10 best fights ever seen in movies

What’s an action movie without action scenes? Whether they’re bad, good little classics or hard-hitting winners, every memorable action movie has at least one fight scene winner. What follows is the best of the best, the cream of the crop.

The best of the best when it comes to cinematic brawling. Scenes in which at least two characters are engaged. Bash with two (or more) characters who simply can’t get any further with words alone. Too much has happened, and only one can walk away without at least a cauliflower ear and a swollen eye.

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Also note that exclusively weapon-based fight scenes have been left out. This includes everything from the best lightsaber battles in the Star Wars franchise to just about everything from the John Wick movies. Just about everything, not everything. In other words, at some point in the series it has to be all fists and kicks.

Dux versus Li in the Kumite in Blood sport

Bolo Yeung’s Chong Li is the main antagonist of Blood sportthe film that made a star of Jean-Claude Van Damme, and there’s an argument that it’s as magnetic as Van Damme’s Frank Dux. Li is a ruthless and cruel fighter who is just as determined to emerge victorious as Dux. Li is the main character’s most dangerous opponent among the Kumite. And at the beginning of the third act, he has not only put Dux’s friend in the hospital, but also killed his semi-final opponent.

To keep his winning streak going, Li cheats by crushing a salt pill and throwing it in Dux’s face. But even with a blinded opponent, Li loses. Why? Because he wasn’t the one trained to fight blindfolded.

“Now you’ve had enough.” Happy Gilmore

The screeching Bob Barker voices Adam Sandler’s title character Happy Gilmore isn’t the only entry on this list that gets laughs, but it is the only entry that is exclusive played for laughs. And as far as the jokes in the ’90s comedy classic go, these are at the top, if not at the very top. After all, the late, great host of The price is right was known both for his time and especially for his affability.

But as far as the Happy Gilmore Bob Barker says: He understands how to let someone know when enough is enough. He really understands. At just over 70 seconds, his fight with Happy is far from one of the longest fights in any comedy film.

“Stay around, Bennett.” Command

Okay, so this one starts off as a weapon-based battle, but it doesn’t stay that way. Throughout the bombastic little 80s classic CommandArnold Schwarzenegger’s Colonel John Matrix mainly uses guns. And at one point a bazooka. But from the first moment Vernon Wells’ Captain Bennett appears on screen, it’s clear that these two are going to throw some punches in the end.

Bennett always cockily taunts Matrix, but the audience knows he gets his comeuppance. During their third-act boilerhouse fight, Matrix turns the taunting tables on Bennett and tantalizes him with the satisfying concept of cutting his enemy with a knife instead of a high-speed bullet. It doesn’t take long for the blades to go missing as the two fall off a balcony, and then it’s all punches and kicks. That is, until Matrix throws a pipe through Bennett and delivers the “Stay around, Bennett” one-liner.

Former friends inside Captain America: Civil War

The whole of Captain America: Civil War is an exercise in building tension until it boils over. And once Tony Stark discovers that it was Captain America’s friend, the Winter Soldier, who killed his parents, the hot water finally starts splashing on the stove. Considering all its advantages in equipment, this fight obviously isn’t all punches and kicks, but it’s still the most intimate fight in any MCU film.

Stark and Steve Rogers both have their explicit motives in the scene. One tries to take revenge, the other tries to get in the way. It gives the viewer a real feeling for Cap, who betrays one friend to save the life of another, just as they can understand Stark’s anger and the implications this scene will have in subsequent films.

Make your choice Fight club

As might be expected given the title, David Fincher’s Fight club is packed with bone-breaking exchanges. And actually they are all worth a place here. For example, the first fight between the Narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in the parking lot of a local bar is quite memorable for the same thing the rest of it is: its brutality.

None of the fights are particularly flashy, at least in terms of excessive cinematic flair as in Blood sport. Instead, they feel thoroughly realistic. This includes the bloodiest fight, between the Narrator and Jared Leto’s Angel Face, who by the end of the fight has most of that face blackened, bruised, and beaten to a mangled pulp.

