This list ranks the top 25 best gun movies of all time. One of the oldest and most popular genres of film is action. This genre of film typically involves life-threatening situations and lots of violence. Action films became extremely popular in the 1970s. Of course, this means gunfight choreography is essential to these films. Gun movies are tightly choreographed with many safety protocols in place (especially when handling guns). It takes a lot of time and skill to make a realistic gunfight scene. Here is our list of the best gun movies, all of these movies are packed with explosive entertaining battle scenes and epic shootouts.
Top 25 Best Gun Movies
25/25. Blackhawk Down
This movie is an adaptation of the book Black Hawk Down A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden. It is about Operation Gothic Serpent, the doomed mission in which the Task Force Ranger was told to capture a Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in October 1993. Most of the action movie takes place during the Battle of Mogadishu. It had a large cast ensemble such as Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Orlando Bloom, and Tom Hardy.
Black Hawk Down is considered a cultural look into the depiction of war in the US film and TV industry. It’s considered one of the best gun movies receiving much praise for its portrayal of military warfare. The USA Department of Defense supported the production, and the actors received extensive training with the USA Army Ranger Force for a week. Those who played the Delta Force were also trained. What helped the film immensely was the involvement of many soldiers and pilots who took part in the Battle of Mogadishu.
The USA Special Forces even provided actual Black Hawk and “Little Bird” helicopters to be used in the production. It’s very brutal, showing many violent war scenes. One of the most poignant scenes was the decision to defend a fallen chopper. Two Delta Force soldiers, Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart (Johnny Strong) and Master Sergeant Gary Gordon (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau,) make their last stand. Featuring the reloading of M19111 (Delta sidearm of choice) and even guns jamming, this scene demonstrates the brutality of war as the men are swarmed and killed, with their bodies paraded by their enemy.
seeing as the whole film is based on an intense gun battle, many different types of weapons are used. Each unit has different weapons. The Delta Force soldiers are seen holding Colt Model 727 rifles. However, this was used by the Rangers, not the Delta Force soldiers in real life.
They also are seen using a Colt Model 733 rifle. For non-firing rubber props, the movie showed the use of Colt M4 Carbines. However, these were not in the military until 1994. Furthermore, in one of the most infamous scenes, an RPG-7 launcher is used to take down Super Six-One (the first Black Hawk).
24/25. Act of Valor
When a modern warfare film was inspired by director Mike McCoy, and Scott Waugh’s previous work with the Navy SEALS, you know it is going to include some great action scenes. This fictional story has a team of Navy SEALs performing covert operations to rescue a captured CIA agent and stop a major cartel organization. As the Navy SEALs supported the production, many of the actors were active-duty Navy SEALs. There is a strong sense of realism with actual Navy SEALs on set. According to Lt. Commander Rorke, who starred in the film explained to ABC News, the gunfights are “a lot calmer and collected, and disciplined.”
The gunfight scenes are based on the Navy SEALs’ various experiences. The extraction mission is a perfect example of this realism. It starts with the SEALs camouflaged in the water, stealthily sniping away from the defenses of the enemy.
This sequence is eerie because it is so routine that they even catch the dead bodies before the bodies hit the water and alert their presence. The first-person camera angles also help with the immersion, especially after their cover is blown. The SEALs are calm, even though the hail of gunfire.
Many of the sets and weapons used in Act of Valor are navy training sites, as these sets are made to be realistic. To aid with realism, many fight scenes involved live ammunition. Some of the weapons seen in the film are:
- SIG-Sauer P226, which was used by Chief Dave in the film’s climax
- Heckler & Koch MP5A2, which was used by the cartel guards
- AKM Rifles, which were used by the cartel guards
- Sea-Hawks equipped with M240 door guns
- A GAU-17/A Minigun was used by Special Warfare Combatant Craft (SWCC) Crewmen aboard a SOC-R boat. This was one of the guns with live ammunition.
With many one-take moments, live footage from helmet cameras, and live bullets used, this is one of the best gun movies, showing realistic action scenes, and the life of a Navy SEAL on active duty.
23/25. Shoot ‘Em Up (2007)
A mysterious carrot-eating drifter named Smith comes to the aid of a pregnant woman being hunted by gunmen in dark clothing. He helps the woman conceive her baby as men are continually shooting at them and finds himself at war with these gangsters.
