10 Most Epic High Angle Shots Ever

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A high angle shot is when the camera is higher than the subject, looking down. Nowadays this is a common shot, because drones make it easy. Every film has some drone shot, even when it makes no sense.

You could also have epic high angle shots made by visual effects, but that’s easy. The shots I’m about to show were all done one hundred percent in camera, manually. Yet, they have to be awe inspiring in some way.

10. The Burj Khalifa scene from Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol

The movie might not be that good, but this stunt and shot looking down is as breathtaking as they come. People have done all kinds of shots on tall buildings for ages, but when you have someone like Tom Cruise do it, it just stops your heart.

9. The beachfront scene from Saving Private Ryan

This scene in Saving Private Ryan is a ten minute lesson in the horrors of war. It’s not the first time a war movie was made with the camera in the midst of the action, but in Saving Private Ryan the camera almost always is in the most ideal position.

This is something only Spielberg can bring. His high angle shots of the beachfront, especially the brutality of the angles drives the point home as nothing else can. It’s at number nine for the sheer perfection of execution.

8. The farmer on the hill, Seven Samurai

This shot is right at the beginning of Seven Samurai, and it’s funny in the way it’s shown. When you think about it, the shot is not just tough to pull off, but near impossible. The village is almost at a right angle, which means the hill they’re on is either steep, or there’s a scaffolding constructed to be steep, yet safe for the actor.

Then there’s the problem of depth of field. The village is at infinity, and the farmer is close by. You’re looking at about f/16 here, plus maybe lights in the foreground. So hats off for first coming up with the shot, and then another one for executing it so it looks seamless.

7. The Napalm scene in Apocalypse Now

This iconic scene from Apocalypse Now is self explanatory. There were  multiple cameras in this movie, and there’s a whole story about the making of it. Read this book by Eleanor Coppola.

The reason this shot is at number 7 is due to the sheer insanity of it. How do you burn down an entire forest? I don’t know what Francis Ford Coppola was thinking but the viciousness of the execution really puts you face to face with horror.

A lot of the helicopter shots in Apocalypse Now can make this list. They created hell on earth, and that’s why it’s so awe inspiring.

6. The bell tower scene in Vertigo

The shot is now called the Vertigo shot, where you zoom and move the camera in opposite directions to maintain the same frame size. The shift in perspective creates an effect that’s different from any other camera movement or trickery.

In Vertigo the shot is used to simulate the feeling of vertigo, and it’s at number 6 because Alfred Hitchcock found the ideal shot and created cinema history at the same time.

5. Sweeping crane shot in Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind is an epic story and this shot really highlights that. Recent movies like 1917 have used this to great effect, but Gone with the Wind really is something else.

With the technology they had back then the crane shot is just hard to pull off. The crane is not motorized, there are real men working that thing. Everything has to be perfect until the camera lands on the flag.

4. Airplane angle shots from Hell’s Angels

People have seen airplane shots since World War One, but not to the death defying levels of Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels.

It’s staged from different angles, and production was seriously troubled by many “mishaps”. That someone had the madness and drive to actually go through with it was why it pioneered aviation filmmaking, and which is why it deserves its high-altitude spot on this list.

3. The funeral scene from Gandhi

What you’re seeing in this shot from Gandhi are real human beings, all extras.

300,000 of them.

This scene made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest number of extras. No other movie has come close, and none probably will, because it’s a lot cheaper to create digital crowds through CGI, as was done in Forest Gump or Gladiator.

In many ways having these many extras was appropriate, because I think it’s also a great tribute to a great man.

2. War scenes from The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation is a controversial film, but it cannot be forgotten or ignored by a serious student of cinema. The breathtaking angles of the war scenes, with all the extras that went with it, shot on a camera that seems like a joke compared modern cameras. I don’t know how they pulled it off. 

Many filmmakers would baulk at the idea of such shots even today.

What can beat all the shots in this list? Only something so audacious and infinitely tough to pull off. 

1. The opening crane shot from Touch of Evil

In this opening scene from Touch of Evil, in a single take, the camera seems to move across half a city, even though it actually doesn’t.

What makes this shot difficult is the precision of the camera movement, on a mechanical crane, with so many things happening that need to be synchronized perfectly like a dance.

Since then, all the films and commercials that have done single take long shots like this one still can’t take away from the majesty of this shot. In fact, it’s difficult to achieve this even today, even with modern technology.

You can put a camera on a tower or plane, or you can make a sweeping camera move, but when you want the camera to dance, and all the actors and crew members to dance along, and still make all of it seamless – like you’re really there – that’s perfection. That’s why this shot is at number one and is the most epic high angle shot in cinema history.

That’s my list of top 10 epic high angle camera scenes. If you know of others please share them in the comments below so everyone can benefit.