5. Arm Amputation - 127 Hours (2010)
Switching genres, but not gears, let's transition to a scene so realistic that it reportedly left some viewers in need of medical assistance. That would be the
arm amputation scene found in Danny Boyle's award-winning film,
127 Hours. In shooting it, Boyle set out to portray what Aaron Ralfston went through in as realistic a fashion as possible, and the result was a resounding success. Ralfston himself went so far as to say "the movie is so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get." Praise can't get any higher than that. Furthermore, he made it look easy. When filming the scene in question, he was prepared to devote their last day and a half of shooting to getting it just right, multiple fake arms at the ready. It took him one take and twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to film something so grisly and real-to-life that it had the power to make people faint. And he did it all without using so much as one bit of CGI. Just good old-fashioned special effects.