What’s an action movie without action sequences? Whether they’re so bad, they’re bona fide minor classics, or rock-solid winners, every memorable action movie has at least one fight scene winner. What follows is the best of the best, the cream of the crop.

The best of the best when it comes to movie brawls, that is. Scenes that have at least two characters in the game. Places with two (or more) characters that simply cannot advance with words alone. Too many have happened and only one can leave without at least a cauliflower ear and a swollen eye.

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Also note that combat scenes based solely on weapons were excluded from consideration. This includes everything from the best lightsaber battles in Star Wars franchise to almost anything, from John Wick movies. Almost everything, not everything. In other words, at some point in the sequence, there must be only punches and kicks.

Duke vs. Li at Kumite from Blood sport

Bolo Yeung’s Chong Li is the main antagonist of Blood sportthe movie that made Jean-Claude Van Damme a star, and there’s an argument to be made that he’s just as magnetic as Van Damme’s Frank Dux. A ruthless and vicious fighter who is just as determined to emerge victorious as Dux, Li is the protagonist’s most dangerous opponent at Kumite. And by the start of the third act, he’s not only put Dux’s friend in the hospital, he’s killed his semi-final opponent.

To maintain his winning streak, Li cheats by crushing a salt tablet and throwing it in Dux’s face. Although, even with a blind opponent, Li loses. Why? Because he wasn’t the one who was trained to fight blindfolded.

“Now you’ve had enough” in Happy Gilmore

The shouty Bob Barker gives Adam Sandler the lead character Happy Gilmore it’s not the only entry on this list that’s played for laughs, but it’s the only entry that’s exclusive played for laughs. And as far as classic ’90s comedy jokes go, it’s at the top of the heap, if not the top. After all, the late, great host of The price is right he was as famous for his time as he was primarily for his kindness.

But to the extent that Happy Gilmore Bob Barker goes, he understands how to let someone know when enough is enough. He really understands it. At just over 70 seconds, his fight with Happy isn’t one of the longest fights in any comedy film either.

“Stay, Bennett” in commando

Okay, so this starts out as a weapons-based fight, but it doesn’t stay that way. Throughout the bombastic action of the 80s, minor classic commandoArnold Schwarzenegger’s Colonel John Matrix mainly uses guns. And at one point, a bazooka. But from the first moment Vernon Wells’ Captain Bennett appears on screen, it’s obvious that these two are going to end up throwing punches.

Bennett always hotly mocks the Matrix, but the audience knows he’s going to make an appearance. During their third act boiler room battle, Matrix turns the taunt game on Bennett, motivating him with the satisfying concept of cutting his enemy with a blade instead of a speeding bullet. Soon the blades are lost as the two fall off a balcony, and then it’s all punches and kicks. That is, until Matrix throws a pipe through Bennett and lets out a one-liner, “Wait, Bennett.”

(Related: Arnold Schwarzenegger and ReacherAlan’s Alan Ritchson teams up for new Christmas flick)

Former friends in Captain America: Civil War

full Captain America: Civil War it’s an exercise in building tension to the boil. And once Tony Stark discovers that it was Captain America’s friend, The Winter Soldier, who killed his parents, hot water finally starts to splash on the stove. Of course, for all its equipment advantages, this fight isn’t all punches and kicks, but it’s still the most intimate fight featured in an MCU movie.

Stark and Steve Rogers both have their explicit motives in the scene. One tries to take revenge and the other tries to prevent it. It makes the viewer really feel for Cap, who betrays a friend to save the life of another, as I can understand Stark’s anger and the implications this scene will have in later films.

Take your pick Fight Club

As expected given the title, by David Fincher Fight Club it is loaded with bone-cracking exchanges. And indeed, they all deserve a place here. For example, the first match between the Narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in the parking lot of a local bar is quite memorable for the same thing, the rest are: its brutality.

None of the fights are particularly spectacular, at least in terms of excessive cinematic flair as in Blood sport. Instead, they feel realistic, through and through. This includes the bloodiest fight, between the Narrator and Jared Leto’s Angel Face, who by the end of the fight has most of his face blackened, bruised and battered to a mangled pulp.