Shoot ‘Em Up has about fifteen seconds of exposure. During it, Smith is seen sitting on a bench in a run-down part of town, as a sobbing pregnant woman passes the street in front of him and an angry man with a gun chasing her. A little later a lot of people shoot at the drifter, and he shoots them back and takes down several bad guys. Before you have time to recover from this impressive but irrational shooting, the main villain named Hertz enters the scene and leads all these henchmen. He marks Smith as a target. All this leads, to another impressive and spectacular shootout.
The shootouts these two get into are great. They include excellent use of environmental factors like windows, metal drawers, hand dryers, and conveyors that are in the middle of the room for no apparent reason. The result is something that looks less like all the regular action movies you’ve seen, and more like the famous Matrix lobby fight.
Smith even uses a carrot to stab the bad guys in the head, which makes this action flick even more entertaining.
The movie features some great weapons, like the Walther PPK, Desert Eagle Mark XIX, and Smith & Wesson Model 629.
22/25. The Outpost
The Outpost is another action film based on the 2012 non-fiction book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor by Jake Tapper. The book tells the story of one of America’s deadliest battles against the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan, known as the Battle of Kamdesh.
This film demonstrated military commodore and was highly praised by the families and those who served during the battle for its realistic portrayal of life on the field and for respecting those who had passed in the battle.
The Outpost also investigates the dangerous mission of Combat Outpost Keating. This film has a star-studded cast, with Scott Eastwood, Orlando Bloom, Cory Hardrict, and Jonathan Yunger. Actual soldiers from Combat Outpost Keating also make cameos.
Like Black Hawk Down, it was about portraying a real gun battle and actual soldiers. Thus, the gunfight had to be realistic to achieve this goal. The opening scene sets the tone of warfare with an intense gunfight. While two men argue about a dog, gunfire abruptly starts the battle.
With snipers, bombs, and ammo runs resulting in arguments, a motor pit, and no sound buffer, the opening shows how things go from 0 to 100 on the battlefield. This opening sequence also shows the main issue with the outpost, which is the high ground surrounding the outpost without having any dialogue. This is a high-stress situation. Whilst there is a lot of cheering at the end, there are also arguments from the fight and adrenaline.
Unlike the other two films on this list so far, there is no evidence that the US Army or Navy was affiliated in any way outside of the cameos of soldiers who took part in the Battle of Kamdesh. Nearly all the soldiers have an M4A1 Carbine. Some of the soldiers mount a grenade launcher. Local Afghan soldiers, as well as Taliban members, are seen using AK-47s. M120 and M224 Motors play a large role in defending the outpost.
21/25. James Bond: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The ninth film in the James Bond film series sees the well-groomed MI6 agent’s life threatened by the notorious assassin Scaramanga, who charges a million bucks a shot for his services. Scaramanga, who is just as skilled as Bond, wants to prove he is better than him, which leads to one of the most iconic gun duels in cinema history.
While classically Bond films conclude in an extensive battle sequence between Bond’s government back-up and the antagonist’s army, this film’s climax is a fight between 007 and Scaramanga.
Bond’s Walther has a six-shot magazine while his opponent’s 4.2-millimeter handgun is a single shot that breaks down for concealment and is typically carried as a series of everyday components. Scaramanga also uses special golden bullets for maximum damage.
One of the coolest things about this duel is when 007 and Scaramanga are back to back holding their pistols and walking twenty paces from each before turning back and firing, Fantastic!
20/25. Sicario
At number seven of the best gun movies, we have Sicario, Spanish, and Italian for ‘hitman’, which gives a hint as to what this film is about. Emily Blunt plays FBI agent Kate Macer, who is tasked with bringing down a Mexican drug cartel.
The film was nominated for Best Cinematography, Original Score, and Sound Editing at the 88th Academy Awards and many BAFTAs. It has also begun a trilogy with the sequels being Sicario: Day of the Soldado and Sicario: Capos.
Sicario has a slow-burning plot but has some excellent fighting scenes. A perfect example of this is the border crossing gunfight scene. As the extraction is happening, the convey is held up due to traffic. Here, they notice members of the cartel disguised as civilians amongst the other pedestrians. It’s a tense showdown, with both sides showing their guns.
The atmosphere is built up as the gang members exit their vehicles, causing the agents to follow suit. The fight is over as soon as it begins, with the agents massacring the cartel.
Not only does this desensitize Macer to the nature of this mission, but it also desensitizes the audience to it. The guns displayed in the movie are not as varied as in the other films.
