Creators
- The patron saint of this trope is Jackie Chan. Part of his signature style is picking up random objects from the scene in which he's fighting, like tables, chairs, umbrellas, shopping carts, ladders, refrigerators, LEGO sculptures, and using them in novels ways for combat and mobility.
Animated
- Brave: During the Bar Brawl, Young MacGuffin uses a long bench as a weapon.
- Normally, a sword does not meet the standards for an Improbable Weapon. However, it does in the movie Tangled, where the wielder is a horse. And that's not even getting into Rapunzel's Frying Pan of Doom.
- In the final battle of Mulan, the heroine finds herself standing up against Big Bad Shan Yu, who's twice her height and weight and wielding a deadly sword. She reaches into her waistband and finds a fan — and not even a metal war fan, just a paper one. Shan Yu swings the sword...and Mulan is able to wield the fan in such a way that the blade catches in it, allowing her to snatch it right from his hands. Mushu then gets in on the action by lighting a gigantic firework to hit Shan Yu directly, which sends him careening into an entire storehouse of explosives and sends him out with a literal bang.
Live-Action
- Mike Howell in American Ultra makes use of anything at hand to defend himself: steaming ramen soup, the spoon he was eating said soup with, dust pan, canned goods, hammers, various knives, you name it. If it's within reach, he'll weaponize it.
- Anna and the Apocalypse: Graham, Jake and Tibbsy fight zombies with a video game controller (used like a bolas), a pair of watermelons and a bunch of knives attached to a fence gauntlet to resemble Wolverine claws.
- In Antigang, Genu uses an 'enforcer'—a one-man battering ram used for breaching doors—as a hand-to-hand weapon; wielding it like a tonfa during the final fight against Kasper's gang.
- In Aquaman: The Cast of the Angler, Aquaman throws starfish like ninja stars to attack enemies.
- In Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery , Oddjob spoof "Random Task" throws his shoes as weapons. When he tries this move on Austin late in the film, he only succeeds in giving the superspy a minor headache, prompting an incredulous response: "Who throws a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!"
- In Batman (1989) the Joker at one point wields a revolver with a ridiculously long (as in, over 3 feet) barrel that somehow takes down the Batplane in one shot.
- In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Genghis Khan is impressed by the military potential of modern sporting equipment. He dons some football armor, arms himself with an aluminum baseball bat, and charges off on a skateboard.
- In Daredevil (2003), anything Bullseye throws is a murder weapon (except when thrown at his Plot Armored nemesis). This includes semi-normal things like darts, steel needles, shuriken, and one of Elektra's sai. It also includes off-the-wall items like unsharpened pencils, Daredevil's cane (which to be fair is actually a weapon), paperclips, and chunks of stained glass. In one case he even manages to kill someone with a peanut!
- Among the many knives found in the Joker's pockets in The Dark Knight film, the police also pull out a potato peeler! You may cringe at the thought of how effectively he'd use it. He also makes effective use of a pencil.
- Desperado had guitar cases that served as rocket launchers and machineguns.
- In Once Upon a Time in Mexico, we get a guitar case with a flamethrower and another case that could be remote controlled as a rolling bomb.
- In Edge of Tomorrow, Rita wields a sharpened rotor blade as a BFS (with the help of Power Armor).
- In The Fastest Guitar Alive, Roy Orbison wields a guitar that conceals a rifle.
- Pam Grier as blaxploitation hero Foxy Brown: "I've got a black belt in barstools!"
- Nick Frost's character in The World's End dual wields barstools.
- Grosse Pointe Blank: "I once killed the president of Paraguay with a fork."
- The killers in Gutterballs dispose of most of their victims with bowling pins, blunt ones for bludgeoning and sharpened ones for stabbing.
- In Guns, Girls and Gambling, The College Kid attacks John Smith and takes him down with a beer can.
- Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth features the CD and Camerahead Cenobites. Guess what their main weapons are.
- In The Host (2006), Gang-du gets increasingly skilled with a stop sign.
- James Bond: In Goldfinger, henchman Oddjob uses his razor-rimmed hat as a throwing weapon.
- John Wick: Viggo mentions that he once saw John kill three guys in a bar with a pencil; in the sequel, we finally get to see him do it, albeit only two guys this time. In the third film, he ups the ante by killing one assassin with a book and several others with a horse.
- KL Hog's weapon of choice in Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons is a rake, as when he was human he had been attacked by villagers wielding them.
- In Killer Workout, the killer's preferred weapon is a giant safety pin.
