Movies about Showdown
Chris Foster and Bert Pickett, shackled to a post after a brawl in the Mexican border town of Adonde, escape along with the other prisoners, outlaws led by Lavalle. Taking with them $12,000 worth of stolen securities, Chris and Bert flee the town, but Lavalle soon finds the two men. Chris is held hostage while Bert is sent to town to convert the securities into cash. Instead, he gives the securities to his former girl friend, Estelle, who is now a dancehall girl, and he returns empty-handed. Enraged, Lavalle allows Chris to go after Estelle and recover the money. Estelle, who reveals that Bert’s gambling had reduced her to poverty, reluctantly turns the money over to Chris but follows him to Lavalle. In an attempt to save both his partner and Estelle as they arrive, Bert is killed by Lavalle. Chris and Estelle ride away unharmed; Lavalle tracks them back to Adonde, where Chris finally kills the outlaw, returns the securities, and looks forward to a new life with Estelle.
The 10 Best Movie Showdowns
Just like the Electric Light Orchestra song, “Showdown” these people were also headed for a showdown. This Top 10 list may alternately be titled, “Top 10 best climaxes,” as showdowns are really just epic confrontations.
In every film on the list, the stakes were high, whether they be for one person, or for civilization as a whole, and most, if not all, depict the hero’s swan song, as they come to blows with their antagonist.
That said, if this were at Top 11 list, Kingpin (1996) would start us off, just for Bill Murray’s hair.
Foto: Lucasfilm
10. Benjamin Martin vs. Col. Tavington (Patriot, 2000)
A bayonet through your enemy is suitable justice for killing your children in 1776, and present day as well. Projekt Patriot (2000) is one of the few stand alone films on the list, but best from Roland Emmerich (2012, 2009, Pozítří, 2004, Den nezávislosti, 1996).
Martin (Mel Gibson) in all of his Gibson-y glory does what audiences around the world wished we could’ve done. We should’ve known.
9. The Terminator vs. T-1000 (Terminátor 2: Soudný den, 1992)
This one came out when sequels used to get their own titles.
Moment that defines it: After being disabled with a steel bar, the Terminator reanimates and pulls the bar out of itself and grabs the grenade launcher.
As Sarah runs out of shotgun shells, it rolls over a piece of rotating machinery and fires a grenade into the T-1000, who is teetering at the edge of a catwalk above the molten steel.
The T-1000 explodes and is ripped inside out. It falls into the molten steel and wails as it changes into all of its different forms before finally dissipating into nothing.
8. Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago (Rocky IV, 1985)
“To the end.” Ivan Drago’s words to an exhausted Rocky Balboa in the last round of the epic fight couldn’t have been more irresponsible, since he was fighting the man who only wanted to go the distance three films ago. Not to mention, he’s “made of iron.”
The outmatched Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) rallies with the support of the Soviet Union and does the impossible, knocking out Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) to avenge Apollo Creed’s death.
7. Dirty Harry vs. The Scorpio Killer (Dirty Harry, 1971)
One of the best monologues ever sets up the showdown, which also reaches one of the quickest conclusions for a film based on a detective chasing a killer all over San Francisco.
Harry (Eastwood) delivers the penultimate death blow through gritted teeth, “You gotta ask yourself one question, ‘Do I feel lucky?’” As the killer reaches for the gun, he shows him how a .44 Magnum works.
6. Terry vs. John Friendly (Na nábřeží, 1954)
Terry (Marlon Brando) gets snubbed for ratting on the union bosses, then calls Friendly out for being a “cheap, lousy, no good, stinkin’ mutt.” Although he gets put through the wringer, he earns the respect of the stevedores for taking a whooping, and doing what they’re afraid to do, making him somebody.
5. William Munny vs. Little Bill (Unforgiven, 1992)
The second of two Clint Eastwood movies on the list.
The aging gunslinger, Munny (Clint Eastwood) takes a swig of whiskey and heads into town to avenge Ned’s death. He gets his gunslinging skills back in time and guns down all of Little Bill’s cronies, before finishing Little Bill (Gene Hackman) off, too.
Exciting for a character who falls ambiguously between hero and anti-hero.
