The 10 Most Epic Battle Scenes in Movie History, Ranked
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War movies frequently have battle scenes, as do fantasy and sci-fi movies that depict some kind of massive fantastical and/or futuristic conflict. If a film happens to belong to the epic genre as well, or goes above and beyond in showcasing spectacle with a single battle it might happen to depict, then what you’ve unsurprisingly got on your hands (in all likelihood) is an epic battle scene.
That’s what this is about. It’s straightforward. Some of these are depictions of real-life battles, while others are entirely fictional. What ties everything together is just how epic these battle scenes are, and how much they're likely to impress, to this day (and not all are necessarily action scenes in the traditional sense, but they do all offer a depiction of some sort of warfare on an epic scale).
10 'The Longest Day' (1962)
The Normandy Landings
The Longest Day is largely focused on the Normandy landings of June 6, 1944, with Saving Private Ryan admittedly being the more famous movie to depict such an event, and so it’s being given an honorable mention here. The Longest Day, though, is more about capturing the enormity of the event itself, while in Saving Private Ryan, it serves as a key scene early on, before the focus shifts to something else (a mission undertaken after the landings are done).
With The Longest Day, you’ve got a nearly three-hour runtime and added ambition coming about from the way that the film seeks to show that remarkably important event from several different perspectives. It feels comprehensive in a way that few epic movies have managed to be, and it keeps from staying dry, even if it’s going through the motions to some extent and not featuring as much by way of narrative and character stuff, compared to most war movies.
9 'Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back' (1980)
The Battle of Hoth
It says something about how good the ending of Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back is that the opening Battle of Hoth technically isn't the highlight of the film. Well, to be honest, it’s hard to pick a single sequence in this movie as being the best, because it’s nothing but great sequences throughout. It’s just that ending which maybe sticks out a tiny bit more for obvious reasons.
As for Hoth, it’s a real escalation in the warfare part of Star Wars, and with “Wars” being in the title, and also, the Empire striking back (once more, in the title), the Battle of Hoth needed to show the people behind the series and the villains meant business in equal measure. The opening battle of The Empire Strikes Back really does deliver on both those fronts, and it’s perhaps the best action sequence of the entire Original Trilogy.
8 'Braveheart' (1995)
The Battle of Stirling
Even though Braveheart has an incredible score by James Horner, a good deal of the Battle of Stirling Bridge is depicted in the film without any music. It’s also worth noting that it plays out without a bridge, so even if the battle in real life is referred to as the Battle of Stirling Bridge, it’s probably better to just call it the Battle of Stirling, if you’re looking at the stuff found in the movie.
It’s brutal, as a showcase of old-fashioned warfare, and so it does work as a visceral battle sequence, even if it’s got a lack of historical accuracy, but also, you can say that about most of Braveheart. It’s a crowd-pleasing epic more than it is biographical or historical, so if you can get on board with what it leaves out of the equation, there’s a lot to like about Braveheart and what it does with its battle scenes (especially this one).
7 'Avengers: Endgame' (2019)
The Battle of Earth
Even more fantastical than the battle found in The Empire Strikes Back, and very different to the more traditional war movies here, here’s Avengers: Endgame, which does nonetheless have a battle at its very end. It’s the Battle of Earth, basically, or everything that happens right after the famed “Avengers assemble” scene that had people cheering in cinemas back in 2019.
Almost every surviving and/or recently resurrected character who was important throughout the first 10 years of the MCU shows up and gets a moment to shine here.
It’s about as high-stakes as one would expect a battle to be with a name like that, with it taking up much of the final act of Avengers: Endgame, all the while having an overwhelming number of characters appearing in it. Almost every surviving and/or recently resurrected character who was important throughout the first 10 years of the MCU shows up and gets a moment to shine here, so it’s hard to think of relatively recent battle sequences that feel more crowd-pleasing than this.
6 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' (1970)
The Attack on Pearl Harbor
It feels a tiny bit odd to call the biggest sequence in Tora! Tora! Tora! a battle scene, but this is very much a war movie, and there is fighting, but it’s the case that one side attacks suddenly, and the other fights to survive. It’s not the case that two armies approach each other on equal ground, but then again, not all other battle scenes being mentioned here kick off in such a sporting way, either.
