History StuffBlowingUp / Film

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* ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' loves this trope, mostly for the effects animators to show off (such as the RunawayTrain violently exploding in a large, stereotypical Hollywood explosion with sparks flying upward!)
* The alternate ending of ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
* ComicBook/TheJoker in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' ''really'' likes explosions:
-->'''Joker''': See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite... and gunpowder... and gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!
* ''Film/TheDayAfter'' is a powerful {{Deconstruction}}, thanks to multiple nuclear missiles fired at Kansas City and [[UsefulNotes/PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower Whiteman Air Force Base]], resulting in a huge monstrous fireball that vaporizes all living things within its reach, and knocks over every building (the latter done via stock footage of the 1950s of real nuclear bomb tests).
* The ''Film/DieHard'' film series has bigger and bigger explosions in each installment. Summing it up: the 1st has a floor of a building. The 4th has ''a building''.
* The climax of the movie version of Creator/StephenKing's ''Firestarter'' fits this trope quite well.
* In ''Film/{{Frankenhooker}}'', a MadScientist invents a FantasticDrug called "supercrack," which causes prostitutes who smoke it explode. A whole room full of them do.
* ''Film/{{Help}}'': The cultists fire away and eventually do manage to take out the tank the Beatles were riding in. Luckily, the Beatles were no longer in it when it was hit.
* ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'''s [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGNcoB2Y4I trailer]], framed as a Hitchhiker's Guide entry on movie trailers, notes "the goal is to create a piece of advertising that is original and exciting, yet intelligent and provocative. In other words: lots of things blowing up, ''[cue montage of movie explosions]'' occasionally interrupted [[MsFanservice by a girl in a bikini]]."
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', the big robot apparently self-destructs so completely it's reduced to something finer than powder.
** But wait, there's more. On the "special features" DVD, there is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbdqjkJ7ooo an easter-egg self-parody video]] that makes homage to the amount of times that things explode in the movie, as well as the buttons that are pressed and the doors that are opened and shut, by stringing them all together to the tune of "The Anvil Chorus" from Verdi's opera Il Trovatore. The sequence ends with this quote- "The Incredibles- no sequence unexploded."
* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', the aliens apparently have firestorm cannons that [[MonumentalDamage blow up]] [[LandmarkOfLore famous landmarks]].
* ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'': "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" As well as the van, the film heavily features three minis among its vehicles. [[spoiler:The gang dispose of them by letting them fall off cliffs, whereupon the third mini [[MadeOfExplodium blows up before hitting the ground]].]]
* ''Film/JamesBond'' has the usual exploding vehicles, villain lairs and [[ItsGoingDown general buildings]] of any action movie. And [[GadgeteerGenius Q]] usually arms him with mines or some sort of exploding gadget (such as exploding toothpaste and a pen-grenade).
** The video game, ''[[VideoGame/GoldenEye1997 Golden Eye: 007]]'', where--shot enough times--''everything'' explodes.
** At the climax of ''Film/LiveAndLetDie'', the '''villain''' -- rapidly pumped full of high-pressure [=CO2=] -- explodes.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyPTmd_HUi8 This scene]] from the {{Mockbuster}} ''Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws'' is possibly the most contrived and WTF-enducing way to slip an explosion into a film ever.
** The original ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' has Brody shoot a compressed air tank in the shark's mouth, reducing the shark's head to a raining cloud of fish meat.
* ''Film/JohnnyDangerously'': "Knock down THAT wall, knock down THAT wall, and knock down THAT farging wall!" BOOM! "Now, I'm really mad. This is farging war!"
* ''Film/{{Koyaanisqatsi}}'' has sequences of quarry blasting, nuclear bomb tests, air-to-ground ordnance tests, vacant buildings being demolished, consumer durables fitted with explosives and an unmanned rocket being destroyed in flight with an extended take of the flaming pieces descending. All set to the Music/PhilipGlass soundtrack. And it's awesome in a sad sort of way.
