"Best On Screen gunfight?" Topic

With the recent poll about best hand to hand scene being in it's final throes, I thought why not have a poll for best on screen gunfight? I have a few suggestions for said poll, but I'd love to hear from others?

I'm quite fond of the one at the end of "Grosse Pointe Blank."

The end of Cross of Iron.

Finale of "Open Range"

"Open Range" excellent, what about Tombstone or for a modern take the bank job in "Heat".

OK Corral gunfight in Tombstone – Val Kilmer rocks as Doc Holliday.

"I'm your Huckleberry!"

Another vote for Open Range.

The three-way in the cemetary at the end of "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly".

Nothing else comes close!

Silverado has a few good ones.

The end of True Romance is the best. It is a three way gunfight, there are psychos, cops, drug dealers and even Elvis, sort of. You'd have a tough time beating that.

There's an absolutely teriffic, and shot-for-shot authentic, gunfight at the climax of the 1988 TV movie: "In the Line of Duty: the FBI Murders."

It stars David Soul & Michael Gross (YES! Hutch AND Burt the survivalist in the same movie!) as two armed robbers who were the targets of a botched FBI ambush in Miami, 1986.

Have a butcher's…

YouTube link

On the Western front, I reckon "The Culpepper Cattle Company" takes some beating.

I liked the one in Appaloosa. It's over in 30 seconds, everyone's hit and someone says 'Well, we are all gunfighters'.

I think the shootout in HEAT is the best I've seen.
The first RAMBO had a good one.
LAST MAN STANDING (Bruce Willis one, not the Sharon Stone one) has some good shootouts.

I dunno about "best," but some of the ones in various Tarantino movies amuse me greatly.

I second the shootout in Heat.

How about the ones at the beginning and the end of "The Wild Bunch"?

I think I'd vote "Apaloosa" for sheer lethal realism. If we're getting outside of westerns, probably the bank shootout in "Heat" for the same reason.

Most memorable cinematic shootout in a western would go to "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" or possibly "Tombstone". For modern, probably "Die Hard", the whole movie.

The final shoot-out in 'Resevoir Dogs'-
I -felt- those bullets!

When does a Gunfight become a battle. The final fight scene in The Wild Bunch is my top "big" gunfight. 4 vs 50, with a machine gun and grenades thrown in. Was Pork Chop Hill a series of Gunfights?

On the smaller side, Appaloosa was very realistic. Lots of shooting, 3 dead, 2 wounded and one gets away. Open Range was also excellent on the larger side, 2 (plus random towns people) vs 20. One vs a few was best shown in High Noon.

The Heat shoot out was my favorite modern day such display. Second only to the live shoot out in North Hollywood in 1997
link

The fight between Terminator and police in Term2 was outstanding.

"gunfight" to mean conjures images of western gunfights, not more modern firefights with automatic weapons. The movie Heat does not involve a gun fight – but a firefight between the bank robbers and the cops and it involves covering fire, suppression fire, pretty much everything you would expect in a modern gun battle. It is not a "gunfight" in my view. The Tombstone scene is a gunfight, the scene in Unforgiven at the end, is a gunfight, the scene from Pale Rider is a gunfight, those involve six-shooters, fast draws, and stand-up fights. No automatic weapons, no suppressive fire, no covering fire, no shoot and scoot tactics, but fire and kill or be killed. Just my view though.

But if we are going to use any period – I'd say that the scenes from Barry Lyndon were great, Glory has some good ones, but the out and out best "gunfight" would be the storming of the beach in Saving Private Ryan – that is probably the single best bit of filming in terms of the realities of war and gun combat ever done to date.

For purposes of this post, firefight and gunfight are used interchangeably..but thanks for pointing out the difference Jovian1.

I agree with so many of the opinions here.

But I am surprised that nobody mentioned the fight between Eastwood and everyone else in "The Unforgiven".

Clint walks into the saloon filled with men ready to go hunt him down holding a shotgun and a pistol.
When the scatter gun misfires, he calmly pulls his pistol and starts taking men out one-by-one.

Classic Eastwood!

Best Old West gunfight for me was Open Range. There were several short but good ones in Barbarosa, and the one at the end of Matewan was short and realistic (not Old West, but had that feel). The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid shootout was pretty good, too. And of course several in The Magnificent Seven.

My choices?

The shootout with the Cops in Heat, the end of Open Range..the OK Corral showdown in Tombstone, Unforgiven was also brilliant, I also enjoyed the ambush in the movie Ronin, it was well done, professional and the choreography was well done.

A few good ones in Millers Crossing

But if you want to play by Jovian1's rules how about High Noon?

Another vote for Unforgiven. When Eastwood says that anyone who doesn't want to die better clear out now, you know he means business!

Can't forget the final scene in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" or a number of scenes from "The Long Riders".

I'll go with Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, what a great scene.

Butch and Sundance protecting the payroll shipment.

For a western i like the one in My Darling Clementine, classic western.

Fora modern one, all those previously mentioned are good, but what about the final showdown in the movie Extreme Prejedice ? Sort of reminds me of the shootout in the Wild Bunch.

Da "HEAT"!

Wild Bunch for me start and finish not just for the gunfights but the lead up to them aswell

Heat

I have to say, though this might be a bit outside the purview of the post…but most hilarious…was the scene in the otherwise FORGETTABLE "Escape from LA" with "Bangokok Rules", though even "Raiders of The Lost Ark" carried it off better".

The short but brutal fight on horseback in "Rooster Cogburn"

"Tough talk from an old fat man!"

"Fill yer hands!"

"Tough talk from an old fat man!"

That's "Brave words from a one-eyed fat man."

And I have to agree that's a good one.

Bob&Dog, Donrice: I'll add a third vote for Appaloosa.

"That was quick."
"Yeah, everybody could shoot."

The final scene of The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. That or Unforgiven.

Heat gets the award for the longest, but i reckon the best is the opening sequence of Hard Boiled….Woo at his finest….:-)

The three that stick out in my mind were

1) Heat

2) the end of The Unforgiven

3) Hard Boiled.

For classic western type, The Outlaw Josey Wales scene when he comes upon the Union soldiers outside a shop. Short, sharp, and deadly, and done with the usual Clint Eastwood style.

For modern, but still classic, the early part of 48 Hrs when the two detectives come upon the hotel room with the two bad guys celebrating with the two hookers--lots of shots and very few hits.

For modern no-holds-barred, just about all of Black Hawk Down.

Rob

Open Range gets my vote. On the larger side of gunbattles, Wild Bunch at the end with the 4 outlaws against a regiment of Mexican soldiers.

Wow, I forgot about "Unforgiven". That bumps ahead of "Appaloosa" for my vote.

Guiscard, Rmaker… the line is:

"I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!"

But there's no faulting your taste in shootouts.

my vote would be the footage of those bank robbers in L.A. years ago. a really nasty gunfight (lots of bullets) and it's all real. quite a story, actually.

Another vote for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Ideally on a proper sized screen, just fabulous.

Outlaw Josey Wales and A Fistful of Dollars had some good gunfights but my favorite is the final shootout in Stagecoach -- the John Wayne classic not the Alex Cord remake. My second favorite is at the end of Quigley Down Under starring Tom Selleck.

1) The bank shootout in Heat

2) The bank robbery escape in Resevoir Dogs

3) The final shootout in Unforgiven