4. Sam Bowden vs. Max Cady (Cape Fear, 1991)
Martin Scorsese’s remake, in which Bowden (Nick Nolte) fistfights Cady (Robert DeNiro) to no avail, until he is able to handcuff him to the boat. The boat is destroyed by the raging water and they continue to fight, but the battered Cady is pulled under by the sinking wreckage, ending him conclusively.
It is Cady’s character, not Bowden’s actions that make this showdown so exciting, as Bowden is unable to sink to the level of a barbarian and crush Cady’s skull with a rock, and the defeat is bittersweet, but it feels so good watching him go under.
3. The Spartans vs. The Persian Army (300, 2006)
This is purely a numbers game. It is also one of the few on the list where the protagonist is not successful in physically defeating the antagonist, or in this case, antagonists.
Leonidas (Gerard Butler) kneels before Xerxes and thousands of Persians, but instead of surrendering, launches his attack from his knees, and throws his spear at Xerxes, which narrowly misses him and wounds the supposed God-King in the process.
2. Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader (Star Wars, 1977, The Empire Strikes Back, 1980, Return of the Jedi, 1983)
Almost the purest good vs. evil, were it not for the #1 best showdown. Hvězdné války is a saga, and took second on the list for the twists and turns it delivered at the end of each film. It’s hard not to put it at #1, considering Luke Skywalker loses a hand while battling Darth Vader, and then finds out Vader is his father, and he’s been in love with his sister, in a very Oedipal twist, but the two forces butted heads for over six hours!
And luckily, Skywalker goes through a tremendous character arc, and racks up a considerable body count along the way.
1. Harry Potter vs. Voldemort (Harry Potter, 2001 – 2011)
The number one because the antagonist couldn’t even be referred to by name for half of the series. The match-up was formidable, as Harry Potter went from a teenager with no sense of direction to a wizard with a slew of spells and tricks to play with, all while trying to avoid death at the hands of “he who shall not be named,” who grew more powerful with every sequel.
Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) found a new way to infiltrate the Wizard world in every movie, and Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), staved off every advance until he mastered his wizard powers, with the help of many others.
The buildup to each battle between these two heavyweights captured more emotion and suspended more tension than any other series, not to mention the fact that the series grossed over $7 Billion at the box office.
Great Movie Showdowns: Too Rare
Luke and Vader, Batman and Bane, The Bride and Bill: Done well, cinematic fights elevate their pulpy surroundings. What makes for a good one?
The audiences who crowd theaters in the summertime know they can expect one thing from any given “event” movie: a showdown. As in, badass hero faces badass villain in a fight to the death. As in, impressive stunt choreography, wire works, or judicious photo-realistic CGI. As in, good guy dishes out punishment, bad guy returns same, and (spoiler alert) at the last possible second, perhaps with the help of a just in-reach weapon, good guy vanquishs his rival. (Optional: stirring music of the Williams/Shore/Zimmer variety.)
It’s a cliché. But it’s a worthwhile one. Roger Ebert called movies machines for empathy, and a good showdown is one of the chief fantasies for which viewers turn to the movies. These scenes give form to the forces in the world that challenge us, and they create a stage where we try to overcome those forces. It’s a potent dream, because life rarely spells out so clearly what we’re up against.
Most genres feature some kind of showdown, be they westerns, martial arts movies, sports movies, courtroom dramas, or musicals. Even purportedly “serious” movies borrow the language of the showdown when they pit stars of equal reputation and skill against each other to see who can outact the other. You can see showdowns across popular narratives, of course, from movies to TV shows, video games, and comic books. But they’re also there in hip-hop, sports, politics, and business. They reflect a need for us-versus-them distinctions, for “bad guys” to muscle up against and smack down in some moment of self actualization. Further, they speak to our sometimes naïve desire for closure, to fashion our lives into coherent narratives with clearly marked dramatic episodes that begin and end.
Showdowns reflect a need for us-versus-them distinctions, for “bad guys” to muscle up and smack down.
At the same time, the showdown reflects the kind of unpretentious craftsmanship and pleasure that marks the best American movies. They’re a way in which art can deepen our understanding of the world while still entertaining.
So, showdowns matter. Yet despite $200 million budgets and A-list actors and auteur-ish directors and world-class composers, editors, set designers, and writers, these scenes rarely thrill. In fact, they generally disappoint.
