10 Minor Characters Given Overly Dramatic Death Scenes

So you're an actor and you're struggling to get your big break. Your agent calls and they've got you a part in a big new Hollywood film. The only problem is that you only have a handful of lines of dialogue and have barely any influence on the main plot. However, the director wants a tacked on, emotional scene to give a false sense of pathos. Your character gets to die and you get to make tragic faces despite the audience knowing barely anything about who you're playing. It's win-win.

Welcome to the world of the overly dramatic death scenes for minor characters. Here are some of the most notable:

Haldir in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

For the climatic battle of Helm's Deep, Peter Jackson and co. had a problem. Aragorn and friends were facing a battle against overwhelming odds but, as fans of reading will know, no-one particularly important was going to die. How are we meant to get our emotional kick when the only one's dying are a few grizzled peasants? Craig Parker, that's how.

Some genius remembered the character of Haldir, played by Parker for all of two minutes in the first film in the trilogy and decided it would be a great idea to bring him back and swiftly kill him, just so the audience has something to be sad about. Said genius probably didn't stop to think that the audience might not really care too deeply for that elf that was in Lothlorien for a bit. So, Haldir returns to honour an allegiance between men and elves and then dies in a way that is something of a running theme in this list; fighting heroically until his last breath and passing away in the hero's arms. Absolutely no-one was upset about this.

Mifune in The Matrix Revolutions

Having killed off most of the poorly fleshed out supporting characters in the first film, the producer's of the Matrix sequels decided to introduce thousands more supporting players to be poorly fleshed out, but this time with with stupider names like Ballard or Sparks. One of the characters to get a better deal was Mifune (Nathaniel Lees). Not only did he get to make a rousing speech, he got a pretty good death too. Not from the character's point of view of course; having your face cut up by Sentinal tentacles must sting, but Nathaniel Lees must have loved the opportunity to show off his range of facial expressions, which vary from 'stern' to 'angry.'

Needless to say, Mifune dies fighting heroically until his last breath, only this time he doesn't die in the hero's arms but in the arms of the tedious kid that no-one likes.

Hagen in Gladiator

Having failed to turn the phrase "Hagen dies" into some sort of joke involving ice cream, I'll cut straight to the point; Hagen (Ralf Moeller) was doomed from the start. Hagen is a classic bad-ass with a good heart. At first he gives Russell Crowe a good kicking and the audience thinks he's kind of a dick but then he turns out to be a good guy and a fierce warrior. He's willing to fight with Maximus to the death, and, as with a lot of characters willing to fight with the main character to the death, he dies. Hagen defends Proximo's Gladiator school as Maximus attempts to escape, showing how much of a bad-ass he is along the way before ultimately dying fighting heroically until his last breath. Again.

Ben Hayes in King Kong (2005)

This was never going to end well. Peter Jackson had shown in The Two Towers that he would never be happy with just letting faceless expendables die so one or two of the not-so-important supporting players were doomed the minute they set foot on Skull Island. Jack Black's film crew got a pretty unfair deal but it was Ben Hayes (Evan Parke) who was there to pack an emotional punch. A wise and weary mentor and father figure to Jamie Bell's Jimmy, the audience was instantly made aware of him being a good guy because he knew stuff about books.

Having established this bond between Hayes and Jimmy, Jackson proceeds to kill Hayes in a horrifying way; first being crushed by King Kong and then thrown to a bottom of a canyon. Needless to say, Hayes died heroica...well you know the rest.

Tommy Ryan in Titanic

Tommy Ryan (Jason Barry) DID NOT die heroically fighting until his last breath, thus making this list less monotonous.

Having established himself as a man of good character based purely on the fact that he was Irish, Ryan epitomised the fun and exciting ethic diversity of steerage class and how far it was removed from the evil and boring rich people. He was doomed, however, along with his partner in crime Fabrizio, who suffered death by funnel.

It was a tall order for Tommy Ryan to have a distinctively tragic death in a film full of tragic deaths but being shot by 1st Officer Murdoch in the scuffle for survival is pretty tragic. Murdoch shooting himself afterwards didn't help either.

The Not-So-Important Jedi in Revenge of the Sith

There's nothing like a good montage of mass murder to tug on the heartstrings. George Lucas even went one step further and decided to get younglings involved. But for the actors who had endured hours in make-up to play background Jedi with only the occasional cool looking lightsaber kill to show for it, this was their moment in the sun. Order 66 is executed and the Clone Troopers turn on the Jedi and kill them one by one in a series of cowardly ways. We don't know anything about these characters, but it's kind of sad in a way. Well, a bit. But not much.