Training time indoors The Matrix

The Wachowskis The Matrix quadrilogy would feature more elaborate and bombastic fight sequences than Neo’s training sequence in the first film, and for that reason it’s the best. Seeing a CGI Neo version of hundreds of CGI Agent Smiths Reloaded the matrix was molded in 2003, but has aged very poorly. As for the final battle between Neo and Smith The Matrix Revolutionsit wasn’t even particularly fun at the time of release.

However, the battles between Morpheus and Neo in the virtual training simulations still contain a certain amount of power and wonder. The audience is right there with Neo as he begins to discover that not only is the world not what he thought it was, but he isn’t really who he thought he was. He has abilities, abilities that have yet to jump the shark.

The Alleyway Brawl-in They live

They live is undoubtedly the highlight of the second half of director John Carpenter’s filmography. Razor sharp, crazy, creepy if you want; it works from front to back. But there are two scenes that really helped it maintain its pop culture relevance. The first is when the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper (as the unnamed protagonist) bursts into a bank with a shotgun and shouts, “I came here to chew gum and kick.” And I’m completely out of chewing gum.” The second is the alley brawl between his “Nada” and Keith Davids Frank.

The series lasts no less than five and a half minutes and the viewer feels every second of it. It’s played both for laughs and as a legitimately impressive, brutal fight (helped in large part by Piper’s history as a WWF and WCW wrestler). The scene has been parodied quite a bit, including in South Parkand rightly so, because it’s probably the best fight scene in movie history.

The library fight John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

Just like the rest of the John Wick franchise, Chapter 3 – Parabellum is mainly focused on ‘Gun Fu’. But early on, once the world’s killers are informed of the enormous bounty on Wick’s head, he gets into a physical altercation in a library. Specifically with fellow murderer Ernest, played by Serbian professional basketball player Boban Marjanović.

It’s brutal stuff, similar to the knife shop scene in the same film. But here Wick doesn’t even win with a gun, he wins with a book. He breaks Ernest’s jaw with the reading material and then uses it to break his opponent’s neck.

Ip vs 10 Karateka in Ip Man

Ip Manthe story of the Chinese grandmaster of Wing Chun who trained Bruce Lee is packed with memorable fights, but there is one that stands out above them all. After the Second Sino-Japanese War begins in the film, Ip (played by John Wick: Chapter 4‘s Donnie Yen), his wife and son are evicted from their lavish home and trapped in an apartment. Their house is now used as a military headquarters by the Imperial Japanese Army, led (in the city of Foshan, not in general) by karate master General Miura.

General Miura sets up an arena for battles between local martial artists and his trainees, offering a bag of rice if the local martial artist were to emerge victorious. When IP’s local rival, Liu, is executed for taking a bag of rice after losing the second of his two fights, Ip decides to join in. And he does so in a big way, by simultaneously requesting a competition against ten karatekas. Ip wins and donates the bag of rice to Liu’s grieving family. It’s undoubtedly an admirably shot fight scene, but it really works because of the selflessness of the title character. It’s both a character-building scene and an action scene.

Facing Mr. Joshua in it Lethal weapon

There are a lot of bullets flying in Richard Donner’s path Lethal weaponbut it’s a straightforward exchange of fists that sticks most in the viewer’s memory once the credits roll. Throughout the film, General Peter McAllister’s right-hand man, Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey), slowly emerges as the film’s true main antagonist. As a merciless, sociopathic mercenary and murderer, he is a force to be reckoned with.

Once McAllister is dead, there is only so long before Mr. Joshua seeks revenge on Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs and Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh. Things have gotten personal and Mr. Joshua shows up personally at the Murtaugh house as a bloodthirsty Christmas present. To protect the Murtaugh family and put an end to all the madness, Riggs steps up, defeats Mr. Joshua (nearly losing his life in the process), and even has a moment of growth when he allows the police to capture the mercenary instead of execute him. Yet that doesn’t last long, as Mr. Joshua breaks away from the authorities and is shot by the newly teamed duo.