Scene From A Movie: 7 Great Action Scenes
Different elements make an action scene exciting. Here are seven examples of spectacular action scenes, and why each are great in their own way.
Few things are as satisfying as a well-executed action scene.1
There are many elements that go into making a good action scene. It’s rarely about the best visual effects or big-things-go-BOOM destruction. It’s about understanding how to build tension, having emotional stakes, with reversals and pay-offs to create rhythm and momentum.
The following scenes are simply a handful of action scenes in the wide canon of great action scenes. They’re the ones that have stuck in my mind, that subconsciously influence me when I’m thinking about the kinds of action scenes I would like to create, and what makes them work.
Let’s dive in!
Seven Samurai (1954) - Final Battle
Akira Kurosawa’s samurai film would revolutionize Hollywood action films, popularizing the ‘assemble the team’ trope that is still in use today all the way down to Marvel’s The Avengers. Yet the final battle in Seven Samurai puts most other Hollywood films to shame, shot in pouring rain and using an innovative multi-camera setup and telephoto lenses to help maintain clarity and focus on the unfolding action. Mind you, all this was pre-CGI, by the way.
What makes it work— and what Hollywood clearly ignores— is that the surviving samurai and farmers aren’t fighting an endless horde of enemies. Instead, they are facing the remaining 13 bandits. Before the action starts, the leader Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura) outlines what they’ll do, and how and where they will draw the bandits to— which orients the geography and creates an expectation in the viewer on how the plan will unfold. Then, we watch it unfold, and then watch the samurai respond when the plan changes. And mentally, we’re counting down the losses— 12 bandits; 11; 10; 9… instead of mentally checking out against the repetitive action, the clear target of enemies keeps us engaged because there’s an endgame.
It also helps that the composed shots with tight editing keeps everything lucid versus shaky-cam action and choppy editing. Something else that heightens the battle is the lack of music. Instead, the soundtrack consists of the sounds of pouring rain, the splashing mud, the sound of horse hooves, bodies hitting the grounds, and shouts from both sides.
It also ends on a downer note. The samurai win the battle, but at the cost of five of their number, and the villagers seem content to ignore the samurai now that the bandits have been taken care of.
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) - Trench Run Sequence
Last month, Marcia Lucas died. She won an Oscar for editing Star Wars (along with Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew), and she deserved her win for many reasons, but definitely for some ingenious work into making the fabled Trench Run more exciting: by introducing a ticking clock.
The “ticking clock” is a narrative device used to create a time constraint or deadline that makes everything feel more urgent and tense. It heightens the emotional engagement and immerses the viewer in the character’s race against time, with every second being critical.
Here’s what I learned after Marcia Lucas passed away: in the original version of the Trench Run sequence AFTER it was filmed, she told George Lucas that the scene in its current form didn’t work.
What she did next is one of the reasons why the scene makes the list. In the original version of the trench run, the Death Star WASN’T traveling to Yavin 4 to destroy the rebel base when the fighters attack. That was Marcia Lucas’s idea, and she did it to create a ticking clock. And she did this by having new computer graphics created to show the Death Star closing in on Yavin, hiring a voice actor record a voice over ominously counting down the space station’s progress toward Yavin, and reusing shots from the Alderaan destruction sequence in which Governor Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) stated “You may fire when ready” and the technicians pressing buttons. Watch the sequence closely and you’ll notice two things: In the shot where Tarkin tells the technicians to fire when ready, Cushing’s mouth can’t be seen; and you’ll notice that nobody on the rebel base is actually talking about the Death Star closing in on their position and about to blow them up. But you feel it, thanks to its clever editing.
If you need to give your action sequence some tension especially in the final act, add a ticking clock. If Star Wars could fix it in the edit, then so can anyone!
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - Hospital Escape
Few directors craft great action sequences like James Cameron, and the escape from Pescadero State Hospital is a prime example where Cameron balances three parallel narratives— the T-1000 infiltrating the hospital, Sarah escaping her room, and John Connor and the T-800 breaking in— converges them to the moment where Sarah, John, and the T-800 unite, and then ups the ante when the T-1000 pursues them.
