Image via Paramount Pictures
Published Apr 8, 2026, 5:51 PM EDT
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Stunts are an integral part of many movies. Beyond just the action genre, stunts and their coordination are featured in far more films than you might assume, and they can be essential. Starting with the 2028 ceremony, the Academy Awards will finally recognize stunt design in a long-overdue category. While that's progress, it doesn't correct the many years of film stunts and the stunt people who put their lives on the line for our entertainment, who have gone unrecognized. The number of astounding stunts that have been performed on film is so large that you could fill out a dozen lists with them. In the interest of keeping things simple, it's easier just to focus on some of the most fearless.
Most cinematic stunts are inherently fearless on some level, but several go so far above and beyond the level of safety and sanity that you begin to seriously question if those who performed them were born without a functioning amygdala. From the silent era to martial arts classics to modern spy thrillers, there's seemingly no limit to what stunt performers and stars like Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise will put themselves through for our entertainment. These are six of the most fearless action stunts in movie history, ranked.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz
Which Taylor Sheridan
Show Do You Belong In?
Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations. BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first. CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it. DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly.
AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me. BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract. CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything. DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed.
AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching. BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved. CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences. DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away. BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them. CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve. DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today. BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it. CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it. DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending.
AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase. BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal. CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake. DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested.
ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't. BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me. CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it. DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after. BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast. CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect. DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much. BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down. CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet. DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
When it's over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it. BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table. CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms. DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.
REVEAL MY SHOW →
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
The Crocodile Run in 'Live and Let Die' (1973)
Image via MGMRoger Moore's first appearance as James Bond in Live and Let Die quickly established the cheekier tone that would define his tenure as the character. That tone extends to many of the stunts in the movie, none more so than when Bond finds himself confronted with a float of crocodiles. Instead of using some highly specific gadget or tangling with the crocodiles, Bond runs across the backs of the ravenous reptiles. It's both incredibly silly and incredibly fearless, since the crocodiles were not the result of some Hollywood fakery and were, in fact, living, breathing animals.
This stunt was the brainchild of stunt performer and crocodile farm owner Ross Kananga, whom the producers met while scouting locations for the film and also named the film's villain after him. After suggesting the stunt, Kananga was also conscripted by the producers to perform it as well. The stunt reportedly took five takes to accomplish, during one of which a crocodile managed to snap at Kananga's heel, ripping his costume and causing him to need stitches. While that pain was temporary, the stunt will live on forever as one of the most memorable of the entire Bond franchise.
The Bull in 'Jackass Forever' (2022)
Image via Paramount PicturesThe Jackass crew has been putting their bodies on the line in the name of juvenile humor for over two decades, blurring the line between fearlessness and abject stupidity, and the world of entertainment is better for it. Any number of the stunts performed in the four feature films they've produced could easily be listed here, but it's hard to beat anyone who willingly puts themselves in front of a charging bull. Jackass performer and de facto leader Johnny Knoxville has often been cited as the most fearless of the group by the other members, thanks to his unwavering commitment to capture the most compelling footage no matter what the cost.
For Jackass Forever, Knoxville, who was fifty years old during the filming, outdid even himself by taking the full force of a charging bull while comically dressed as a magician. The hit spun Knoxville vertically, much to the stunned silence of those who witnessed it. It knocked Knoxville unconscious and gave him several broken bones as well as a fairly serious concussion. Knoxville later said it was one of the worst hits he'd ever taken, and the footage speaks for itself. Thankfully, Knoxville recently announced he was retiring from performing stunts, citing health concerns, which will probably allow his doctor to sleep better at night.
The Plane Stunt in 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation' (2016)
Image via Paramount PicturesOne performer who it seemed would never retire from stuntwork is Tom Cruise, who used his Mission: Impossible franchise to fund his most outrageous stunts. From climbing the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol to performing a HALO jump in Fallout, every film in the franchise upped the ante for how much death Cruise could defy. If there's one stunt that feels particularly fearless, if for no other reason than Cruise being completely out of control and at the mercy of the elements for it, it's Ethan Hunt hanging from the outside of a cargo plane as it takes off from the beginning of Rogue Nation. It's a literal elevation of the Mission: Impossible franchise and Cruise's commitment to entertainment.