Rest in peace pointy headed beard man and kind-of-hot blue woman. Rest in peace.

Dr. Satnam Tsurutani in 2012

Remember when Jimi Mistry was going to be the next big thing in Hollywood after he made East is East and set off to make the god-awful The Guru? Well this is where he ended up. Tsurutani is pretty much responsible for finding out the world is going to end. He has a nice family too. Chiwetel Ejiofor really wants to save him but he encounters the evils of bureaucracy and doesn't. Thus, Tsurutani, nice family and all, dies with everyone else, leaving the many dislikeable and undeserving characters to survive on the arks.

Frank Harris in The Day After Tomorrow

While we're on the issue of Roland Emmerich disaster movies, we best cover The Day After Tomorrow. What Emmerich really, really, likes to do is take a small character, give him the slightest hint of emotional depth and pathos, and have him die in a sad yet contrived situation and expect the audience to feel bad about this. We saw this with Satnam Tsurutani and we saw it with Frank Harris (Jay O. Sanders).

Harris is a grizzled old timer, loyal to the end to Dennis Quaid. We know very little about him, but he's a good guy. So when he falls through glass and is left dangling high above a shopping centre and threatens to pull his colleagues to their doom with him, he cuts the rope and falls to his death to save them. Note the variation from the common theme; Harris sacrifices himself heroically, rather than fighting heroically.

Stan Olber in Volcano

Staying on the theme of heroic sacrifices, Stan Olber (John Carroll Lynch) saves a bunch of people from a subway train being consumed by lava (for those that haven't seen it, Volcano is about a volcano erupting in down town L.A., for some reason). As a reward for his valiant efforts, he slowly burns to death after jumping into a pool of lava. You can't help thinking that Stan should have made a better job of his jump but this scene has the distinction of being one of the only memorable things in Volcano. Thus a small character is transformed into a tiny redeeming feature of an otherwise terrible, terrible movie.

Ivan Dubov in Face/Off

The character of Dubov is instantly rendered cooler by the fact that he's played by Frank Subotka from The Wire (Chris Bauer). His role is small, but important to the plot and featuring an impressive amount of drool. Dubov is an enemy of Nic Cage's (except Nic Cage isn't really Nic Cage, of course) but when the idea is suggested that they work together on a escape, he come's around to the idea pretty quickly and all of a sudden Cage and Bauer are best buds. Dubov does most of the hard work in helping Cage escape, but is thrown off a walk-way and dangles over a big drop with only a gun and Cage's hand between him and falling. Naturally, he falls and Cage is briefly sad before forgetting about him completely.

Ealing Studios is a Monument to Great British Cinema

So I've just arrived back from a stopover in Ealing. It's a great part of London to visit, not least for a chance to walk past one of the most legendary studios of them all. For an outsider there's not an awful lot of see, just a building with the iconic "Ealing Studios" logo on its front, but you can't help but think of the legendary films that have been made there and, for me at least, it sends a shiver down my spine.

Ealing Studios is truly something Britain should be proud of. It is, after all, the oldest continuously working film studio in the world. That's an impressive record, but more impressive has been the level of quality of its output. In recent years there have been lapses; the St. Trinians revival was unnecessary and the recent Burke and Hara was not well received considering the talent it boasted, but for a time in the late 40's and early 50's, Ealing Studios arguably produced some of the most unique and witty films around.

The Ealing comedies such as The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers seem just as sharp and infused with bitingly black humour today as they were more than 50 years ago. They were showcases for perfect writing, pushed boundaries and superb acting. Watching the Ealing comedies you can understand why Alec Guinness was so appalled that he became remembered chiefly for the Star Wars films. His performances in some of these films (memorably playing 8 roles in Kind Hearts and Coronets) were some of the best that Britain has seen.

If you're ever in Ealing and you have some time to kill, make sure you stop by to have a glance at the studios. To still be making films today is remarkable, but the history and quality of output of these studios make it a monument to truly admire.

The Birdsong film edges ever closer.

Sebastian Faulks ever-popular 1993 novel Birdsong has had a bit of a troublesome time in making its inevitable appearance on the big screen. The rights were sold not long after the book was published but still we have not yet seen a finished product. There's been plenty of aborted attempts, but the Birdsong film has found it as difficult to be made as other troubled adaptations such as Watchmen and Don Quixote.