What makes it work— apart from the pacing and the still-visionary effects of the T-1000 changing shape— is that the sequence covers heavy emotional territory: It’s the moment when Sarah finally snaps out of her apathy into action and we get to see her in Action Sarah mode for the first time; it’s when John realizes his mother wasn’t crazy after all, and has to save her; and it’s mother-and-son are reunited for the first time, with the T-800 for the ride, and become this weird makeshift family unit.
The two narrative threads that get the most screen time are the T-1000 sneaking into the asylum first and scoping the place for Sarah Connor, and Sarah breaking out. The third narrative— John and T-800— get the least because theirs is straightforward. This is the sequence that gives us the moment when the T-1000 shapeshifts into the guard and also walks through the bars.
Cameron loves reversals in his action scenes. He’ll let the characters get close to what they want or get what they want, but then something shifts and then they’re one step back and they have to respond to new circumstances. In T2, Sarah almost escapes but then sees the T-800 and panics, leading her to nearly getting sedated by the hospital officials. Sarah, John, and the T-800 unite, only to immediately face the more dangerous threat of the T-1000— leading to the next stage of the action, where the T-1000 chases them to the underground car park and even latches on to the fleeing car, and Sarah and the T-800 working seamlessly to shoot at it. There’s an emotional satisfaction of watching them work like a team, like mom and dad working together to protect their kid. Which only reinforces the family dynamic of the film.
Great action scenes have emotional stakes. And like the scene from The Wrong Trousers (see below), reversals of fortune help to build tension.
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) — Model Train Chase
The two-minute climax of The Wrong Trousers short film is a masterclass in how to design an action sequence. No, really.
For context: Wallace and Gromit are trying to stop criminal penguin Feathers McGraw from escaping their house with a stolen diamond. In the process, Feathers falls on a moving train set running throughout the house, and Gromit and Wallace try to stop him.
It sounds absurd, but it is one of the most kinetic set pieces I’ve seen, and it puts most of Hollywood’s efforts to shame. And the reason it works is that it uses a lot of reversals to build momentum and stakes.
For instance:
When the train is headed towards the front door, Feathers sees his opportunity to escape through a penguin-shaped hatch BUT Gromit quickly hits a button that causes the train to switch tracks, THEREFORE preventing Feathers from getting away.
Another time, Feathers hits a switch that sends Wallace and Gromit onto the other track away from him. It looks like the end when the track is unfinished BUT Gromit snatches up a box of spare rail tracks and rapidly starts laying down fresh tracks, THEREFORE allowing the train to turn around and catch up with Feathers.
This is actually similar to South Park creators’ Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s advice on writing story beats using the words “but” or “therefore” where events react to each other. In the case of The Wrong Trousers, the reversals in fortune thwart the characters from achieving their goal, building suspense and tension:
Goal for Wallace and Gromit: Stop Feathers from escaping
Goal for Feathers: Escape from Wallace and Gromit
Whenever something works against them, the characters are forced to come up with new ways to act in direct reaction to the situation. Without a million-dollar budget at his disposal, Nick Park and Aardman Animations have created a brilliant study in crafting an action sequence— and Wallace and Gromit didn’t even have to save the world to do it!
Spider-Man 2 (2004) - Runaway Train
Another train sequence makes the list, but this one deserves its place. It’s got all the ingredients needed for a juicy action set-piece: Spider-Man is back in costume, he battles Doc Ock, who kidnapped Mary-Jane Watson, and then everything escalates quickly. The battle starts atop a clock tower and ends on top of a moving Subway train when things take a turn. Doc Ock damages the controls, destroying the brakes and causing the train to move at high-speed. Spider-Man chooses to stop the train and save the passengers over chasing Doc Ock.
I remember watching Spider-Man 2 in the cinema and 10-year-old me just gawked at the screen. What stayed with me wasn’t simply Sam Raimi’s kinetic action, it was the emotion behind the entire scene.
In the process of stopping the train, Spider-Man loses his mask which exposes his identity. In the effort to stop the train, he is so drained that Doc Ock later knocks him out in one punch and captures him easily. It’s a victory that comes at a price, because Spider-Man chose to save the people versus stopping the villain.