* It's easier to list the things that aren't blown up, impaled by flying objects or crushed in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' than the things that are.
* About half of ''The Marine'' is made of StuffBlowingUp. Lots of it.
* Tim from ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' introduces himself with various explosions. Perhaps that's why they used coconuts instead of horses.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'': What does a military do when a skeleton is trying to be Santa Claus, scaring the crap out of the kids? Blow him up with missiles, apparently!
* ''DerClown'''s love for spectacular explosions is continued in the movie ''Payday'' which features [[spoiler:an Autobahn being blown up over its entire width with hand grenades, sending police cars [[SloMoBigAir flying]],]] and [[spoiler:an aircraft bombed with gold bars so it [[ImpressivePyrotechnics turns into one big giant fireball]].]]
* In ''Poseidon'', one of the main characters pushes a cannister into the bow thruster, so that they can escape through it. Somehow, despite only damaging the thruster motor, a huge fireball is thrown out of both ends of the thruster. (Also, when the bow thruster was pushing starboard, the air was being pushed into the room. It was being sucked out when it started pushing to port. Since in either situation, air should just be sucked in one end of the thruster and blown out the other, there seems to be no reason for this. Air pressure in the thruster room should remain neutral, though there would be draughts.)
* ''Film/TheProducers'': ZE KVICK FUSE!?! (To a massive amount of kaboom.)
* ''Film/SpeedRacer'' has loads and loads of gratuitous explosions, but the whole movie is built on rule of cool and car-fu so no one really cares.
* The [[Film/StarTrek Star Trek reboot]] features things exploding. Many things exploding. Explodily. Which were produced by Creator/IndustrialLightAndMagic. And it was ''awesome''.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' and the Death Stars, baby (in this case, the stations themselves, not [[EarthShatteringKaboom their targets]]). You'd think a reactor would have fail-safes so that if containment was breached or the reaction controls were destroyed it would automatically shut down, rendering the station lifeless, but no, it goes kablooie. And it is ''[[RuleOfCool sweet]]''.
** The first Death Star has an excuse - it was seconds away from firing a full-power, planet-destroying blast. Do you have any ''idea'' just how much energy would have been built up in the reactor at that point? It has to go ''somewhere''. The second Death Star has less of an excuse, but the superlaser was in use, albeit only as an anti-ship weapon.
*** The second Death Star was unfinished at the time.
*** The novel ''Death Star'' explained the colossal explosion: hypermatter reactors of a size large enough to power the Death Star superlaser are experimental technology. The ''Battle Lance'' hypermatter testbed ship, with an unusually large one as a trial run for the Death Star's weapon, had an unknown screwup with its reactor, and suddenly and permanently ''ceased existing''.
** The ''[[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing]]'' Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse books like to describe exactly how each TIE fighter that's shot down explodes, in exquisite detail. Other stuff blows up quite frequently also. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by this quote:
--->'''Donos''': "Pretty. What do we blow up first?"
--->'''Wedge''': "Write that down. That ought to be the Wraith Squadron motto."
*** Many of the X-Wing books are written by Michael Stackpole, who loves this trope so much that his novels set in the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe gave rise to the term "stackpoling" to refer to a [[ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics fusion reactor exploding]]. [[RuleOfCool He gets away with it because it's cool.]]
** For that matter, [[EveryCarIsAPinto Every TIE Is A Pinto]]. Witness tiny ships like TIE fighters exploding into fireballs, most noticeably when Han takes out the last one in Episode IV, resulting in a ''massive'' multi-stage explosion from something that carries very little fuel and no exploding weapons. In the ExpandedUniverse it's explained they don't even have any internal life support (it's built into the pilots' suits), so there's no atmosphere to burn.
* The finale of ''Film/{{Suspiria}}'' has ''the whole Academy'' blowing up bit by bit, starting with a ceramic panther and then ending up with a classic explosion with fire.
* ''Film/{{Swordfish}}'' begins InMediasRes with a bank full of booby-trapped hostages. The police, being TooDumbToLive, attempt to "rescue" one, despite her terrified resistance. The resulting explosion takes out dozens of cars and cops in ''BulletTime''.
