History Main / OneBulletLeft

* In both versions of ''The Flight of the Phoenix'', they have 5 cartridges to start the rebuilt plane's engine - the first three times it stalls, the fourth cartridge is expended to clean out the cylinders, and the last one [[strike:[[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt also fails, making the whole rebuilding project a waste of time and dooming them to die of dehydration after all]]]] shockingly enough, works perfectly.

* [[{{Clue}} Okay, fine. One plus two plus one... Shut up! The point is, there is ONE BULLET LEFT in this gun and guess who's gonna get it!]]

* RabbitFire -- a BugsBunny cartoon -- had a scene where Elmer Fudd seemed to have run out of bullets, much to Bugs and Daffy's amusement. Then Daffy grabs the gun and looks down the barrel... "Bang!" He had "[[TropeNamer one buwwet weft]]!"

* ''PointBlank'' does these with its infamous "sniping" challenges, where the player is given one shot to take down a small, moving target, such as a falling leaf or a tossed coin.

* ''{{StarCraft}} 2'' uses this with some subtlety. Raynor always carries [[RevolversAreJustBetter his pistol]] around, but never uses it. It's not until later in the game when he [[spoiler: launches a boarding action on Mengsk's flagship]] does he check his pistol and we see it loaded with only a single cartridge in the six-chamber cylinder. He simply clicks the cylinder back in place and holsters the gun back. [[spoiler:It implies the bullet was originally meant for Mengsk, but in reality the bullet was more symbolic of setting right the past and redeeming his mistakes, thus why he uses it in the GrandFinale to [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl Save The Girl]]]].

* The Death Or Glory rule in Warhammer 40,000 can be invoked when a unit is being run down by a tank. Instead of getting out of the way with the rest of his unit, one soldier may stand directly in the vehicle's path and make a single shot with a ranged weapon or a single attack with a melee weapon. If he immobilizes or destroys the tank, he lives, otherwise he gets run over and dies messily. The dramatic potential for having an Imperial Guardsman about to be run over by a Chaos Land Raider, and then lobbing a melta-bomb through an open gun slit is limitless. As is the sheer awesomeness of having a Space Marine power-fist a tank about to run him over.

* Videogame example: The ''SilentScope'' series always does this at the end, forcing the player into a situation, such as shooting out a pane of bulletproof glass, where he must waste all but the last bullet of his existing magazine (or, if there's only one or two bullets left already, the last bullet of his next magazine) before confronting the last boss. As such, you ''have'' to get a headshot on him, or it's [[NonstandardGameOver game over with the bad ending]].

* In CallOfJuarez at the end, the bad guy takes you out with a gun shot to the head, [[spoiler: and you, with one final shot, have to shoot him in the head before he knives your companion in the back.]]

* RabbitFire -- a BugsBunny cartoon -- had a scene where Elmer Fudd seemed to have run out of bullets, much to Bugs and Daffy's amusement. Then Daffy grabs the gun and looks down the barrel... "Bang!" He had "one buwwet weft!"
* MightyMax -- In The Maxnificent Seven, one of the four heroes who goes with Max, Virgin and Norman to the center of the earth to destroy Skullmaster's Crystal of Souls is Native American warrior and master archer Yona-Ya-Yin. He winds up having only one arrow left, which he uses to save the lives of Max, Virgil and Norman [[spoiler: by tying a rope to his last arrow, with Norman tying the other end to himself, and shooting a dragon that was flying towards where the escape portal was.]]

<<|GunsAndGunplayTropes|>>

* In ''IndependenceDay'', the trope becomes "One ''Missile'' Left". By the time the alien force field has been neutralized, the only guy left with the ability to exploit their new weakness is the insane crop-dusting veteran. [[spoiler:Then ''his'' missile malfunctions and never leaves his aircraft. Fortunately for the human race, the missile was still set to go off, and RammingAlwaysWorks.]]

* In ''IndependenceDay'', the trope becomes "One ''Missile'' Left". By the time the alien force field has been neutralized, the only guy left with the ability to exploit their new weakness is the insane crop-dusting veteran. [[spoiler:Then ''his'' missile malfunctions and never leaves his aircraft. Fortunately for the human race, RammingAlwaysWorks.]]

This trope is named after the uncanny attempt at drama of giving the hero only a single chance to win the battle, i.e. one bullet left. You can be sure of it, you can count on it, you could bet money on it if anyone would actually take that bet. That shot is going to hit its target. It may have been actually suspenseful at some point, but by now every one has seen this one done and done again.

* MightyMax -- In The Maxnificent Seven, one of the four heroes who goes with Max, Virgin and Norman to the center of the earth to destroy Skullmaster's Crystal of Souls is Native American warrior and master archer Yona-Ya-Yin. He winds up having only one arrow left, which he uses to save the lives of Max, Virgin and Normal by [[spoiler: by tying a rope to his last arrow, with Norman tying the other end to himself, and shooting a dragon that was flying towards where the escape portal was.]]

* MightyMax -- In The Maxnificent Seven, one of the four heroes who goes with Max, Virgin and Norman to the center of the earth to destroy Skullmaster's Crystal of Souls is Native American warrior and master archer Yona-Ya-Yin. He winds up having only one arrow left, which he uses to save the lives of Max, Virgin and Normal by [[by tying a rope to his last arrow, with Norman tying the other end to himself, and shooting a dragon that was flying towards where the escape portal was.]]

* In CallOfJuazez at the end, the bad guy takes you out with a gun shot to the head, [[spoiler: and you, with one final shot, have to shoot him in the head before he knives your companion in the back.]]