Filmsite's Greatest Crowd Film Scenes

This controversial D.W. Griffith Civil War epic contained many examples of crowd scenes, including the ride of the white-sheeted KKK to the rescue of imperiled whites, and numerous Civil War battle scenes.

Another D.W. Griffith epic, with a massive and colossal reconstruction of ancient Babylonia - a set piece including a cast with thousands of extras. It was the largest, most elaborate exterior set built for any movie at the time.

Cecil B. De Mille's first rendition (silent) of the tale of Moses featured major crowd scenes, with over 3,500 extras. The film also featured the massively built set of The City of the Pharaoh, which was 120 feet high and 720 feet wide, and weighed 1,000,000 pounds. DeMille had the set dismantled and buried along a stretch of California's central coast, and it remained so for 60 years.

Sergei Eisenstein's films featured large crowd riot scenes, including the famous Odessa Steps Sequence (pictured) in Battleship Potemkin (1925), and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Oktober (1927) aka Ten Days That Shook the World.

Sergei Eisenstein's films featured large crowd riot scenes, including the famous Odessa Steps Sequence (pictured) in Battleship Potemkin (1925), and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Oktober (1927) aka Ten Days That Shook the World.

With large-scale crowd scenes in the opulent Opera House.

This Fritz Lang early sci-fi film required vast casts of extras - almost 38,000 performers, including 1,000 men (FX-multiplied by six) with their heads shaved for the Tower of Babel sequence. Other huge crowd scenes with underground workers included the view of the despairing and exhausting workers going to work in robotic unison as they shuffled forward to elevators, and the android imposter Maria (Brigitte Helm) inspiring the workers to riot.

One of the greatest impressionistic tracking shots in all of cinematic history was in this film - the majestic shot began at the crowded street level in NYC and tilted upward and smoothly traveled up the flat outside surface of the stone wall of a multi-windowed skyscraper - one of many in the city. Suddenly, the office building rose and straightened up outside one floor, and transported the viewer directly into one of its windows. In a dissolve, the camera slid through the window into a large room filled with a monotonous criss-crossing of hundreds of rows of identical office desks and workers. The camera swept across the infinite sea of anonymous, business-attired insurance company paper-pushers until it zoomed in on our hero - one of many wage-slaves seated amidst hundreds of other obedient and cowed clerks. Another faceless victim of the city, John Sims' (James Murray) desk is labeled (in closeup): "John Sims 137."

This Michael Curtiz-directed disaster film from Warner Bros. (first released as a silent film and then part-talkie) featured numerous crowd scenes during the flashback sequences to Biblical times. During the filming of the climactic flood scene brought on by Jehovah when the temple collapsed by lightning bolts from a huge rainstorm, large volumes of water drowned three extras and injured numerous others.

This tough and realistic prison film required large numbers of cast members to play the anonymous convicts, locked up in their cells and forced to march from their cellblocks like robots.

A Best Picture winner and early sound Western - with a spectacular re-enactment of the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889, with 47 camera operators and 5,000 dress extras.

With the celebrated scene of wounded Confederate soldiers at the make-shift train station hospital, laid out (with dummies to fill out the numbers) in rows.

Included William Dieterle's masterful handling of the sweeping crowd scenes outside Notre Dame Cathedral, with the military processions, the "King of Fools" march/parade, and the daring rescue of condemned-to-die gypsy Esmeralda (Maureen O'Hara) in front of a massive crowd by deformed bellringer Quasimodo (Charles Laughton).

This film featured the Munchkin crowd scene, singing Ding Dong the Witch is Dead and You're Off to See the Wizard; and the crowded send-off for the Wizard-piloted balloon in the Emerald City.

This dubious Best Picture winner of 1956 starred David Niven as eccentric traveler Phileas Fogg, and was based on the famous escapist adventure book by Jules Verne. It was the largest scale film ever made - created with Todd-AO, a special wide-screen format. The film featured almost 69,000 extras and thousands of animals including sheep, buffalo, donkeys, horses, monkeys, bulls, elephants, skunks, and ostriches! The film also used 140 sets built at six Hollywood studios (as well as on location shoots in England, Hong Kong and Japan) and featured the largest guest star cast of all time, including dozens of stars in various roles.

