When it comes to genre films, it’s always the tropes that bring these movies to life. With time, filmmakers are pulled to parody or subvert these elements, but there’s no denying the magic that these same genre conventions inserted into the genre’s classic entries.
The hallway fight scene is one such trope that regretfully isn’t seen all too often. It’s not difficult to see why — when done right, the hallway scene is all about the grittiness, the long take, and showcasing the cast and crew’s prowess in capturing and performing action. The hallway fight scene acts as a showcase for a movie’s unique fighting style, its cinematography, and sometimes even layers in an exposition about the hero’s character. One might even compare this trope to the place dinner scenes occupy in dramas. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some of the most iconic fight sequences in cinema are hallway scenes. Here are 10 most iconic hallway fight scenes of all time.
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10 Daredevil Boxes With Russian Traffickers — Daredevil
Marvel Television
The MCU series Daredevil remains close to the audience’s hearts because of its beautifully unique style and vision. Its version of the titular hero, portrayed by Charlie Cox, was a grounded character who made his way through sheer grit rather than some superpowered invincibility. Like a regular person, he would take blows and buckle under them. But what defined him as a superhero was his will to keep going despite all the injuries. This characterization was perfectly established in the first hallway fight scene of the series, and the entire Defenders line of MCU series would go on to feature a few more of them. But the very first one, appearing in the second ever episode of Daredevil, is one to remember.
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The entire scene is a single take lasting about three minutes, illuminated by a neon-green light. Daredevil makes his way through the corridor fighting an entire group of criminals while searching for a kidnapped boy. The fight is a painful one to witness — the characters maneuver in a slow and unwieldy way, visibly reeling under the pain of earlier blows. Before the scene is half-way done, we see Daredevil fall to the ground in apparent exhaustion. But when more goons appear, he stands himself up and continues fighting.
9 The Punisher Gets Jumped in Prison — Daredevil
The Daredevil series also established the MCU version of the Punisher, portrayed by Jon Bernthal. The portrayal was greatly loved by fans, an arguably better casting and characterization than Cox’s already fitting portrayal of the Daredevil. Before he went to star in his own titular series, Bernthal’s Punisher gave an utterly brutal hallway fight scene in Season 2 of Daredevil. In the episode titled “Seven Minutes in Heaven,” the Punisher is trapped in a prison hallway by Wilson Fisk in an apparent assassination attempt. A group of violent prisoners are let loose on the remorseless hero. However, he manages to take all of them down in a brutal carnage. Fans were elated with the showrunners’ decision to not tone down the gore that is generally associated with the character. Much like Daredevil’s hallway fight scene, this scene was also instrumental in establishing the Punisher’s character in the MCU series.
8 Extreme Firepower — The Matrix
Warner Bros.
Keanu Reeves steps into a heavily guarded security entrance dressed in a black suit. A guard asks him to remove any metallic items he may be carrying. In response, he unveils an entire armory hiding under his over-sized blazer. Cue in one of the most iconic and outlandish hallway shootouts of all time. Despite the conspicuous plot armor, Trinity’s needless gymnastics in direct line of fire, or the goofy rock beat functioning as a background track, the hallway fight sequence from The Matrix still stands out as one of the coolest scenes you will ever see in a movie.
7 Rama Clears a Building — The Raid: Redemption
PT Merantau Films
Aided with a wanton disregard for pointless rules, Asian cinema has made leaps in genre filmmaking, creating many unique forms of common film genres. The Indonesian movie The Raid: Redemption is one such example of a uniquely Asian subgenre of action that can be described as a pre-John Wick movie in the way it does away with needless plot elements. The movie, a modern cult classic, is a simple and glorious action flick about a police squad that conducts a raid on a building that acts as a gang stronghold.
Given this setting, the entire movie is more-or-less an extended hallway fight sequence. There is very little talking and a lot of wince-inducing fistfights. Aided by actor Iko Uwais’s real-life martial arts skills, much of the fight sequences are shot head-on and with minimal cuts, as good hallway fight scenes ought to be. The scene where Uwais’ lead character searches for sanctuary in a “civilian” room within the building features one of the most exciting hallway fights in the movie.
