Buzz
In today's world, it's challenging to be truly amazed by movie sets. When watching blockbusters like The Hobbit, World War Z, and The Avengers, it's clear we're witnessing the magic of computer-generated effects. But there was a time when magnificent sets had to be physically constructed, and directors spared no expense to make them come to life. Even in modern cinema, many filmmakers still choose practical effects over cheaper CGI. Here are some of the most colossal, expensive, and mind-blowing set pieces ever made for a single scene.
10. The Blues Brothers Dropped a Car in Chicago
The Blues Brothers, directed by John Landis, starred two of the era's top comedic talents: John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The movie's release seemed almost impossible given Belushi’s notorious cocaine addiction (the film had a cocaine budget), the endless shooting schedule, and its ballooning costs. But when it was finally released, it became an instant success, in part due to its unforgettable, grand set pieces.
In this iconic scene, Jake and Elwood are being pursued by both the Chicago police and a group of American Nazis. The Bluesmobile leads the Nazis on a chaotic chase, eventually losing them after the Nazis jump too far, seemingly launching into the sky. To pull off this wild stunt, Landis hired a helicopter to lift a Pinto 360 meters (1,200 ft) into the air and drop it. Incredibly, he got approval from both the FAA and the city of Chicago for this stunt. The car landed precisely in a vacant lot, where the intense impact of the drop crushed it to just 45 centimeters (18 inches) in height.
9. Raiders Of The Lost Ark Featured 6,000 Real Snakes
Indiana Jones has a deep fear of snakes, which becomes painfully clear in the scene where he confronts thousands of them slithering across every inch of an ancient Egyptian tomb. To capture this iconic moment, Steven Spielberg made the bold choice to use real snakes. While some reports claim there were around 6,000, Spielberg himself insists the number was closer to 9,000. In any case, that's far too many snakes. To make it even more intense, all of the snakes were venomous, and some were particularly dangerous.
During filming, the crew learned to manage the snakes, distinguishing the harmless ones from the deadly varieties. The cobras, however, were kept away from the cast and crew by a Plexiglass barrier. In the scene above, you can spot Harrison Ford's reflection when he faces off with the king cobra, as these snakes still had their venom. The rest of the snakes, on the other hand, were simply scattered around the floor like spooky Halloween decorations.
8. The Wachowskis Created Their Own Freeway for The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Reloaded is known for one of the greatest car chases ever filmed. The Wachowskis pulled out all the stops for this exhilarating sequence, which ended up being the most widely appreciated aspect of Reloaded. While the scene clearly relies on CGI for certain effects, one thing couldn't be created by computers: the road itself.
To create the iconic final scene, the Wachowskis went above and beyond by building the entire road from scratch. This structure was constructed on a naval base in California, stretching 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) and featuring off-ramps and a towering 5.8-meter (19-foot) wall. The wall concealed the city of San Francisco just beyond its edge. The cars used in the scene were real as well, with General Motors donating over 100 vehicles, all of which were destroyed during filming by the Wachowskis.
7. Gandhi Had Over 300,000 Extras For One Scene
The funeral scene in Richard Attenborough’s *Gandhi* is massive. At first, it may seem like digital effects, but the sheer number of people captured on camera is astonishing and real. The film needed to portray the actual scale of Gandhi’s funeral, which had over a million attendees. Attenborough went to great lengths to replicate that scale, using real crowds rather than relying on CGI.
Attenborough recruited 3,000 extras, training them to march in the manner of the 1940s Indian military. Another 98,000 were transported by buses, and a further 250,000 turned up after seeing advertisements. The crowd you see in the scene is not computer-generated—these were all real people. While the exact number is unknown, Attenborough estimated it to be between 350,000 and 400,000, setting a world record for the most extras in a film. *Gandhi* holds the record for the largest number of extras in a film.
6. The General Destroyed An Antique Train
The 1926 film *The General*, starring Buster Keaton, is the only silent movie featured here. Its inclusion is due to the extraordinary cost of the above scene, which came to $42,000. While this might seem modest by today's standards, it was an astronomical amount for 1926, making this the most expensive scene of the silent film era. Keaton, even in the 1920s, recognized what modern filmmakers like Michael Bay have also discovered: movies are all about spectacle, and audiences love to see things explode.
To capture the scene, Keaton purchased an actual antique train and intentionally destroyed the bridge as it crossed over. Everything in this sequence is real—there were no miniatures. The crew had just one chance to get it right, and fortunately, everything went smoothly. Interestingly, during filming, a group of townspeople nearby gathered to watch. They were so convinced that the dummy placed at the front of the train was Keaton himself that they screamed in horror when the bridge collapsed.
