Top 10 Movie Shootouts

There’s nothing more exhilarating in a movie than a good gun fight. Here are the best of the best that keep our pulses pounding faster than a bullet escaping a chamber.


10. The Untouchables

A Great Gangster Style shootout. It was probably just like the epic shootouts in the 20's between Capone's boys and the cops. 


9. Boondock Saints

In my opinion, one of the greatest movies ever made!! There are actually numerous gunfights in this movie that are epic.  I can't wait to see the sequel. 
8. Road to Perdition

Brilliant music, brilliant cinematography, and a grim performance from Paul Newman as he looks down the barrel of a gun, seeing nothing but the death that his coming his way. A great end to an awesome movie. The film is more of the drama genre than action genre, but they made this shootout action packed.  It is one of the best shootouts ever filmed.
7. Tombstone

In 1993 there were two separate Wyatt Earp westerns, but this is far and away the superior film (And not just because the other had Kevin Costner). Every Western movie has to have a gunfight scene.  What makes the OK Corral battle in this film unique among them is the proximity of the combatants – eyeball to eyeball in an enclosed space with little cover. It’s a confused and vicious sequence, and many historians say it is probably the closest depiction to the real thing. 

6. The Killer

Pick any segment of this Hong Kong classic and you’re likely to see some crazy gunplay. It was here that the iconic, John Woo, double-.45 look was born. It also paved the way for Yun-Fat Chow’s career in Western films, though this is still his best movie ever. 

5. The Matrix

The lobby shootout scene is incredible. Brilliant cinematography and choreography.
4. The Wild Bunch

One of the most iconic shootouts in movie history. As a gang of aging, dirty outlaws taking refuge in Mexico, the film concludes with the Bunch doing something decent in their lives and walking in the stronghold of a corrupt Mexican General to save one of their own. "Give 'em hell Pike!"

3. The Professional

How many SWAT teams do you really need to take out a lonely immigrant and a little girl? Apparently one hell of a lot. A cramped New York apartment may not seem like the ideal place for a massive shoot-out, but it’s disturbingly fun to watch as hitman Leon dispatches wave after wave of armored cops. And it’s especially gratifying to see that mean Gary Oldman get what’s coming to him.

2. Heat

This high-powered gunfight in the streets of Los Angeles seemingly inspired an attempted bank robbery by heavily-armed thugs soon after the film’s release. This gunfight is shockingly real. In fact, it’s probably the most realistic shoot-out ever filmed, a fact made all the more unsettling by its real-world counterpart.

1. Scarface

If you look at Al Pacino’s portrayal of Tony Montana, you know that it can only end this way. Unlike Michael Corleone, Montana exhibits an crazy recklessness that is the cause of both his rise to power and his meteoric fall. The climatic scene in which his rival gang's army storms into his mansion and the ensuing gunfight that follows is hands down the best gunfight scene in history.  I doubt it will ever be matched.