The iconic shot was accomplished across eight separate takes, where Cruise was harnessed to the side of the plane for safety while it climbed to 5,000 feet. Regardless of the safety precautions taken, at the end of the day, Cruise's body was being subjected to unimaginable forces, and any equipment failure would have undoubtedly meant curtains for the star. It's an absolutely audacious stunt, and one that feels all the more authentic for how little enhancement was given to it in post-production. Outside of some digital removal or wiring and rigging, the stunt appears exactly as it was shot.
The Ship's Mast in 'Death Proof' (2007)
Image via Dimension FilmsFor his half of the double feature Grindhouse, Quentin Tarantino made a slasher movie where the killer's weapon of choice is a car. As a throwback to '70s car chase movies like Vanishing Point, Tarantino wanted his film, Death Proof, to be similarly devoid of CGI or other modern effects technology. The car stunts are all done for real, including the climactic chase sequence where stuntwoman and actress Zoë Bell dangles precariously from the hood of a 1970 Dodge Challenger. Bell is playing a fictional version of herself in the film, which was written for her after Tarantino had worked with her on Kill Bill, where she doubled for Uma Thurman, and she performed the stunt herself.
In the film's narrative, Bell convinces her stunt driver friend to perform what is referred to as a Ship's Mast, where Bell hangs on to the hood of the car while it's driven at high speed with nothing but a couple of belts to keep her in place. That stunt becomes even more death-defying as Kurt Russell's killer Stuntman Mike attempts to run the Challenger off the road, and Bell hangs on for dear life. As an homage to the undoubtedly unsafe stunt practices of the low-budget grindhouse movies of the '70s, the stuntwork in Death Proof feels suitably dangerous, and Bell is as fearless as they come.
The Building Slide in 'Who Am I?' (1998)
Image via Golden HarvestIf there's one performer whose stuntwork outdoes that of Knoxville, Cruise, and Bell, it's Jackie Chan. Throughout his long career in film, Chan has performed all his own stunts, which include sliding down a pole covered in lights and crashing through glass in Police Story and crawling across hot coals in Drunken Master II. Still, nothing compares to the utter fearlessness of the building slide stunt in his underrated spy thriller Who Am I? Playing a secret agent with amnesia, the majority of the film's runtime involves Chan fleeing from various operatives out to kill him and uncovering the mystery of why, which leads to a confrontation in a skyscraper from which he escapes by sliding down the exterior of the building.
Filmed at the architecturally distinct Willemswerf building in Rotterdam, which features a slanted section, Chan performed the stunt supposedly without any wires or safety net. It might be an urban myth, but the fact remains that Chan performed the stunt himself. There's nothing more to it than that; just a fearless man sliding down the outside of a building without any safety measures whatsoever. It's what separates Chan from so many others, and why, in a more sensible era of stuntwork, his will always be impossible to replicate.
The Falling House in 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928)
Image via United ArtistsIt's hard to beat the classics, and when it comes to classic stunts, Buster Keaton is the best of the best. Whether it's falling onto a moving train in The General or being dragged by a speeding streetcar in Daydream, Keaton didn't so much defy death as he openly mocked it. Never was that mockery more flagrant than in the signature stunt from Steamboat Bill, Jr., where Keaton stands blissfully unaware in front of a house as its entire front falls around him. It's both hilarious and harrowing, making you laugh in spite of the imminent danger.
The facade of the house weighed two tons, and the attic window section, which provided the safe spot for Keaton to avoid its crushing weight, left only mere inches of clearance. The sequence has been paid homage to and repeated by a number of stunt performers over the years, including Knoxville and Chan, but the original is still the most dangerous and Keaton the most fearless performer in movie history.
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Release Date May 20, 1928
English (US) ·