Snappy dialogue only gets you so far in movie-making. When the time for talking is over, action scenes connect with audiences. Get them right, and even critics will applaud.
There are directors and stars whose entire selling point is stunts. One or two outstanding set pieces can save films with boring stories and sloppy acting. The teams behind stunt work deserve praise for this reason. So it’s a mystery why it took so long for the Academy Awards to create a category to recognize them.
We now know that movies released in 2027 will be eligible for a new award at the 2028 Oscars. This is good news, but it highlights how many stunt professionals got overlooked. To celebrate their contribution to cinema, here are a few classic stunts that should have earned an Academy nod.
Police Story (1985)
If you love stunts, Police Story packs them in throughout. It boasts car chases, bus battles, fist fights, gun showdowns, and motorcycle mayhem. The final sequence in the shopping mall is a highlight.
Chan’s death-defying Hong Kong cop is in hot pursuit of his target. He leaps from a railing, grabs a metal pole covered in string lights, and slides several stories straight down. Finally, he drops from the pole and smashes through a plate glass ceiling and a market stall below.
Safety was an afterthought compared to current recommendations. Chan wore no harness, and there was no net. If he hadn’t grabbed the pole, it would have ended badly. Thankfully, he got everything right. The only problem was that the lights attached to the pole had heated up its surface. This left him with second-degree burns to his palms. The final landing left him with other injuries.
GoldenEye (1995)
The opening of Pierce Brosnan’s first Bond movie features two very memorable stunts. The best is the bungee jump from Verzasca dam, which earned stunt performer Wayne Michaels a Guinness World Record.
It’s impressive for the same reasons as the Police Story pole slide. A simple camera pan shows the scale of the 220 meter (722 feet) structure. We get an overhead angle just before the leap. Then we track Bond as he falls. There’s no music. Just the sound of carabiners jingling. Only one wide shot cut-away interrupts the action. The audience watches this in stunned silence.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
This movie is basically one long stunt sequence. Director George Miller wanted to use practical effects, which meant putting performers front and center.
Stunt coordinator Guy Norris oversaw a huge team, choreographing action and believable effects. The sequence involving villains on flexible poles boarding a fleeing fuel tanker stands out. It showcases all the skills of a stunt performer and seems real while still fitting the film’s look and feel.
Miller kept CGI to a minimum in Fury Road, even for the iconic War Rig crash. This preserves the realism of the movie’s look. Even miniatures and remote control vehicles wouldn’t cut it. The stunt had to happen with a human behind the wheel. Expert driver Lee Adamson did the hard work. The on-screen results speak for themselves.
Die Hard (1988)
The most memorable stunt in Die Hard is also the first thing Bruce Willis shot for the film. Following a day working on Moonlighting, Willis went straight to the top of a skyscraper. There, he had to get topless, tie a firehose around his waist, and leap a long way onto an airbag. Behind him, explosions flared, and the shockwave sent him further than planned. He only just hit the soft landing surface, according to an EW interview.
Director John McTiernan discussed this stunt in a Vulture retrospective on Die Hard’s 30th anniversary. He explained how showing the audience the real rooftop, with the star standing on it, helped sell the stunt. When cutting to shots captured at a sound stage, camera tricks are less noticeable.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Unusually for an action movie, the cornerstone stunt in the most recent M:I film appeared in full before release. Tom Cruise and stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood combined a motorcycle launch with a base jump. More than a year of preparation went into this. Cruise then repeated the feat six times in a single day to get the shots needed.
This is normal for Hollywood’s biggest supporter of stunt work. Pick any M:I film and you’ll find sequences designed to shock audiences. The train-and-helicopter showdown in Brian De Palma’s 1996 original. The plane hanging in M:I –Rogue Nation (2015). Yet more helicopter antics in M:I – Fallout (2018), this time with Cruise at the controls. No one does it better.
Death Proof (2007)
Zoë Bell steals the show in Quentin Tarantino’s half of the Grindhouse double bill. After the wordy opening scenes, the intense final car showdown is a welcome change.
An established stunt performer, she’s also a likable onscreen presence. She willingly straps herself to the hood of a muscle car, and it’s all fun and games. That is, until Kurt Russell’s murderous former stuntman crashes the party. Eventually, the hunter becomes the hunted, and Bell chases down the villain, mounted on a Dodge Charger like a stallion.
The Matrix (1999)
Few films made a bigger splash than The Matrix. It features a fiesta of jaw-dropping stuntwork, including the lobby battle and rooftop bullet dodge. However, the opening scene is the most impactful. Cops and agents corner Trinity in a dingy hotel. She uses superhuman speed and martial arts to escape.
Combining raw physical skill, wirework, and camera technique creates unforgettable moments. You have to remember that no one had seen anything like it at the time.
Fast Five (2011)
The fifth Fast & Furious film is among the best in the franchise. There are plenty of CGI-enabled stunts in it, as you’d expect. But the most impressive is the one that’s also the most grounded.
Stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel drive a Corvette into a water-filled canyon. This involved lots of practical elements. An actual car was launched into the drink using an air cannon. Two stunt performers leapt the same way separately, supported by wires for safety. The shots with Walker and Diesel used wires and green screen backdrops. It’s simple and effective, like all good stunts.
Rush Hour (1998)
Honestly, this entire list could feature Jackie Chan stunts. His work in Hong Kong is dazzling, and his transition to Hollywood didn’t disappoint, either.
The climax of Rush Hour features a stunt that parallels Police Story. Chan falls from a great height. Rather than splatting on the ground, he’s saved by sliding down a huge banner. If this is too far-fetched, check out the building slide from Who Am I? (1998).
At the time, studios weren’t sure that Chan would appeal to Western audiences. These two films, and their stunts, made him an international star. A good stunt is a language anyone can understand.
Inception (2010)
Christopher Nolan is another modern director who prefers old-school ways of doing things. The trippy plot and action of Inception has an analog feel because of this.
Take the hallway fight scene as an example. Actors tumble around as if gravity has been turned off. Again, there’s no CGI trickery. Everything was mapped out on storyboards, then shot on a set that literally rotated. Seems the only way to film a fight that takes place in a dream is to do it for real.
Recognition at Last
It’s worth pointing out that other industry awards shows have recognized stunts for some time. It’s hardly the only part of the Oscars that is a little behind the curve. What’s important is that change is coming, and it could force the industry to evolve.
Studios will use more stunts in films if they can win an award for this. Using CGI for everything won’t make sense, and mainstream will start looking more authentic again.
Hopefully, old masters like Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise still have enough time to take advantage of this. It will also shine a light on the designers, coordinators, and performers who make stunts possible. More than that, maybe more investment in stunts will encourage people to see movies at the theater. The big screen is where they belong.
