Twitchguru.com has a write up about their Top 20 Movie Shootouts. Not a bad compilation, although only 3 pre-1980 films appear on the list, and all of those from the late 60's. There has to be at least one memorable shootout from the 70's, wouldn't you think?

The list deliberately avoided war films, and limited their choice to one scene per movie under review... in other words, although a movie like James Cameron's The Terminator may have had several good shootouts (The Tech Noir, The Police Station), only one could make the list. Here are their choices...


20. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Shootout with Bolivian Army

19. Robocop - The Drug Factory

18. Grosse Pointe Blank - Home Invasion

17. The Boondock Saints - Two Against One ... or Six

16. The Terminator - The Police Station

15. La Femme Nikita - The Restaurant Test

14. Unforgiven - William Munny Confronts Little Bill

13. L.A. Confidential - The Victory Motel

12. The Professional - The S.W.A.T. Raid

11. The Way of the Gun - The Mexican Brothel

10. Tombstone - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

9. Open Range - Boss and Charley vs. the Baxter Boys

8. Scarface - Tony's Last Stand

7. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - The Mexican Standoff

6. The Untouchables - The Train Station

5. The Killer - The Abandoned Church Standoff

4. The Matrix - The Lobby Shootout

3. The Wild Bunch - Blaze of Glory

2. Hard Boiled - The Hospital

1. Heat - The Downtown Bank Robbery


From the 70's, I would have added the second wave attack by the street gang in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, where the deputy in charge of the station must make the decision to release his prisoners, and arm them in defense of the station.

I think The Untouchables ranks a little high, but maybe that's because I watched it not too long ago, and didn't think it played out all that well on TV. I was glad to see Open Range make the list... to me that's a little gem of a film that harkens back to the kind of Western that James Stewart made in the 50's. Speaking of which, the final shootout amid the rock canyons in Winchester '73 should have got a mention here.

Brian DePalma and John Woo are the only directors to have more than one film included on the list. Michael Mann could also have been named several times. He has the terrific shootout in the Discotheque in Collateral, as well as some tension filled small scale shootouts in his earlier films Thief and Manhunter.

I think I would have chosen the Tech Noir sequence in The Terminator over the Police Station shootout, since it is at the Tech Noir that we finally see how unstoppable the Terminator actually is.

For the worst shootout, I nominate Hitchcock's original The 39 Steps. Several minutes of blaring away with prop pistols, held limp-wristedly, approximately the way a painter would hold a fine camel's-hair detail brush, and absolutely nobody or nothing appears to get hit.

LOL... yeah, it seems there were only two methods of firing a gun back then... the way you describe for The 39 Steps... and then there was the "snap your forearm forward" method that, I guess, added some extra velocity to the bullets.

Upon reflection, and after an IMDB check, it appears I was thinking of The Man Who Knew Too Much, the version with Peter Lorre as the villain. That's what I was originally going to write, and then I talked myself out of it.

Where's Miller's Crossing?

I assume you're referring to the Danny Boy sequence? One of my all time faves. I remember reading a Premiere magazine Shot-by-shot article of this sequence before the movie was released. It was just fascinating. The Coen's referred to characters in gangster movies who are machine-gunned down, like Sonny Corleone, as performing the "Thompson Jitterbug".

One shoot out that sticks with me is the final action in Copland, wherein Stallone's character, already deaf in one ear is handicapped by the shot next to his other ear. If you've ever shot high caliber revolvers without ear protection, you know what a little gem of a detail this is.

Miller's Crossing is an excellent choice.

Number one all time for me, though is Once Upon a Time in the West -- all tension, one shot. (Of course, the opening shootout is a killer, too.)

If I recall, not a lot of shootout. Great freeze frame, but that's not what I look for.


Well yeah! At least Top 10.


Naah


And what about the openning sequence?


Better is the tea room shootout and the warehouse shootout.


What about the hotel shootout from The Getaway? That's my best shot for the '70's. When was Walter Hill's The Warriors? No guns, but plenty of intense battles there. The '70's didn't have a lot of films that lent themselves to shootouts and such battles. More along the lines of cat and mouse and maneuver like in the Godfathers and others. Or individuals against all that don't really resort to final battles. Antiheroes either get killed or escape.

Agree with others that the Danny Boy sequence from Miller's Crossing should be on there. I'd also, personally, include the "Where's the cut-off?" scene in Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, as well as the final scene in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, if more for it's beauty and emotional weight than it's action.

I'm glad to see they included the final shootout in The Way of the Gun, though, which is criminally underrated to me (both the shootout and the picture as a whole). For pure visceral euphoria, only The Wild Bunch matches it.