This did, however, look set to end when Rupert Wyatt, director of the excellent Brit prison escape flick The Escapist took the reigns. Michael Fassbender and Paddy Considine became attached to the project and there was even talk of the cast beginning to flesh out. But things have fallen eerily silent. Birdsong's IMDb page no longer lists the director or stars as being involved with the project, however it does still list a tentative release date of 2012. This seems optimistic.

As this excellent Independent article documents, this could be yet another one of Birdsong's false starts. However, progress is being made in other mediums. In September, a stage adaptation of the novel began a run at the Comedy Theatre in London, starring Ben Barnes (of Prince Caspian fame) as the novel's protagonist Stephen Wraysford. Reviews have been fairly mixed, but if the novel can be adapted for the stage, there is hope it can be adapted for the screen.

It will be a challenge to make, there is no question about that. To shift from the erotically charged first 100 pages of the novel to the horrors of the First World War requires no small amount of subtlety. Some of the book will of course have to be trimmed to make it manageable to movie audiences, but which bits? Will the producers, for instance, choose to skip over the story of Elizabeth Benson, the 1970's woman looking for clues about her grandfather's time in the war?

Then there is the war itself. The intensity and fear of the Battle of the Somme, described in Faulks book could well be adapted into an epic portrait of war, in the right hands, but the book is extremely graphic in its detail. Will this be toned down for today's audiences? If so, will the film be able to do justice to the horrors of war and the sacrifices made?

It's been many years since a great First World War film was made. A good adaptation of Birdsong could not only be a fine story, but could serve as intense portrait of what people went through in the war. It will make it to the big screen one day, but for the moment we are still waiting.

A.I: A Fascinating Mess.

It's fair to say, that if you wanted one director to make a film Stanley Kubrick wanted to make, then Steven Spielberg wouldn't be an ideal choice. Sure, Spielberg is probably second only to Kubrick himself when it comes to his track record but their styles were completely different. Some say Kubrick's films are cold and even heartless, I would say they are detached. Spielberg's biggest fault is his sentimentality that despite his best efforts, he has never completely been able to reign in. As such, the directed-by-Spielberg, imagined-by-Kubrick A.I. Artificial Intelligence was always going to be a clash of two schools of thought.

The result is a mess. But it is a fascinating mess. I hate to sound harsh but the faults most people find with this film do seem to stem from Spielberg's own flaws. The completely needless tacked on ending, the overly cute teddy bear sidekick - things you wouldn't see in a Kubrick film. But it's not as if Spielberg made a hash of things; his flair for visuals and emotion shine through, arguably showing a side that Kubrick could not.

At the centre of the film is Haley Joel Osment's David, a truly underrated performance that, whilst bordering on annoying hits the uncanny valley of portraying an imitation of the real thing. The best way to think of it is like the creepy motion capture characters in Robert Zemeckis films; impressively real, but not quite human. Osment nails this.

Other characters are not so great. Jude Law's Gigolo Joe is apparently far removed from what Kubrick conceived. I am not surprised. His light hearted, cartoonish nature just doesn't seem to fit into Kubrick's conception of this world. Robin Williams cameo as the holographic Dr. Know is more distracting then it is engaging.

So how did a film with great visuals, an interesting concept and input from two of the greatest directors of all time turn out to be such a mess? Well, simply that; it was born of two directors. This film could have been Kubrick's last hurrah, an epic story of what it means to be 'human.' It could also have been an upbeat Spielberg fairytale, minus the darkness and menace that Kubrick would have wanted. Simply put, this film could have worked if it had been the baby of either of these two great men alone, but with Spielberg trying to carry on Kubrick's legacy it does not. It will still always be a fascinating lesson in what happens when two very different directing style clash.

The 10 best Nicolas Cage films.

Nicolas Cage isn't exactly the most popular actor to ever make it big. Sure, he's appealing enough to land big budget roles, but there are plenty of people who'd much rather be forced to wear a helmet full of bees than sit through one of his movies (especially The Wicker Man).

Nic Cage is marmite. He's eccentric, he's weird, his hair is a bird, and he doesn't help himself by making some terrible, terrible film choices. I must admit it would be much easier to make a list of the 10 worst Nic Cage movies, but I won't, because in the last year or so Cage has made two films to help restore his reputation. They're in this list so I won't mention them here but they served to remind us that when he picks the right role (which he hadn't done for a very, VERY long time), Cage can be a damn good actor.

