Everyone loves to hate on child actors. While their performances can be cringe-worthy, there have been moments of occasional stone cold badassery that have been entirely overlooked. From firefighting to astronauts to assassins, kids in movies have accomplished a lot more than we've given them credit for over the years. Here are 10 of the baddest kids in cinema - the ones you want to call when things get rough (and if the Ghostbusters aren't available)...
10. Totò - Cinema Paradiso
I thought it would be appropriate to begin this list with the moment that started it all: the big f*ck-off fire from Cinema Paradiso. The highly flammable celluloid has finally made good on the foreshadowing earlier; the Cinema Paradiso is burning down. Thanks to an adrenaline rush and a serious dose of awesome, scrawny, ten-year-old Totò braves the flames to save best friend. A best friend, by the way, who is a portly and grown-ass Sicilian who must be three or four times Totò's size. What makes this moment so especially badass is that, unlike most of the other movies on this list, Nuovo Cinema Paradise is not a movie about a kid being a hero and having adventures. It's not even, really, a movie about a kid. It's the somber, bittersweet reflection of a now-renowned film director on his earliest fan and mentor. Nostalgia, reminiscing, and "en cherche de temps perdu" are the words of the day here. Not capers, shenanigans, and children running into burning buildings.