* ''Film/{{Tremors}}:'' "It's gonna be big!!!" "Is it gonna be today?!?"
** The 2nd movie [[spoiler: ends with a literal truckload of high-explosives (2.5 tons, to be exact) blowing up, along with the oil refinery where it was parked. It leaves a huge crater.]]
** The 3rd movie involves Burt's truck [[spoiler: and house]] blowing up.
* Played for laughs in Film/{{UHF}} during the Rambo parody scene, when air-to-air missiles fired from a helicopter cause giant structures such as the Eiffle Tower to explode, and the main character uses a ''bow-and-arrow'' to cause an enemy soldier to explode.
* Music/PinkFloyd's ''Music/TheWall''. It definitely does not get ''torn'' down at the end.
* About half of ''Film/XXx'' is made of StuffBlowingUp. Lots of it.
* At the end of Michaelangelo Antonioni's ''Film/ZabriskiePoint'', a luxury designer house, built way out in the desert, explodes ''for no discernible reason whatsoever''. Since this is a late-60s art film, with psychedelic dream sequences and a Music/PinkFloyd soundtrack, it is probably an AngstNuke played out in the head of the young woman protagonist watching it. This was once voted "Best Cinematic Explosion Ever". Just in case you miss it, the explosion is shown several times, and topped off with a trippy slo-mo montage of various domestic items being blown sky-high, all set to [[Music/PinkFloyd "Careful with that Axe, Eugene."]]
* The whole premise of Creator/StevenSpielberg's ''Film/NineteenFortyOne''.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] ''Film/TwentyOneJumpStreet''. First [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when neither propane nor oil cause an explosion after the vehicles in which they were transported have been hit, despite the main characters expecting them too, however, in the next scene, a chicken transporter explodes after being hit.
* Creator/MichaelBay demands things to be awesome. And by 'awesome', he means '[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXRCf9LbLM0 stuff blowing up]]'.
** [[BlackComedy It's a shame he didn't blow up the tiger.]]
*** There is a version where he blows up ''the Awesome Verizon Guy''. Is that enough?
*** Apparently he saves the tiger-splosions for [[http://www.digitalpimponline.com/strips.php?start=33&title=movie his]] [[http://www.digitalpimponline.com/strips.php?start=32&title=movie attack]] [[http://www.digitalpimponline.com/strips.php?start=31&title=movie tigers]].
** In his work on the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' movies, he's strived to outdo himself: the rendering of a giant robot caused a computer to overheat and catch fire! Although it didn't explode. ''Yet''.
** Surprisingly downplayed in ''Film/PainAndGain'', as there is only one explosion in the whole movie.
* Toho are the masters of this, showcased not only in their Kaiju films (Especially Godzilla), but several of their disaster films as well.
* A lot of films involving [[HollywoodTactics black powder-age warfare]] tend to treat 15th-to-19th century cannons as if they were equivalent to modern artillery and fired shells filled with dynamite or other modern explosives. In nearly all depictions of battles from that era all artillery projectiles seem to be explosive, while in reality even by the early 19th century at most one-fifth of an army's pieces were howitzers (i. e. pieces able to fire shells, at a distinctly slower rate of fire) while the rest alternated between firing roundshot (solid cannonballs) and canister (at short range). Few films make the effort to try to imitate the effect of a cannonball ploughing through a unit, preferring the more spectacular, often exaggerated explosion of a shell. Thus in ''{{Cromwell}}'' the first battle of Edgehill (which happened at a time when field artillery was still in its infancy and played only a minor role on the battlefield) is opened by a barrage worthy of Paesschendaele with spectacular explosions all around, and at the end of ''Amistad'' a slavers' base on the West African coast is shelled and spectacularly destroyed by the Royal Navy (with only some very small cannons in evidence) at a time when naval artillery was practically solid shot only.
* TheMafia bombs ''Film/TheNorthAvenueIrregulars''' church when they start getting too close to TheMafia's bank.
* What happens in every action movie ever made to the point where it's a genre defining characteristic.
* Inverted in ''Fklm/LastActionHero'', when Jack Slater is in the real world and the taxi he shoots ''doesn't'' blow up, he checks the gun he is using.
* ''Film/{{Speed}}'' has two buses (the second being the one [[DieHardOnAnX most of the movie takes place on]]) go up in fiery explosions as well as a house and an airliner. At the end of of the sequel, a supertanker explosion takes out the BigBad.

