Live Poll: Most Spectacular Cinematic Fireworks Scene?

Jackass: The Movie
rocket in-line skates stunt, fireworks wake-up call stunt, ass rockets stunt

Chulpan Khamatova, Daniel Brühl Good Bye Lenin!

Cary Grant, Grace Kelly To Catch a Thief

Daniel Day-Lewis Gangs of New York

Sam Neill Jurassic Park

An American Tail

Alfred Molina, Joe G.M. Chan Boogie Nights

Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges The Fisher King Add a note

Billy Zane Dead Calm

Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Forrest Gump

Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones The Theory of Everything

Linda Larkin, Scott Weinger Aladdin

Lumi Cavazos, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson Bottle Rocket

Fight Club

Fight Club has to be the most satisfying ending with those kind of special effects. But Mulan should be the go to. She kills Shan-Yu with it.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Land of the Dead

Justin Long Galaxy Quest

Me too, the Blow Out is one of the first ones I listed. A great scene within a masterfully crafted movie. Brian De Palma is a movie god and as great as that scene is, it is just one of hundred other great scenes he has done over the years.

To be fair, it is hard to say it is heads above the competition. If you review, the list there quite few notable firework scenes in movies. In fact, too many for me to list them all. Many were equally creative, visually stunning, an important part of the overall story and quite memorable. That even doesn't cover how many of these firework displays put on a great show all by themselves.

Any suggestions or notable omissions? Do recall any others, as I don't want to leave any of the "biggies" out.

you got a pretty good list going right now...cant think of any others off hand...

but you know what will happen anyway...people wont necessarily think of which fireworks scene is best but which movie is popular that they like and vote for that one...it happens every time....unfortunately...

I thought the same when I listed the pair, what a conundrum it would be Fantasy movie lovers.

I can't seem to find a notable 'Star Trek' fireworks scene to pair with the
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) Endor fireworks scene to create the same dilemma for Sci-Fi movie fans.

Ya thats 100% where my mind went. I can't really think of any movie with fireworks other than LOTR and Harry Potter.

 
Thanks, I appreciate the suggestions. I originally had the Cary Grant and Grace Kelly To Catch a Thief firework scene as an answer option. It just got bumped to the honorable mentions, as there are many more firework scenes in movies than I thought. While, it is one of more famous scenes and Hitchcock creatively uses them to mirror the foreplay going one between the main characters. The fireworks THEMSELVES are a bit underwhelming and not on the same visually spectacular level as some of the other choices. If the focus of the question were something else, To Catch a Thief would probably be an answer option.

However, your A Monkey in Winter  aka 'Un singe en hiver' and The Eighth Day (1996) aka 'Le huitième jour' firework scenes are both on the money. Both are memorable, visually stunning scenes. I added the A Monkey in Winter scene already, but I can't seem to find a quality scene screenshot for The Eighth Day.

You've got to take a screen-picture after enlarging a still frame, from Youtube it could work but not with high quality results... that's the way it works, good luck for finding the right spot.

I was surprised by your comment about Hitchcock's film, because when I read your poll's title, I really figured it would be the first choice, I always thought it was the most iconic use of fireworks in a movie, but I guess that had more to do with the "symbolism" of the fireworks than their contribution to the plot... you make a valid point but it's funny to have that fireworks scene missing. 

Thanks, that YouTube video is very grainy and the more grand fireworks scene is only a snippet. There doesn't seem to be an 'official' trailer anywhere on the net or any HD video of any type for the movie.

I have provisionally added To Catch a Thief back in and will give it some more thought. The scene is a bit longer and has more real fireworks than I originally thought. Although, I still think it is on the cusp of inclusion. These demolition, distress rocket and flare scenes I think are more impressive scenes visually. While pyrotechnics aka fireworks come in all shapes and sizes, it may not be be the traditional association poll takers have with the category.


Fight Club

Sam Neill Jurassic Park

Titanic

Billy Zane Dead Calm

Thanks, I appreciate the suggestions.I couldn't find any available fireworks images for It Started in Naples (1960) or the carnival fireworks  Shazam! (2019).

I wanted to include Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) badly,but by comparison to other available options, they didn't fare well in the spectacular department.

What is the context of these Shazam! (2019) images : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448115/... and https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448115/...,  as I have yet to see the movie? Rock of Eternity???

It is magic like the image you have from Harry Potter ( That is the Weasley twins magic of the fireworks dragon chasing woman.). The wizard is using magic to explain the poster of the seven wizards who had the power of Shazam. That is the seven floating figures, the seven past wizards, in the one image.

