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15 Famous Movie Ledges

Here’s a list of 15 memorable movie ledges, from cliffs to rooftops to ominous subway platforms.

Man on a Ledge
Photo: Summit Entertainment

Hitting theaters this week is Man on a Ledge, a rather unsubtly titled thriller that stars Sam Worthington as a guy whose nowhere-left-to-turn predicament has him doing the old wave-down-at-the-masses bit. This isn’t the first time Worthington has flirted with dizzying precipices (his motion-captured doppelgänger braved the floating mountains of Pandora), and it certainly isn’t the first time Hollywood has tormented acrophobics. Movies have long been living on the edge, ever intent on serving up vicarious vertigo. For proof, here’s a list of 15 memorable movie ledges, from cliffs to rooftops to ominous subway platforms. Safety nets not included.


Thelma & Louise

Thelma & Louise (1991).

Whee! Granting Thelma’s (Geena Davis) request that the feminist fugitives “just keep going,” Louise (Susan Sarandon) puts the pedal to the floor and sends the duo’s ’66 Thunderbird sailing over the edge of the Grand Canyon. Let’s just pretend they’re off chilling with Danny and Sandy, in whatever place those hand-jivers wound up after their big boat of a car took flight at the end of Grease.


Fearless

Fearless (1993)

The most famous image from Peter Weir’s existential psychodrama Fearless shows Jeff Bridges’s newly-immortal plane crash survivor hugging the wind while peering over the corner of a skyscraper. Okay, so actor and ledge were actually composited in post, but Bridges is really good in this movie.


The Matrix

The Matrix (1999)

Neo’s (Keanu Reeves) call from Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) gets tricky when the working-stiff-cum-world-savior gets chased out an office window high above the bustling streets of an unnamed windy city (Chicago 2.0?). Wonder which blissfully ignorant avatar got slammed in the skull with that Nokia…


Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Before Prince Phillip sends his mighty Sword of Truth plunging into the purple gut of a post-growth-spurt Maleficent, violent green flames and a lot of heavy stomping force him dangerously close to what looks like the mouth of hell. Hooray for animation—this is the most impossibly dicey (and picturesque) plateau on the list.

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Cliffhanger

Cliffhanger (1993)

The climax of Cliffhanger doesn’t take place on a cliff, but rather a kind of improvised ledge, as Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow fight it out on a rescue helicopter that’s gone belly-up, suspended by a ladder inexplicably bolted to a canyon wall. This is a very underrated action movie, but there’s no defending Stallone’s dialogue, like his parting shot to Lithgow, “Remember shithead, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle AT ALL TIMES!”


Safety Last!

Safety Last! (1923)

No, that’s not Hugo Cabret; it’s Harold Lloyd, whose dangle from the hand of a massive clock comes just after a precarious stroll on a building ledge, and is now a shot as iconic as Méliès’s rocket-eyed moon man. Long before Scorsese repurposed it for the flagship image of his Oscar-nom champ, Lloyd showed how hanging on for dear life gets a boost when you’re actually holding on to time.


Outrageous Fortune

Outrageous Fortune (1987)

Alright, so this one’s just the cover art. But anyone who frequented a video store around the early ’90s likely got an eyeful of this illustration, which shows Bette Midler and Shelley Long clinging to the edge of a craggy tower. A snapshot of its time, the image is super tacky, from Midler’s multi-colored fingernails to the blurb that says Midler and Long are being hunted by “the Indians.”


Black Narcissus

Black Narcissus (1947)

At a belltower amid the snowy peaks of Kanchenjunga, Deborah Kerr is busy getting her Quasimodo on when Kathleen Byron’s wacked-out Sister Ruth sneaks up and attempts to send her into the great beyond. Everything looks better in Powell and Pressburger’s Technicolor, whether it’s the pillows of blue fog floating in the abyss, or the overdone red eye makeup crazying up Byron’s face.

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The Good Son

The Good Son (1993)

Macaulay Culkin’s demonic 12-year-old gets the heave-ho when his own mother (Wendy Crewson) drops him to the proverbial rocks below, saving instead her innocent nephew (Elijah Wood). If only Tilda Swinton had had a cliff on hand when she was wheeling baby Ezra around in that Polanski-esque stroller.


Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Call it, A Behanding in Space. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) gets his lightsaber wielder lopped off while battling Darth Vader on one of those needless platforms made specifically for sci-fi. What follows, of course, is everyone’s favorite breathy, twisted, Freudian mindfuck of a paternal declaration.


Batman Returns

Batman Returns (1992)

Throughout her brief screen time in Batman Returns, Cristi Conaway’s Ice Princess can’t remember in which order her tree lighting duties unfold. Does the tree light up before she pushes the button or after? Solving her conundrum is the Penguin (Danny DeVito), who makes her a sacrificial lamb in his plot to frame Batman (Michael Keaton), sending her off the roof of a Gotham City building only to land on that tree button. Irony!


Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Stuck on a canyon ledge with nowhere else to run, Robert Redford and Paul Newman take one of cinema’s most famous leaps, descending into the rapids below while Redford screams “Oh shiiiiit!” on the way down. Heath Ledger and a stuntman nodded to this iconic moment with their little cliff jump in Brokeback Mountain, only they were kind enough to do it in the nude.

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Suicide Club

Suicide Club (2002)

Sion Sono’s ultraviolent envelope-pusher kicks off with 54 Tokyo schoolgirls shockingly committing mass suicide, joining hands and hurling themselves in front of an oncoming subway train. Much blood-splattering ensues. This is bad viewing for your everyday public transit user: gleefully grab the hand of a New Yorker who’s seen the film and is standing near the edge of the platform, and he may just run away screaming.


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

At long last, Gollum (Andy Serkis) gets his Precious at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, gnawing off Frodo Baggins’s (Elijah Wood) finger in the process. The ecstasy is short-lived, as Frodo fights back, wrestling Gollum over the edge of Mount Doom’s best cliff, and into its flowing sea of lava. The ring is destroyed, Gollum rejoins the earth, and Frodo sails off to the Grey Havens with nine digits.


Vertigo

Vertigo (1958)

No ledge list would be complete without a mention of Vertigo, and the immortal scene that sees Jimmy Stewart’s tortured Scottie Ferguson gripping the gutter of a San Francisco high-rise. Hitchcock’s beauty sets the standard for fear of heights, and oh, that score—that haunting, sweeping, worthy-of-a-rape-scandal score!

R. Kurt Osenlund

R. Kurt Osenlund is a creative director and account supervisor at Mark Allen & Co. He is the former editor of Out magazine.

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