However, there are still quite a few different weapons seen here. Kate Macer used a Glock 19 during the border crossing gunfight. Another weapon seen in the bridge crossing gunfights was the SIG-Sauer P226 DAK handgun.
19/20. Planet Terror (2007)
Cherry Darling is a sensual and frustrated go-go dancer who manages the same evening to quit her job, be injured in a car accident, encounter her mythological Ex-boyfriend El Wray in a local bar, and finally get one of her legs eaten by zombies. Along with a group of survivors of a biochemical outbreak, Cherry battles zombie-like creatures and a rogue military unit. Soon the local sheriff’s office also intervenes, and the plot becomes a dynamic life-and-death battle, accompanied by a funky soundtrack and huge explosions.
One of the most enjoyable moments in the film is when Wray gives Cherry a Bushmaster Carbine, fitted with a Cobray 37mm Launcher, as her new leg. Cherry uses her newfound weapon to kill anyone who stands in her way. El Wray also turns out to be a military special agent and an expert in the deadly art of killing. Using his AR-15 with a night vision scope, he kills hordes of zombies.
18/25. Unforgiven
A Western setting is always good for a gunfight. With a star-studded cast of Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman.
Unforgiven has Eastwood as Will Munny, an ex-outlaw, hunting down two men for injuring a prostitute for $1000 in 1880 ($27,116.57 in 2021). The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning four. The box office hit has plenty of classic western shootouts. Turning every Western trope on its head about good cowboys and helping only purely innocent people, the saloon shootout demonstrates pure skill and ruthlessness. Here, we see Munny at his worst.
Coldly shooting the saloon owner (who was unarmed), Munny empties plenty of guns into the dozen men surrounding him. While their bullets miss due to their panicked state, Munny is calm. There’s no waiting and no dramatic monologue. It’s a few quips before the bullets are fired. Due to the film’s setting, there are many historical guns from this time such as:
- The Colt 1860 Army Pistol
- The Remington 1875 pistol
- The Spencer 1860 Carbine rifle
However, some guns did not exist in 1880. The Winchester 1892 rifle is seen with several deputies and was used by the Schofield Kid.
17/25. Aliens (1986)
While Alien, the first film in the Alien franchise, was a horror-oriented movie, Aliens was more action-oriented, sort of a hybrid between a western, a war movie, and a survival movie. The film tells the story of a team of US Colonial Marines on a distant planet, repelling a force of supper-deadly creatures who must be terminated with extreme prejudice. Armed to the teeth with an arsenal of powerful high-tech weapons the platoon soon finds out that this simple search and destroy op is way more dangerous than thought.
Mentally unprepared for this kind of warfare and led by an inexperienced and untested commander, the Marines give the fight of their lives to escape. With its release, the film became a worldwide blockbuster worldwide, grossing over 130 million dollars. It also received excellent reviews that continued to be positive over the years.
16/25. Extraction (Netflix movie)
Chris Hemsworth ditches his Thor hammer and drapes and takes up an army gun and SWAT vest. Hemsworth is a black ops mercenary named Tyler Rake, tasked with saving a kidnapped son of an incarcerated Indian drug lord, played by Rudhraksh Jaiswal. With double-crossing and the lockdown of Dhaka, Bangladesh, it is a tough job for Rake to fulfill his job.
As a black-ops mercenary in 2020, there are many types of weapons. Ranging from shotguns, and machine guns to grenade launchers and pistols, there is a lot of action as Hemsworth takes on a dozen men by himself.
When he rescues Ovi Mahajan (the son of the incarcerated Indian drug lord), Rake is a one-man army. The camera angles, the fight choreography, and the music completely make this massacre memorable, perfectly mixing both hand-to-hand combat and guns into a violent and bloody fight.
There are multiple different guns. Rake carries a Glock 17 as his sidearm, he also carries a customized BCM CQB-11 rifle in the climax scene.AK-47 assault rifles and M79 Grenade launchers were also seen heavily in the film. Bangladeshi forces use the Type 69 RPG grenade launcher.
15/20. Desperado (1995)
Another entry for director Robert Rodriguez on this list, Desperado is about a lonesome vigilante in Mexico named El Mariachi, who is looking for vengeance on a drug kingpin who murdered his first love. Of course, he is willing to blow away everyone and everything in his path to get it.
