20 Most Perfect Scenes In Cinema History

The car chase is kind of taken for granted these days as a cinematic trope. Films like Baby Driver and the Fast & Furious franchise have had to add increasingly frenetic bells and whistles to gild what should already be a pretty glorious lily.

That’s why the achievement in the 1959 version of Ben-Hur is so astonishing. Without the safety net of any of the modern visual effects we’ve come to expect in this day and age, legendary director William Wyler and his second unit director Andrew Marton put together a breathtaking, visceral chariot race, the likes of which has rarely ever been committed to celluloid, even six decades later.

The boneshaking, breakneck action is one thing, but Wyler also finds time to advance the story, principally the bitter enmity between former best friends Judah Ben-Hur and Messala, the Roman commander who had him enslaved.

As the increasingly violent race throws up trampled body after trampled body, Messala tries his damnedest to make Judah one of them… but this film ain’t called Messala, and it’s the Roman who ends up mangled, crushed by horse after horse in a surprisingly brutal climax to this thrilling scene.