By Joshua Tyler
| Printed 1 hour in the past
Sword preventing has been a staple of the motion style because the earliest days of movie.
And when a duel is nice, it sticks with you.
What makes a sword combat a sword combat? For the needs of this checklist, we’re sticking with one on one fight, through which at the least one of many two combatants is preventing with an precise sword.
So no Jackie Chan versus the Ax gang on this checklist, sadly, however significantly you need to go watch that instantly as a result of wow, Jackie Chan is a lunatic who cares nothing for his personal security and it is best to love him for it.
With what a sword combat is established, now now we have to determine what makes one good.
And it’s not sufficient for a duel simply to be technically proficient. It has to imply one thing, shock us, transfer us, or make the unbelievable occur. It additionally helps if it’s stunning.
Cover your sixth finger for those who’ve acquired one as a result of that is Big Freakin Robotic and these are one of the best film sword fights.
Blade
Within the last showdown of Blade, Wesley Snipes’ half-vampire hunter faces off in opposition to Stephen Dorff’s Deacon Frost.
By the point Blade confronts Frost within the Temple of Everlasting Evening, the film has spent almost two hours establishing precisely what sort of fighter he’s: ruthless, environment friendly, and easy as hell. The ultimate combat cashes in on all of that.
Choreographed by Jeff Ward with enter from Snipes himself—an precise martial artist with a background in Shotokan karate and Capoeira—the combat blends swordplay, hand-to-hand fight, and cinematic aptitude.
Frost, supercharged with blood magic, is quicker and stronger than any opponent Blade’s confronted. He doesn’t block—he absorbs. He doesn’t dodge—he regenerates.
Followers bear in mind the combat not for its finesse, however for its cool issue. It’s a duel soaked in blood, techno, and perspective—a mirrored image of every thing that made Blade a genre-defining hit. It paved the best way for The Matrix, Underworld, and even the fashionable Marvel increase.
Rob Roy
Rob Roy’s last duel—between Liam Neeson’s Rob Roy MacGregor and Tim Roth’s Archibald Cunningham—is the soul of the movie.
This combat is intimate, brutal, and private. Set in a stark corridor lit by daylight, with no music and no crowd, it strips the sword combat right down to its barest type: survival.
Cunningham is a skilled aristocrat—quick, agile, sadistic. Rob Roy is slower, broader, and fully self-taught. And that imbalance is precisely the purpose.
Roy is totally overmatched. He stands his floor however he’s being killed, slowly, whereas we watch.
The choreography was designed by William Hobbs, a veteran combat director identified for realism over flash. Neeson and Roth skilled extensively for the scene, and insisted on doing all of it themselves, which provides to the grounded, high-stakes stress.
Rob Roy wins not by finesse, however by sheer willpower and endurance, culminating in a sudden, explosive act of violence that turns the tables within the last second.
Kill Invoice
The ultimate combat between Uma Thurman’s Bride and Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii isn’t simply the climax of Kill Invoice Vol. 1—it’s a second of pure, cinematic poetry.
Director Quentin Tarantino shot it on a large soundstage in Beijing. Manufacturing designer Yohei Taneda and cinematographer Robert Richardson turned it into a visible dreamscape.
Choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping, the legendary combat grasp behind The Matrix and numerous Hong Kong classics, the duel blends samurai self-discipline with Chinese language swordplay.
This isn’t a flashy combat—it’s measured and respectful, extra Kurosawa than kung fu film. There’s little dialogue. Simply the crunch of snow and the conflict of metal.
The duel was straight impressed by a really related showdown within the traditional 1973 Japanese revenge movie Girl Snowblood. He even used music from that movie in his film’s closing credit.
Hook
All the things that occurs within the lifetime of Peter Banning results in Hook. And within the last moments of the film named after his antagonist, Banning turns into a boy once more, lengthy sufficient to face him down in an epic duel.
The combat takes place on Hook’s ship, a lavish set designed to resemble each youngster’s fantasy of a pirate lair.
There are ropes to swing from, stairs to leap down, and sufficient room for a correct old-school swordfight. And that’s precisely what Spielberg delivers, with a whimsical Peter Pan twist.
Robin Williams skilled extensively in fencing for the position, coached by stunt coordinator Nick Gillard (who later labored on the Star Wars prequels). Dustin Hoffman, leaned laborious into character, making Hook’s method foppish however harmful—each flourish as theatrical as it’s deadly.
The duel is as a lot about efficiency as swordplay. Hook goads. Pan taunts. It’s not a combat for the destiny of the world, however for id, revenge, and closure.
The choreography mixes actual fencing strategies with gravity-defying fantasy—Pan can fly, in any case—which provides a dreamlike edge to the swashbuckling.
Hook’s last stand, full with a final sneering monologue, provides the villain his due. And Pan’s refusal to kill him outright looks like one thing out of a storybook—as a result of it’s.
Drunken Grasp 2
We’re submitting this entry below Drunken Grasp 2, since that’s one of the best martial arts film ever made, however just about any time Jackie Chan will get his fingers on a sword in all probability deserves to be on this checklist.
