What are your favorite movie gunfights?

The opening of HARD BOILED or the restaraunt in THE KILLER.

Without a shadow of a doubt it's Heat (1995). The bank robbery and shoot out afterwards are simply amazing. The shootout never strays from plausibility and it always seems real. And what makes it even more brilliant is the sound. Turn this scene up and just listen to it. You can hear the gun shots echoing through out the streets of L.A. and the gun sounds are the EXACT gun sounds for those guns. It's a damn good shootout and is my vote for "All-Time Greastest".

L.A. Confidential has a great one as well.

Damn you Fett for getting in with Hard-Boiled before me! I would go with the protracted warehouse shootout myself - the first time I saw that, I couldn't remember ever having seen action cinematography so intense. The interior of the car exploding in slo-mo as Tony Leung dives through it is like boner in a bottle.

Couple of cliches - the bank job spillover in Heat and Danny Boy in Miller's Crossing. These are beloved sequences for a reason...

The climax to Open Range. One of my favourite Western action sequences - that dude who gets blown away through the side of the shed by the shotgun... Ouchy.

Totall Recall. "You think this is the real Quaid? It is." Lush.

The bloodbath at the end of Taxi Driver. One of the most intense shootouts both emotionally and in terms of bullet impact I have ever seen.

The fucked up heist in Dead Presidents. Unbelievably cool and bloody and tragic at the same time.

Two De Palma train station sequences - The Untouchables and Carlito's Way.

And the finest shootout to ever appear in a TV movie - the takedown at the end of The FBI Murders. This is one of the best shootouts in terms of geography and character involvement I have ever seen. McTiernan would be proud.

Speaking of Mann, I did like the club scene in COLLATERAL. Nice and chaotic, but still a clear sense of what was going on.

Final shoot-out in Way of the Gun.

It's got gritty, realistic gunplay in a nice variety of locations. The one thing that really upsets me about it is that one part where Del Toro's character is shooting an assault rifle full-auto and makes a perfect line of bullet holes along the wall. No way.

Cyberdyne building, Terminator 2
End of True Romance
End of A Better Tomorrow 2
Then Heat, Collateral, Hard Boiled, etc. as mentioned.

What's wrong with the Matrix Lobby shootout?

Give me the shootout at Ravenwood's bar in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I have to say, and this goes for most of the action in all three movies for me personally, I just find it kinda dull. It's well choreographed and well-photographed, but it doesn't seem as spontaneous and kinetic as other stuff I've seen. It seems, well, like a movie. I don't know if that's somewhat appropriate because it's inside The Matrix, but that's my take on it.

I just grabbed the DVD of COLLATERAL and I don't know if it qualifies, since it's awfully one sided, but when Vincent takes down the 2 punks who stole his case it's the first time you really see how much of a machine he is. Precision mayhem at its finest.

Other favorites:

HEAT: What else can you say? Mann makes great dramas that just happen to have great shootouts.

3000 MILES TO GRACELAND: The casino shooutout is the exact opposite in style from HEAT but is still a marvel to watch.

ARMY OF ONE: Lundgren taking down 50 dudes may not be realistic but it's probably the closest I've seen to a Woo-style sequence that was not directed by Woo.

DIE HARD: The "No more table!" scene. Quick but classic!

FACE/OFF: "Somewhere over the Rainbow" hasn't sounded the same since.

The climax of FARGO.

Heat, hell yeah. Same for Open Range. As far as completely implausible but totally cool, the bar fight in Desperado.

not that I think its the best shoot out, but the 'coat check' scene in 'Matrix Revolutions' was pretty cool. Ok Matrix haters... GO!

Yeah, remember that scene in The Insider when Wigand goes nuts and blows everyone away at Brown & Williamson? That was pretty sweet... wait...

the night club shootout in Collateral is pretty sweet and I see what you're saying about the Matrix, Fett. You know it's coming but I still feel it's a good shootout. A top ten greatest? That's iffy. The thing about Heat's is that you're not sure what's going to happen. With the way they walk out of the bank you think they might get pinned down or cornered in but just out of nowhere Kilmer unleashes and then all hell breaks loose. That's the part that sold it for me, was when Kilmer just starts firing.

Would the gunfight in the bar at the end of Unforgiven count as a shootout?

Another good Mann one is at the end of MANHUNTER. The "Iron Butterfly" song is a bit much but Graham crashing through that window is a pretty intense moment.

As for more Woo I'd say the warehouse shootout at the end of HARD TARGET is a winner. I love when Van Damme and Vosloo are back to back reloading. Van Damme does some twirl with his hands that seems totally without merit but looks cool anyway.

The scene where Willis takes out everyone in LAST MAN STANDING is one of Walter Hill's best action sequences. I could have used a better story for the film but they sure got the shootouts down perfectly.

Probably my favorite out of recent films is the end of THE PUNISHER. It was key because it was really the first time that Jane went from playing Castle to being The Punisher. It was one of the better shootouts I've seen where all the participants are in real close proximity to each other.

