Cinema ablaze: The five best movie fires
For whatever reason, despite the continued advancements in digital and visual effects technology, CGI fire tends to look unconvincing at best. Obviously, the real thing comes with its own set of dangers, but it’s become increasingly apparent when pixelated flames are being used.
When it comes to setting sets, actors, and stunt doubles ablaze, then, there’s no substitute for the real thing. Countless movies have been predicated entirely on fire, but not even Ron Howard’s Backdraft can lay claim to boasting one of the finest fires in film history.
It would admittedly be an understatement to say that there are more than a few features to have boasted scenes of nature running amok at its most incendiary, but it’s also fair to say that a select few titles have made it feel more important, exciting, and occasionally haunting than most.
With that in mind, the following quintet of quintessential cinematic fires span decades and occupy multiple different genres but are all equally unforgettable in their own way.
The five best movie fires:
5. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
No matter how ambitious any mere mortal will be, they’re often left at the mercy of nature, something that was realised in all of its fiery glory in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood when an oil derrick erupts into a magnificently burning flame.
It may have been started by an accident, but there’s nothing anybody can do but let it billow thick black smoke as the fires shoot into the sky in what swiftly became regarded as one of the most iconic scenes in a film carrying more than its fair share of them.
When day turns to night and the fires continue to rage, even Daniel Day-Lewis’ ruthless prospector, Daniel Plainview, finds himself reduced to a mere speck against the landscape, leaving him with no other option but to gaze in awe.
4. Barton Fink (Joel Coen, 1991)
The blurred lines between fantasy and reality are pivotal to the Coen brothers‘ classic genre-bending mix of period piece, black comedy, and psychological murder mystery thriller, and never is that more evident than when Hotel Earle bursts into flames.
The building was already treated as a character before that point, but the symbolic reveal of John Goodman’s Charlie Meadows as Karl ‘Madman’ Mundt opens the door for the film’s biblical connotations to heat up in both a figurative and literal sense.
Mundt charging down a seemingly endless hallway as it erupts into flames around him is one of Barton Fink‘s most famous visuals, leaving John Turturro with no other option but to cower in his room as all hell breaks loose around him in more ways than one.
3. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
Rewriting the historical rulebook was a bold move by Quentin Tarantino, but it can’t be said there isn’t an air of unique catharsis to be derived from watching the titular band of rogue soldiers gunning down Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and the rest of the Nazi hierarchy in an orgy of blood and bullets.
Of course, it wouldn’t have happened without Shosanna Dreyfus setting the stage nicely by trapping everyone inside and guaranteeing their scorching hot demise, with her plan for revenge realised as her maniacal cackles give way to a blaze that quickly engulfs the cinema.
The survival rate was already slim, but having the basterds barge in and reduce their enemies to crimson pulps was the final cherry on a cake that was already being baked in the heat of World War II, with the promise of extra crispy Nazis a special ingredient in the recipe.
2. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Having decided that being doused in pig’s blood at prom was the final straw, Sissy Spacek’s title hero in Carrie makes it clear that she doesn’t need no water, because she’s going let that motherfucker burn.
Unleashing the full extent of her rage, the end-of-year ball turns into a cacophony of swirling flames and charred debris, all aided and abetted by telekinetic powers and the odd bit of spontaneous combustion. Needless to say, Carrie is the only one who doesn’t make a hasty exit.
The first major adaptation of a Stephen King novel set a high bar that not many could have matched, with Carrie‘s prom enduring as one of the most memorable scenes in modern horror, and a stark reminder that blood and fire are about as potent manifestations of rage as there’s ever going to be.
1. Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
One of the most epic epics in the history of the Hollywood epic, Gone with the Wind may have been slapped with a disclaimer for modern audiences due to content that hasn’t aged all too well, but its wartime fire scene remains as timeless as ever.
With the Civil War intensifying and the forces of the Union army moving deeper into the south of America, the burning of Atlanta commences. The special effects were staggering for the time, but there’s also plenty of very real fire to contend with.
By the time the scene reaches its peak, almost every inch of the frame is coated with a thick layer of fiery doom, adding even more urgency to the already-desperate scenes of locals and Gone with the Wind‘s key characters alike seeking to make their way to safety.
