The top 10 wildest movie scenes of 2024

With 2024 coming to a close, Entertainment Weekly is looking back at this year's wildest, most memorable movie moments.

Whether you're into hand-to-hand combat, epic gunfights, giant space worms, or sexually charged sporting events, there was no shortage of jaw-dropping, chest-bursting scenes to celebrate this year.

But after passionate debate and much compromise, EW managed to narrow down the list of 2024's wackiest movie moments to the 10 most unforgettable scenes. See what we came up with below, and share more of your favorites in the comment section.

Match point in 'Challengers'

One of the most riveting action scenes of the year didn’t involve explosions, leaps from tall buildings, or other stunt-ridden theatrics. The climax of Challengers builds to a final showdown between pro player Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and his former best friend/tennis washout, Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). Shot from myriad thrilling angles, including the point-of-view of the ball itself and from beneath the court, the scene elevates a tennis match to a gripping opera of sex, desire, and competition. Though the sharp editing, the tense Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, and the choreography make the tennis itself a breathtaking spectacle, the scene’s magic is in Faist and O’Connor’s performances as they build to a devilishly surprising payoff that is (tennis) balls to the wall. —Maureen Lee Lenker

Kitchen fight in 'Monkey Man'

A chef’s knife to the thigh, a head to a stove-top open flame, and a microwave door to the face are among the carnage captured in one sweeping, memorable sequence in the kitchen of a swanky social club in Monkey Man, Dev Patel’s audacious directorial feature debut in which he also stars. His character, Kid, unleashes fury against a group of villainous brutes in the scene as part of a larger campaign of vengeance against the corrupt police chief and insidious spiritual guru responsible for his mother’s murder, resulting in one of the most delightfully mental action scenes of the year. —Jessica Wang

Stowaway to nowhere in 'Furiosa'

Nearly 10 years after its original release, Mad Max: Fury Road still stands as one of the great action movies of the 21st century. George Miller’s long-awaited prequel Furiosa mostly drove in a different direction this year, eschewing the previous film’s nonstop car chase for a thornier story about a young woman seeking vengeance for her stolen childhood. But for one shining battle sequence set atop the moving War Rig with a stowaway Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) crawling around underneath, Miller proved that when he wants to, he and his team can still deliver uniquely thrilling action as awesome as anything in Fury Road. This is visual storytelling at its most exciting — like a modern-day silent film, Miller teaches viewers a lot about Furiosa and Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) through their motions and expressions. Time to press the Bommy Knocker! —Christian Holub

Battle of Arrakeen in 'Dune: Part 2'

By splitting Frank Herbert’s Dune into two movies, director Denis Villeneuve gave himself plenty of time to build up audience excitement for the story’s epic climax. After the first installment ended with the duplicitous destruction of House Atreides, viewers really needed to see some catharsis, and Villeneuve’s team delivered that in spades. From the sight of giant sandworms bursting through the walls of Arrakeen to Zendaya's Chani getting the hero moment that had been prophesied for Paul (Timothée Chalamet) to the golden-hour duel between rival princes, the action-packed finale of Dune: Part Two fulfilled all its promises. —Christian Holub

Island melee in 'Blink Twice'

Is ignorance bliss? Zoë Kravitz's directorial debut Blink Twice emphatically argues no, as the hedonistic party at billionaire tech king Slater’s (Channing Tatum) private island comes to an abrupt and violent end after ambitious cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and reality TV star Sarah (Adria Arjona) discover Slater and his sycophantic friends had been raping and assaulting them and the other women on the island after giving them a drug that erases their memories. There was always an ominous edge to the too-good-to-be-true paradise, but the reality is even more horrifying than they expected. To say the women get their revenge is a massive understatement, and the ways in which they each take out their rage on their attackers in the third-act climax are appropriately chaotic, bloody, and primal. —Sydney Bucksbaum

Fire tornadoes in 'Twisters'