With his guitar case that doubles as a heavy weapons arsenal including one case being a high-powered rocket launcher while two more served as rapid-fire machine guns, he gets bloody satisfaction. It takes a stack of killing to get to the drug kingpin, but the near-invincible El Mariachi blows an army of goons away in a blizzard of guts.
Desperado is filled with countless action sequences that bring you to the edge of your seat, as El Mariachi shoots loads of guys for your entertainment.
14/10. Lone Survivor
At number four of the best gun movies, we return to the war in Afghanistan with Lone Survivor. Based on another best-selling book by the former US. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), the movie tells the story of the unsuccessful SEAL Operation Red Wings.
During this mission, the team is tasked to take out a Taliban leader. However, things go wrong, and the men soon find themselves in a fight to the death. As the title suggests, there is only one survivor named the US. Navy SEAL Luttrell.
Realism is a top priority with war films based on true events. The four Navy SEALs central to the plot are constantly put into impossible odds. After choosing to spare possible Taliban sympathizers, the team is soon surrounded by the mountainside. The only sounds are plenty of silent moments, only for the rain of gunfire to break the forest ambiance.
The cinematography has many different camera angles. From being in first-person mode through a scope to large, panned shots of the field, you get different angles of the fight. They also never shy away from the bloodshed as we see both sides being brutally gunned down.
There are different military guns in this film. Due to the small team, they are outnumbered. The Beretta 92FS handgun was used instead of the SIG-Sauer P226 Navy used in real life. Chinook helicopters have FN M240D machine guns mounted. M4A1 Carbine is used by the Navy SEALs. Mk 12 Mod 1 Special Purpose Rifle was used by the snipers.
13/25. RoboCop (1987)
This classic cyborg movie eighties action/sci-fi flick was so ultra-violent that it had to be cut down due to its graphic depiction of blood, ripped flesh, and wild use of guns. The greatest thing about the 1987 movie was that it was a SIMPLE high concept. In a violent near future, where crime is widespread, a good Detroit police officer is gunned down and killed by vicious criminals, only to be resurrected as a cyborg crime-fighting Robocop. Part man. Part machine. That’s it!
The added elements are icing on the cake as the film explores the idea of a man, with his memory erased, but haunted by recurring imageries from his human past life, taking on crime full force. He slowly begins to explore his human past, which then leads to a path of vengeance and the exposing of the corrupt company that made him a cyborg.
Also, the film had some of the best villains in fiction ever. Clarence Boddicker as the lead villain was utterly terrifying and Dick Jones and Bob Morton were probably two of the best portrayals of corporate evil in cinema history. The movie also includes some iconic weapons, like Robocop’s “Auto 9” which Robocop fires in 3-round burst mode and an enormous experimental military weapon called the “Cobra Assault Cannon” that fires some kind of powerful high explosive incendiary round that explodes upon impact.
12/25. The Way of the Gun
This crime film has many action scenes. Two lowly criminals called Parker and Longbaugh (Ryan Phillippe and Benicio del Toro) kidnap the surrogate mother of a dangerous criminal. With more twists and turns, it ends with a devastating ending. The action sequences are part of the reason why this film still has a cult following.
The Way of the Gun has a lot of action sequences and got high praise from many critics. The final shootout begins with the two protagonists already sensing the danger. As they position themselves by a doorway, they say a few words about death. Then, with their backs to one another, they start the final shootout.
There aren’t as many fancy camera angles as possible, but it is still an epic showdown that sees our protagonists fighting until their last breath. Even though the criminals are constantly on the run, there are a surprising number of different guns used by them in this film.
The main handgun used by Parker and Longbaugh is the Colt Series 70 Government Model. The other handgun used to kill off one of the most significant characters Dr. Painter (Dylan Kussan) is the Walther PPK/S. Other guns include shotguns, rifles, and revolvers.
11/25. Equilibrium (2002)
A thought-provoking tale of a man awakening to the realization that he has lost more of himself than he can deal with. As the man is a highly trained killer in the service of an unfeeling government, the things he has done start to weigh heavy after he accidentally smashes his mind-altering drug. He lost his wife, killed his friend, cannot recognize his children, and is struggling with the understanding that, if he does nothing, the future will not get better.
Although Equilibrium is kind of a B-movie, the action is awesome and the gun-kata looks ace. Watching the long-range and short-range gun kata battles will leave your jaw on the floor, much like the first time we saw the lobby shoot-out scene in The Matrix. Since Equilibrium invented this new fighting style, it’s been used in dozens of other films, games, and anime.
