There have been plenty of times when movie stunts didn't go well and could have caused much more harm.

Audiences know that stunts are arguably one of the most respectable aspects of filmmaking. Despite the dangers of performing stunts, they remain one of the most impressive parts of creating movies. For the most part, stunts are choreographed and prepped with such care and precision that, should anything go wrong, the cast and crew are prepared for the worst.

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Sometimes, stunts go wrong and cause harm to the actors or stunt double involved. Whether an actor or stunt double is hurt in the process, there have been a handful of moments where stunts that didn't pan out the way they were meant to could have been much worse.

The crime thriller, Now You See Me, took magic to another level of mystique with characters utilizing magic tricks to pull off heists. During one scene, Isla Fisher's Henley demonstrates a trick in which her character intends to escape a tank of water while handcuffed and chained to the bottom before flesh-eating piranha are dropped in.

Though Henley's act makes it appear like she struggles to escape, the chain around Fisher's ankles had actually got wedged under a slat near the bottom. This prevented her from reaching the top. While the cast and crew thought she was acting out the near-drowning, she struggled to escape the tank and catch air.

It wouldn't be Mission: Impossible without the elaborate stunts pulled off by Tom Cruise and his stunt team. Unfortunately, during the filming of Fallout, a straightforward stunt resulted in Cruise breaking his ankle. The stunt occurs during a chase sequence where Cruise runs and jumps across rooftops after his co-star Henry Cavill.

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Though wires kept up Cruise for safety in case of a potential fall, he jumped into the edge of one rooftop and landed against the wall with his foot first, causing it to fracture. Miraculously, Cruise got up and continued the shot, limping forward.

The political thriller Syriana focused on different storylines around politicians, oil tycoons, and more. George Clooney portrayed a CIA Officer dealing with an illegal weapon trade in Lebanon until he was caught. His character is interrogated and beaten while tied to a chair.

Though the stunt isn't entirely complex and should have been safe for everyone involved, Clooney was hurt terribly. While Clooney's fellow cast member wasn't physically harming him, a fall onto his back and skull caused permanent damage. Clooney's head was split open, and a break in his back caused spinal fluid to leak.

Jackie Chan is no stranger to extreme stunts and broken bones, but a few stunts he performed in Police Story nearly cost him his life. During a time in Chan's career when he was working on multiple projects at once, Police Story lacked the proper requirements to safely nail the stunts that would severely burn his hands and another that broke his back and pelvis.

During one scene where Chan would jump to a pole and slide down, the rod was surrounded by lights that caused the metal pole to heat up. The heated pole caused second-degree burns on Chan's palms, but he pulled it off and went to work on another film the same day.

The Wizard of Oz is a quintessential film in cinematic history but it's not without its flaws, particularly from issues that occurred behind the scenes. Margaret Hamilton played one of the most iconic witches in pop culture. Unfortunately, one stunt involving fire severely harmed Hamilton.

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When Hamilton's Wicked Witch was meant to disappear in a cloud of smoke and fire, the actress was supposed to fall through a trap door on the floor as flames would rise. The trap door was delayed and the flames were released too early, causing Hamilton to suffer second and third-degree burns across her face and hands. Her green makeup was copper-based, which heated and nearly melted itself to her skin.

2004 saw Troy taking Homer's Illiad to the big screen by focusing on the battle for Helen of Troy. The star-studded cast included Brad Pitt in the role of Achilles. Ironically, the actor has gone on record to say that he tore his Achilles tendon toward the end of filming.

Pitt's character dies after being wounded by an arrow through the tendon at the back of his ankle, hence the name of the connective tissue. As amusing as it seems for Pitt to have torn that tendon, he's fortunate that none of the other more dangerous stunts he performed caused damage worse than a torn Achilles.

The dark and ominous story in The Exorcist seems even more frightening because individuals were involved in accidents during filming. Linda Blair, who portrayed the young and possessed Regan MacNeil, suffered a back injury during one of her stunts.

In a scene where Regan was flung back and forth by the demon inside her, Blair was secured by a rig to the bed. The lacing of the rigged harness came loose, and Blair's body was thrown about without the crew realizing that she wasn't locked in properly. The awkward stunt caused a fracture to her lower spine, and actual footage of the moment can be seen in The Exorcist.

Halle Berry has been involved in several incidents that caused her harm during her career, but a stunt in The Call sent Berry to the hospital for a head injury. In The Call, Halle Berry plays a 9-1-1 operator attempting to save a kidnapped girl.

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While Berry's character isn't performing many stunts throughout The Call, a scene where she finds the girl and confronts the kidnapper causes Berry to get hurt. During her performed struggle with her co-star, her head was slammed into the ground, sending her to the Emergency Room.

While some actors suffer injuries or complications from stunts gone wrong, sometimes it's their stunt doubles who risk it all. David Holmes was Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double for Harry Potter until his accident on the set of Deathly Hallows: Part 1. While it remains unclear which scene was being filmed when Holmes got hurt, it was a stunt that had him rigged up to "fly" and get jerked back from an explosion.

Though the stunt mainly went as planned, Holmes was pulled so far back from the blast that he hit a wall and fell to the crash mat below. The blow to his back caused a fracture in his spine that paralyzed him from the chest down.

The third film in the Back to the Future franchise might not be the greatest in the series, but it still featured the lead actors on another fun adventure. Unfortunately for Michael J. Fox, his time as Marty McFly was incredibly dangerous when he nearly died from suffocation.

The Western-focused story saw Marty McFly going up against gunslinging cowboys. In one scene where he's strung up to be hanged, Fox gripped onto the rope around his neck to prevent actual choking. The planned stunt went wrong, and Fox could not keep himself from losing air, causing the actor to blackout.

Born and raised in Orange County, California, Kirsten Schultz moved north just on the outskirts of Los Angeles in 2018. She studied film, television, and media at Cal State LA where she received a Bachelor of Arts in TV/F/M. In June 2021, Kirsten joined Dead Talk Media where she wrote and prepared topics and questions for celebrity guests. She's continuing her journey on writing for media companies as of today, you can find her on Instagram @kirsplusten.