5. Ben Hur Had One Of The Biggest Sets Of All Time
Although younger moviegoers might not be familiar with this classic, we encourage them to watch it. Even though *Ben Hur* may appear dated by today's standards, the effort that went into creating the massive chariot race is truly mind-blowing. Upon its release, *Ben Hur* featured the largest movie set ever built, an enormous 18-acre chariot arena that included a 450-meter (1,500-foot) straightaway and towering 9-meter (30-foot) statues. It took a year and 1,000 workers to construct. To top it off, 36,000 tons of white sand were reportedly imported from Mexico to cover the track.
The scene also involved a remarkable number of horses—82 were present, though only 36 were used for the race. The crowd in the stands was entirely made up of real extras, with over 8,000 brought in to cheer and applaud the action. Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd, who portrayed Messala, performed most of their own riding and stunts, except for the major crashes. While several accidents were captured on film, the rider who falls and is dragged under the horses did so intentionally. The filmmakers had initially tried the stunt with a dummy, but it appeared too fake, so one of the stuntmen donned steel pads and threw himself under the horses for real. Remarkably, he survived the dangerous stunt without injury.
4. Stanley Kubrick Recreated A Vietnamese Town in Full Metal Jacket
The film’s unforgettable scene captures American soldiers cautiously advancing through a bombed Vietnamese town filled with enemy Viet Cong forces. However, this iconic moment wasn’t filmed in Southeast Asia but rather at Beckton Gasworks in London. The gasworks, set to be demolished, had an architecture that closely resembled the Vietnamese town of Hue. To complete the illusion, Kubrick brought in several authentic palm trees. Though the scale of destruction isn’t clear from the image, many of the surrounding buildings had their foundations smashed with sledgehammers to give the impression of a bombed area.
Kubrick initially wanted to blow up the abandoned gasworks using dynamite, but the British military nixed that idea. Instead, he opted to attach thousands of small fireworks, called squibs, to the buildings. This way, when Adam Baldwin’s character, Hannibal, charges toward the enemy sniper, viewers get a visceral sense of the chaos of American GIs firing upon a building. True to Kubrick’s obsessive nature, he had the actors repeat the scene over and over for an entire month.
3. The Dark Knight Built and Destroyed a Hospital
Christopher Nolan’s *The Dark Knight* raised the standard for comic book films, largely thanks to its massive, memorable set pieces and Heath Ledger’s haunting portrayal of the Joker. One of the most striking scenes is set in a hospital, where there’s no CGI at play. Instead, Nolan constructed a hospital on the site of an old parking lot, only to blow it up during the shoot—while Ledger’s Joker casually pranced about dangerously near the explosion.
What makes this explosion memorable is the intricate way in which the building crumbles. The team spent weeks carefully setting up the charges to ensure the building would collapse in a precise sequence. They had only one shot to get it right. Fortunately, the stunt went off perfectly, filmed in a single, largely uninterrupted long take. A well-known story claims the Joker's brief pause was unscripted because one of the charges failed to detonate. However, according to the making-of documentary, this is completely inaccurate. Every detail of the stunt, including that small comedic moment, was meticulously planned.
2. Francis Ford Coppola Set Fire to a Real Forest for Apocalypse Now
In the opening sequence of Apocalypse Now, The Doors' iconic song 'The End' accompanies what appears to be real footage of a Vietnamese jungle being napalmed by American bombers during the Vietnam War. It seems almost unimaginable that such destruction could occur outside of a live conflict. Yet, in an astonishing twist, it did. Coppola chose to shoot in the Philippines, which closely resembles Vietnam in terms of landscape and climate. Given his fame from the success of The Godfather, Coppola was given nearly unrestricted freedom to film as he pleased.
With the Philippine army’s backing (who provided Coppola with helicopters), he set several acres of real jungle ablaze. In the famous scene, the helicopters are shown dropping gasoline on the palm trees. To make things even crazier, those helicopters were genuine military craft. Apparently, Coppola became frustrated with the frequent interruptions, as the helicopters had to leave to fight in a real war while he was trying to shoot his film.
1. The Train in Inception Was Absolutely Real
Christopher Nolan makes an appearance twice on this list, not only because he is a visionary director, but also due to his commitment to using practical effects in his films. While other directors with smaller budgets might opt for digital effects, Nolan’s determination and resources allow him to go the more challenging route. A memorable sequence from Inception showcases this perfectly, where a freight train barrels down a crowded street, plowing through cars in its path.
The sequence was filmed by constructing a realistic train mounted on a semi with an extended axle, driving it through an actual street. The cars it crashes into are real as well. Remarkably, the only CGI used was for the subtle damage to the street caused by the train’s wheels. Aside from that, everything in the scene is 100 percent real.
