Top 5 Movie Montages

5. Summer School (1987)

This film taught us that even the no-good, pregnant, surfing, goof-off kids can learn what it takes to get the hell out of high school, as long as their new teacher is sufficiently young and hip. Some of you may have learned a similar lesson from Dangerous Minds and/or Welcome Back Kotter.

When the students realize they must save Mark Harmon?s lucrative substitute teaching career by passing the Big Test and getting the hell out of high school, they must study. And study they do. But studying is a traditionally boring process that sometimes takes fifteen minutes or more, right? Not for these intrepid students. In by far the film?s best scene, those kooky kids montage-study, cramming whole subjects in the time it took you to sound out this sentence. Even Kirstie Alley couldn?t ruin this movie?s montage. Bravo, Summer School. Bravo.

4. Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Unlike most of the best montage-having movies, Conan is not a comedy. There is one really funny part when Arnold punches a camel in the face, and that scene is especially funny because I?m pretty sure it was ad-libbed and real.

This movie is pretty montage-heavy, but the one that earns it the number four spot comes towards the beginning. Young, skinny mama?s-boy Conan, captured by the armies of James Earl Jones, is forced to push a big heavy thing around in a circle. Over the next several grueling seconds, he turns into Arnold Freakin? Schwarzenegger. It is a sight to behold.

3. One Crazy Summer (1986)

John Cusack must win Demi Moore?s heart by beating a mean jock in a yacht race, so that Curtis ?Booger? Armstrong doesn?t have to join the Army. I think. Maybe? In any case, all is lost unless John Cusack and Bobcat Goldthwait build a yacht, and now.

Now if there?s one thing the Cusack-Goldthwait team knows, it?s that when you need to build a yacht fast, you don?t need any fancy training or construction skills. You need a montage, and you need an upbeat pop song. And they build that yacht, and they win that yacht race DAMMIT.

2. Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Poor people are chased down the Odessa Steps by a row of faceless soldiers gunning them down. Baby-filled carriages go flying, old people are trampled, cripples are shot dead.

With its slapstick hilarity and, we assume, pop-music organ score, Potemkin set the stage for the 80s montages we know and love.

But just being the first doesn?t make you the best. I know Sergei Eisenstein would agree with me when I declare that the very best montage of all time occurs in?

1. Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)

I?m not going to lie to you: this movie is bad. Actually this is one of the worst movies I?ve ever seen. Sarah Jessica Parker is joined by a young Helen Hunt (and by ?young Helen Hunt,? I mean ?Leelee Sobieski?) in a quest to?have fun, I guess. Oh, there are obstacles: Parker?s dad, for example, is a local preacher who has banned dancing. I think. Also, Helen Hunt has a side-ponytail, and that?s just awful. Matters aren?t helped by the presence of Jonathan ?Weekend at Bernie?s? Silverman and Shannen ?I Hate Alyssa Milano? Doherty.

And then ? to the tune of Q-Feel?s ?Dancing in Heaven? ? Sarah Jessica Parker learns how to dance. She learns how to dance so well, that she goes on to win a televised dance contest. This four-minute sequence, in my eyes, saves the whole movie.

Slow. Slow. Quick, quick, slow.

Since the Sarcastic 90s, the art of the montage has faded from mainstream cinema. These days, the best montages are 80s spoofs. But it is my hope that one day, the montage shall rise from its ashes once again.