A Brief History Of Sword Throwing On Screen

Thislalife readers know that I'm all about OSMs (Oh Shit Moments) in my movies. Recently I've discovered that one sure fire guaranteed OSM is the sword toss/throw/hoist. Now let me be clear it's not like I just watched 15 action movies in a row, but as I was thinking about "Gladiator" yesterday (as I often do, Gladiator is the shit FYI) it made truly realize how potent and powerful the sword toss is. If I was gonna put it in an analogy here it is

Indie Rock: Soulful Adult Finding Themselves Movies

Sword Throwing: Kick Ass People Finding Swords in Their Bodies Suddenly Movies 

Here is a list of some of my favorites:

The Last Samurai

Say what you will about this Tom Cruise or this flick, but that fact of the matter is, there was definitely some dude who gave serious notes on the script that said "yeah, this is interesting, but can't he throw the sword through the dude's chest." So much cool fighting with so many OSM's and sword tossing left and right. Badass flick and this final scene is so satisfying.

Gladiator

The frost, sometimes it makes the blade stick....yeahhh maynnne. Legendary scene here, and probably the most underrated scene in the entire flick. One of the best sword tosses cause you don't see Maximus toss it, but you know he did.  It's like showing not telling, it's genius

Arnold

Stick around! (see above)

Braveheart

Ahhh, the emotional moment of truth sword toss, kind of sucks it doesn't land in anybody, but it's effective none the less.

Star Wars

Don't wanna get too deep into the Nerd abyss here but light saber throwing in the Star Wars flicks is common and cool.

Rambo

Mr. Stallone has carved a quite a career for himself as a sword/knife thrower. Good for you Stallone.

I'm sorry if I missed any, this website is way more comprehensive than mine. To some extent, the modern era has been kind to sword throwing. I mean "Thor" is pretty based around throwing hammers through battle.