As is apparent from our coverage today of the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series in Switzerland, plunging 80 feet in your smalls is not a pastime for the easily abashed. Luckily, for anyone seeking a comparable rush from the comfort of a La-Z-Boy (and, well, fully dressed), there’s a wealth of terrifying, heart-stoppingly vertiginous experiences to be lived out via the medium of film. Whether it’s a climactic battle sequence over a bottomless pit (a thousand thank yous, Flash Gordon), or a teary reunion atop a skyscraper (Sleepless in Seattle), a bit of height always adds some dramatic tension to the proceedings. Here are a few of our favorite examples.
1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
The classic fear-of-heights movie by Alfred Hitchcock sees cop protagonist John “Scottie” Ferguson unable to stop a woman jumping from the top of a church tower because of his paralyzing acrophobia. This moment haunts the rest of the film—a paranoid thriller made all the more intense by Bernard Herrmann’s screeching score.
2. Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990)
Paul Verhoeven decided that throwing his villain from a window in Robocop wasn’t gory enough, so in the sci-fi action movie Total Recall he had Arnold Schwarzenegger suspend bad guy Richter (Michael Ironside) over an elevator shaft. The contraption slams down to deliver just desserts, leaving Richter to plunge to the bottom.
3. Cliffhanger (Renny Harlin, 1993)
Faithful to its name, the movie is chock-full with people dangling from cliffs, jumping off mountains, falling into chasms and getting caught in avalanches, but the most notable scene sees Sylvester Stallone fail to save his friend from falling off a 4,000-foot-high ledge.
4. King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005)
In the $207m effects-driven remake by Peter Jackson, the enormous gorilla has a tender moment with Naomi Watts on top of the Empire State Building before plummeting to his death. Not quite Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, but equally touching in an oh-but-it-could-never-work kind of way.
5. Man On Wire (James Marsh, 2008)
Philippe Petit committed what became known as “the artistic crime of the century” twice––once in 1974 and again six years later. Far from shooting Andy Warhol or urinating on the “Mona Lisa,” Petit’s crime was dancing on an illegally rigged tightrope between the twin towers, 1,350 feet above the streets of Manattan. This documentary explains how, and why he did it.