Everyone has their own opinion on what constitutes as the best of the best when it comes to movie fights and battles, but for my list, I chose fights that had something special or unique to them, that typically had the viewers heavily invested in the outcome of the fights, and that were memorable in some way. For me, it goes without saying that all things Bruce Lee don't even need to be on this list because in my eyes, he is always number one...beyond, number one, but the rest are the ten of my favorite fights or battles in my opinion and in no particular order.
1. Roadhouse
This is a honest to goodness hand to hand battle which I feel you see less and less of these days without some major theatrics or CGI or wires attached to it. This is just two men, Dalton vs. Jimmy, in the dirt, bloodied and raw, punching and kicking, in a pure fight to the death. Jimmy truly messed with the wrong man.
2. Kung Fu Hustle
Stephen Chow has a way of marrying Bruce Lee style fighting with comedy and special effects which lead his many many fight scenes to each be distinct, visually interesting, and funny. They aren't meant to be realistic, but knowing that, when you see moments like Chow literally stepping on an eagle mid-flight, you just have to be like, this is awesome.
3. The Matrix
He's the one alright. So many great fights throughout the series, but this is the one that stuck out to me because we'd been on this journey with Neo from trapped computer nerd living a mundane boring life, to figuring out a way to bend space, time, reality, what have you, to become "the one," in order to destroy Agent Smith and his goons. This is the moment where you are truly rooting for him despite all the doubt thrown his way and his own doubts about his abilities. Plus, you know, killing someone from inside themselves, is pretty badass.
4. Kill Bill Vol. 1
Tension, drama, pure action and violence sum this one up. Also there is a strict attention to the entire visual layout of each calculated fight scene that are the summation of all things great in the legendary Kung Fu style movies that inspired this one. The great thing about this one is you always see men as protagonist and the ones doing the fighting and playing the hero role, but this film put four women in those power roles and let them duke it out without relying on simply hair pulling and knocking each other about in some male pool fantasy. Nope, this was ugly and raw and the fighting was real.
5. Anchorman 2
Anchorman was already legendary for how it accurately and hilariously portrayed the way the news used to work, but to then in part 2, throw in a celebrity soaked all out news fight, was the absolute icing on the cake.
6. Hardcore Henry
This movie is a cinematic masterpiece. It is shown entirely in first person shooter mode and is one long continuous knock down drag out super violent fight to the end. In the last of many many battles involving parkour, cars, various weapons, explosives, clones, and a cat and mouse game throughout the city, Henry takes on a whole host of engineered fighters all set to Queen. Amazing.
7. Desperado
Banderas murders his way through entire towns and bars looking for Bucho, the man who killed his wife and the drug dealer who is infecting the towns with his drugs. His weapon(s) of choice are a guitar case filled with guns and an inability to do things peacefully or quietly.
8. Equilibrium
This is probably why you shouldn't take dancing, lit, music, art, or emotions away from people. Bale's character is a government agent responsible for suppressing thought and ideas essentially in order to prevent war. He manages until he misses his drug dosage of "Prozium" meant to keep all thoughts of these things out of the head, and sees what life is really like and tasks himself with toppling the regime. When the lights go out in battle, it more than pays to have superior training and skill.
9. Lion King
Can we talk about how your uncle was so jealous of you as a kid and so power hungry that he killed your father, blamed you for it, took over your entire Kingdom, ruined everything that was good about it, and then still tried to convince your entire family that everything was still all your fault even throwing his own people under the bus...come on man! Well deserved fight.
10. Fight Club
Spoiler Alert: The fight itself is pretty mundane, but this ends up on the list because it was the ultimate mind f*ck fight of all time. Norton's character, you find out at the end, IS Tyler Durden, so in actuality, Norton is fighting himself here which you see later on in the film, as well as pouring acid on himself, sleeping with Marla, and recruiting for, plotting and executing the many crimes and terrorist attack on the city.
There are so many more I could list, but these were some of my favs...
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