How do you make a city-destroying twister even scarier? Light it on fire! Summer blockbuster Twisters brought the heat — literally — when meteorologist Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and “Tornado Wrangler” Tyler (Glen Powell), Javi (Anthony Ramos) and his Storm Par colleague Scott (David Corenswet), and the rest of their storm-chaser caravan attempt to outrun a tornado that collided with an oil refinery. Watching the flames spiral up to become a fire tornado was thrilling and downright terrifying — because that is actually a very real thing that can occur in nature! Thanks for the nightmare fuel, Twisters! —Sydney Bucksbaum

Speedboat fight in 'Road House'

The new Road House pulled no punches (or, all the punches — depending on how you want to look at it) throughout its entire runtime, but the final showdown between disgraced UFC fighter Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) and sociopathic enforcer Knox (Conor McGregor) reached new levels of brutality. Between the use of a speedboat as a weapon, the unceremonious and shocking murder of Billy Magnussen's big bad, and all that aggressive stabbing with a shard of wood, director Doug Liman made sure to keep audiences gasping and cringing until the very end. —Sydney Bucksbaum

Monstro Elisasue takes the stage in 'The Substance'

No other movie this year (with the possible exception of the next entry on this list) ends with a bloody bang quite like this one. For a film already chock-full of "WTF did I just see?" moments, The Substance truly manages to outdo itself in its gut-wrenching climax.

Despite accidentally transforming herself into a hideous, Cronenbergian nightmare creature, TV sensation Sue (Margaret Qualley) — herself a clone of former Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) — limps on stage to perform in her network's prestigious New Year's Eve Show. Horrified by the monster standing before them, the audience erupts into pandemonium and starts to attack, ripping off limbs and severing heads. An Overlook Hotel elevator's worth of blood drenches terrified onlookers like a firehose as the creature devolves into a sentient heap of guts and viscera. —Mike Miller

Skye meets the Entity in 'Smile 2'

The terrifying sequel to 2022's Smile might not end with as many gallons of blood as The Substance, but it definitely matches its predecessor on this list in terms of pure, high-octane nightmare fuel. Coincidentally, it also involves a stage, a crowded audience, and an indescribable monster from the gates of hell.

After being put through the wringer for much of the film's two-hour-plus runtime by the sadistic, supernatural Smile Entity, pop superstar Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is losing her grip on reality. Just when she thinks she's finally outsmarted her incorporeal foe by temporarily stopping her heart (thus breaking its curse), the Entity reveals she never even had a chance. All her efforts to save herself were a hallucination, and, in reality, she's about to be thrust onto stage to perform for a sold-out crowd. When she steps into the lights, she sees what no one else in the audience can: the Entity standing before her in the form of herself. Her evil double then rips open its stomach to reveal the Smile's true form: a giant, skinless hydra with multiple grinning heads. Staring into the depths of this cosmic horror, Skye's mind finally breaks, leaving her in a stupefied trance. The creature then rips her mouth open and crawls inside. To her oblivious fans, this all looks like Skye is having a seizure. But when she suddenly stands up, smiles wide, and jams her microphone into her eye socket, all hell breaks loose. —Mike Miller

Deadpool variant battle in 'Deadpool & Wolverine'

Deadpool & Wolverine chose a helluva place to start things off. (Three words: “Bye Bye Bye.”) And yet each action sequence that followed continued building momentum like a crazed Tasmanian Devil until it climaxed (Ryan Reynolds would’ve probably used a more sexually explicit term) with an all-out orgy bloodbath. One tracking shot. No (camera) breaks. About a gazillion Deadpool variants from different universes. All good vibes. No wonder director Shawn Levy described this moment as “the single most complicated shot in the movie.” The filmmaker corralled dozens of extras and his two stars to be so in sync as to orchestrate one of the most complex, perfectly timed symphonies of chaos. Pro tip: Each time you watch the oner, focus on someone else, whether it be Cowboy Deadpool continuously throwing other Deadpools in front of him for protection or the main Merc doing terrible (terrible!) things to Headpool. —Nick Romano

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