13 Movie Stunts That Deserved Oscars

Even when it arrives 97 years later, it’s always good to hear pleasant information. So it was Thursday when the Academy of Movement Picture Arts and Sciences ‘ Board of Governors announced that starting in 2027 they did every prize an Oscar for Achievement in Stunt Design. Or: there may eventually get an Best Picture award…

The article 13 Movie Stunts That Deserved Oscars appeared second on Den of Geek.

This is truly glad tidings considering stunts and derring-do have been the hallmarks of why folks have gone to the film since the glory days of the silent time when Harold Lloyd hung awkwardly from a clocktower in Safety Last! In Hollywood’s first Robin Hood film in circa 1922, ( 1923 ) or Douglas Fairbanks shimmied up literal draw bridge chains. However, the Academy has bizarrely ignored the bikers that make their biggest tentpoles to this day field office draws. Although it’s great to see that changing, we would like to recognize the accomplishments of a baker’s dozen or so that have stood the test of time and merit Awards.

cnx. powershell. push ( function ( ) {cnx ( {playerId:” 106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530″, }). render ( “0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796” ),

Charlie Chaplin Ends Up a Cog in the Machine of Modern Times ( 1936 )

Charlie Chaplin’s physical comedy and exquisite stunt labor were presently things of the past when he made the decision to leave his Little Tramp persona with one beautiful bird song in Modern Times. In the 1930s, sound brought films and an focus on humor of the kooky and artistic variety. Modern Times is a silent film, which is one of Chaplin’s best because it does anything he did to become famous 20 years ago, but with a clear political bent.

Consider one of the most visually impressive puns ever conceived as a critique of capitalism and modernization. Midway through Modern Times, Chaplin’s Little Tramp is swallowed by the real equipment of a factory, where he is expected to carry out mediocre inspection. It is far from the most death-defying method on this listing, but it is an example of natural stunt work reaching a funny and creative grace that makes cinema richer. The stunt produced an unwavering image that is now nearly 100 years old.

Yakima Canutt Jumps Between Horses in Stagecoach ( 1939 )

The iconography of John Ford accounts for a large portion of our idealized depiction of the Old West, both as a historical setting and as a film genre. Mythic compositions of men on horses, and perhaps thornier depictions of Native Americans in pursuit, define many of Ford’s best films. And Stagecoach, from 1939, is one of them. This was the first film in which Ford worked with his onscreen muse John Wayne in Monument Valley, and it set the tropes that many Westerns still follow. If not Joss Whedon’s Stagecoach in space, what is Firefly?

Stagecoach also has perhaps the definitive” cowboys and Indians” chase sequence where Apache raiders descend on the titular stagecoach as it makes a frantic dash across Indigenous territory. Two renowned stunts were carried out in the chase by the film’s stunt director, Yakima Canutt. The first of which sees Canutt play an Apache warrior who jumps from his horse to the stagecoach’s team of steeds—only to fall beneath the animals and the wheels of the coach. It’s such a stunning image that Steven Spielberg remade it in Raiders of the Lost Ark without the horses. Yet the even more impressive stunt is when Canutt, now made up to resemble Wayne, leaps between each pair of horses pulling the stagecoach in order to take the reins of the out-of-control leader and guide man and beast to safety. It’s still breathtaking almost a century later.

Chariot Race in Ben-Hur ( 1959 )

The first movie to ever win 11 Academy Awards is Ben-Hur. To this day, no film has bested that number ( though several have tied it ). If there had been an Oscar for stunt work, it would have been 12 or so. Even 65 years later, there are few sequences as astonishing as the Roman chariot race that proves to be the centerpiece of this monumental Biblical epic. The race, which lasted 11 minutes, was actually not actually directed by Ben-Hur helmer William Wyler, but rather by second unit directors Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt (yes, him again ). Filmed with luscious 65mm cameras and 72 horses beneath a vibrant Italian sun, the sequence is gorgeous eye candy to just stare at. However, the stunt work itself is so amazing that to this day, urban legends claim that either a stuntman or horse perished while creating it.

There is no historical evidence of either occurring, however there was a close call that you can watch in the film: the shot of Judah Ben-Hur getting flipped over his own chariot after it strikes a barrier along a wall of the arena? The stuntman who performed it almost died, Yakima’s son, Joe Canutt. That wasn’t scripted. He didn’t though, and it changed the scripting of the scene with the filmmakers adding a beat of Charlton Heston being forced to pull himself back in.

In The Spy Who Loved Me ( 1977 ), Rick Sylvester skis off a glacier.

