Take a tour through a century of daredevil filmmaking with legendary stuntman, stunt coordinator, stunt designer, and second-unit director Buddy Joe Hooker. In the following program, Hooker recounts the early pioneers of Hollywood stunt work in silent comedy and westerns, the later innovations of...

Directed by John Woo • 1997 • United States
Starring Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Joan Allen

John Travolta plays Nicolas Cage, Nicolas Cage plays John Travolta, and master of turbocharged action spectacle John Woo detonates the screen in what may be the most utterly berserk blockbuster of the 19...

Directed by George Miller • 1981 • Australia
Starring Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston

George Miller’s acclaimed sequel to his postapocalyptic action classic MAD MAX delivers even more audacious, adrenaline-rush mayhem. Mel Gibson returns in the role that made him an international super...

Directed by Quentin Tarantino • 2007 • United States
Starring Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson

Quentin Tarantino pays homage to the glory days of grindhouse cinema with this retro, gleefully subversive schlock shocker. Kurt Russell plays the psychotic movie stunt double Stuntman Mike, who ...

Directed by William Wyler • 1959 • United States
Starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith

Winner of a record eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, this gargantuan sword-and-sandals spectacle stands as one of the greatest Hollywood epics ever f...

Directed by William Friedkin • 1985 • United States
Starring William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow

William Friedkin’s kinetic neonoir takes the ’80s action thriller to new heights of hyperstylized excess. Federal agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) has a score to settle as he vows to t...

Directed by Peter Yates • 1968 • United States
Starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset

In the role that made him a superstar, Steve McQueen stars as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt, a hard-bitten police detective assigned to protect the star witness in a congressional investigation. Bu...

Directed by H. B. Halicki • 1974 • United States
Starring H. B. Halicki, Marion Busia, Jerry Daugirda

Cars were harmed in the making of this movie. Indeed, no less than 127 vehicles were destroyed or damaged in the course of production—ninety-three of them alone in the electrifying, forty-minute...

Directed by Hal Needham • 1978 • United States
Starring Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, Sally Field

Burt Reynolds is at his amiable best in this rollicking tribute to the daring stuntmen and stuntwomen who risk their lives for movie magic. He stars as Sonny Hooper, a veteran stuntman at the ...

Directed by William Friedkin • 2003 • United States
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen

Director William Friedkin brings a feverish intensity to this visceral action thriller, which pits Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones against each other in a gritty game of cat and mo...

Directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor • 1923 • United States
Starring Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother

The comic genius of silent star Harold Lloyd is eternal. Chaplin is the sweet innocent, Keaton the stoic outsider, but Lloyd—the modern guy striving for success—is us. And with its...

Directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman • 1926 • United States
Starring Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender

Consistently ranked among the greatest films ever made, Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL is so brilliantly conceived and executed that it continues to inspire awe and laughter with e...

Directed by Buster Keaton and Charles Reisner • 1928 • United States
Starring Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence, Tom McGuire

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. was Buster Keaton’s last independent silent comedy and also one of his finest. He stars as the sensitive son of a gruff riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence...

Directed by John Ford • 1939 • United States
Starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine

This is where it all started. John Ford’s smash hit and enduring masterpiece STAGECOACH revolutionized the western, elevating it from B movie to the A-list and establishing the genre as we know it today....

Directed by Jackie Chan • 1985 • Hong Kong
Starring Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung

The jaw-dropping set pieces fly fast and furious in Jackie Chan’s breathtakingly inventive martial-arts comedy, a smash hit that made him a worldwide icon of daredevil action spectacle. The director/s...

Directed by John Woo • 1992 • Hong Kong
Starring Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Teresa Mo

Violence as poetry, rendered by a master—brilliant and passionate, John Woo’s HARD BOILED tells the story of jaded detective “Tequila” Yuen (played with controlled fury by Chow Yun-fat). Woo’s dizzying ...