- In Labyrinth, the goblin guards in the hedge maze sections use small, sharp-toothed critters tied to the end of poles, which bite whatever they are put near.
- In The Legend of Tarzan, Rom uses a weaponized rosary to garotte his foes.
- The young Jack Carlisle from the film Magic Island once used bubble gum to defeat a land shark, yes, you read that right.
- In the Sammo Hung film Magnificent Butcher, Wong Fei Hung fights another kung fu master with ink brushes.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Winter Soldier is one of these whenever he doesn't have a strike team around to keep handing him loaded BFGs. The signs are there in the movie of the same name, which features him disabling a moving car by pulling out the steering wheel and throwing more than one person into a vehicle. But it doesn't really reach its apex until Civil War, where he uses (among other things) a railing, a mattress, helicopter blades, and Cap as weapons.
- Microwave Massacre, The Nail Gun Massacre, Woodchipper Massacre, etc.
- In The Mummy Returns, Jonathan fights Anck Su Namun with a golden stick-club-staff-thingy. Wasn't until later that they discovered that the stick turns into the Spear of Osiris.
- Anck Su Namun at one point threw a snake at a Rick. He caught it and threw it back.
- Practically every main character in Mystery Men uses an unusual weapon. Examples include thrown forks, a shovel, a possessed bowling ball, and flatulence. The film also includes a weapon designer who only creates improbable nonlethal weapons.
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian showcases the usefulness of a Maglite flashlight, which is actually a common weapon for security guards and other types of people.
- Anton Chigurh of No Country for Old Men has a cattle bolt gun, which uses compressed air to shoot out a retractable metal rod. He apparently uses it because it's good for blowing out locks, and not many people can tell it's a weapon.
- The hero of Pootie Tang uses his belt with great effect.
- Python: While being attacked in the shower, Theresa tries to hold the python back by whipping at it with a towel, squirting shampoo into its eyes and then futilely throwing a rubber duck at it.
- The title character of the Japanese splatter film RoboGeisha is proficient in the use of weapons one would not normally expect to be deadly... with the most eye opening example being a pair of fried shrimp.
- Joey in Rolling Vengeance who uses a monster truck of all things during his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- See No Evil: Kane's main method of killing people is a meat hook.
- George in Sharknado uses a barstool as a weapon on two occasions.
- Shaun of the Dead and the cricket bat. Not to mention the records. Later at the Winchester, they try to fight off a zombie with billiards cues and throwing darts.
- Smith manages to kill someone with a carrot in Shoot 'Em Up. TWICE! He even uses one as a trigger finger when his hands are injured.
- The killer of Sorority Row uses a bladed lug wrench for stabbing, throwing and at one point, after attaching some rope, as a Killer Yo-Yo.
- ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) features Casey Jones, who has a penchant for sporting goods, including golf clubs, hockey sticks, and a cricket bat. Twice during the film's climax, he manages to use a garbage truck as a weapon. The films drop subtle hints that with his bare hands he's an average fighter (he takes down a few Foot ninjas with his bare fists in the climax), but if given a weapon he's effectively unbeatable.
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, the turtles don't use their actual weapons to attack a single time in the film, instead using many different improvised weapons, such as sausage links and yo-yos during the battle against the mall robbers in the mall at the beginning.
- Somewhat exaggerated in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, where Casey defeats a group of Foot ninjas (armed with swords and ninja stars) with a hockey stick alone.
- As the title implies, the killer's arsenal in The Toolbox Murders consists solely of stuff you'd find in a toolbox, like a hammer, nail gun, screwdriver and drill.
- The eponymous hero of The Toxic Avenger often uses a mop as a weapon.
- Frank, the eponymous driver of The Transporter, uses all manner of odd melee weapons to incredible effect to take down entire groups of Mooks, including fruit, bicycle pedals, a fire hose, and of course his car.
- In Trick 'r Treat, Sam uses a razorblade hidden in a chocolate bar and an ultra-sharp lollipop.
- TRON. Sole weapon: glowy Frisbee. With a controllable flightpath. Which could chop other characters in half or even split heads (though all we saw were jewel-like bits coming out of the helmet when this happened).
- Undercover Brother uses afro picks as throwing knives.
- In the climactic battle of Vampires vs. the Bronx, one kid chucks a Timberland boot at the lead vampire. It does nothing but confuse everybody.
- Both the 1973 and 2004 versions of Walking Tall was all about laying the smackdown with a two by four, based on the real life Buford Pusser.
