Also, the scene where he escapes the Embassy.
The whole movie really.
The fight in the bamboo forest in House of Flying Daggers
The attack on the Death Star in the first Star Wars
The Warriors: the chase into the park and the fight with the Baseball Furies, and the fight in the subway men’s room against the Punks (including the guy on roller skates). Epic fight scenes.
The Rock in The Rundown
Instant Classic!
As much as people rag on the Star Wars prequels, the lightsaber duels were spectacular:
Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Maul in *The Phantom Menace
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Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker vs. Count Dooku and Yoda vs. Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones
Anakin & Obi-Wan vs. Count Dooku; Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. General Grievous;Mace Windu vs. Chancellor Palpatine; and Yoda vs. Emperor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith; Plus the final battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Darth Vader.
The duel from Theater of Blood has a certain charm.
I second Basil Rathbone vs. Tyrone Power in The Mask of Zorro. I also love the scene at the end where everyone whips out a sword.
For fisticuffs, I’d nominate the scene in First Blood where John Rambo punches out a precinct full of cops. Pity the rest of the movie wasn’t that good.
For gunplay, I’d say the final battle in the John Wayne-Robert Mitchum vehicle *El Dorado *. It mixes humor and seriousness very well.
From comic books, Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu, had about two dozen great battles. However, I’d say the best was Supergirl vs. Darkseid in the Great Darkness Saga (Legion #294). Honorable mention, I think, has to go to the Thing vs. Mister Fantastic in Fantastic Four #44, vol. 1.
From books, I’d say the best shootout is at the end of Mike Marshall’s The Upright Man. For the second-best, I would pick the end of Sue Grafton’s I is for Innocent.
For mayhem with swords, spears, and rocks, you cannot beat The Iliad.
Speaking of one punch fights, and to add to the great sword fights the rest of you have been adding, here’s the climactic duel between Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai in Kurosawa’s, Sanjuro. Sanjuro (1962) — The Final Samurai Showdown - YouTube
Changed how samurai, and other films’, fight scenes were shot ever after.
I’ve always been partial to the Fight Club Scene from the Ong Bak
I’d forgotten that! Yup, good stuff.
The car/foot chase in Point Break (improvised flamethrowers! improvised glass door breaking! improvised throwing a fucking dog right in the Fed’s face!)
A very brief moment from Gorky Park. Irina Asamova (possible murder witness) is being followed by a KGB thug, who is in turn being followed by Arkady Renko (murder investigator). Asanova tries to run, there is some confusion, and the end result is that the KGB thug and Asanova are in a top-floor apartment, and he is about to murder her via injection. Renko, meanwhile, arrives on the fire-escape outside the apartment, which terminates maybe 1.5 metres from the window via which he can see the thug force the needle towards her skin. What does he do? Without hesitating for even a second, he jumps from the fire-escape across space and smashes through the glass window. It doesn’t actually work out too brilliantly for him, but it’s a brilliant character moment as this cynical and disengaged investigator shows what he can do in a crisis.
On a similar note, in Children of Men Clive Owen’s character, although painted as a once formidable ex-revolutionary, uses violence only twice, and that briefly. Both times it’s utterly devastating. Do we need spoilers? We might: First, in the car chase in the forest, he kicks the car-door into the one of the motorcycles, killing the rider and disrupting the chase. Second, he smashes someone’s head with car battery as he comes through a door. It’s sudden, brutal and definitive, taking the guy from serious threat to no longer a concern in a fraction of a second.
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Swordsman 2 (1992) is chock full of mind-blowing action scenes, for instance:
One of the greatest lost gems of kung fu cinema :DHere’s my vote from Fist of Legend, fantastic drama and character synchronized with the fight. The best fights are the ones that can take the characters and plot through a journey, and this one is perfect.
I’m not a big fan of fight scenes or action movies, but I did love the fight scenes in Drunken Master (I & II).
Aragorn vs. The Big Bad Uruk at the end of Fellowship of the Ring.
One of my favorite scenes is Legolas killing the Oliphaunt :
That only counts as one.
Oh yeah, great line from Gimli. Hilarious!
Jet Li vs Murtaugh and Riggs in** Lethal Weapon 4**: At first, I didn’t know who Jet Li was and thought he totally stole the show. I’ve later read it’s considered pretty realistic: fancy martial arts vs 2 experienced bruisers who outweigh Li.
Hulk vs Loki in Avengers: Such a fun surprise in an action movie full of fights.
Enter the Dragon: Not what you’d expect, though. I was pretty impressed 60-year-old Han was able to keep up with Bruce Lee’s heretofore untouchable character.
Is that the one that goes whap *whap whap whap * whap whap “Puny god…” ?
Any one of the fights that ended each episode of The Avengers (with John Steed and his partners). I think my favorite was in “The Winged Avenger.”
Darth Vader at the end of Rogue One. Would not want to be in that corridor.