6 Rescuing a Boy — Extraction
Netflix
Although the movie did enjoy some popularity, Extraction remains a criminally underrated movie that features some of the most thrilling fight scenes in recent movies. Directed by an experienced stunt coordinator, Sam Hargrave, the movie was commended for its display of real-life firearms practices and its skilled camera work. The movie also features a plethora of long takes, one of which takes place as an extremely gritty hallway fight scene as Chris Hemsworth’s leading character seeks to escape through crowded community buildings in Bangladesh with a young boy in tow. It’s a fight sequence unlike any other, although it sadly didn’t garner quite the same acclaim among audiences as some other scenes on this list.
5 A Darth Vader Massacre — Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Lucasfilm/Disney
The advancement in special effects technology bode well for the Star Wars franchise. Lightsaber duels and dogfights in space were only going to look better with time, and so they did. Darth Vader had already been established as an iconic villain with the release of the original trilogy. By the time a prequel came around in the form of the 2016 movie Rogue One, the filmmakers could elaborate upon his villainy, aided by modern VFX. The scene where Vader single-handedly massacres a group of rebel fighters at the movie’s climax does just that. To be fair, the legacy of Darth Vader’s character scarcely needs any further development, but more is always better. Those who sought to elaborate upon it in later entries into the franchise have somehow managed to stay true to the original vision, and the same applies here.
4 Black Widow’s Introduction — Iron Man 2
Walt Disney Studios
The original Avenger, Black Widow, also has a pretty rad hallway fight scene which takes place in Iron Man 2, her first MCU appearance. The scene takes place around the movie’s climax, as the Black Widow and Happy Hogan look for the chief antagonist, Ivan Vanko, in the Hammer Industries factory. The fight choreography in this scene perfectly showcases Black Widow’s unique fighting style, which relies less on brute strength and more on her athleticism and a plethora of diversion tactics. The final moment of the scene is also one to remember, as she nonchalantly walks away from the hallway and pepper sprays the last guard on the way.
3 Barrel Roll — Inception
Warner Bros.
Modern auteur Christopher Nolan is known for a handful of different signatures, and his use of elaborate and often unusual practical effects is one of them. During the filming of Inception, he ordered an entire hallway set to be built on a rotating platform in order to film a dream fight sequence featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Lasting merely 30 seconds, the sequence took three whole weeks to film. The end result was an iconic fight scene where the actors are performing on a hallway that is literally doing barrel rolls. Nolan’s decision to use practical effects to film the scene gave it an aura of surreality that visual effects simply wouldn’t have produced, and gave cinema audiences one of the most enduring images ever.
2 Hit-Girl Infiltrates Frank’s Headquarters — Kick-Ass
Lionsgate | Focus Features
The 2010 movie Kick-Ass is remembered for its unique stance on the superhero genre — it was a hearty parody, one that was simultaneously reverent and shockingly cheeky. The climactic hallway fight scene in the movie has all of these qualities in plenty. It starts off with a diversion by the absurdly young superheroine Hit-Girl, as she appears in front of the villains as a schoolgirl. After being let into the villain’s headquarters, she proceeds to enact a brutal gore-fest accompanied by a classic Western-themed soundtrack.
1 Fighting With a Hammer — Oldboy
Show East
The hallway fight scene in the 2003 Korean movie Oldboy is possibly an original template for the trope itself. The film itself is considered a classic, directed by Park Chan-wook with Choi Min-sik as the tragic hero. The scene features all the standard elements of a good hallway fight sequence, being shot in a continuous tracking shot that gives the impression of a 2D platformer video game. Armed with a small hammer and unexceptional fighting skills, Min-sik’s character faces up against 25 men in a battle and comes close to losing a few times. The fight is cumbersome, flinch-worthy, and looks as real as something one would expect to see in a real-life back alley brawl.
