Pain don't hurt, but these punches do: 13 of cinema's most brutal punches in the face

The Matrix sequels didn’t always give fans what they wanted, but they did give them what they needed. And what’s a thorough deconstruction of Western storytelling cliches and archetypes without a slow-motion punch to the jaw? Bullet time helped the Wachowskis split the culture wide open in 1999, a trick they were wise to not even try repeating. But when they did weaponize their slo-mo innovations, as in Matrix Revolutions rain-soaked climactic match-up, it hit differently. Neo (Keanu Reeves) cuts through the rain one drop at a time as he leaves a four-knuckle imprint on the jaw of Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). For a series built on special effects wizardry and martial arts flair, Neo’s final punch fuses both in one bone-shattering clip. Like the best of The Matrix, it is graceful and painful in all the right ways.

Riki-Oh: The Story Of Ricky features some of the most infamous violence ever committed to celluloid. Part of that is thanks to the paper-thin skin of its characters. Punches don’t merely leave bruises; they puncture the fleshy shell protecting Riki’s prison guards and wardens’ gooey innards. Riki-Oh (Fan Siu-wong) sends his hands through stomachs, forces enemies into meat grinders, and ties his own spraying arteries like shoelaces. For our purposes, one exceptional undercut to the jaw provides one of cinema’s more gleeful bits of mayhem as Riki’s knuckles drive through the chin and out the mouth. Indiana Jones could never.

There are many memorable right and left hooks in the Rocky and Creed movies, but only one ruthlessly killed a man. Across three movies, Apollo Creed (the late, great Carl Weathers) went from arch nemesis to best friend to sacrificial lamb. The Rocky movies had no choice—the franchise had to kill someone new. Rock’s original trainer, Mickey (Burgess Meredith), had already checked out, so next on the chopping block was Apollo, who met Ivan Drago (Dolph Lungren) in a glitzy Cold War-themed boxing spectacular at the top of Rocky IV. It ends with a left hook that cleans Creed’s clock and sends him to an early grave. It remains the most consequential punch of the series, capped off with one of the pop culture’s coldest line readings: “If he dies, he dies.”

Fight Club has its fair share of memorable headshots. The Narrator’s first fist thrown at Tyler’s ear or his self-imposed slobber-knocker with himself in his boss’ office come to mind. But in terms of sheer “please god stop this,” The Narrator (Edward Norton) pulverizing the punam of Angel Face (Jared Leto) into schnitzel remains director David Fincher’s masterpiece. Reportedly, the MPAA wanted to tone down the visual violence of the scene, so Fincher cranked aural intensity, making the brutality that much worse. Fincher drops the background noise on anything other than Norton’s fist meeting meat, a flatter, wetter, squishier punch than Indiana Jones that gives the scene its realistic gore. His fellow clubbers’ hushed, horrified reactions tell the audience everything they need to know. He felt like destroying something beautiful. Mission: accomplished.

Released several months after Iron Man was getting the Marvel Cinematic Universe on its feet, Lexi Alexander’s Punisher: War Zone was quietly infiltrating the compound, snapping the necks of its guards, and leaving behind empty bullet cases and gallons of Karo syrup. Alexander’s bloody-as-hell adaptation gave fans a proper Punisher movie, complete with Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) punching a hole in a man’s face, literally. It’s not hard to see why it took Disney roughly 15 years to allow its characters to get gorey—and even then, it’s softened by Deadpool’s self-awareness and humor. War Zone reaches a level of sincere viciousness in its opening scene that the MCU will likely never even attempt to replicate.

Jason Voorhees is a skilled killer. So much so Shao Kahn entered him in Mortal Kombat. But Jason doesn’t get enough credit for his mastery of the basics. Though he can kill people with a sleeping bag and an ice bath, it’s his swift right hook that landed him in the history books. Friday The 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan doesn’t spend much time in the city it promises, but one scene with a foolish boxer named Julius (V.C. Dupree) gives the goods. Julius squares off with Jason (Kane Hodder) on a New York rooftop, clobbering him with a barrage of fists. Unfortunately, he didn’t anticipate Jason’s rope-a-dope. Everyone’s favorite hockey mask enthusiast eats Julius’ punches for dinner and then grants the boxer’s desperately tired wishes: “Take your best shot, mother fucker.” Jason is happy to oblige, decapitating his opponent in one fell swoop. It remains one of the most memorable kills in the entire franchise.