Over the years, he's had the mid-life crisis, made big budget duds (which despite a return to form, he is still doing), but in a career spanning over 20 years he has had his fair share of good movies. Below are 10 of his best:

10. Face/Off (1997)

Absolutely ridiculous. This is literally one of the most unbelievable plots an action movie has ever produced. Yet it is the best film John Woo made in a rather ill-fated spell in Hollywood, purely because it is an awful lot of fun.

Cage and Travolta are given the opportunity to ham it up and they take it with relish, producing cartoonish performances as a heroic cop and demonic villain who trade faces in a top secret undercover operation. It all gets very complicated but there are some genuinely good action sequences (Cage's prison escape is a highlight) and for a man who's made some pretty bad action movies, this is easily one of the better ones.

9. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Will not be the film Martin Scorsese will be remembered for, nor Nic Cage for that matter, but this film definitely had it's moments. Cage plays a paramedic haunted by visions of the people he's tried to save. Moody and atmospheric, it was a welcome change of pace for Cage, who was well into a string of ridiculous movies at this point. It gave him an opportunity to flex his acting muscles, resulting in one of his better performances.

8. The Rock (1996)

Probably the film that created Cage the action star, for better or worse, The Rock is an over the top Michael Bay film that came before Bay really lost it. After 81 tourists are taken hostage on Alcatraz island, Cage, a biochemist, must get to the site to disarm some stolen gas warheads, but he needs help. The interplay between Cage and Sean Connery in this film is great, and The Rock just works as a boombastic and entertaining action movie; a formula Cage would struggle to find in future movies.

7. Matchstick Men (2003)

Once again, a film that finds Cage working with a top director for a smaller, less spectacular film. What Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men lacks in big budget excess it makes up for in charm and wit. Cage is perfectly cast as an obsessive compulsive con-man, playing up to his trademark quirks and neurotic style. The twist is somewhat disappointing, but Matchstick Men makes for an entertaining and diverting conman movie that works well because it plays to Cage's strengths, offering great support from Sam Rockwell and Alison Lohman.

6. Lord of War (2005)

A film that is arguably best remembered for its inventive opening credits sequence if anything else, Lord of War may have glossed over a serious issue, but it certainly left the viewer with something to think about. Cage gleefully plays an amoral arms dealer, charting his pursuit by an interpol agent, his family relationships and the inner conflicts of his job. At times both funny and haunting, it's an entertaining way at confronting an issue that is at the forefront of modern conflict.

5. Kick-Ass (2010)

The first of the redeeming films I mentioned earlier, this is Cage demonstrating he has a sense of humour, and moving away from the overly serious roles that almost led to him becoming something of a self-parody. In a film with so many great bits in it, Cage is one of the best. The Adam West-style voice he uses in his Big Daddy alter-ego is hilarious and his bizarre relationship with his daughter is as touching as it is twisted. This is exactly the sort of role Cage needed to help restore a damaged reputation with the movie going public.

4. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

The second of the redeeming films. This is Nic Cage at his crazy best. Too easily dismissed as an unnecessary remake of a not-that-brilliant film, it actually shares little in common with the Harvey Keitel original. Cage makes the role of the bad lieutenant his own; a drug addicted weirdo with a very loose sense of morals. The crucial thing is that he remains likeable, with a shred of decency that shines through and keeps you rooting for Cage's character. It's the strangest role Cage has taken since Adaptation, which is a shame because nobody does strange better than Nicolas Cage.

3. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

The film that won Cage an Oscar. It's depressing, often heartbreaking, and a difficult watch but features powerful performances, with Cage putting in a career-best performance as an alcoholic screenwriter looking to drink himself to death. Darker and more personal than anything Cage had done before or since, the chemistry between Cage and Elizabeth Shue is great and Cage was deserving of the recognition he received for a very challenging role.

2. Adaptation (2002)

The film for which Cage received his second Oscar nomination, it marked a brief return to form after a mid-career slump. The famously complicated and highly unique plot charts screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's (Cage) failed attempts to adapt a Susan Orlean's 'The Orchid Thief' into a screenplay. The film features a wonderfully offbeat performance from Cage, playing a meek and uncertain man, and getting the opportunity to act against himself as Kaufman's (fictional) brother. The most original film Cage has starred in, with Nic at his oddball best.