Check the record on the big franchises. Osm Harry Potter movies work toward an ultimate good-versus-evil showdown between the boy wizard and Lord Voldemort, but by the time we get there it proves an underwhelming finale. Sound and fury, etc. There is such a thing as too much build up, too many minor confrontations along the way. Or maybe it’s the way Voldemort becomes less menacing and more prissy as the films go on.
The recent Marvel movies? Thor and Loki? Captain America and the Red Skull? Iron Man and a bald Jeff Bridges, tatted up Mickey Rourke, or fire-breathing Guy Pearce? Come on. The Avengers versus—who were they fighting, again? Loki and some aliens from another dimension? No showdown with the meager Loki will ever be any good. In fact, the best Marvel showdown is probably when the Avengers tee off against themselves. But we know that no one’s going to really get hurt.
How about the James Bond movies of the Daniel Craig era? Certainly the films are the franchise’s best since the early ‘60s, but with an actor as physical and charismatic as Craig, they’ve yet to provide an antagonist who fully measures up. We need a showdown like the train fight between Bond and SPECTRE heavy Red Grant in Z Ruska s láskou, where Robert Shaw not only convinced us that he was Sean Connery’s mental equal, but also looked like he could kill him with his bare hands.
As for the X-Men movies, they are built on the rivalry between Professor X and Magneto—whether played by Stewart and McKellen or McAvoy and Fassbender—but the films mostly skip a direct showdown between the two and instead spin them, and their attendant philosophies of accommodation and separatism, wearily around each other, forever unresolved. And why is it that Wolverine, one of pop culture’s great antiheroes, has yet to face even one antagonist worthy of him?
No one pushes the idea of anticipation to its limits quite like Quentin Tarantino. His characters talk and talk and talk. They insinuate and surmise, bluff and counterbluff, threaten and defend, and then they talk a little bit more, and the pressure is building all the while, until a violent reckoning at last arrives.
Projekt Kill Bill films are best thought of as a four-hour greatest hits collection of quippy, bloody showdowns. No fight scene capitalizes upon anticipation as effectively as the final showdown does, when Uma Thurman’s Bride confronts her old lover and boss, Bill (played by a rascally David Carradine), who left her for dead. It’s a conversation. They’re seated. Bill rather unapologetically explains why he tried to kill her. The sense of menace builds. Eventually even these folks will run out of things to say. When the fight finally starts, both Bride and Bill remain seated, and Tarantino stages a short and wittily choreographed fight, which culminates in the Bride deploying her five-point palm exploding heart technique. Then they resume their conversation, now with a new sense of affection—Bill is impressed she has mastered the technique, and it’s clear he appreciates her as his better for the first time—until his heart explodes a moment later and he dies.
One of the great showdowns is the meticulous scene in 2001: Vesmírná odysea where astronaut Dave Bowman, in a space pod and without his helmet, tries to gain access to the spaceship Discovery, against the wishes of the computer HAL, who has possibly gone insane and just murdered the crew. HAL knows Bowman had been plotting to deactivate him, so he refuses to let him back on the ship. The scene is great for any number of reasons—the convincing verisimilitude, HAL’s brilliantly dismissive indifference, the audaciousness of Bowman’s plan to blow himself back aboard through an airlock. That audaciousness is the whole point. There’s human pride, naturally, a determination not to be bested by a computer. That’s actually enough, but the way I read it, the stakes are bigger. Heretofore the humans we’ve seen in the movie have been deliberately presented as bland bureaucrats with little personality, charisma or character. The film has left us subtlety starved for drama, conflict, something to happen. And suddenly, Bowman is forced to shake off that blandness, to reclaim humankind’s capacity for daring, original action, the kind that proves the species is worthy to transcend to a higher level.
In a good showdown, confronting your vulnerabilities is not a one-time event where you see the stakes, gather your courage, swallow hard, and dive in. It’s a constant unfolding. In Matice, Neo’s subway-station showdown with Agent Smith works marvelously because the whole movie has seen Neo gradually gain more power and more belief that he can beat the seemingly unbeatable agents who police the Matrix. And yet as the showdown progresses Neo is forced to summon more resolve—far beyond what he thought he was capable of—just to fight Smith to a draw.
