Most heroic actions by movie characters (but no superheroes)

Cafe Society
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A friend and I were discussing our favorite westerns. I’m not especially partial to westerns, but I do have a soft spot for The Magnificent Seven (1960). One of the opening scenes has Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen volunteering to escort a deceased Native American’s body to the cemetery, in defiance of the local racists. It’s one of my favorite movie moments of all time - on the spur of the moment, with absolutely nothing to gain, they step in and risk their lives because it’s just the right thing to do. If I were to witness something similar in real life I have no doubt I would be in tears.

So it got me thinking about depictions of heroics and bravery in film. I can think of a few more, but first the rules:

  • I’m thinking no actual superheroes. It’s too easy to be heroic when you have super powers or a flying, powered-armor suit.

  • Fictional depictions are fair game, but if the film is about real events perhaps we should take note and consider the accuracy.

  • Please suggest others constraints as necessary. I haven’t considered nuances such as the difference between heroism and bravery, acting out of necessity, etc.

So, a few more examples from me. Henry Fonda’s character in 12 Angry Men. Didn’t risk his life, but certainly took a stand in difficult circumstances. He might even have been wrong, but heroic nonetheless.

In The Abyss there’s a very difficult to watch (for me) scene in which Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s character allows herself to drown in order that Ed Harris might live and possibly revive her.

Roberto Benigni’s wonderful film Life is Beautiful has many moments of personal bravery. I won’t spoil the scene by giving too many details, but the moment where he “translates” for the German guard always struck me a moment where the character had balls way outsized relative to his physical frame.

Crimson Tide: When Denzel Washington’s character realizes he can’t go along with the captain’s intention of launching nuclear weapons. We see in his face when he’s made his decision and shakes his head. “Captain, I cannot concur.” He knows he’s starting something big, but he has no choice.

Clarice Starling going after Buffalo Bill inside his house in Silence of the Lambs. She could have ran outside and somehow called for backup, but feared he would kill his captive.

Saving Private Ryan: Captain Miller orders several of his men around the corner, they all get mowed down immediately. He looks at the next three guys and sends them. They go too. From what I’ve read, that happened many times on D-Day, and other occasions, I’m sure.

I could find quite a few more examples, but I’ll stop with Pulp Fiction - Bruce Willis goes back for Ving Rhames. Sure, he got them into that situation, but he could have just left him and gotten away.

What say you?

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I would like to nominate Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird.

He did risk much to do the right thing.

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Spock’s sacrifice in Wrath of Khan. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.”

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Good one.

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War films often have heroic actions. Off the top of my head, Sergeant York and To Hell and Back featured heroic characters, since the people involved were cited for heroism under fire.

On a more subtle form of heroism, Rabbit Proof Fence tells a story of an Aboriginal girl who, with two others, makes a 1500-mile trek through the Australian outback to get back to their home with the police going after them.

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Clint Eastwood’s suicide-by-gang in Gran Torino.

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Bigwig defending the warren against General Woundwort in Watership Down

And seconding Butch going back to rescue Marcellus.

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The movie Hero, where the character rescues several people after a plane crash.

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Scott of the Antarctic. The team member who left the tent in the middle of a blizzard so that his mates might have a chance to survive. A true story noted in Scott’s log of the expedition.

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I’m curious if Miles Dysons’ death in Terminator 2 would count as heroic?

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Damn, this whole thread is giving me goosebumps.

I want to cite another moment in the 1960 Magnificent Seven (don’t even bother with the 2016 version). Near the end, the little boys who have attached themselves to Charles Bronson come to him and he tells them about everyday heroism… (from IMDB)

Village Boy 2: We’re ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.

O’Reilly: Don’t you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there’s nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That’s why I never even started anything like that… that’s why I never will.

That part always makes me cry.

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Going way back. The 1939 version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”

Esmeralda, Played by Maureen O’Hara, was about to be burned at the stake in the Church courtyard. Quasimodo, played by Charles Laughton, swings down from the bell tower and takes her of of the pyre then swings back up and gently holds her in his arms and yells: SANCTUARY!

I remember seeing this movie as a child. I am now 69 and can still see the scene in my head. I found it on YouTube:

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I’d like to add the 1996 Disney version of the same scene.

That was a weird and, overall, a misguided project, but you just know that the main reason they made the rest of the movie was just to do that one scene (and show off their new CGO crowd0-creation software at the same time). It gave me chills, and was worth putting up with the rest of the movie for

Here it is, but run backwards, for some reason

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Let’s complete the trifecta by citing the 1956 French version with Anthony Quinn and Gina Lollobrigida.

I saw this as an 8-year old and like @LH75 I can still see certain scenes in my head.

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“Tiny” Lister as the prisoner who threw the detonator out the ferry window in The Dark Knight.

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When The Joker is gassing the parade audience near the end of Tim Burton’s first Batman flick, a crime-beat reporter played by Robert Wuhl opened his car and got out a baseball bat and a cheap little medical mask, not even a real gas mask. He then waded into the Jokers goons who were holding the ropes for the poison gas balloon. He was doing well until Kim Bassinger hit him with her car. As a teen, I had way more respect for the ordinary untrained guy who charges in armed with nothing but a bat and the desire to save people than the guy with a fighter jet strafing the baddies with a chain gun. And I just realized that Burton may have been making a pun by having Wuhl be a “Bat-man.”

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Alex Kamal in an early episode of The Expanse. He and two others are trapped in a small room on a spaceship. The ship is in a battle, they were holed, and lost a lot of their air. They had a tranquilizer that would knock one of them out, so that person would use less air, giving them all more time to (maybe) be rescued.

Alex voluntarily injects himself, with just the hope that the others will carry him out of there if they get the chance. Later they all became friends, but at that point, they didn’t even trust each other, all of them thinking the other might have been involved in the events that led them to this place. Alex puts his life in the hands of people he doesn’t quite trust, in hopes of a slightly better chance of survival for all of them, because it just makes sense that he’s the one who’s skills they need the least right in that moment.

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Second this.

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Gene Hackman in the original Poseidon Adventure.

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High Noon with Gary Cooper. He makes the choice to face his enemies against the wishes and without the support of the entire town and his fiancee…

I always thought highly of movies where the actors would show fear and vulnerability, but then carry on. Humphrey Bogart seemed especially good at this, but no specific film comes to mind.