There’s no better canvas to depict the chaos, mayhem and carnage of battle than the silver screen. Since film’s inception, directors have bombarded moviegoers with images of tight-lipped soldiers, daredevil heroes and the horrors of mankind at its worst.

So, after awhile, it all kind of bleeds together (see what I did there?). After a hundred years of cinematic carnage, it’s hard to remember one battle from the next. But sometimes a director pulls out all the stops and burns an unholy image of havoc into filmgoers minds by the sheer insanity of what’s unfolding on the screen.

I present to you a list of eight of the most unforgettable battles ever put to celluloid. Instances when a director made his film rise to the top of the pile of cinematic corpses by cranking the deathly dial to 11 and tearing the sucker off. (Spoiler Warning)

8. Conan vs. Thulsa Doom And His Minions -  Conan The Barbarian

We kick-off our countdown with a film that uses all the trappings of the fantasy genre to deliver a 5 megaton payload of crazy. Conan seeks retribution for the death of his lover and people at the hands of the wicked sorcerer Thulsa Doom by luring Doom and his disciples into booby-trapped ruins. Doom’s men are treated to a healthy does of spears, severed limbs and arrows. The touches that land this battle firmly in the insane column is the return of Conan’s lover from beyond the grave as a Valykerie and Thulsa Doom’s use of live-snakes as arrows. If you’re going to go crazy, you might as well go all the way.

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