The ski jump in The Spy Who Loved Me
The James Bond series has always been renowned for its stunts, and many think the single-best stunt in Bond history is the ski jump in the opening of The Spy Who Loved Me. Stuntman Rick Sylvester performed the stunt entirely for real, skiing off the 6,611 ft Mount Asgard in Canada and opening a Union Jack parachute to crowd-pleasing effect.
The helicopter chase in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day boasts some of the most intense action ever, but no moment was so dangerous as when the T-1000 flies the helicopter under a freeway underpass at sixty knots (approximately 70mph), with barely five feet of space above or to either side. Pilot Chuck Tamburro performed the stunt, and James Cameron filmed it himself when the camera crew refused over safety concerns.
Jackie Chan’s pole descent in Police Story
Jackie Chan’s life-threatening on-camera antics are many and varied. One of his most potentially lethal maneuvers features in the final scenes of Police Story, when Chan leaps from the balcony of a shopping mall’s top floor and slides down a pole around 40 feet high, whilst electric lights explode around him. Terrifyingly, the stunt was shot in one take without any rehearsal or safety equipment.
The clock tower in Safety Last!
Some of the most influential stunts in movie history come from the silent era, including 1923’s Safety Last! which sees Harold Lloyd hang off the arms of a clock tower. Some trickery was used to make the tower appear higher and a safety net was just out of shot, but Lloyd (who only had eight fingers) was still at very real risk of falling.
Corkscrew car jump in The Man with the Golden Gun
Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun sports a truly eye-popping moment when Roger Moore’s 007 (or more accurately stunt driver Loren “Bumps” Willert) drives an AMC Hornet off a curved ramp, traversing a river whilst rotating 360 degrees in mid-air and landing smoothly on the other side. This stunt has the distinction of being the first to have been simulated on computer beforehand.
Zoë Bell holds onto the car in Death Proof
Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof sees Zoë Bell hold onto the hood of a Dodge Challenger when Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike tries to run them off the road in his Dodge Charger. New Zealand stunt performer and actress Bell is on the outside of the car for real, as the vehicles hit speeds between 80 and 100 mph.
The motorcycle cliff jump in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Another name synonymous with stunts is Tom Cruise, whose Mission: Impossible series is largely built around the actor finding new, extravagant ways to cheat death. One of the most dangerous and awe-inspiring instances of this is in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, when Cruise’s Ethan Hunt jumps a dirtbike off a 4,000 foot cliff, then lets go and descends into a parachute jump.
The bungee jump in GoldenEye
James Bond does it again. Pierce Brosnan’s 007 debut GoldenEye starts as it means to go on with a breathtaking stunt in the opening moments, with Bond performing a bungee jump off the Contra Dam in Ticino, Switzerland. Stunt performer Wayne Michaels did the jump, which was at the time the largest on record: 220 meters, or just shy of 722 feet.
Zip-lining between planes in Cliffhanger
Sylvester Stallone action thriller Cliffhanger sees several suitcases of stolen money fall onto the Colorado Rockies. The cases end up there as a result of a mid-air heist, in which the thieves steal the money via a mid-air zip line between planes at 15,000 feet. Stuntman Simon Crane (standing in for actor Rex Linn) was paid a record-breaking $1 million for his efforts.
Climbing the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
At 2,720 feet, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa is the tallest man-made structure in existence, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol sees Tom Cruise climb up and down the building’s reflective exterior (with the help of digitally-deleted safety cables). In a story made famous by Matt Damon, Cruise claimed to have fired the film’s original safety co-ordinator when he was told the stunt was far too risky.