Here, there’s a depiction of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, which was shown in Pearl Harbor (2001), sure, but that’s a movie that should be stayed away from. Tora! Tora! Tora! is about three decades older, yet it holds up so much better, and it doesn’t have that tacked-on romance nonsense, either. What was done here, in terms of scale and destruction, really does impress, as far as major war movie set pieces are concerned.
5 'Waterloo' (1970)
The Battle of Waterloo
As a film, Waterloo has some problems, with pacing probably being the most severe of them. It builds up to the titular battle very slowly, and spends much of its second half on said sequence. That second half is great, but it’s a bit tedious getting there, maybe even because Waterloo doesn’t wholly commit to being an epic, so it ends up floundering between the length of a normal movie (say two hours, or a bit under) and movies of a more epic length.
Still, Waterloo remains up there among the best ever made that depict the Napoleonic Wars because of how well it depicts the Battle of Waterloo. A lot of stuff can be forgiven when it does eventually deliver on what’s more or less promised by the title. There was another massive film directed by Sergei Bondarchuk that went arguably even bigger and better as far as historical war movies go, however, so more on that one in a bit.
4 'Kingdom of Heaven' (2005)
The Siege of Jerusalem
Ridley Scott has helmed a whole bunch of large-scale action/war sequences throughout his filmmaking career, and so honorable mentions should probably go out to the likes of Gladiator, which has an impressive battle near the beginning of the film, and Black Hawk Down, which memorably depicts the Battle of Mogadishu. There’s Napoleon, too, which has its problems as a movie, and some might find the battle sequences problematic, too… eh, they’ve got spectacle and they're certainly grand.
Though the single best large-scale battle sequence in a Ridley Scott film might well be found in Kingdom of Heaven, which is a sprawling war movie centered on the Crusades. Much of the final act depicts the Siege of Jerusalem, a sequence that genuinely matches the scale of the bigger battle sequences found in a certain trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, from the same decade as Kingdom of Heaven. Speaking of…
3 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003)
The Battle of the Pelennor Fields
Peter Jackson time, as promised. He directed the three movies that make up The Lord of the Rings (a trilogy, even if it’s also kind of one huge film), and the biggest film of the three, The Return of the King, goes absolutely huge. It’s probably got the most action out of any film in the trilogy, too, with the whole Battle of the Pelennor Fields sequence technically being more than one scene, but it’s being counted here as one set piece.
Basically, it deals with the defense of the city of Minas Tirith, so there’s a good deal of siege warfare followed by a massive amount of fighting on a huge battlefield. There is one battle sequence earlier in the trilogy that’s arguably even better, and so it’s going to be ranked a little higher here, but if you're looking for size, The Return of the King does undoubtedly deliver the most on that front.
2 'War and Peace' (1965–1967)
The Battle of Borodino
For as good as the Battle of Waterloo was in Sergei Bondarchuk’s previously mentioned Waterloo, the battle sequences he helmed in his four-part War and Peace adaptation are on a whole other level entirely. It would be next-level if he’d done this after Waterloo, but War and Peace came earlier, so Waterloo might've technically been a regression... but not really, because the battle scene there is still an all-timer. Just less of an all-timer, if that makes sense.
The third part of this four-part/seven-hour epic has the most emphasis on action, largely revolving around the Battle of Borodino, fought between Napoleon’s army and Russian forces. There are so many extras used at once that it frequently looks like a genuine large-scale battle, and it’s all filmed in a very innovative and stylistically bold way, too. It’s the high point of an adaptation that’s also great when it’s not focused on action (but for what it’s worth, the battle scene earlier on, depicting the Battle of Austerlitz, is also hugely impressive).
1 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' (2002)
The Battle of Helm's Deep
If you want to go all the way back to The Fellowship of the Ring, the Skirmish at Amon Hen is pretty amazing, and certainly delivers emotionally, while The Return of the King had the aforementioned Siege of Minas Tirith that led to the subsequent Battle of Pelennor Fields. It’s The Two Towers, though, that has the Battle of Helm’s Deep, and it’s an ultimately difficult one to overlook and/or deny.
It’s the most impactful action sequence of the trilogy, depicting 10,000 Uruk-hai attacking a fortified keep being defended by just a few hundred men, plus some elves. It has the heroes as underdogs and establishes everything very well geographically, all the while building up a great deal of dread and suspense before the battle itself actually starts. It’s all expertly done, and there’s honestly a good argument to be made that it’s the best large-scale battle scene in cinema history.
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