Really if there had been Oscars for stunts in the last 100 years, the James Bond franchise would have probably collected close to a dozen by now. There are so many options to choose from: Sebastien Foucan’s performance in the Madagascar parkour sequence of Casino Royale ( 2006 ), Wayne Michaels ‘ highest bungee jump ever recorded on film in Goldeneye ( 1995 ), and Bill Suitor’s operation of a real-life jetpack in Thunderball ( 1965 ).

Yet if we are only going to pick one for this list, it has to be when Rick Sylvester skied right off a glacier atop a Canadian mountain for a sum of$ 30, 000. One of the series ‘ best movies features Bond, in a ridiculous yellow “undercover” ski uniform, escaping Soviet assassins by launching himself into an abyss where he does nothing but fall for a breathless 20 seconds. This is still the defining 007 stunt. He then pulls the chord on an absurd and terrific Union Jack parachute. How to maintain a low profile, James. It’s all captured in one unbelievable long shot that cuts just before one of Sylvester’s skis nearly punctures his parachute, which would have sent him plummeting.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark ( 1981 ), a Boulder was outrunning.

This was one of the trickier ones to include. How do you pick just one of the many outstanding stunts in the Indiana Jones movies? For pure adrenaline spectacle, we suspect Vic Armstrong in a fedora and torn shirt dangling from a rope bridge in Temple of Doom ( 1984 ) might be the winner. And Spielberg’s homage to Stagecoach, in which Terry Leonard is once more dragged beneath and behind a jeep in Raiders, is probably the most complicated set piece ever performed in the first Indy film.

Still, great stunts aren’t only about real-life danger. It might also be about indelible iconography, originality, and aesthetics. Hence why the first thing that pops in your mind when you read the words” Indiana Jones” is still probably the sight of the ragged archaeologist outrunning a boulder by the skin of his teeth—a trick done without a stuntman. Harrison Ford is undoubtedly outsmarting the boulder in that regard! Of course it’s not really a boulder, but a still gruesome 300-pound prop made of fiberglass. Ford was able to perform the stunt because it is also on a track. Nonetheless, it remains one of the all time great movie moments that gets the hair to stand on end as a visible movie star appears to be within inches of becoming a pancake as he stumbles his way into an enormous spider&#8217, s web. &nbsp,

Jackie Chan’s Explosive Slide in Police Story ( 1985 )

Jackie Chan, a performer who should have won numerous stunt Oscars, made a career out of pushing his body one insane stunt ( and many more broken bones ) at a time. We could pick a trick he did, or sequence he choreographed, in almost any of his Hong Kong films. However, his character’s odd choice in the first Police Story to chase bad guys at a mall continues to be a personal favorite.

In the sequence, his prey is escaping down at the lower levels of massive mall, so instead of following in close pursuit down a crowded escalator, Jackie decides the most efficient way to catch them is to lunge at a not-so-near pole and slide about four stories down—for real and with no wires—while shattering every string of Christmas lights in his path before crashing through a real partition of glass and wood at the bottom. In an explosion of shattering glass and electrical sparks, Chan said,” I made my jump, grabbed the pole, and watched the twinkling lights crack and pop all the way down. Then I hit the glass. And then I hit the ground. Somehow I managed to survive with a collection of ugly bruises &#8230, and second-degree burns on the skin of my fingers and palms”.

In Police Story 3 ( 1992 ), Michelle Yeoh Catches a Train.

I was conflicted about including this one since we are trying to keep this list to one entry per franchise, however given that this was Michelle Yeoh‘s own jaw-dropping moment in Police Story 3, it seems safe to include the moment where she literally jumped a dirt bike onto a moving train.

The incident occurs at the conclusion of the film when Yeoh’s young Interpol agent tries to catch up and assist Jackie in saving the day. Not only did Yeoh successfully land the bike onto the train but she rode it the near length of the train cars ‘ rooftops before jumping off after her character loses control. Even that final scene, however, is a little real because Yeoh couldn’t cleanly escape the car before making this movie, despite having never before ridden a dirt bike. So that’s really her kicking it away and off the train while its wheels are still spinning!

Hidden Dragon, Hidden Dragon, and Tree Fight in Crouching Tiger, 2000

Another case of the stunt work achieving a gracefulness and artistry that supersedes just pure adrenaline, this duel among the trees between Chow Yun-fat and Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon remains one of the most surreal and achingly beautiful “fight scenes” in cinema.

It’s true, but calling it a fight scene almost sounds silly. This is really a chance for two protagonists in direct conflict to properly introduce themselves to each other. The ostensible violence between two martial arts masters gliding between treetops has a serene peacefulness to it. The sequence came to director Ang Lee in a dream and was realized by stunt choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, whose stunt team is probably best known in the West for popularizing wire-fu in movies like The Matrix. The dancing in the green in Crouching Tiger is actually Zhang and Chow dancing in the wilderness.