Training time in matrix

the Wachowskis matrix quadrilogy would go on to feature more elaborate and bombastic fight sequences than Neo’s training sequence from the first film, and because of that, it’s the best. Seeing a CGI Neo take on hundreds of CGI Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded it was churned in 2003 but has aged very badly. As for the final match between Neo and Smith in The Matrix Revolutionsit wasn’t even particularly fun at the time of release.

Morpheus and Neo’s battles in virtual training simulations, however, still hold a certain power and wonder. The audience is right there with Neo as he begins to discover not only that the world is not what he thought it was, but that he he’s not really who he thought he was. He has skills, skills that haven’t jumped the shark yet.

The fight in the alley in They Live

They Live is undoubtedly the highlight of the second half of director John Carpenter’s filmography. Sharp, goofy, creepy when it wants to be; it works front to back. But there are two scenes that have really helped keep him relevant in pop culture. The first is when the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper (as the unnamed protagonist) bursts into a bank with a shotgun and yells: “I came here to chew gum and kick ass. And I’m out of gum.” The second is the alley fights between his “Nada” and Keith David’s Frank.

The sequence lasts for five and a half minutes and the viewer feels every second of it. It’s played for laughs as much as it works as a legitimately impressive and brutal fight (helped greatly by Piper’s history as a WWF and WCW wrestler). The scene has been parodied quite a bit, including in South Parkand rightfully so, as it’s probably the best fight scene in film history.

Library fight in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

Like the rest THE John Wick the franchise, Chapter 3 – Parabellum mainly focuses on “Gun Fu”. But for starters, once the world’s assassins receive notice of the massive bounty on Wick’s head, he gets into a physical altercation in a library. More precisely, with fellow assassin Ernest, played by Serbian professional basketball player Boban Marjanović.

It’s brutal stuff, not unlike the knife shop scene in the same movie. But here, Wick doesn’t even win with a gun, but with a book. He breaks Ernest’s jaw with the reading material, then uses it to break his opponent’s neck.

IP vs. 10 Karateka in Ip Man

Ip Manthe story of the great Chinese Wing Chun master who trained Bruce Lee is loaded with memorable fights, but there is one that stands above all. After the Second Sino-Japanese War begins in the film, Ip (played by John Wick: Chapter 4it’s Donnie Yen), his wife and son are thrown out of their luxurious home and locked in an apartment. Their house is now used as a military headquarters by the Imperial Japanese Army, led (in the city of Foshan, not in general) by the karate master General Miura.

General Miura sets up an arena for fights between local martial artists and his trainees, offering a bag of rice should the local martial artist prove victorious. When Ip’s local rival Liu is executed for taking a sack of rice after losing the second of his two fights, Ip decides to get involved. And he does it in a big way, demanding a match against ten karatekas at once. Ip wins and gifts the bag of rice to Liu’s grieving family. It’s an admirably shot fight scene, no doubt, but it really works because of the selflessness of the title character. It’s as much a character-building scene as it is an action sequence.

Confronting Mr. Joshua inside Lethal Weapon

Lots of bullets fly in Richard Donner’s seminal Lethal Weaponbut it’s a simple exchange of punches that sticks in the viewer’s memory the most once the credits roll. Throughout the film, General Peter McAllister’s right-hand man Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey) slowly emerges as the true main antagonist of the film. A ruthless, sociopathic mercenary and assassin, he is a force to be reckoned with.

Once McAllister is dead, it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Joshua seeks revenge against Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs and Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh. It got personal, and Mr. Joshua shows up in person at the Murtaugh house as a bloodthirsty Christmas present. In order to protect the Murtaugh family and end all the madness, Riggs steps up, beats up Mr. Joshua (nearly losing his life in the process), and even has a moment of growth when he allows the police to capture the mercenary instead of executing him. it. However, that doesn’t last long as Mr. Joshua breaks free from the authorities and is gunned down by the duo’s new partner.