Badmovies.org Forum

Vehicle crashes are a mainstay of creating tension, action, drama, fear or sympathy in the audience.  But cars and planes are a LITTLE bit cliche, so many screenwriters/directors turn to helicopters for that extra special touch.

So, what are your favorite movie helicopter crashes?  This could be for cheesy effects, realism, tension, etc.  Does your entry fit the story, or is it added haphazardly?

Though I can think of a LOT that could get us started, I choose to begin the list with an off beat choice:

(1) Al Pacino and Jack Warden in AND JUSTICE FOR ALL (1979)

Ya like to go just a bit past the no-return point?  Right.  Who goes to (relatively) calmly have lunch after crashing a helicopter into a river?  "Oh, just another day in the life of a judge and a lawyer..."  Still, a very memorable visual from the film is the broken glass around Pacino acting like he cannot believe he was just in a helicopter crash...

2) ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES contains a real helicopter crash.

A helicopter rented for the film actually crashed when landing during filming. Nobody was hurt, and they used the footage in the film!

A real helicopter crash also occured during thr filming of the TWILGHT ZONE  movie. Actor Rip Torn and two kids were killed.

I'm pretty sure a chopper wrecked in APOCOLYPSYE NOW...and in WE WERE SOLDIERS.

I don't think there are100 helicopter crashes in movies! I'm drawing a blank!

CLOVERFIELD has a very cool subjective helicopter crash near the end. 

Yeah...! I just seen that one about a wee ago! Hmmm...gotsta be more...OH!OH!
The BLACK SCORPION!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfKakOgshxw

It dosent show the whole seen in the trailer...but it does show the monster grabbing at the chopper!
(Oh yeah...for you trivia geeks-and aint we all?- the FX were done by the late great Willis (KING KONG) O'Brien!) (aint that cool? I put a parinthsis(Did I spell that right?) in a parinthsis! Like a flashback within a flashback in a cheezy movie!) I did it twice! I rule!  :buggedout:

Hey, RC!

Something else cool about THE BLACK SCORPION I learned recently: several of the critters seen running around in the cave were leftover animation puppets from the deleted spider pit scene in the original KING KONG.

5 (?)  One of my favorites is from DNA. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2jBDVs_LOo

My memory may be failing me but.

I call Rambo taking down a chopper with a ROCK

in

FIRST BLOOD

10.
the Pumaman had a crappy Bluescreen effect with a helicopter.

11. The Towering Inferno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiNwYNzVKyA

(I'm guessing the numbering is correct at this point...)

12. CLIFFHANGER

13 and 14. Blue Thunder

13. Low-flying police chopper crashes into a bridge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhDsjoNH7Zc&feature=player_embedded

14. Blue Thunder is landed in front of a freight train and destroyed at the end of the movie, which is technically a helicopter crash. I can't think of another movie in which a helicopter is hit by a train.

I thought about the moment when Blue Thunder flies a 360-degree loop and blasts Malcolm McDowell's helicopter from behind, but that's not so much a crash as an explosion.

15. The Matrix


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntY_xowZGT8

That may be the only instance of a helicopter being hit by a train, but MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE did have that whole helicopter connected to a train scene, which was sorta cool.  I'm not counting that in this list, though, because if memory serves, it was another explosion not crash.

So ...

16. WHEN TIME RAN OUT

Paul Newman's 'copter was 'stolen' and subsequently flown into a mountain.

17.  Broken Arrow, when the nuke detonates underground and the resulting EMP fries the helicopter that is after Travolta's crew.  The chopper swings erratically and dives into the ground, each blade snapping off one by one as it hits.  My favourite scene in that movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIDH9LYg5Yw

Not even a helicopter can stop a NINJA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdQldhv_KK4