An early showdown from Troy perhaps best illustrates the power of vulnerability. The young prince of Troy, Paris, a playboy, has run off with Helen, the wife of Greek King Menelaus. Menelaus and his brother, Agamemnon, bring a massive army to the shores of Troy to get her back. Hoping to stop the fighting, Paris summons up what little courage he has to challenge the much stronger Menelaus to a duel, thinking that if he wins, the Greeks will withdraw their forces.
Even a weak film like Lovci benefits from two terrific face offs between Benicio del Toro’s Special Forces commando, who has snapped and is killing hunters, and the man who trained him, played by Tommy Lee Jones. They duel twice (here’s the first) and the tight choreography gives the scenes a powerful sense of coiled energy, as if these two guys had been put inside a very small box. (Also, it doesn’t hurt that del Toro’s eyes convey tremendous vulnerability even in the midst of the brutal knife play. He’s seeking both to best his mentor and reach out in anguish for a father figure to save him.)
Fantasy and sci-fi movies can convey enough reality to make us buy in through tangible staging. Would you rather watch this overblown fight between Khan and Spock on top of a moving hovercraft in a towering cityscape, at the close of the baffling mash up Star Trek do tmy—or the comparatively static, but tactile and infinitely more satisfying showdown between Khan and Kirk in Wrath of Khan? You like the grandiose and splendidly digital showdown in avatar, between a villain in a power suit, and a blue digital Na’vi riding some exotic digital animal? I’ll take Ripley’s real-world exosuit as she faces down the alien queen in Cizinci. (Thirty years later and even James Cameron can’t make an exosuit that feels as believable as this one.)
5. The Iconic
Lastly, the best showdowns do not overextend themselves. This is in part a question of length. Neo and Agent Smith duel across an entire city over six minutes in The Matrix Revolutions, and at some point you start checking your watch. The same can be said of Superman and General Zod’s fight in Muž z oceli, (here, here, and here). Allowed to go too long, a showdown, no matter how good, wears out its welcome.
A great showdown pares a confrontation down to something visually essential.
But length is not really the issue, at least in showdowns when the fighting is less frenetic. What we want is a scene that somehow pares a confrontation down to something visually essential. Most showdowns are at best visually indistinct and suffer for it. Think of the smoky blues and oranges of the carbon freeze chamber in Říše, and of that magnificent ten-second shot of Vader and Luke on the gantry. Now think of the Emperor’s drab grey throne room in Návrat Jediho, where Vader and Luke duel a second time. It’s a far more mundane location and weakens the scene. The recent Kapitán Amerika: Zimní voják ends with a good showdown between the two titular characters. It checks most of the boxes, but it falls short of being really good because it’s a little too busy, a little too generic, right at the moment when it needs to be streamlined and iconic.
The greatest of all movie showdowns is probably the exquisitely composed duel between Charles Bronson’s unnamed hero and Henry Fonda’s blue-eyed killer Frank in Sergio Leone’s Tenkrát na západě. Leone takes his time, giving us long close ups of Bronson’s granitic face, static shots of the two men facing each other, like old trees trunks, stripped of branches and leaves. Ennio Morricone’s mesmerizing score suffuses the screen. It’s an unapologetically long buildup (again anticipation flirts with going too far), interspersed with the tragic flashback that reveals Bronson’s motivation. But the duel itself concludes in a moment, and despite the stately pace, our overall impression is one of crisp, perfectly controlled timing. It’s both a knowing pastiche of great western duels and something more—the physical manifestation of the end of the west. In a real sense both men are facing the same fate, obsolescence, and so both lose.
It’s magnificent filmmaking. And it demonstrates the fundamental contradiction of the showdown. Less is more, but more is more, too. Showdowns allow us to imagine ourselves as bigger, stronger, faster. Better. And yet a good showdown is essentialized to the struggles of vulnerable, fallible, fragile beings, too. They remind us of our smallness, and force us to confront our fears, our inadequacy, to reckon with who we are at that very moment we try to be more.
So showdown greatness comes not from making the stage bigger. It comes from making the stage hustší, by plowing more feeling, more theme, more craft, more emotion, more soul, into a smaller, simpler frame. That’s the challenge of the form. When a movie pulls it off, it’s an event.
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