13 Best Scenes From 2015's Summer Blockbusters

6. The Vienna Opera House Showdown - Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Ethan (Tom Cruise) and Benji (Simon Pegg) separately head to the Vienna Opera House to stop the assassination of the Austrian President, all while the mysterious Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) is setting up a rifle to take her own shot. In an incredibly tense sequence. Hunt finds the assassin posing as a musician and a fight breaks out, which Hunt eventually wins. Armed with the assassin's gun, Hunt has to decide who to shoot: either Ilsa or another security guard who also has his gun pointed at the President. Hunt decides to give the President a flesh wound to allow him to escape while both shooters miss. Benji then fights the guard, Ilsa shoots the guard by accident, and Hunt, Benji and Ilsa escape just as the police arrive. It was all for nothing in the end, though, because the President is still killed when his car explodes. It's easily the best scene in the whole movie and has earned many comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, for its patient tension-building, the synchronisation of the assassination to a musical note and so on. Even on its own merits, though, it's a terrifically assembled set-piece, gracefully directed and a welcome change of pace from the more bombastic thrills the franchise is typically known for.