20 Anxiety-Inducing Moments That'll Terrify You Senseless

In real life, when various intelligence agencies rescued six American diplomats from Iran by posing as a fake film crew, the escape went smoothly. They got through the airport and boarded a plane, with airport staff hardly even giving them a glance. But then again, that wouldn't make for good cinema, would it?

In Argo, an excellent adaptation of this real event (even if it maybe didn't deserve to win Best Picture), director Ben Affleck and Co. invented a harrowingly suspenseful climax in which the team barely get away. We've all had horrendously stressful experiences at the airport, but for this group that is multiplied by 100. Getting on this plane is a matter of life and death. 

Here, everything keeps going wrong, everything keeps getting solved at the last possible second, and the razor-sharp editing constantly cross-cuts between the airport, those Stateside trying to run the operation, and the Iranian forces elsewhere who are piecing together the ruse and are moments away from working it all out and alerting airport security. 

All palms will be sweating away as the film cuts back and forth before the group is finally allowed to board a plane. Almost immediately after the gates close, security work out that they've been tricked, but the plane takes off in the nick of time, and the diplomats are safe. 

And... we can all breathe again.