.

In many action sequences, it’s the use of discretion that creates power. What is not shown. The judicious use of camera angles and the efficiency of motion. Here, it’s the exact opposite. More is more. And better. The utter devotion to excess makes this one of the greatest car chases of all time.

Even conceptually this sequence revels in size. The chase goes on all night and into the morning, as is beautifully expressed by the fading down, but not out, of the music as we fade in and out from night to day. (Another prime use of music: Wagner for the Illinois Nazis.)

Learn more about the making of the chase here.

See also: The mall chase from The Blues Brothers, cop cars vs. tractor trailers battle royale in Smokey & the Bandit 2, race to save the Pope in Foul Play

Next: We’re not done with Wagner.

10. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Battle for Helm’s Deep

“So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?”

The magic that Peter Jackson brings to his adaptation of the Tolkein classic, and this 2002 installment in particular, is to take the story as seriously as any war epic. For Jackson, the battle for Helm’s Deep might as well be the storming of the beach at Normandy, and the payoff is one of the most intense battle sequences in fantasy film history.

The technology here allows this to be an unprecedented battle scene. Even in the days of Cecil B. DeMille you could only muster crowds in the hundreds or maybe thousands. Here, with CG, you can get tens of thousands fighting at once. Of course, that number could go on forever and produce diminishing returns, but Jackson offers us a variety of images so that we don’t miss the trees for the forest.

Part of the technique Jackson employs is to use handheld cameras to put us in the shit. Nothing new there, except that handheld and fantasy almost never go together. Here it ups the brutality beyond that of the many other battle sequences the series has to offer. It also balances the epic, sweeping shots that (very wisely) remind you of the geography of the battle.

Speaking of geography, Jackson makes a conscious effort to remind us where each of our heroes are and what they’re doing during the battle, a deliberate rule set during editing with the foreknowledge that watching a bunch of extras fight, no matter how cool the moves, wouldn’t hold our interest for long.

Jackson contrasts the action of his warriors with the inaction of the Ents, where the talking trees come off like the U.N., deliberating during the slaughter. He also cuts to the civilians waiting inside the castle, whose faces remind us what’s at stake.

And he’s smart enough to make room in the carnage for absolutely bad-ass maneuvers like Legolas’ shield-surfing.

Not unlike #42, the rising tension comes from the seeming inevitability of our heroes’ defeat. Whatever battlement they’ve established, Saruman’s forces have the numbers or the ingenuity to find a way around it. One of the most impressive of these is the explosives they set to breach the wall. Usually I don’t like seeing the same explosion over and over again from different angles, but this one is just astounding enough to warrant replays.

Though it’s not readily apparent, this sequence owes a debt to Xena and Hercules. Years of those shows filming in New Zealand produced an army of stuntmen already living in the area. These performers were trained by professionals with next-gen fight choreography job titles like Cultural Fighting Styles (Tony Woolf) and Mocap Combat Choreographer (Carrie Thiel). Each group of characters (Orcs, Elves, Rohan Warriors) got their own fightings styles. Each stuntman had to learn each style, since there were not enough stuntmen to have each one learn only one. They then endured the four months it took to shoot this sequence, most of that at night in the rain.

The sophisticated approach to the action in this scene was married to the 70 or so years of experience embodied in swordmaster Bob Anderson, who doubled for Errol Flynn, played Darth Vader when he battled Obi-Wan and choreographed this series. His work in this sequence is part of the reason it holds together so well. He understands a certain fundamental action ethic, saying in one of the 472,095 hours of LOTR DVD extras, “Any sort of swordfight has a story of its own within the main story.”

Three things to look out for: That guy without an eye, really doesn’t have an eye. (Apparently it did wonders for his self-esteem to show it.) One of the soldiers throwing a spear is Peter Jackson. And keep an ear out for a Wilhelm scream.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three (with a little overlap):

See also: The rest of the trilogy, all of The Seven Samurai, all of 300.

Next: The only comedy to crack the top ten.