As for “It Started In Naples”, I had told you it would be useless. What is needed is for someone who has a copy of that film on dvd or Blu-Ray to play it on their computer and get a screenshot of the fireworks and download it to the IMDb. And also what I had already said, it is not going to look great because it is actual real live fireworks being film. Technology, at the time, couldn’t get it. That is why fireworks in a large number of films are special effects. Display pyrotechnics are difficult to capture on film.

I was impressed with this older B&W extended scene ElM. suggested in UN SINGE EN HIVER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xU7LGtoXro I can understand the challenge, especially in the early days of color. However, this B&W came off pretty well.

The Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs,  I would consider is a must answer, given it was one Weasley Brothers biggest sellers and big part of that movie. I also have one spot left, I reconsidered and gave it to Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).

Thanks, again for all the help.

Yes, I am restricting it to movies only "Cinematic Fireworks" and likely ONLY firework scenes that have the airborne type. I already have some decent scenes that are not going to make the top 35, so it would be senseless to expand it beyond the movie scope.You are welcome to do television and streaming version on your own, if you wish.

I assume that NarniaisAwesome is referring to the tv show, “ Love, American Style”. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063925/...
Image: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063925/...
Video of the show’s opening credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUkU...

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about Love, American Style (1969–1974) with the fireworks serving as a double tribute to the romance and Americanism of the series. Again, the option is better saved for a stand-alone Television/Streaming fireworks version. Thanks, for the insight. I wouldn't have have made the connection on my own.

FYI

I like the Kingsman movie scene, as far as, simulated firework scenes go

I also like how the fireworks overlays over old photos of happier times for the opening credits of Blue Valentine.

It seems passable to me for the purpose and size of box it is going to being displayed in. The Avalon (1990) movie has almost no readily available hi-res images to pull from and is the best available (internet) still image from the movie that includes fireworks. Also, IMDb's 50KB requirement seems to hurt films that debuted in a pre-digital age, when publicity shots used analog devices. So, it would be nice to have a better image, but not always realistic. As not every movie gets digitally remastered and re-issued on Blu-ray.  I am reluctant to remove the movie as it is cited as one of the best fireworks scenes in movies by more than one source.


ie 40 KB

I'm not sure which image would be better (especially if the one above isn't cropped) but, if you want to, you could resize it. I've resized many images that have been accepted. 

I tried the usual tricks to get the second image up to the minimum file size. The issue with the first is the video file is only 240p.The issue with the second image is the file is too small and image is too dark, even though it is crisp enough.

I just uploaded a third still image that might work and was used for the movie poster.  It features the fireworks prominently and is taken from a memorable scene from the movie, but the featured character is too small in the image.

P.S. corrected replaced image

Much better.

Apart from how an image looks in the poll, to me it's also about avoiding images going missing from polls after they are published. Images of poor quality are more likely to be deleted from IMDb.

Actually, that argument wasn’t all that good because the film was already available in a digital format. Just not in a 1080p hi-res format. How do I know? Do you remember that just before the DVD ERA, there was thing called Laserdisc? In fact, I think Laserdisc came out very early in the beta max video tape era, but was overshadowed by the cheaper VHS tapes and cheaper VHS players (until laserdiscs became cheaper than VHS, but by then it was too late, VHS dominated the market). Well I still have a Laserdisc player. While you still had a choice between digital or analog soundtracks on SOME of the laserdiscs, all of the video images were digital. I saw “Avalon” on laserdisc when it was first released on home video. Ergo, digital images from that film were out there. You just needed someone who had a Laserdisc player and a copy of the film to post images from it.

By available, I meant being able to find on the internet. Plus, I was referring to analog cameras for publicity shot, not playback devices. Also, although not the case here, not all older titles get re-issued on DVD or Blu-Ray or were even released on Laserdisc when they were current.

But, I agree if there is a Laserdisc edition of the title it would be far better and twice the quality than VHS. (VHS 240 TVL lines for NTSC, Laserdisc425 TVL lines for NTSC).

But DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, and Ultra HD Blu-ray have progressively pushed the quality even higher and the bar is constantly being raised. Video quality level now is 10x than what was commonly available and 5x that of Laserdisc when Avalon was released.

Laserdisc was awesome and far ahead of its time, even though the technology was invented back in 1958. Availability of titles was always an issue, as was finding them when they were available. "It was estimated that in 1998, LaserDisc players were in approximately 2% of U.S. households (roughly two million).[14] By comparison, in 1999, players were in 10% of Japanese households.[15]. ...In Europe, LaserDisc always remained an obscure format."