Movie Montages or How I Learned to Stop Caring about Plot and Just Embrace Music Videos...

You might not know this about me, but I LOVE movie montages. To me, there really isn't anything better than a training or gratutious arming sequence in a movie. To that end, I present, from 5-1, the top movie montages of all time.

5. The 'Falling' montage from Real Genius - Real Genius is an underrated movie, it was one of Val Kilmer's first roles and it stars that one guy who was never really in anything again but looks vaguely familiar to the viewer. Really a great montage about a smart kid at college trying to make it in a class full of other smart kids. Little known fact: Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite fame is in this movie.



4. The preseason practice montage from The Program - I think a key element to a great montage is the music, with Guns and Roses Welcome to the Jungle blarring in the background, we get to see vicious hit after vicious hit as the ESU football team prepares for the upcoming season. This movie actually got pretty close to what college athletics is like...they made some characters a parody, but there are more similarities here than in something like Blue Chips(sorry, couldn't find a video of the scene).

3. Hoosiers "starting to come together" montage - Hoosiers is one of my alltime favorite movies, and if you're a sports fan, it better be one of yours too. Coach Dale was on the verge of being let go midseason, a move UNHEARD OF in high school athletics. That is, until the wunderkind Jimmy Chitwood saves the day. Once he joins the team, there's really no stopping the Hickory basketball team from winning the state title. This montage features the iconic song from that movie.

2. "Hearts on Fire" from Rocky IV - Let's face it, almost all modern movie montages take their cue from the ultimate montages in history: the Rocky montages. In fact, any "best of" list, could simply include montages from each Rocky movie. I felt this was a cop out, and a bit of disrespect to other great movie montages so I picked the best one: Rocky IV. It's almost like they took all of their knowledge from the previous Rocky movies and pooled it together to make the ultimate montage. Rocky training old school juxteposed with Ivan Drago training new school complete with steroids (of which Rocky would NEVER use) CHECK, concerned looks from Adrian CHECK, a shirtless Stalone CHECK, a bearded Stalone DOUBLE CHECK, Rocky reaching the top of the mountain while Drago gives out CHECK and CHECK, a broken down russian plow that Rocky has to drag out of the snow CHECK. I've said enough, I'll let the video speak for itself.



1. We've reached number one, it should be no doubt to some but barely edging Rocky IV, is The Karate Kid "You're the Best" montage. It starts off with Elizabeth Shue screaming 'you're the best' and it culminates with Daniel kicking Cobra Kai tail. No one who grew up in the 80's didn't want to be the karate kid after this classic. No one.



Well, that's the top 5, this list is complete and needs no editing, but I wanted to point out a couple of "honorable mention" montages. The montage from Team America: World Police that is making fun of movie montages is classic. Also, the Michael J. Fox movie Teen Wolf had not one but two montages, which I like to call the jackpot. The basketball was some of the worst ever put to film, but these montages are classic. One is in full on wolf mode and in one Scott is trying to prove he can be great without the wolf. Extra points to this movie for the constant background Nebraska Cornhusker references and the great coach Bobby Finstock. You can see both of them below.