From Paul and Feyd’s climactic knife fight in Dune: Part Two until the climactic sword fight of Lucius and Macrinus in Gladiator IIThe 2024 movies have brought a lot of great fight scenes. A good fight scene can really revitalize an audience. It’s a chance for stunt choreographers to get creative and can be a crowd-pleasing moment when a noble hero violently triumphs over a despicable villain.
2024 has featured gruesome, blood-soaked fight scenes, such as the nightclub sequence in monkey manand funny slapstick scenes, like the cartoonish parlor fight in Hundreds of beavers. There were even great fight scenes in non-action movies, like the body horror piece. The substance. Since the final confrontation in Boy kills the world to the multiversal chaos of Deadpool and WolverineThe 2024 movies have been packed with well-staged fight scenes.
5 Boy and Mina vs. The shaman
Boy kills the world
Boy kills the world has some of the most twisted on-screen violence of the year. When Boy confronts a group of bullies in the kitchen, he uses a cheese grater to scrape their skin. While Glen is being interrogated, a weight is dropped on his head which instantly crushes his skull into a bloody mess. This movie has wall-to-wall shock value, but saves its most shocking violence until the final fight.
After discovering that June 27 is actually his sister, Mina, and that he was tricked by his mentor, the Shaman, Boy goes after the true target of his revenge. Boy and Mina fight the shaman in the underground parking lot of the Van Der Koy compound. With all the bone breaking and blood splattering, this is one of the biggest (and hardest to watch) fight scenes of 2024.
4 Pike vs. Macrinus
Gladiator II
For most of Gladiator IIMacrinus acts as comic relief and mentor to Lucius. But towards the end of the second act, Macrinus reveals his true intentions: to assassinate the emperors, take control of Rome, and rule with an iron fist. Inspired by his grandfather’s dream of a utopia, Lucius cannot allow that, so he escapes the arena, pursues Macrinus on horseback, and challenges him to a fight to the death against the armies of Rome.
Lucius’ climactic showdown with Macrinus is just as satisfying as Maximus’s climactic showdown with Commodus in the first film, but it’s much more gruesome. The fight takes them to a river, where Rome is symbolically reborn. Just as Macrinus is getting the upper hand, Lucius cuts off his arm in the film’s most shockingly bloody moment.
3 Isabel vs. Sue
The substance
By the nature of its premise, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror epic The substance keeps its protagonist Elisabeth and its antagonist Sue separated for most of the film; when one is awake, the other is in a coma. They resent each other when Sue takes away all of Elisabeth’s youth and Elisabeth pushes Sue away from the spotlight. When Elisabeth tries to fire Sue and has last-minute doubts, they meet face to face for the first time and immediately start punching each other.
When this fight scene starts, The substance Suddenly it becomes a Bruce Lee kung fu movie. Elisabeth is thrown across the apartment and smashed into tables and mirrors as the superpowered Sue exacts her revenge. Fargeat was clearly inspired by the “fu wire” from wuxia films and gave the stunt team plenty of opportunities to be creative.
2Paul Atreides vs. Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen
Dune: Part Two
The second volume of Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction epic, Dune: Part Twoculminates in a duel. If the Emperor’s reign continues, if the Great Houses invade Arrakis, and if Paul’s visions of an apocalyptic holy war come true, it all comes down to a knife fight between Paul and the Emperor’s champion, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. Villeneuve has set the stage perfectly, presenting what is at stake in the duel and how cruel Feyd is in a fight.
The choreography is suitably brutal; Throughout the entire duel, each character is seconds away from dying. While the fight lasts, Villeneuve makes the audience forget that Paul has plot armor. For anyone who hasn’t read the book or seen David Lynch’s version, the outcome of the duel is totally unpredictable.
1 Deadpool and Wolverine vs. Deadpool’s body
Deadpool and Wolverine
From their initial confrontation in front of a cracked 20th Century Fox logo to their brutal fight in the back of a Honda Odyssey, the main characters of Deadpool and Wolverine have some really memorable fights. But arguably the best fight scene in the movie is when they finally team up. On their way to stop Cassandra Nova from using the Time Ripper, Deadpool and Wolverine have to fight their way through the Deadpool Corps.
Shawn Levy films the sequence with an attractive tracking shot that moves slowly down the street. It’s meticulously choreographed: sometimes Deadpool and Wolverine run ahead of the camera and sometimes fall behind, with plenty of fun Deadpool variants getting their comeuppance. “Like a Prayer” by Madonna is the cherry on top that makes this the most unforgettable fight scene of 2024.