Epic Battle Scenes

The simple beauty of 300 is that the whole movie is one big battle. You can break it up into individual skirmishes if you want - Spartans vs. The Immortals, Spartans vs. Elephants, Spartans vs. Freaky Monster Guys - but in the end, it's just one epic confrontation between a multitude of guys who look tough and 300 guys who are seriously badass. It's a bloody battle orgy, and we love it.

Not all battles are dour and serious. Thanks to its random violence and surprising cameos, The News Team Battle from Anchorman is easily one of the funniest battles ever put to film and more than deserves its place on this list.

Like all comedy, the beauty is in the details, whether it's Ben Stiller's whip, Tim Robbins' pipe, the rivalry between Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, or the fact that Brock kills a guy by throwing a trident into his chest. This is the most memorable sequence in a film full of them.

The Seven Samurai spends so much time setting its final battle that once it gets rolling, you just know you're in for something special. And as one of the most influential action films ever made, The Seven Samurai does not disappoint on that score, or any score really.

If you want something more modern, check out Takashi Miike's recent near-remake, 13 Assassins which adds lots of gore and flaming bulls to the equation. Both feature great epic battles, but only one's a classic.

There are few pleasures in life better than cartoonish blood spraying from dismembered body parts, and The Bride's endless battle against the Crazy 88's is filled with it. Not since the lawnmower scene in Dead Alive have we been more conscious of how slippery a floor must be. 

There's so much blood, in fact, that the American version opts out of color completely and goes black and white, a tactic which inadvertently makes it even more badass. You do not want to mess with Uma Thurman in this film.