Christian Bale leads the cast as a Cleric, highly trained in the martial arts and responsible for tracking down those guilty of “sense offense,” refusing to take a government-issued medication that suppresses all emotions. The Cleric character’s progression throughout the movie is a fascinating story arc.
10/25. Dredd (2012)
Seven years before Karl Urban portrayed the comic book character Billy Butcher in The Boys, he was every bit of the anger, loathing, and fearlessness that you expect from the comic book character of Judge Dredd. Paired with a foil, a psychic rookie, the two plunge into more than they expect, resulting in blood and ruthlessness nearly overflowing from the screen.
Smartly pairing contrasting imagery, such as the beautiful and ethereal visuals of the drug SloMo, with the grim and gruesome setting of a Megablock slum, the movie Dredd finds the balance needed to let you accept the reality of the setting. Watching it is like watching Dirty Harry as a futuristic cop in a sci-fi setting.
The story isn’t detailed or complicated, it’s a straightforward crime and action setup, with police officers going into a large building to arrest a drug kingpin and then being locked inside the building while the drug lord offers a huge bounty to anybody who kills the cops before they can escape the building. Once the characters and set-up are established, it is a gun blazing spectacular until the finish!
9/10. Lethal Weapon (1987)
Lethal Weapon has everything you need in an 80s campy buddy cop movie that is also trying to be serious. It has random saxophone solos every five minutes. Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, a pair of mismatched LAPD detectives, have a believable relationship that grows naturally and each character has good overall development.
Together they fight a drug smuggling net that involves a criminal organization comprised of mercenaries and former CIA members with connections to the Vietnam War. As a former Special Forces sniper, Martin Riggs is highly proficient with his Baretta 92F sidearm, able to “draw” a smiley face on a silhouette target at several dozen yards with it.
The movie has an exciting action-packed climax and the whole thing aged incredibly well.
8/25. Young Guns (1988)
In this ’80s western, William H. Bonney, aka “Billy the Kid”, is taken in under the wing of British rancher John Tunstall, along with other scruffy young western ne’er-do-wells. When Tunstall is murdered, Billy the Kid organizes a group who calls themselves ‘the Regulators’ to avenge the kindly rancher’s death. Despite being formally ‘deputized’, Billy and his men do not capture the suspected killers, but just kill them, resulting in him and his ‘gang’ becoming the hunted outlaws.
The movie contains great shootouts, including one where the Young Guns, trapped in a house by their rivals, decide to shoot their way out and a suitcase is thrown out of the window, only for Billy to emerge firing his Colt Lightning.
Young Guns is considered to be the most accurate movie to depict Billy the Kid’s historical character and the Lincoln County War.
7/25. Machine Gun Preacher (2011)
The movie tells the true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing biker who found God and traveled to Sudan to protect, in collaboration with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the Sudanese orphans from the atrocities of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Not only does Childers build an orphanage within the territory controlled by the Lord’s Resistance Army, but he also starts to lead armed raids to rescue children, including child soldiers, from the LRA.
In fact, Childers is so good at fighting and killing people that he soon becomes the local rebels’ gun-slinging chief. He goes to war in the name of the Lord and bloody, well-shot gun battles ensue.
6/25. Gun Crazy 3: Traitor’s Rhapsody (2003)
Aki Fukase was the best student in the police academy and now she is a rookie policeman looking to make a name for herself in the field of law enforcement. However, her greenness contributes to the death of her partner when a trap is set by Galhowk, a worldwide terrorist group. Overcome with guilt, Aki sets out to uncover Galhowk to clear her conscience and avenge her partner. Bloody gun vengeance soon follows.
5/25. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Another entry for director Robert Rodriguez on this list, From Dusk Till Dawn, tells the story of two bank-robbing brothers who take a preacher and his two teenage stepchildren hostage as they make their escape across the border into Mexico. When they stop at a local strip joint, the brothers and the family find themselves having to battle a bunch of bloodsucking vampires who inhabit the establishment.
The film contains some great shootouts, like the one in the liquor store hold-up, where they end up killing the clerk and Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, Ultimately, they burn the entire building down before getting back to their car.
4/25. The Naked Gun (1988)
In this 80s iconic crime comedy film, Police Squad Lt. Frank Drebin gets things done. He disturbs a conference of America’s greatest enemies in Beirut. He beats the hell out of some of the most feared terrorists in the world, like Muammar Gaddafi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, and Mikhail Gorbachev before he warns them to stay out of America. Later, when the Police Squad is put in charge of security for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to LA, Frank does everything in his power to stop a large assassination plot against the queen.
