10 Movie Scenes Shot For Real
5. A House Falls On Buster Keaton - Steamboat Bill Jr.
Despite having been dead for over 50 years, Buster Keaton still puts most modern stunt performers not called Tom Cruise to shame - and in the interest of safety, that's no bad thing.
Keaton was famed for his elaborately staged set-pieces which, more often than not, placed the actor at the epicenter of the danger. Even so, audiences can't really be blamed for figuring that some trickery was afoot for one of his most iconic stunts.
Steamboat Bill Jr. climaxes with the front of a building collapsing on top of him, with the open attic window providing Keaton a small hole so that he isn't crushed to death.
Though even in 1928 it would've been possible to achieve such a set-piece with basic optical effects, Keaton decided to do it the hard way, dropping a two-ton building facade on top of himself with a margin of error measuring only a couple of inches.
It's since been suggested that Keaton was suicidal due to numerous personal issues, and the actor himself later even said, "I was mad at the time, or I would never have done the thing."
The result is without question one of the most impressive stunts in movie history, if also one of the craziest.