Rotating Hallway Fight in Inception ( 2010 )

In the film Royal Wedding ( 1951 ), Joseph Gordon-Levitt and several members of Tom Struthers ‘ team engaged in a fight in a rotating hotel, it can be demonstrated that Fred Astaire wowed audiences by dancing on the walls and ceilings of his own hotel room. Which is true, but it’s no less impressive given how dizzyingly complex director Christopher Nolan made his action version of the showstopper.

This sequence, which was choreographed on a rotating set in an air hangar outside London, culminated Gordon-Levitt and Nolan’s teams ‘ months of training to give the impression that gravity was a fluid, sputtering resource in a dream world where your only limit was your knowledge of kung fu. It’s hypnotic.

In Mission: Impossible 4, Tom Cruise scales the tallest building in the world ( 2011 ).

Once again, we come to a stunt legend where it is difficult to choose which sequence to include. Tom Cruise has a late-life renaissance as the contemporary Douglas Fairbanks. His appearance in a movie over the last 15 or so years is a near-guarantee you’ll see some death-defying hijinks. So should it have been his time to hang from a real plane in Mission: Impossible &#8211, Rogue Nation as it took off? Or how about when he performed hundreds of HALO jumps from 25, 000 feet in 2018’s Mission: Impossible &#8211, Fallout? He attempted to outwit Rick Sylvester’s TSWLM stunt in the final movie, which was largely marketed as his only chance of survival by riding a motorcycle off a mountain using a parachute.

We ultimately decided to go with the stunt which really signaled this transition in Cruise’s career. Cruise revived his career by playing a real-life Spider-Man along the sun-kissed glass of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, in Mission: Impossible &#8211, Ghost Protocol, which was released in December 2011. It’s more or less the same trick Harold Lloyd did 90 years earlier, only higher and in Cruise’s case, he has safety harnesses holding him in place. They even don’t even digitally remove that element. They astutely make it part of the story, with the idea being both the harness and his character’s glue gloves only have a fixed amount of time to keep him safe. He then makes street pizza. It’s a marriage of movie star charisma, superb visual storytelling, and old-fashioned derring-do captured in massive IMAX cinematography.

Bane hijacks a plane in Midair in The Dark Knight Rises ( 2012 ).

Another Christopher Nolan sequence, this one is also the favorite of the director’s stunt sequences in his Batman trilogy. A team of aerial stuntmen coordinated by Tom Struthers again literally jump from one massive plane to smaller charter flight, and commandeer it with little more than wires, explosives, and guts, in a similar scene from the James Bond film Licence to Kill. Nolan improves on his influence by recording in eye-catching IMAX photography how they filmed this and other stunts. The wings coming off is a digital effect. The rest is essentially nonexistent.

Pole Cat Craziness in Mad Max: Fury Road ( 2015 )

We were persuaded to include every single entry from George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. This mad fantasia of gas-guzzling grandeur is one set piece marvel after another, strung together in a feature-length chase sequence that ascends to a level of cinematic Valhalla where all is shiny and chrome. However, if we must narrow it down to” Witnessed” and only one scene that the Academy can point to, what comes next? it would probably be the pole cat spectacle.

These Australian lunatics, er, stuntmen, were Miller’s gang, who really swayed in the breeze ( presumably because it looked cooler ) on poles above cars traveling anywhere between 30 and 60 MPH in the Namibian desert. They then swung on said poles over movie stars, including Zoë Kravitz who is really whisked by a pole-catter from one speeding vehicle to another, with nothing but hard desert earth beneath their feet. God Bless George Miller. No, really, that must’ve been the case because the fact no one died makes this something of a miracle.

The Last 40 Minutes of John Wick 4 ( 2023 ), All of It

Much like the James Bond and Mission: Impossible franchises, the John Wick flicks are an embarrassment of riches for stunt work and spectacle. The John Wick movies are a chance for those who have the knowledge to translate that into pure cinema because they were written by former stuntmen-turned-directors Chad Staheleski and David Leitch. Each mainline movie has been directed by Staheleski, and the John Wick movies are no exception.

Which might make it a bit of a shame the series is not ending after what was clearly intended to be the grand finale in John Wick: Chapter 4. The epic climax of stunt work featured an all-expensive view of the carnage as Keanu Reeves shoots his way through enemy territory in one of the most impressive oner action scenes ever created and culminates in an even more impressive, seeming series of oners where Reeves and Donnie Yen battle their way repeatedly up a long, outdoor Parisian staircase in Montmartre filled with assassins who want old Johnny boy dead. It’s a visual crucible of Mr. Wick’s trials and travails distilled into a masterpiece of carnage.

The article 13 Movie Stunts That Deserved Oscars appeared second on Den of Geek.