* ''Film/{{Koyaanisqatsi}}'' has sequences of quarry blasting, nuclear bomb tests, air-to-ground ordnance tests, vacant buildings being demolished, consumer durables fitted with explosives and an unmanned rocket being destroyed in flight with an extended take of the flaming pieces descending. All set to the Philip Glass soundtrack. And it's awesome in a sad sort of way.

* ''Film/TheDayAfter'' is a powerful {{Deconstruction}}, thanks to multiple nuclear missiles fired at Kansas City and [[PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower Whiteman Air Force Base]], resulting in a huge monstrous fireball that vaporizes all living things within its reach, and knocks over every building (the latter done via stock footage of the 1950s of real nuclear bomb tests).

* SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' ''really'' likes explosions:

* At the end of Michaelangelo Antonioni's ''Zabriskie Point'', a luxury designer house, built way out in the desert, explodes ''for no discernible reason whatsoever''. Since this is a late-60s art film, with psychedelic dream sequences and a Music/PinkFloyd soundtrack, it is probably an AngstNuke played out in the head of the young woman protagonist watching it. This was once voted "Best Cinematic Explosion Ever". Just in case you miss it, the explosion is shown several times, and topped off with a trippy slo-mo montage of various domestic items being blown sky-high, all set to [[Music/PinkFloyd "Careful with that Axe, Eugene."]]

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in the film version of ''21 Jump Street''. First [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when neither propane nor oil cause an explosion after the vehicles in which they were transported have been hit, despite the main characters expecting them too, however, in the next scene, a chicken transporter explodes after being hit.

----

** The ''[[XWingSeries X-Wing]]'' Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse books like to describe exactly how each TIE fighter that's shot down explodes, in exquisite detail. Other stuff blows up quite frequently also. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by this quote:

* The whole premise of Creator/StevenSpielberg's ''[[NineteenFortyOne 1941]]''.

* The [[Film/StarTrek Star Trek reboot]] features things exploding. Many things exploding. Explodily. Which were produced by IndustrialLightAndMagic. And it was ''awesome''.

* The ''Film/DieHard'' film series havs bigger and bigger explosions in each installment. Summing it up: the 1st has a floor of a building. The 4th has ''a building''.

*** Many of the X-Wing books are written by Michael Stackpole, who loves this trope so much that his novels set in the ''BattleTech'' universe gave rise to the term "stackpoling" to refer to a [[ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics fusion reactor exploding]]. [[RuleOfCool He gets away with it because it's cool.]]

* ''{{Anastasia}}'' loves this trope, mostly for the effects animators to show off (such as the RunawayTrain violently exploding in a large, stereotypical Hollywood explosion with sparks flying upward!)

* ''JamesBond'' has the usual exploding vehicles, villain lairs and [[ItsGoingDown general buildings]] of any action movie. And [[GadgeteerGenius Q]] usually arms him with mines or some sort of exploding gadget (such as exploding toothpaste and a pen-grenade).

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyPTmd_HUi8 This scene]] from ''Film/{{Jaws}} [[{{Mockbuster}} 5: Cruel Jaws]]'' is possibly the most contrived and WTF-enducing way to slip an explosion into a film ever.

* ''{{Koyaanisqatsi}}'' has sequences of quarry blasting, nuclear bomb tests, air-to-ground ordnance tests, vacant buildings being demolished, consumer durables fitted with explosives and an unmanned rocket being destroyed in flight with an extended take of the flaming pieces descending. All set to the Philip Glass soundtrack. And it's awesome in a sad sort of way.

* What happens in every action movie ever made to the point where it's a genre defining characteristic.
* A lot of films involving [[HollywoodTactics black powder-age warfare]] tend to treat 15th-to-19th century cannons as if they were equivalent to modern artillery and fired shells filled with dynamite or other modern explosives. In nearly all depictions of battles from that era all artillery projectiles seem to be explosive, while in reality even by the early 19th century at most one-fifth of an army's pieces were howitzers (i. e. pieces able to fire shells, at a distinctly slower rate of fire) while the rest alternated between firing roundshot (solid cannonballs) and canister (at short range). Few films make the effort to try to imitate the effect of a cannonball ploughing through a unit, preferring the more spectacular, often exaggerated explosion of a shell. Thus in ''{{Cromwell}}'' the first battle of Edgehill (which happened at a time when field artillery was still in its infancy and played only a minor role on the battlefield) is opened by a barrage worthy of Paesschendaele with spectacular explosions all around, and at the end of ''Amistad'' a slavers' base on the West African coast is shelled and spectacularly destroyed by the Royal Navy (with only some very small cannons in evidence) at a time when naval artillery was practically solid shot only.