1. Raising Arizona (1987)

Whether there is something to be said about the fact that Cage's best film came out 23 years ago is up to you but it is one of the Coen Brother's best and certainly Cage's funniest performance. Cage and Holly Hunter but in wonderful performances as an ex-con and ex-cop who steal a baby. The chemistry between the two actors is superb and despite their twisted actions, there is something very sweet at the heart of this movie. It's the kind of role Cage needs to be in again at some point, but with a Ghost Rider sequel in the works (who asked for that!?) we might need to hold our breath.

Classic Performances: Robert Shaw in Jaws

Jaws has a fairly unique position in cinema history in that it helped create a mythic fear of a creature that endures till this day. Sure, people were aware of the stories of man-eating sharks but for most they were rarely regarded as a direct threat. However, after seeing Jaws, an awful lot of people became hesitant to go back in the water. Steven Spielberg had given us the ultimate movie monster; powerful, relentless, remorseless, and a significant threat to human beings.

I, like most youngsters upon first viewing Jaws, was captivated by it. But unlike many, the shark was never the star for me. I saw Robert Shaw's Quint as the best thing about the film, and I still do till this day.

The character has plenty of critics; Quint is often viewed as too much of a caricature, a character to be parodied. It's true that he was a part of the film that perhaps required a further stretch of the imagination than for the shark itself, but for me he was such a charismatic and menacing character that I was fascinated by him.

Many would suggest that Quint wasn't too much of a stretch for Robert Shaw. His grizzled and temperamental attitude was something that Shaw had made a career out of, playing similar characters to Quint before and after Jaws. But Robert Shaw was a brilliant actor, and demonstrated it in a single speech which, to me, was the most memorable thing about the film;

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

This speech is rightly viewed as one of the greatest in cinema history. The intensity with which it is delivered is mesmerising and it is one of the academy's great mistakes that Robert Shaw was not even nominated for an Oscar; he should have got one based on the strength of the delivery of this speech alone. It contributed so much to the depth of Quint's character; a complicated, often dangerous man bordering on obsession who has experienced the true horror of his aquatic enemy.

Jaws is fundamentally a horror film; the shark is not too far removed from slashers like Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers, but one of the reasons it rises so far above these genre conventions is the strength of its main characters; Chief Brody's cautious heroism, Hooper's boy-like enthusiasm, and most of all, Quint's maniacal intensity. It will always be one of my greatest film performances.

8 Memorable Movie River Trips

Sometimes the movie road trip gets too much credit. It's one of cinema's great clichés; the voyage of discovery or bonding experience that comes from taking a drive. It's not the only way to travel though, and some of cinema's great journeys have been taken down (or up) river, and it's time they got their moment in the limelight. This is a list of 8 great movie river trips. It's by no means definitive; I chose to leave out great scenes that take place on rivers (The Deer Hunter) or indeed great scenes of crossing rivers (Temple of Doom) but instead focus on journeys, whether by boat, canoe or even paddle steamer. This is simply 8 films that use a journey on a river to great effect:

Deliverance (1972)

Burt Reynolds leads a group of friends on a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River in a determined effort to experience it one last time before it gets turned into a giant lake. It doesn't exactly go to plan.

For its time this was a truly provocative film and even today it has the capacity to shock. Along the way Reynolds, Voight and co. experience raging rapids, jagged rocks and a group of back-country yokels that set the standard for stereotypical, backwards Southern folk that most horror movies can't even come close to. The tension rises as the group make increasingly unwise decisions about how to deal with the problems that befall them, leading to an edgy finale of nervous glances and suspicious questions.

Although "dueling banjos" and the infamous rape scene will be the ones that stick in people's minds, one of the true stars of the show is the river itself. Filmed on location on the Chattooga River in Georgia, the rapid scenes are beautifully shot and bring about a real sense of excitement. Of all the journeys on this list, its probably the one you'd least want to go on. Except, maybe for....

Apocalypse Now (1979)

During the Vietnam war, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent on a dangerous journey up river to Cambodia to assassinate the dangerous and charismatic Colonel Kurtz.

This is one boat trip you don't want to go on. As Willard and his crew head "75 klicks above the Do Long bridge," they encounter the full horror and insanity of war, and that's before Willard encounters Kurtz at the end of his journey. Along the way they encounter the eccentric Colonel Kilgore and his interesting appreciation of certain scents, negotiate the natural perils of the jungle, and come under attack from the locals. Not only do the crew experience the horrors of war, they even commit atrocious acts themselves. The entire journey is an escalating descent into madness, with a destination that will top it all...