There’s just one sword combat in Drunken Grasp 2, however as a result of Jackie Chan doesn’t know how one can not be completely authentic on a regular basis, it’s one of the crucial distinctive sword fights ever captured on movie.
Most of it takes place with the combatants half crouched below a prepare, trapped within the workings of its undercarriage.
The enemy is performed by Ken Lo, Jackie’s real-life bodyguard and an elite martial artist, whose precision turns the house right into a razor-edged minefield.
This combat was filmed on location, utilizing an precise prepare. There have been no digital results or inexperienced screens as a result of it is a Jackie Chan film.
The choreography, co-designed by Lau Kar-leung and Chan himself, is a masterclass in improvisational protection. Jackie makes use of his environment with genius: metal rods, prepare axles, and tight areas grow to be each weapon and protect. It’s much less about type and extra about survival.
There’s no wirework. No digital camera trickery. Simply relentless motion, actual hazard, and excellent timing.
And someway, Chan makes it enjoyable, regardless of the stakes. That’s the magic of Drunken Grasp 2: you possibly can’t consider what you’re seeing, and but you’re grinning the entire manner by way of.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Jack Sparrow’s last duel with Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean is the chaotic, cursed, and intelligent coronary heart of the complete movie.
Jack shoots Barbossa within the coronary heart. Nothing. Barbossa stabs Jack by way of the chest—and moments later, Jack steps into the moonlight to disclose he’s cursed too.
It’s additionally eerily stunning. It’s set in a moonlit cave containing glittering Aztec gold and entails a gimmick pulled off by unimaginable results wizardry: moonbeams flip the combatants into residing skeletons.
As the 2 dance between moon beams, crossing swords, their true kinds are revealed and hidden, revealed and hidden.
Each Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush carried out the majority of the sword work themselves, below the steerage of veteran combat choreographer George Marshall Ruge.
Victory comes not by way of brute pressure however by way of sleight of hand and excellent timing. As Barbossa gloats, Elizabeth returns the final coin, and Will drops it in with a blood providing—breaking the curse simply in time for Jack’s pistol shot to lastly rely.
Return of the Jedi
The Return of the Jedi duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader wasn’t essentially the most acrobatic or technically complicated as some later within the sequence, nevertheless it might be essentially the most highly effective.
Filmed on a soundstage at Elstree Studios in 1982, the duel was choreographed by stunt coordinator Peter Diamond, a veteran of British stage preventing. Mark Hamill and David Prowse had been each on set for the staging, however the precise saber blows had been typically dealt with by stuntman Bob Anderson within the Vader swimsuit.
Anderson, a world-class fencer and sword grasp, gave Vader’s assaults a weight and precision that helped convey the character’s energy even below.
It’s not only a combat—it’s a take a look at of id. Vader isn’t attempting to win. He holds again, maybe as a result of he doesn’t wish to kill his son, or as a result of he’s able to activate Vader.
No flips. No thrives. Only a father, a son, and a weapon meaning greater than only a blade of sunshine.
The Princess Bride
Swashbuckling model sword fights, born out of stage sword play, had been the norm in Hollywood from its earliest days. The model that made Errol Flynn well-known and despatched audiences of the Thirties, 40s, 50s, and 60s speeding to theaters for the brand new Zorro flick reached each its peak and its finish in The Princess Bride when Inigo Montoya fought The Man in Black.
No stunt doubles had been used, and actors Carey Elwes and Mandy Patinkin skilled for months with legendary Hollywood swordmasters.
Like these nice Errol Flynn duels of outdated, the sequence was designed with enjoyable as its North Star. That doesn’t imply actuality wasn’t an element. The duel was meticulously choreographed, and the fencing strikes talked about within the dialogue, like Bonetti’s Protection, are actual fencing types.
Highlander
Highlander is a franchise full of improbable sword fights, each in motion pictures and on the underrated Highlander tv present.
However the climactic duel on the finish of the primary Highlander movie between Connor and The Kurgan, set the tone.
The combat, filmed in a decrepit Silvercup Studios constructing in Queens, New York, is an atmospheric masterstroke.
Christopher Lambert performed Connor McLeod, and he, by the way, is legally blind. In actual life, he wears closely lensed glasses, an equipment he couldn’t put on throughout this combat.
Clancy Brown, towering because the Kurgan, was instructed to not go full pressure throughout rehearsals—he ignored that, almost injuring Lambert greater than as soon as.
The reflective flooring, the blue lightning, the crumbling set—it’s operatic with out being over-polished.
The second when MacLeod lastly beheads the Kurgan and claims “The Prize” is iconic, capped by Queen’s hovering rock anthem and a swirl of 80s-era visible results.
There’s actually no higher option to cap off a duel than with a music purpose-written for it by Queen.
You’re in all probability questioning why Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon isn’t on this checklist, and I’d let you know however… oh no, I’ve randomly floated away earlier than I can say something.
