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Best Gunfight Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of gunfight cinema — measured across 1,773 indexed frames from 21 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Gunfight films over-index on cowboy hat, handgun and tactical vest — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Shane (1953)

    George StevensDP Loyal GriggsIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Shane rides into a conflict between cattleman Ryker and a bunch of settlers, like Joe Starrett and his family, whose land Ryker wants. When Shane beats up Ryker's man Chris, Ryker tries to buy him. Then Shane and Joe take on the whole Ryker crew. Ryker sends to Cheyenne for truly evil gunslinger Wilson. Shane must clear out all the guns from the valley.

  2. 2

    The Getaway (1972)

    Sam PeckinpahDP Lucien BallardIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Carter "Doc" McCoy is a career robber, currently in his fourth year of a 10-year prison sentence at the Texas State Penitentiary. After his request for parole is denied although he's a model prisoner, Doc, unable emotionally to endure life inside, asks his loving wife Carol McCoy to contact crooked businessman Jack Beynon, a man with political connections, to secure his release in return for being "for sale" to Beynon. Beynon is able to get Doc released, the sale price being for Doc to plan and execute a robbery at a small bank branch in Beacon City, Texas where Beynon knows that $750,000 will be kept in the vault for the next two weeks. Rather than Doc using his own men for the job, Beynon directs that the only other people involved will be the men of his own choosing, Rudy and Frank. There are to be no casualties, which is all right with Doc who is not a murderer. After the robbery is completed and the monies divvied up accordingly, Doc and Carol will cross the border into Mexico to live out their lives away from capture. The robbery doesn't go according to Doc's plan, and Doc and Carol go on the run making their way into Mexico with their share of the loot. Various people are in their pursuit, some who know that they will try to cross into Mexico at one of the two major West Texas border crossings. Other bystanders get directly or indirectly involved in the proceedings; two of those people, seeming straight-laced couple Fran and Harold Clinton, get much more intimately involved than the others. Though it all, Doc and Carol must work through some of their own issues, which arise out of a revelation about Doc's release from prison.

  3. 3

    Back To The Future Part III (1990)

    Robert ZemeckisDP Dean CundeyIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1955, Marty McFly receives written word from his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown, as to where can be found the DeLorean time machine. However, an unfortunate discovery prompts Marty to go to his friend's aid. Using the time machine, Marty travels to the old west where his friend has run afoul of a gang of thugs and has fallen in love with a local schoolteacher. Using the technology from the time, Marty and Emmett devise one last chance to save the future.

  4. 4

    Hot Fuzz (2007)

    Edgar WrightDP Jess HallIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Top London cop PC Nicholas Angel is good. Too good. To stop the rest of his team looking bad, he is reassigned to the quiet town of Sandford. He is paired with Danny Butterman, who endlessly questions him on the action lifestyle. Everything seems quiet for Angel until two actors are found decapitated. It is called an accident, but Angel won't accept that, especially when more and more people turn up dead. Angel and Danny clash with everyone while they try to uncover the truth behind the mystery of the apparent "accidents".

  5. 5

    Black Hawk Down (2001)

    Ridley ScottDP Slawomir IdziakIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Action/war drama based on the best-selling book detailing a near-disastrous mission in Somalia on October 3, 1993. On this date nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord. This led to a large and drawn-out firefight between the Army Rangers, US Special Forces, and hundreds of Somali gunmen, resulting in the destruction of two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters. The film focuses on the heroic efforts of various Rangers to get to the downed helicopters, centering on SSG Eversmann, leading the Ranger unit Chalk Four to the first crash site, Chief Warrant Officer Durant who was captured after being the only survivor of the second crash, as well as many others who were involved.

  6. 6

    Bad Boys (1995)

    Michael BayDP Howard AthertonIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Marcus Burnett is a hen-pecked family man. Mike Lowry is a foot-loose and fancy free ladies' man. Both are Miami policemen, and both have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.

  7. 7

    Don’t Breathe 2 (2021)

    Rodo SayaguesDP Pedro LuqueIMDb 6.0TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    The Blind Man has been hiding out for several years in an isolated cabin and has taken in and raised a young girl orphaned from a devastating house fire. Their quiet life together is shattered when a group of criminals kidnap the girl, forcing the Blind Man to leave his safe haven to save her.

  8. 8

    The Book of Eli (2010)

    Albert Hughes, Allen HughesDP Don BurgessIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    In a violent post-apocalyptic society, a drifter, Eli (Denzel Washington), has been wandering westward across North America for the last thirty years. He finds solace in a unique book which he carries on his person and guards closely, while surviving by hunting small animals and seeking goods in destroyed houses and vehicles to trade in villages for water and supplies. When he reaches a village ruled by the powerful mobster, Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the man views Eli's impressive fighting skills and offers Eli a place within his gang. Carnegie presses his blind lover Claudia (Jennifer Beals) to send her daughter, Solara (Mila Kunis), to at least convince Eli to spend the night by sleeping with him. However, Eli proves to be the better man when he gently declines her advances. The girl sees Eli's book, and when Carnegie finds out he beats her mother until she reveals what she saw. Carnegie sends his gang into the wasteland to take the book from Eli, but the man proves to be a formidable foe as he makes it more than clear that if they want the book, they must first take his life.

  9. 9

    Guns Akimbo (2020)

    Jason Lei HowdenDP Stefan CiupekIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Miles is stuck in a dead-end programming job. Still in love with his ex-girlfriend Nova, he spends his waking hours between pining for her and scouring the internet as a social-justice troll, cowardly leaving anonymous insults to those who post objectionable content online. Meanwhile a cyber-gang, called Skizm, is running an ultra-violent game across his city, in which violent criminals fight to the death for the entertainment of an online audience of millions. Miles feels safe and secure insulting the sick audience of this game, but soon finds himself abducted and thrust into the game, forced to fight with an insane, gun-crazed, escaped lunatic. His only tools, but also his biggest handicap, are the two huge pistols that have been literally bolted onto his hands. Initially, Miles' lifetime of running from his problems pays off as he - barely - manages to elude his seemingly unstoppable opponent, but when Nova's life is threatened unless he takes an active part in the game, he must finally stop running and overcome his fears to fight for the girl he loves.

  10. 10

    Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

    John CarpenterDP Douglas KnappIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Police ambush and kill several gang members in Los Angeles. Gang members make a pact of blood to strike back at police, and conduct a siege on the police station which is almost abandoned and due to be closed. Staff of the closing precinct and the criminals being held there while in transit must work together to fight off the attacking gang members.

What gunfight films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a gunfight frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — cowboy hat is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • cowboy hat6.1×
  • handgun4.8×
  • tactical vest4.3×
  • rifle4.3×
  • horse4.2×
  • hat3.3×
  • windshield3.0×
  • snow2.7×

What breaks the pattern

Bullitt (1968) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,773 frames from 21 films carrying the gunfight label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/gunfight

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