There’s something undeniably thrilling about watching a character plummet from thousands of feet in the air, isn’t there? While most of us prefer our adventures a little closer to the ground, Hollywood loves to take skydiving to a whole new level of crazy. Get ready to grip your seats as we explore ten of the most outrageous and unforgettable skydiving scenes ever to hit the big screen. Warning: spoilers and a serious urge for popcorn ahead!
10. Deadpool 2
Our beloved Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool, assembles his X-Force, and what follows is pure, chaotic brilliance. Despite Peter’s very sensible warning about dangerously high winds, the team leaps anyway. The jump starts with a surprisingly realistic “Tracking” formation, but then things go hilariously and horrifically wrong. The wind tosses them about like clothes in a dryer, leading to some truly memorable (and gruesome) landings. It’s a darkly comedic take on what happens when a skydiving jump meets extreme weather, and it’s classic Deadpool.
9. Get Smart
Agent Maxwell Smart, played by the ever-clumsy Steve Carell, finds himself in a classic spy predicament: ejected from a plane mid-flight, hands tied, and no parachute. Talk about a bad day! Luckily, the super-competent Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) leaps to his rescue. She gears up, dives after him, and actually spots him freefalling. After a villain cuts her main chute, Agent 99 uses a rather unconventional method—a well-timed kiss—to distract the bad guy, sending him plummeting. She then deploys her reserve, saving them both. It’s a perfect blend of action and Smart’s signature silliness.
8. Mission Impossible: Fallout
Tom Cruise is legendary for performing his own stunts, and his HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jump in Mission Impossible: Fallout is breathtaking. For this scene, there was no CGI for the initial jump. They even developed a special oxygen-supplying helmet with built-in lighting so audiences could see Cruise’s face during the descent from over 20,000 feet. When lightning strikes his fellow jumper, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) races against time and altitude to provide emergency oxygen and help deploy his friend’s parachute before pulling his own at the last possible second. The dedication and realism make this one for the ages.
7. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
The Angels are no strangers to over-the-top action, and this skydiving sequence is a prime example. The scene opens with LL Cool J coolly making a deal involving diamonds and a bomb on a plane. When things go south, he ejects a terrorist out the emergency exit (a feat that’s pretty much impossible with cabin pressure, but hey, it’s Hollywood!). Then, we get the classic trope: one person freefalls without a chute, and another dives to catch them. They land safely on a boat steered by Cameron Diaz, all smiles. The final twist? LL Cool J was Drew Barrymore in disguise! Pure, fun chaos.
6. Point Break (1991)
In this iconic action film, FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) finds himself in a desperate situation. The skydiving bank robbers he’s pursuing leap from their plane, and Utah, stranded without a parachute, makes a split-second, adrenaline-fueled decision: he jumps after them. It’s a moment of pure recklessness. Miraculously, he catches up to Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) mid-air. What follows is a tense standoff, gun drawn, as they hurtle towards the earth. Utah eventually pulls Bodhi’s ripcord, saving them both just in time for a rough landing. It’s a raw, intense scene that captures the film’s daredevil spirit.
5. Godzilla (2014)
As Godzilla and other massive Titans battle it out, a group of soldiers undertakes a perilous mission. They perform a HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) jump, piercing through the clouds with red flares lighting their descent. They are literally dropping into a warzone where giant monsters roam. The scene is visually stunning and incredibly tense, capturing the terrifying scale of the threat and the bravery of the soldiers as they descend into a chaotic, monster-filled San Francisco. It’s a beautiful yet horrifying spectacle.
4. Along Came Polly
Okay, so this one is technically a BASE jump from a skyscraper, not skydiving, but it’s too memorably disastrous to leave out. The scene provides a surprisingly realistic (and comedic) take on what can go wrong. Leland Van Lew, the thrill-seeking character played by Bryan Brown, makes the jump, but there’s a critical flaw: his pack doesn’t actually contain a parachute. The jump itself seems standard until the inevitable, painful tree landing, resulting in a broken coccyx. The use of walkie-talkies post-jump adds a touch of realism, making the comedic failure even funnier.
3. Goldeneye
James Bond is no stranger to impossible situations, and his skydiving antics in Goldeneye are legendary. After driving a motorcycle off a cliff, Bond freefalls to catch up with a pilotless, nosediving plane. Stuntman B.J. Worth performed the incredible feat of actually catching and entering the plane mid-air. This type of stunt, known as “plane swapping,” has actually been done by professionals (with safety parachutes, of course!). It’s a classic Bond moment: daring, audacious, and utterly thrilling.
2. Furious 7
When a franchise reaches its seventh installment, you expect the stunts to be over-the-top, and Furious 7 delivers with skydiving cars! Yes, you read that right. The crew loads their customized cars into a cargo plane and then, one by one, reverses them out the back, parachutes deploying as they float (somewhat) gracefully towards a mountain road in Azerbaijan. The movie makes airdropping heavy cargo look deceptively simple. In reality, it’s incredibly complex. But for sheer, unbelievable automotive aerial action, this scene is hard to beat.
1. The A-Team
When their plane is shot down by drones, the A-Team doesn’t just bail out—they drive a tank out of the exploding aircraft, suspended by three parachutes. As if that’s not crazy enough, they come under attack mid-descent. Face (Bradley Cooper) mans the tank’s gun to shoot down drones, but two of their parachutes get shredded. With only one chute left and a mountain fast approaching, Hannibal devises a plan: use the tank’s main gun to “fly” it by firing shells to alter their trajectory, aiming for a lake. It’s utterly ridiculous, completely defies physics, but is undeniably one of the most exhilarating and entertaining “skydiving” sequences ever filmed. We love it when a plan comes together!
Hollywood certainly knows how to take the already extreme sport of skydiving and dial it up to eleven. These scenes, whether laughably absurd or impressively realistic, all deliver a serious dose of adrenaline and cinematic magic. They remind us why we love movies: for the thrill, the spectacle, and the sheer audacity of it all.
Which of these skydiving scenes had you on the edge of your seat? Did we miss any of your favorites? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