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) has a dream of building an opera house in Iquitos in Peru. To do this he needs money. To get money, he needs rubber. Fitzgerald buys a paddle steamer and enlists a crew to reach an unclaimed patch on the Ucayali River. Its unclaimed for a reason though, and getting there is easier said than done.

In a way, this feels like a cheat. Sure this is a movie about a man trying to reach a place on a river, but the most impressive, and most memorable, part of the journey is Fitzgerald's attempt to physically pull the steamer over a hill to reach the inaccessible Ucayali River. Its a study into obsession, made all the more fascinating by the infamous on set difficulties and the conflict between director Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski (one of the native extras famously offered to kill Kinski for Herzog). The film shows an increasingly inconceivable attempt to overcome the obstacles of nature in pursuit of the ultimate dream. Likewise, the film was an ambitious project that had to overcome numerous obstacles to get made.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

As Willy Wonka takes the five lucky golden ticket winners on a tour of his extraordinary chocolate factory. The best way to get around the factory is by boat, and Willy Wonka takes the group on a psychedelic and thrilling ride along a chocolate river.

"There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going."

This may well be the creepiest song ever sung in a children's film, and the journey's a little bit intimidating too. A seemingly relaxing and docile trip along a chocolate river (as you do) descends into a dark and fast roller-coaster ride with multicoloured lights adding increasing menace to Gene Wilder's face. Demented images with no place in a children's film flash up, as the increasingly nervous group begin to question Willy Wonka's sanity. It's creepy as hell, but it's one of the reasons why this adaptation of a very dark children's book is such a classic.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Or, if you'd rather, Live and Let Die (1973)

In an explosive opening sequence, James Bond uses a prototype MI6 speed boat to chase an assassin along the Thames, taking in London's biggest landmarks, soaking the odd traffic warden, and destroying a few things along the way.

Let's get one thing straight, The World is Not Enough is not a great film. In fact, it's one of Bond's worst outings. But the opening sequence promised so much. The scene was an attempt to make Bond a bit more up to date, accounting for the climax of the chase taking place against the backdrop of the Millennium Dome. The action's some of the most exciting we've seen in the modern Bond era and, as always, London provides the perfect cinematic backdrop, especially for such an iconic British character.

Special mention has to go to the swamp chase in Live and Let Die, but it loses out because of the presence of Sheriff J.W. Pepper; to date the most annoying character to appear in the Bond universe.

The African Queen (1951)

Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) persuades a grizzled riverboat captain (Humphrey Bogart) to attack an enemy warship in WW1 era Africa.

An all time classic. The interplay between Hepburn and Bogart is the real star of the show, and the film is classic movie example of mutual hate turning to love. However, the thing that drives the film is the treacherous trip down the Ulanga River. The African Queen is a rust bucket, but its trustworthy and negotiates Hepburn and Bogart through rapids, jagged rocks and dangerous animals. At the end of the journey there's the biggest challenge of all; the Louisa, the warship they are determined to sink. This is one of cinema's truly great journeys.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Having left Lothlorian, the remaining members of the fellowship set off down the River Anduin towards Parth Galen, where they will eventually part.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy did a pretty good job of leaving impressive and epic images in you head. The Two Towers and Return of the King would take this to the next level with their vast battle scenes but one of the most impressive and memorable visions from the first film happens as the group rides down the River Anduin. The fellowship passes huge statues of past kings of Gondor, showcasing impressive CGI and creating one of the defining images of the trilogy.

The river would also be the setting for the breaking of the fellowship and the site for Boromir's final farewell. All in all, a pretty important part of the journey.

Into the Wild (2007)

During his voyage of self discovery around America, Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) takes a kayak trip down the Colorado River, disobeying the orders of park rangers, and encounters two of the many eccentrics he meets on his travels.

Depending on who you ask, Into the Wild is either massively overrated or massively underrated. Either way, its hard to deny that the film takes in some impressive scenery along the way. The journey down the Colorado River not only showcases its beauty but also provides an important insight into McCandless' character; impulsive, often reckless, and determined to live out his dreams regardless of the consequences. Along the way, we also meet a quirky Danish couple, which naturally means nudity. They're not the most important people that McCandless will meet on his journey, but at least they're not Vince Vaughn...