This post was originally published on here
The Academy Awards will finally have a category for stunt design, but not until 2028, which means this list will be out much quicker in celebrating the people and movies that are dedicated to performing stunts that have wowed audiences.
Not every movie with the most insane practical stunts is found below, but these six entries are a stacked selection of movies from the 1920s to the early 2000s that have car chases, martial arts fights, and uncaged wild animals.
Every one of them had risks of seriously hurting the stunt people involved. Some did injure cast and crew members. A major stunt in a 1928 movie even led to rumors it was fatal to some extras.
Get ready to experience the following movies with high-octane, bone-crunching practical stunts that will leave you amazed.
Noah’s Ark (1929)
Michael Curtiz directed this part-silent, part-talkie epic disaster film with a dual narrative. A World War I melodrama draws parallels from a retelling of the Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with the main cast appearing in both. The finale is where the massive water stunt happens, which has become a Hollywood legend.
The sequence is remarkable for how well it holds up. The shots that bring you in closer to the catastrophe had very real people as extras who were drenched in rain when they weren’t sliding around the set from waves of water splashing onto them. It was all just too much water.
According to the book The Movie Directors by Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode, the production of Noah’s Ark used 600,000 gallons of water, and allegedly, three extras died by drowning, with another having their leg amputated due to an injury. There were other injuries caused by this flood sequence, which led to new stunt-safety regulations in Hollywood.
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
H. B. Halicki wrote, directed, and produced this cult classic that gave us the longest car chase in film history, which, according to the AFI Catalog, demolished 93 vehicles.
Gone in 60 Seconds has Maindrian Pace (Halicki) living a double life as an insurance investigator and a professional car thief, who is tasked with stealing 48 cars in five days. The heist doesn’t go as planned, leading to Pace taking the police on the chase through five cities with his getaway vehicle, a yellow Ford Mustang named “Eleanor.”
The extensive chase, which lasts an astounding 40 minutes, is all the more impressively staged due to this being a low-budget independent film, self-financed by Halicki. The pacing knows when to get the reactions of the general public who witness the pursuit, and then slams on the gas pedal to cause vehicular wreckage. Halicki, who was not a professional stunt driver, did the driving himself, but his daredevil spirit led to a tragic stunt gone wrong that killed Halicki during the making of his sequel to Gone in 60 Seconds.
What he was able to create in this first movie remains one-of-a-kind.
Roar (1981)
Hank (Noel Marshall) lives on an African nature preserve with lions, tigers, cheetahs, and panthers. All of the big cats come and go as they please in Hank’s home. He prefers it that way. But then his family arrives while he is away, and they become trapped as the animals overrun the house.
Marshall directed and starred in Roar with his real-life family, including Tippi Hedren (yes, there is a joke about The Birds) and Melanie Griffith, and it would be infamously known as “the most dangerous movie ever made.” You can almost feel the air leaving Marshall’s body each time the lions pounce on him. None of the big cats were trained in Roar, which should already sound like a bad idea.
On the first day of filming, his character goes to break up a fight between two adult lions, and one bites him on the hand, with the wound seen on-screen. Griffith needed reconstructive surgery after taking a claw to her face. Cinematographer Jan de Bont, who would later direct ‘90s blockbusters, needed 200 stitches after a lion scalped him — he returned as the cinematographer after he recovered.
The production took five years to film, and while there were numerous injuries, there were shockingly no deaths.
Police Story (1985)
The chaotic opener in Police Story has cars speeding down a hillside through a squatter village. Jackie Chan plays a sergeant whose determination to catch the fleeing criminals has him go after the bus they hijack, with only an umbrella to cling onto one of its windows. The opener ends with Chan stopping the bus, which sends several of the criminals out of the windows and onto the road.
Chan directed, starred, and used his stunt team in Police Story, resulting in jaw-dropping martial arts action scenes. Take the final fight, where there is a bruising set piece in a mall. Chan’s character brawls with the henchmen of a drug lord, with an escalator and glass displays leaving everyone hurting. And then there is the electrifying finish.
The last, big stunt finds Chan sliding down a metal pole strung with live light bulbs. You see it three times from three different angles. His hands were injured, and he wouldn’t be the only one hurt. During the end credits, as a catchy song performed by Chan plays, there are bloopers to see how painful the other stunts were when the cast got hurt.
Yes, Madam (1985)
Released in the same year as Police Story, Yes, Madam stars Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock as police inspectors who are assigned as partners to find a stolen microfilm wanted by a triad boss. It’s a major film in the careers of Yeoh and Rothrock, who are formidable onscreen when they are partners and when they fight solo.
There is an incredible stunt early on where a cop saves himself from being hit by a car driven by a criminal by leaping through the broken windshield to end up inside the vehicle. But the exhilarating action gets fast and furious when Rothrock and Yeoh perform the martial arts choreography.
A fight scene in an airport is our introduction to Rothrock and her high-kick prowess. If you think by the time the movie reaches a climactic showdown that it can’t leave you in awe even more, think again. The leading women battle a horde of men. Yeoh swings herself through glass under a railing, grabs the legs of her opponents, and flips them over the balcony.
Rothrock recalled she got hurt twice during the finale, one being from an inner ear injury and the other when a weapon hit her in the nose, but the intensity from her and Yeoh makes them look unstoppable.
Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003)
Elbows and knees are just as powerful as fists in Tony Jaa’s breakout role in Ong-Bak. He stars as Ting, a young man who goes after the thieves who have stolen the head of his village’s ancient Buddha statue, and his search for them pulls him into an underground fighting tournament where he becomes a winning contestant.
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew with fight choreography by Panna Rittikrai, this movie brought the Muay Thai martial arts form to an international audience with Jaa performing the stunts himself and without wires.
Although Ting doesn’t want to fight, he has the skills to defend himself, and in the role, Jaa’s agile movements make his high jumps and elbow/knee strikes look effortless. There is also a tuk-tuk chase and Jaa having his legs on fire during one fight, both of which are memorable action scenes that make Ong-Bak a must-watch.
Which of these movies left you the most shocked at the practical stunts they pulled off?
From Your Site Articles