It's sad to think about how many action films I've seen in my life that must have been pretty lackluster, because I can't think of a lot of other titles to contribute to this list, and I know I've seen a lot of action movies. It's nice to see people remembering De Palma, as the train station fight in Untouchables is one of my all time faves.

However, I really do like the department store showdown in Johnny To's The Mission. Especially when the camera pulls back from our protagonists arranged in a circle in the middle of the floor to show all the "bad guys" hidding behind the pillars and what-not. Pretty tense, and a neat reveal.

I think my favorite non-John-Woo HK shoot-out is Tsui Hark's Time and Tide, culminating in an Heckler and Koch fueled high-speed descent down the side of a high-rise apartment building. The second time I saw that movie I just stopped there and re-played that section three or four times. The rope trick on the staircase was pretty great too.

I think I would have liked the Collateral club scene more if it had adequately explained how Cruise managed to beat Foxx and Ruffalo out of the club. I still don't quite understand how that worked. Did he go out of a window, or was I just not paying enough attention?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. One great shootout (the slow walk through the deserted streets of the town) and one incredible duel (the three-way standoff in the cemetery).

So, what do I win?

Plenty of greats mentioned so far...
My faves are both relatively short as far as the gunfighting goes, however they still kick ass and involve guns so they're being mentioned.

Carlito's Way -Carlito's little cousin gets sliced. (A short gunfight, but I love the 'build-up' with Carlito's 'magic-time' pool shot )

Tombstone - Doc Holliday vs. Johnny Ringo ( nuff said )

How about the opening gunfight in Breaking News by Johnnie To? A nice gunfight, and done in one long take. Johnnie To had some other great scenes in Fulltime Killer and The Mission, sorta a cool cat & mouse type gunfight in the later.

The assassination of Sonny Corleone. Pretty one sided, but viscerol none the less.

I came to this thread to mention Hard-Boiled and The Killer but the Mighty Fett beat me to it. Hurrah.

And what the hell happened to John Woo? He needs to stop making American films.

He needs to stop making PG-13 American films, and yes, I did like WINDTALKERS.

Sonny getting mowed down in The Godfather

The showdown betweeen Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson at the end of Once Upon a Time in the West!
I get goosebumps everytime is see it.
The harmonica theme by Ennio Morricone is awesome.

I mentioned this in another thread but here it is:
My fave realistic gunfight is Heat but my fave action-packed-cool-looking gunfight has to be Preston versus Father at the end of Equilibrium.

I think Heat is the clear favorite here, and mine as well, but as Brenden already pointed out, the bar in Unforgiven is a close second for me!

Good call above on Hard Boiled and The Killer. It's hard not too mention John Woo in a 'favorite shootout' thread.

Die Hard - the office scene. "Shoot the glass!" Man, that was so loud on screen the only movie since to match it was in Heat.

You Only Live Twice - the end, when the Japanese storm the volcano by repelling down into it. That's always been a favorite. Also the underwater sequence in Thunderball.

The end of Young Guns while they're held up in that house.

The shootout at the end of The Limey was very realistic.

Bad-ass french flick The Nest. When the Albanians ambush the armored car, that was the shiznit.
I always thought Grosse Pointe Blank brought some unexpected coolness in that final scene. DEATH BY TV...!! that was massive

I have a soft spot for Christian Bale's entrance into the darkened room near the beginning of "Equilibrium". Even in the dark, the gun kata was just awesome.

Not in any particular order:

-Equilibrium's gunfights are amazing, especially the final extended sequence leading up to the duel with Father.

-Desperado's second bar gunfight, the real-time one, not the flashback one

-Heat haunts me to this day with the idea that I could someday be caught in mayhem such as that

-Elephant... but it's not much of a fight, still one of the most terrifying gun-related scenes in cinema

-Taxi Driver's gunfight

-Last Man Standing, pretty well every gunfight is consistently awesome

-The Magnificent Seven, I love it mostly for the chaos and the lines that Charles Bronson utters to those kids before he buys it

-The two major gunfights in Face/Off, the police raid and the church shootout

-The Matrix's infamous lobby scene, there were no other great gunfights in the trilogy

-Montana's last stand in Scarface

-Mr. White exchanging fire with the cops for those sparse moments in Reservoir Dogs

-Final shootout in Young Guns

-Terminator 2 at Cyberdyne

That's all for now, but I know I've got more in here somewhere!

Most of my faves have been mentioned, but I'll toss in 48 Hours as well. It has a couple of good ones, esp the bus vs. the Cadillac scene.

I forgot:

The retreating firefight at the end of Tears of the Sun.

That gun from I COME IN PEACE is pretty damn cool. It just destroy's everything.

Of course they give it to the weenie - Brian Benben, instead of Dolph.

For christ sakes people The Crow!

Also Fallen Angels has some really stylish gun play happening.

The Splurge Gun sequence in Bugsy Malone gets A for Originality in my book.

I love that movie.

A third vote for "Open Range", it was so powerful and it blew my surround sound system away.