* ''JamesBond'' has the usual exploding vehicles, villain lairs and [[ItsGoingDown general buildings]] of any action movie. And [[GadgeteerGenius Q]] usually arms him with mines or some sort of exploding gadget (such as exploding toothpaste and a pen-grenade).
** The video game, ''[[VideoGame/GoldenEye1997 Golden Eye: 007]]'', where--shot enough times--''everything'' explodes.
** At the climax of ''Film/LiveAndLetDie'', the '''villain''' -- rapidly pumped full of high-pressure [=CO2=] -- explodes.
* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', the aliens apparently have firestorm cannons that [[MonumentalDamage blow up]] [[LandmarkOfLore famous landmarks]].
* The climax of the movie version of Creator/StephenKing's ''Firestarter'' fits this trope quite well.
* At the end of Michaelangelo Antonioni's ''Zabriskie Point'', a luxury designer house, built way out in the desert, explodes ''for no discernible reason whatsoever''. Since this is a late-60s art film, with psychedelic dream sequences and a Music/PinkFloyd soundtrack, it is probably an AngstNuke played out in the head of the young woman protagonist watching it. This was once voted "Best Cinematic Explosion Ever". Just in case you miss it, the explosion is shown several times, and topped off with a trippy slo-mo montage of various domestic items being blown sky-high, all set to [[Music/PinkFloyd "Careful with that Axe, Eugene."]]
* SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' ''really'' likes explosions:
-->'''Joker''': See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite... and gunpowder... and gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!
* ''Film/TheDayAfter'' is a powerful {{Deconstruction}}, thanks to multiple nuclear missiles fired at Kansas City and [[PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower Whiteman Air Force Base]], resulting in a huge monstrous fireball that vaporizes all living things within its reach, and knocks over every building (the latter done via stock footage of the 1950s of real nuclear bomb tests).
* ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'''s [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGNcoB2Y4I trailer]], framed as a Hitchhiker's Guide entry on movie trailers, notes "the goal is to create a piece of advertising that is original and exciting, yet intelligent and provocative. In other words: lots of things blowing up, ''[cue montage of movie explosions]'' occasionally interrupted [[MsFanservice by a girl in a bikini]]."
* ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'': "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" As well as the van, the film heavily features three minis among its vehicles. [[spoiler:The gang dispose of them by letting them fall off cliffs, whereupon the third mini [[MadeOfExplodium blows up before hitting the ground]].]]
* ''Film/SpeedRacer'' has loads and loads of gratuitous explosions, but the whole movie is built on rule of cool and car-fu so no one really cares.
* ''Film/TheProducers'': ZE KVICK FUSE!?! (To a massive amount of kaboom.)
* ''Film/JohnnyDangerously'': "Knock down THAT wall, knock down THAT wall, and knock down THAT farging wall!" BOOM! "Now, I'm really mad. This is farging war!"
* ''Film/{{Tremors}}:'' "It's gonna be big!!!" "Is it gonna be today?!?"
** The 2nd movie [[spoiler: ends with a literal truckload of high-explosives (2.5 tons, to be exact) blowing up, along with the oil refinery where it was parked. It leaves a huge crater.]]
** The 3rd movie involves Burt's truck [[spoiler: and house]] blowing up.
* ''DerClown'''s love for spectacular explosions is continued in the movie ''Payday'' which features [[spoiler:an Autobahn being blown up over its entire width with hand grenades, sending police cars [[SloMoBigAir flying]],]] and [[spoiler:an aircraft bombed with gold bars so it [[ImpressivePyrotechnics turns into one big giant fireball]].]]
* ''{{Anastasia}}'' loves this trope, mostly for the effects animators to show off (such as the RunawayTrain violently exploding in a large, stereotypical Hollywood explosion with sparks flying upward!)
* ''Film/{{Swordfish}}'' begins InMediasRes with a bank full of booby-trapped hostages. The police, being TooDumbToLive, attempt to "rescue" one, despite her terrified resistance. The resulting explosion takes out dozens of cars and cops in ''BulletTime''.
* About half of ''Film/XXx'' is made of StuffBlowingUp. Lots of it.
* The whole premise of Creator/StevenSpielberg's ''[[NineteenFortyOne 1941]]''.
* About half of ''The Marine'' is made of StuffBlowingUp. Lots of it.
* The [[Film/StarTrek Star Trek reboot]] features things exploding. Many things exploding. Explodily. Which were produced by IndustrialLightAndMagic. And it was ''awesome''.
* The ''Film/DieHard'' film series havs bigger and bigger explosions in each installment. Summing it up: the 1st has a floor of a building. The 4th has ''a building''.
* Tim from ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' introduces himself with various explosions. Perhaps that's why they used coconuts instead of horses.
* ''{{Koyaanisqatsi}}'' has sequences of quarry blasting, nuclear bomb tests, air-to-ground ordnance tests, vacant buildings being demolished, consumer durables fitted with explosives and an unmanned rocket being destroyed in flight with an extended take of the flaming pieces descending. All set to the Philip Glass soundtrack. And it's awesome in a sad sort of way.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyPTmd_HUi8 This scene]] from ''Film/{{Jaws}} [[{{Mockbuster}} 5: Cruel Jaws]]'' is possibly the most contrived and WTF-enducing way to slip an explosion into a film ever.