It’s a little similar to the airplane rescue sequence in Superman Returns, which I wrote about sometime earlier. Like that, the situation requires the hero to stop a vehicle from crashing and killing the passengers aboard; the difference is that in Superman Returns, Superman had a personal stake since Lois Lane was aboard the plane. In Spider-Man 2, it’s a train with strangers, and yet it still feels emotional because of how they respond.
What also works— apart from the editing, effects, acting, and music— is the Christ-like imagery of Spider-Man using his webs to slow down the train, arms splayed out like he’s on a cross. This symbolism is reinforced with Elfman’s music and the shots of the passengers gently passing his unconscious body into the carriage and lowering him to the floor. There’s also the emotion when the people realize that underneath the mask, Spider-Man is just this young guy trying to do the right thing. As one passengers remarks, “He’s just a kid. No older than my son.”
Want to add some gravitas to your action scene? Add a little Christ-like imagery. Done right, it can go a long way.
Casino Royale (2006) – Airport Chase
In the origin story, Bond is not yet the Bond that we know. While he still keeps his composure under pressure and uses quick thinking to stay on top of an escalating situation, he’s still rough around the edges and not exactly discreet. Earlier, he created an international incident by attacking one bomber in an embassy; here, he gets arrested for stopping another bomber from destroying a prototype plane at Miami International Airport.
This sequence is a work of beauty (although the poker game is equally magnificent). The film already introduced Bond in a rough-and-tumble parkour chase sequence in Madagascar, but the airport sequence is the first time that Bond actually has to prevent an act of destruction. From the start—when he follows the Greek Dmitrios to a museum exhibit, then follows the bomber to Miami International Airport—Bond never loses his composure but he isn’t exactly the suave agent of past films. He’s still rough around the edges, but is constantly using his wits to stay on top of the situation. The trouble is that despite trying to keep things covert, as a good espionage agent should, things get out of hand.
Martin Campbell stages the chaos with a mix of handheld and steady shots courtesy of DP Phil Phil Méheux, but everything is in focus and there’s never any confusion. We know exactly where the characters are, and where the target is. Bond is pushed to the edge, and there’s a genuine question of whether things will end up just as it did in the Madagascar scene. The icing on the cake is when it seems that the bomber is about to win and arms the bomb… only to realize that during their fight, Bond had secretly strapped it to the bomber’s belt. The push-in on Daniel Craig’s face as the bomber blows up off screen, and the small smirk at the scene’s end, signals that this Bond is on his way to becoming the famous Bond we know.
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) - Opening
Tom Cruise strapped himself to the side of an Airbus A400M and hung off the side for real to get this shot, and did it eight times until he was satisfied! It’s a fabulous stunt, and the fact that it happens within the first five minutes of the movie is a bold statement because it’s the fifth film’s equivalent of the Burj Khalifa scene from the earlier installment, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol— all before the titles roll. It’s the closest it gets to rivaling Goldfinger for best pre-titles sequence, in which we get the main character doing something fabulous that captures the essence of his personality— a hero defying the odds, jumping into chaos, and risking life and limb to save the day.
Funnily enough, the sequence kept moving around until it was decided that it worked best as the opening. In a way, it’s almost as if the film is saying, We know you expect Tom Cruise to do some daredevil stunt like the Burj Khalifa, so let’s get that right out of the way so that you aren’t left wondering when it’s going to happen (only to proceed with more daredevil stunts).
The scene also introduces most of the team with whom Hunt will be working— Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), analyst Brandt (Jeremy Renner), and bringing Luther back into the fray after he sat out Ghost Protocol, while also alluding to the events of that film, creating continuity. It also carries over the element from the fourth film in which technology doesn’t always work— in this case, trying to remotely open the plane doors— which adds an almost-screwball comedy tone with the characters bickering and nothing going according to plan. Which also sets the tone for the rest of the film. Which is Ethan Hunt doing an Indiana Jones and making stuff up as he goes along. It’s great. And it’s only the beginning.
What are some of your favorite action scenes? Please share your answers in the comments.
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Long live the movies!
D.L. Holmes
Except maybe fries dipped in ice cream. Don’t hate until you try it!