15 Most Awesome Explosions In Movie History

4. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Spaghetti westerns don't exactly have a reputation for strictly adhering to health-and-safety protocols, and that's evident no better than in this absolute cracker of a blast from Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The scene in question sees The Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) destroy a bridge, and rather than shoot the explosion separately and film reaction shots from Eastwood and Eli Wallach afterwards, Leone decided to save some time and just film the whole thing from a single distant wide shot.

It's a testament to the impressive size of the explosion that it still looks absolutely terrifying from this distance, but moreover, look closely and you'll see that a piece of debris flies just a few feet shy of Eastwood's head.

Considering the speed at which it was moving, it probably would've killed Eastwood had its trajectory been just slightly different.

It's a damn good thing movies aren't made like this anymore, but on the other hand, it sure as hell adds another, literally death-defying dimension to an already terrific explosion.