The 7 Best Movie Scenes with Shipping Containers Not only are shipping containers perfect for building, modification, and transport – they’re becoming stars in their own right, appearing in hundreds of films and tv since their humble beginnings. We’ve compiled the best movies shipping containers have starred in lately – there is surely many more to come!
1. War of the Worlds
The opening scene features the lead character – Tom Cruise – in his profession as a crane operator longshoreman who works at a dock in Brooklyn, New York; easily completing his work and refusing another shift before a massive alien invasion on earth.
2. Hanna
Hanna’s ambushed in the movie in a container park, at night. The shipping containers feature heavily in this section of the movie as props for Hanna to escape the bad guys – at first, she runs in between smaller stacked of them to hide, then she jumps on top of the stacks to run away, using the containers being moved to eventually escape.
3. Step Up Revolution
Another great reason to include shipping containers in a movie – dance scenes. Not your usual backdrop for a dance romance, but in this film the containers are literally the stage for a fair amount of the film, where they were staggered around the filming area, so people can dance on, around, in between and in front of the different coloured container stacks.
4. The A Team
Not only a great movie, but a great example of shipping container use in final climatic endings. The movie is shot from the Los Angeles docks for the majority of the final section, with shipping containers used as a meeting point, a distraction, a slight of hand, a hiding place, and a tomb. Impressive stuff for an impressive movie!
5. Lethal Weapon 2
Again, using shipping containers at the end of this movie but the containers have been placed on the ship already, as they were filled with [spoiler alert] cash, so cinematically during the end they are just a backdrop. However, in the final scene, a shipping container gets a close up, again creating a tomb for one of the characters.
6. Iron Man 3
One of the more recent examples of great container usage on the silver screen, the final action scene takes place on a sea port, where the shipping containers are mostly used as a backdrop – except for one container which is used as a giant swing – a few containers were hurt in this film.
7. Fantastic Four
After gaining superpowers, a few shipping containers are used to great visual effect in the 2015 reboot of Marvel’s Fantastic Four movie. Kate Mara, who plays Sue in the remake, tests and practices her powers (invisibility and force fields) on a ring of shipping containers halfway through the film. She really gives them a workout too – probably brand new containers originally.