Nearly a film noir trademark, but has now all but disappeared. I imagine this cool, confident style must have died with noir.





Any movie characters still shoot from the hip?

Tom Jane shoots from the hip in the end of The Punisher.

Quigley Down Under (warning this is the finale) (a very very underrated, very badass western)

When it was discovered that this wasn't Julia Roberts' body.

I don't know if this is "cool confident style" or noir. It's recent though.

Probably when movie studios and directors started hiring actual military or police officers to train and teach the actors that shooting from the hip, although looks cool, is ridiculous and inaccurate way to shoot a gun.

My best guess is that it died when gun consultants got involved, i.e. it's probably not as accurate shooting like that.

Although there could be a couple other things at play. Shooting from the hip doesn't seem as threatening as the "arms stretched out" method. Also I'd think the type of gun being used could be a factor. Modern guns may look silly with the 'from the hip' style versus a revolver/western look which works.

*edit - Beat to the punch.

I always thought it looked unrealistic and stupid.

Yup, I remember my dad saying that he had not seen a shootout like that in a long time.

Most of the best stress/combat shooters on earth do a point shooting approach. Firing from the hip is a common tactic for a point shooter.

I won't get too technical but trying to line up sights and aim on a pistol is a great way to get killed, since the largest majority of armed encounters takes place at 10 feet or less. More than 90% of these shootings take place at less than 15 feet in many police and FBI studies on the subject.

All the 'tacticool' looking stuff in the movies sells to the mass audience though, I agree on that point. That's probably why the stuff has changed as several have posted.

In the old west men filed the sights off their weapons and perfected point shooting. Most of the time it was from the hip, at a position they knew very well, aiming directly at their own stomach/chest every time, took practice. Sometimes they actually held the weapon in the middle of their stomach to point shoot, there were many variations. The scene "can I move?" in Butch Cassidy by Redford was a nice allusion to this, standing and aiming he wasn't much, aiming his body in motion was where he could put accurate fire down range.(though in fact most point shooters are pretty good with sights too like John Wesley Hardin and James Butler Hickok) In a stress situation they need only have their stomach/chest aiming at the opponent to put effective fire on target, and they can do so while moving.(moving to cover) There is a complete disconnect between standing on a firing range 'aiming', and actually engaging in a stress/combat firefight, and using the sights is the largest disconnect in tactics.

This is a very realistic example of a close range encounter by someone who knows what they are doing. I was blown away by how technical this scene was. Whoever coached Tom knew what they were doing and he really pulls it off. Notice there is zero 'aiming'. you have to get past 'aiming' in the traditional sense to be effective.


In a 10 year study by the NYPD on 'sudden combat'/stress shootings the finest police marksmen on the target range had less than 35% accuracy on the opponent at 9 feet or less, most far less averaging around 19% for the department. More than 70% of officers involved in the thousands of shootings reported and studied in that time said they never used the sights and were point shooting the weapon. Some of the men who had hit ratings less than 20% in an actual firefight could reliably be accurate with a pistol at 50 yards, 150 feet. That is very difficult to do as you have to windage the degrading parabola of the bullet arc to accomplish this.

Firing from the hip is one of the tactics actual combat shooters utilize. If you go to a firearms school like the one Massad Ayoob runs, or the many like it. You learn point shooting for combat primarily, and not sight alignment. So in this one detail movies are actually getting less accurate, but overall the accuracy of firearms in whole is way up. They have to reload these days and whatnot.

Apologies if I took a 'movie topic' too far into unnecessary detail.

This is new for you how?

Just kidding. Thanks for the info.

Interesting stuff there Dr. Mabuse, I kinda thought it would actually be more accurate than holding a gun outstretched with one hand.

Now they shoot gangta sideways style.

Gangsta style > hip