* Music/PinkFloyd's ''Music/TheWall''. It definitely does not get ''torn'' down at the end.
* In ''Poseidon'', one of the main characters pushes a cannister into the bow thruster, so that they can escape through it. Somehow, despite only damaging the thruster motor, a huge fireball is thrown out of both ends of the thruster. (Also, when the bow thruster was pushing starboard, the air was being pushed into the room. It was being sucked out when it started pushing to port. Since in either situation, air should just be sucked in one end of the thruster and blown out the other, there seems to be no reason for this. Air pressure in the thruster room should remain neutral, though there would be draughts.)
* The alternate ending of ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in the film version of ''21 Jump Street''. First [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when neither propane nor oil cause an explosion after the vehicles in which they were transported have been hit, despite the main characters expecting them too, however, in the next scene, a chicken transporter explodes after being hit.
* It's easier to list the things that aren't blown up, impaled by flying objects or crushed in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' than the things that are.
* In ''Film/{{Frankenhooker}}'', a MadScientist invents a FantasticDrug called "supercrack," which causes prostitutes who smoke it explode. A whole room full of them do.

* The finale of ''{{Suspiria}}'' has ''the whole Academy'' blowing up bit by bit, starting with a ceramic panther and then ending up with a classic explosion with fire.

* ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'''s [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGNcoB2Y4I trailer]], framed as a Hitchhiker's Guide entry on movie trailers, featured "the requisite montage of explosions, followed by a woman in a bikini."

* ''StarWars'' and the Death Stars, baby (in this case, the stations themselves, not [[EarthShatteringKaboom their targets]]). You'd think a reactor would have fail-safes so that if containment was breached or the reaction controls were destroyed it would automatically shut down, rendering the station lifeless, but no, it goes kablooie. And it is ''[[RuleOfCool sweet]]''.

** The ''[[XWingSeries X-Wing]]'' ExpandedUniverse books like to describe exactly how each TIE fighter that's shot down explodes, in exquisite detail. Other stuff blows up quite frequently also. {{Lampshade}}d by this quote:

*** Many of the X-Wing books are written by Michael Stackpole, who loves this trope so much that his novels set in the ''BattleTech'' universe gave rise to the term "stackpoling" to refer to a [[YouFailNuclearPhysicsForever fusion reactor exploding]]. [[RuleOfCool He gets away with it because it's cool.]]

* About half of ''XXx'' is made of StuffBlowingUp. Lots of it.