Throughout the movie, LA crime fighter and police detective Frank Drebin proves to be a real destructive force of nature. For example, he completely trashes the antagonist’s apartment which is filled with priceless pieces of art and treasures. He is also very good with a gun, as he demonstrates when he shoots five good actors because he thinks that they are killing a person. It was just a production of Julius Caesar.
Drebin is such a great sniper, that he manages to kill the antagonist Vincent Ludwig with a cuff link dart which sends Ludwig falling from a baseball stadium, where he is hit by a passing bus, run over by a steamroller, and trampled by the entire USC marching band.
Actually, when you think of it, Drebin is probably the most dangerous individual on this list.
3/25. District 9 (2009)
Set in a near-future Johannesburg, several decades after an alien race arrives in the city, the film follows a bureaucrat named Wikus van der Merwe who is tasked with relocating the extraterrestrials to a new settlement outside of Johannesburg. However, Wikus is accidentally infused with the DNA of the aliens, leading him to gradually mutate into something less than human.
The movie depicts both real-life guns and make-believe badass alien guns. In the real-life gun department, we have the antagonist Koobus’ Vektor R6 trademark weapon, a compact version of the R5 with an 11-inch barrel that he uses with extreme proficiency. The alien weaponry is particularly awesome with weapons that shoot some kind of lightning that vaporizes people and sort of a force beam weapon that seems to slam people as if they were hit by a locomotive.
Especially noteworthy is the alien bio-suit called the Mech Prawn which is armed with a wide variety of tools and weapons, such as a machine gun, rocket launchers, and a metal spike that drives into the enemy and sends a charge through them that causes them to explode. It all has some kind of super-magnet that attracts bullets and flings them back at such velocity to kill the shooters.
2/25. John Wick
If there is one thing this movie taught everyone, it is that you don’t ever kill someone’s dog. John Wick is a retired hitman, who seeks vengeance after the mobster’s son and the cronies for killing his dog which his deceased wife arranged for him to have, and stealing his car.
Drawing on anime and martial artists, the film uses gun fu techniques in its cinematography. This was before Black Widow ever arrived on the scene with her guns and martial arts combo. There are plenty of hand-to-hand combat scenes that blend smoothly into a gunfight.
After the initial robbery and death of his dog, Wicks still has henchmen after him. Using complex techniques to disarm and choke his opponents, as well as blend into the shadows, Wick eventually takes down the henchmen without any injury.
Whilst Wick has retired from being a hitman, he still has a secret stash of weaponry. His main gun used throughout the film is a Heckler & Koch P30L, which is fitted with a custom compensator. He is also seen using a Glock 26 compact pistol, FN SCAR-H sniper rifle, and DTA Stealth Recon Scout sniper rifle.
The snipers are especially in delivering his vengeance. When he finally hunts down Viggo’s son (the one who killed his dog and stole his car), he ruthlessly snipes each guard and associate of his own. He purposely saves him for last and shows no mercy. Again, do not mess with someone’s dog!
1/25. Heat
Last but certainly not least, we have a crime drama and the best gun movie ever!
Heat follows LAPD Lieutenant Hanna (Al Pacino) and his pursuit of master thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). They each develop respect for one another as they try to sabotage each other. So, how does a 1995 action film top our list?
Well, let’s analyze the bank robbery scene. This scene still holds up today due to the non-muzzled sound of bullets that Hollywood typically uses. The scene builds slowly as we see the thieves with guns loaded. As soon as the first shot is fired, the sound echoes through the street.
Heat has a slow build-up as the adrenaline kicks in. When it is all said and done, cars are shredded to pieces and the silence is deafening. The scene we just described is still considered one of the best shootout scenes in film history. This is because it was choreographed by British Special Air Service special forces veterans Andy McNab and Mick Gould.
They had also designed a training course for the actors to practice for three months with live ammunition before shooting blanks on the actual take. Each scene took a long time to choreograph. Some of the guns used in the film are rifles, handguns, submachine guns, and shotguns. The most recognizable guns are the distinct handguns Hanna and McCauley use. Hanna uses a Colt M1991A1 Series, 80 Officers, ACP, whereas McCauley is seen at the start of the film and in the bank robbery scene with a Heckler & Koch USP.