However, in the interest of fairness, we must note that this bit appeared in Killer Klowns From Outer Space one year before Jason’s titular taking of Manhattan. To give credit where credit is due, we present another decapitating punch without comment.

Sometimes, it’s not the punch. It’s the landing. Clint Eastwood’s heartbreaking boxing drama Million Dollar Baby takes a hard right turn with a solid left hook and a terrible outcome. When welterweight champion Billie “The Blue Bear” Osterman (Lucia Rijker) delivers a sneak attack on Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank in her second Oscar-winning role) in the film’s climactic match, the result is far more catastrophic than anyone anticipated. The surprise offensive sets off a chain reaction, ending with Maggie breaking her neck on a nearby stool, paralyzing her from the neck down. It’s among the saddest swerves of Eastwood’s directing career, one he’s unlikely ever to top.

One punch is all you need. In Peter and Bobby Farrelly’s masterpiece Dumb And Dumber, our sweaty hitman Joe (Mike Starr) tries to poison a couple of dopes before they can foil some cockamamie kidnapping plot. But it’s not Harry (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd (Jim Carrey) he has to worry about. Unfortunately, a bespectacled Fred Stoller would also like to use the phone booth. While talking on the phone with his boss (Charles Rocket), Joe deals with Stoller like a fly. Joe asks his boss to hold and for the man to walk closer to the booth. As he condescendingly over-enunciates the words “get off the phone,” Joe sends his right hand through the phone booth and into the man’s face. Bits like this are among the many things we lost to the rise of the cell phone.

Few can take a punch like Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) in Raging Bull. Eating a shot to the jaw is his signature move. His brother Joey (Joe Pesci) gave us a taste of Jake’s rare gift in Raging Bull’s infamous “Hit Me in the Face” scene. But the actual bloodshed (and lots of it) is in Jake’s fight with Sugar Ray Robinson (Johnny Barnes), who wales on Lamotta’s face, which Sugar Ray reduces to geysers of blood, sweat, and spit as it leaves Lamotta’s head tenderized but his legs still standing. Jake never goes down, but at what cost?

Director Stephen Chow loads his Looney Tunes-inspired martial arts parody, Kung Fu Hustle, with stylized bits that defy the laws of gravity and wire-fu, which reigned supreme over Hollywood action at the time. But the most memorable punch is one that its victim barely registers. The Beast (Leung Siu-lung) takes a one-two from the Landlord (Yuen Wah) and Landlady (Yuen Qiu), who, thanks to grotesque digital enhancement, contorts his face in bizarre, rubbery ways that have no effect on him. The image of his malleable bone structure remains one of the most memorable and disturbing in the movie. As such, it lands on this list.

On its face, Captain Steven Hiller’s (Will Smith) right hook to the alien’s jaw in Independence Day is nothing without his trailer-ready button, “Welcome to Earth.” However, when one considers that Hiller cold-clocks an alien wearing a hefty bio-armor, either Hiller’s strike is particularly potent, or these are some crappy bio-suits. Without making any jokes about Smith’s real-life penchant for hitting people, we will go with the former. That was a heck of a hit and would signal a turning of the tides for the Earth.

There are several examples of humans punching an animal in the face throughout film history. Mongo clocking a horse in Blazing Saddles springs to mind. Yet even that doesn’t have the power of JCVD grabbing a rattlesnake by the neck, knocking it out, and biting its rattler off in Hard Target. Lance Henrickson would blow the snake’s head off a short time later. There’s simply nothing like it.

The finale of Quentin Tarantino’s deeply underrated Death Proof is about as spectacular and uproarious as any bit of screen violence discussed. Following a shambly 90 minutes of super-charged female terror and slow-burn tension masked by idle chitchat among friends, the girls get the last laugh, hunting down stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) and treating him to a trio of chop shots that leave him bruised, bloodied, and probably dead. Not all brutal punches have to end in sorrow.