With many crowd sequences including the beginning of the Exodus from Egypt led by Moses (Charlton Heston), the parting of the Red Sea.

With many massive crowd scenes, including the crowds watching the famed chariot race, the arduous slave/prisoner march and the revolt.

With numerous crowd scenes, including the gladiators' freedom revolt and the large-scale battle sequences with thousands of extras, and the sight of 1,000's of men on crucifix crosses lining the road.

With a panoramic view of Lawrence's looting Bedouin army poised to attack a train in the desert, and other long-shots of desert battles and caravans.

Darryl F. Zanuck's film re-created the Allied invasion on Normandy on D-Day in 1944. One aerial shot along the beach was unbelievable - as hundreds of soldiers ran up during the assault.

The most expensive film ever made ($300 million adjusted for inflation) that featured massive crowd scenes and large scale battles.

The Battle of Shrewsbury in this film was considered the first great battle scene of the modern era, influential on Mel Gibson's Braveheart (1995).

Akira Kurosawa's last great film - a medieval Japanese interpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear that featured violent, colorful large-scale battles.

Bernardo Bertolucci's Best Picture winner included a memorable scene in which 3-year old toddler Pu Yi (Richard Vuu) rushed out of his palace to see hundreds of obedient servant/vassals bowing before him.

One of the last films to employ actual extras that comprised "a cast of thousands" - instead of simply using CGI to "paint" them in, as evidenced by its massive slave revolt scene.

A Best Picture-winner with large-scale, brutally-violent battle scenes, led by William Wallace (Mel Gibson).

This CGI animated film featured crowd scenes of up to 10,000 individual characters, including the "wrecking ball" scene comprised of hundreds of individual ants, and the Starship Trooper-ish battle scene between ants and termites.

Many of the large-scale crowds and battles in this film featured thousands of CGI extras to save money and time, as well as insure safety when dealing with such things as computer-generated tigers. In the arena scenes, parts of the crowd were digitally reproduced.

Winner of the Best Visual Effects Oscar.

Peter Jackson's trilogy featured many large-scale CGI battles, including the 100,000 computer generated fighters in the prologue battle of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). The largest and most noteworthy being the climactic battle in the pouring rain at Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).

Peter Jackson's trilogy featured many large-scale CGI battles, including the 100,000 computer generated fighters in the prologue battle of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). The largest and most noteworthy being the climactic battle in the pouring rain at Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).

Peter Jackson's trilogy featured many large-scale CGI battles, including the 100,000 computer generated fighters in the prologue battle of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). The largest and most noteworthy being the climactic battle in the pouring rain at Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).

With many brutally violent gang wars, especially the opening and closing battles between the Natives and the Dead Rabbits; also, the performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin with hundreds of booing spectators, and the protection of a church from a vengeful Bill Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) by hundreds of women and children holding candles.

In this segment of the trilogy, there was a fight scene between Neo (Keanu Reeves) and 100 Agent Smiths (Hugo Weaving), using special-effects techniques. The real Agent Smith's actions were digitially recorded and then digital (or 'cloned') humans were reproduced from different angles, indistinguishable from real humans.

This film featured massive crowd scenes, including the battle scene between live humans and CGI robots.

In the prophesied battle for Narnia, signaled by the return of the Messianic lion Aslan (voice of Liam Neeson), the forces of the evil White Witch or Queen (Tilda Swinton) (composed of ogres, dwarves, wolves and minotaurs) assembled on one side, to fight against the forces led by young Peter Pevensie (William Moseley), which were embodied by humans, centaurs, satyrs, flying wildcats, cheetahs and horses. The two forces faced each other, with Peter riding a white steed with his magical sword drawn, while the Queen vowed, in her spiky chariot drawn by polar bears: "I have no interest in prisoners, kill them all."