James Caans asskicking of his brother in law in Godfather. It was a little one sided though.
Here are some of my favorites. Some have already been mentioned.
Jet Li vs. Billy Chow (as General Fujita) in Fist of Legend. (Lots of great fights in this movie).
Jackie Chan vs. Benny “The Jet” Urquidez at the end of Wheels on Meals.
Michelle Yeoh (and Cynthia Rothrock) vs. multiples at the end of **Yes, Madam!**. This is a *great * fight scene. Lots of people beng thrown through glass, down stairs, etc.
Michelle Yeoh has several really good fight scenes in Royal Warriors. The best, IMO is the final fight. I can’t see how she didn’t end up in the hospital after filming that one. She gets thrown around a lot. Pretty brutal.
On the “I can’t believe they did that” front, the otherwise forgettable film **Escape From Brothel ** has a fight that involves a completely naked Sophia Crawford. So, if you want to see her take a kung-fu kick to the muff, this one’s for you.
For inventiveness and wire-fu, the contest fight in Fong Sai Yuk. (Part of it takes place on the heads of the bystanding crowd!)
**Iron Monkey ** is full of wuxia-style fighting, if you like wire-fu. The flaming pole fight is especially good.
Another “fun” fight scene is Michelle Yeoh’s tofu shop scene in Wing Chun. From my review [scroll down on the linked page]:
There are several other very entertaining fight scenes in this movie also. They are not brutal death-matches, but rather spin-through-the-air, prop-using, wonderfully choreographed, skilled ballets.
Man, I was gonna mention one from my childhood, but now I can’t find any trace of it on IMDB, and must be misremembering it.
I was gonna say John Wayne and Sidney Portier in The Bounty Hunters. But I can’t find any movie by that name or in either actor’s filmography. In any event, there was a cowboy/bounty hunter, and an (escaped?) slave in the old west. Tho they hate each other, they end up having to work together to confront bad guys and indians. I remember one of them had a horse that stopped on a dime throwing its rider when someone whistled.
Anyways, I remember there being a great fistfight between the two protagonists, with them falling into a river and such. As far as westerns, I remember it as one of the best. Now if only I could remember what the movie was…
Short: Butch vs. Harvey in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
Long: Sword fight between Andre and the Marquis de Maine in “Scaramouche.”
Sexy: Li Mu Bai vs Jen (in the bamboo) in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Having seen some pretty nasty real life fights and more than a few bloody boxing matches on TV, the ones already mentioned seem to cover the spectrum of “pretty fights” and “graceful fights” about as well as one could expect.
But because of its brutality, ugliness and real-life desperation, in which all semblaces of glamor are removed to show the ultimate goal of most fights, I submit the one between Dan Dority and Hearst’s man Turner in the Deadwood episode 29 A Two-Headed Beast
I also remember some fights involving Brando in On The Waterfront and The Chase that were pretty damn ugly.
From the same movie: Mal vs. Sheriff Langston’s posse.
“Today, my jurisdiction ends here. Pick up my hat.”
I’ll second the fight scene in **The Quite Man ** and add the barroom fight in Shane.
Mal vs. The Operative in two different fights in Serenity.
The final shoot-out between The Wild Bunch and Mapache’s goons in The Wild Bunch.
Or maybe Mal vs the torturer from “War Stories”:
**Zoe: ** This is something the captain has to do for himself.
Mal: No! No, it’s not!
Zoe: Oh.
Blam!
If TV cartoons count, cripple fight is my fav.
That sounds like the fistfight between Ossie Davis and Burt Lancaster in The Scalphunters.
Some of my favorites have been mentioned already. Obi-Was vs. Darth Maul in Phantom Menace was absolutely incredible. As I’ve said before: right after Maul kills Qui-Gon, he waits for the energy wall to open up so he can engage Obi-Wan. When Obi-Wan enters the room and they clash, there is about seven seconds of intense swordplay, and those seven seconds make the entire movie. That little snippet is everything lightsaber combat should be: lightning-fast opponents, with precognitive ability, fighting with weightless blades. It’s magnificent. I found it on YouTube here, no telling if it’ll last.
And oh yes, Equilibrium. Mediocre film, but wasn’t them fight scenes great. Best of all was at the very end: two people schooled in gunkata, shooting at one another from a range of inches, not even flinching. Makes you want to spray gunfire around with pure glee.
Jackie Chan always has good ones. I have a soft spot for the rooftop fight in Who Am I?. I love the little things, like the second opponent taking off his jacket when Jackie wraps the first opponent up in his own coat, and later taking off his tie when the first opponent again is whupped up on as Jackie grabs his tie and beats the snot out of him.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I was going nuts trying to remember that one. Good fight - and decent movie, as I recall. May need to rent it. (Undoubtedly will be disappointed! Seems few fondly remembered movies live up to my memories…)
I saw The Scalphunters not long ago, and I found it just as enjoyable as it was the first time around. I’m a big fan of Burt Lancaster, and this is prime Burt.
“We’ll keep an eye out for you, Stingray!”
“Yeah! See ya!”
Another one - I REALLY enjoyed the scene where River destroyed the Reavers in Serenity.
And there were some great fight scenes in BTVS. In particular, I remember the one where she used various weapons against the aliens in that one season finale/premiere when she was waitning tables, where the aliens took homeless kids and worked them until they were old…
And another one between Buffy and Faith. Yum!
Pretty much anything from Drunken Master II (released in the US as The Legend of Drunken Master) would get my vote. For example, the final fight scene, in which Jackie drinks some kind of industrial solvent to get his alcoholic superpowers going (think “Popeye and spinach”), then whips a bunch of ass. I also liked the fight under the train early in the movie.
And of course, They Live.
This is pretty cool: a Top Ten Fight Scenes list, complete with video clips.
The Incredibles vs the Omni-Droid?
I was half tempted to start another thread about the “Most realistic fight scene”, but since this one is already combined I am going to put it here.
The barroom fight scene that pits Humpry Bogart’s and Tim Holts characters against a crooked employer. At the end of the scene one character (Tim Holt’s?) is holding on to one leg flailing away exhausted while the other two fight very unglamoursly.