Some good ones on there. I'm glad Open Range made it; that shootout SHOCKED the packed theater I was in when it came out (I remember reading in an interview that Costner made sure that shoot-out was fairly realistic regarding range and noise--he succeeded on both accounts). I'm also glad L.A. Confidential made it.

I also wish the Danny Boy sequence from Miller's Crossing was on there; I also have a soft spot for the gun trade shoot-out in Ronin and the short--but tense--hotel assault near the end of Spartan.

While there weren't any shootouts in The Warriors, Walter Hill did stage a terrific shootout in his recreation of the James Gang's Northfield, Minnesota raid and subsequent ambush in The Long Riders.

Coincidentally, I put this film on hold a couple of weeks ago after Dennis Cozallio cited it as on of his favorite films from the 1980s. I've seen several other Walter Hill films and consider myself a fan, but I've never watched The Long Riders. I'd also like to watch the miniseries he directed recently, "Broken Trail."

When people talk about westerns from the 80's (true, not many were made), The Long Riders seems to be the forgotten film. Pale Rider and Silverado always get mentioned, although neither is very groundbreaking, relying heavily on past Hollywood conventions. The Long Riders , while very episodic, at least had some inventiveness to it, be it the so called "stunt casting" of the four sets of acting brothers (James and Stacy Keach as the James brothers - David, Robert and Keith Carridine as the Younger's - Dennis and Randy Quaid as the Miller's - and Christopher and Nicholas Guest as the Ford's), or the stark realism of the setting. I felt like there was a layer of mud on me when I left that film... I think only Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller cames as close to capturing how filthy the living conditions were in the old west. I hope you get the chance to check it out soon.

When I saw the title of this thread, the first film that came to mind was Exiled by Johnnie To (played at the TIFF last year). More than one exceptional gun battle.

The shootout in High Noon is one of my favorites.

YeaH, I like Riders. The Carradine brothers MAKE that film, as does Pamela Reed. OTOH, not so fast with the slieghting of Silverado. Right off the bat, the gun battle before the credits has to be one of the better heartstopping opennings, but its "conventions" are underrated. I think it turns John Ford's ethic of the group on its head. The four heroes are not always aligned. The group comes together and separates as either need be, or as each considers the moral imperatives. Even at the end, they are two individuals and a pair of brothers even after saving the town. This is either rather clever, or hints of a western seen through the ideals of the Age of Aquarius.

I've often wondered if Curtis Hanson's shootout in L.A. Confidential was influenced by the opening Silverado. They both rely on faceless opponents that are only seen as shadowy forms, and the protagonists are both trapped in tight quarters. The camera doesn't move outside until the gunfights have finished.

Another to add to the list is the shootout in Marion Ravenwood's tavern in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not the most memorable part of that movie, but a good shootout none the less.

True dat, though there are moments where the gunplay reaches some fairly absurd levels. Not enough to ruin the film, but enough to make you wonder if To is letting the film get away from him and drown in excess. Thankfully, he pulls it off in the end.

Yes, never thought of that. Add a guy on the inside, make creative use of the floor rather than the roof/ceiling and I'll bet that it's not frame for frame, but quite similar.

Meh. Seemed more like a casting stunt that didn't pan out than a serious look at the James gang, the American West, or the Western as a film genre. I had hoped for much more.

EDIT: On topic, there are a couple of good shootouts in this film, and those are the highlights of the film. Long time comin', though.

Dear Wendy should be on there.

Matt

Not a movie shootout, but two of the funniest shootouts that I have seen. From the series Spaced...

I read an article YEARS ago by a guy who complained that most shoot-outs -- or even simple shots -- are woefully unrealistic.

I remember he cited the ending of Casablanca, in which Bogart shoots a Nazi from several feet with a gun held down by his waist, as a particularly bad example; the author had actually tried to replicate this by holding a gun at that height and aiming at a target several feet from him, and it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do.

The one film that earned his praise? Bullitt. The shootout there is over in a few seconds -- nothing protracted here -- and it's loud and messy and everyone freaks out and it's over in a flash.

I would tend to agree. However, every once in awhile, truth can be as strange or stranger than fiction. I remember that Heat took some criticism for its protracted shootout being unrealistic. Then in Feb. 1997, just over a year after that films release, L.A. police found themselves outgunned by 2 bank robbers in North Hollywood who pinned down the police for 45 minutes in a shootout that was broadcast live on local news stations, and was eerily reminiscent of the one filmed for Heat.

Yes!

I remember watching a Myth Busters once as they tried to get a manikin to fly backward through a window by shooting it. No luck. Naturally they kept going for more power - up to a 50 mm rifle.

I saw that too. Basically, most movie shoot-outs defy the laws of physics. If you shoot someone and they go flying back 10 feet, you'd be flying back 10 feet too.