The 50 Greatest Sneaker Moments In Movies

Hollywood's greatest feets.

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Image via Complex Original
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Someday, sneakers in movies will be treated with the respect they deserve. One day a McFly will get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an Air Jordan will get signed up for a sequel, and a Cortez will win the Academy Award for Best Sneaker in a Supporting Role (and give one heck of a speech). In the meantime, though, it's a good thing we have Gary Warnett around to take you through The 50 Greatest Sneaker Moments in Movies.

50. Wovens In Tokyo Make The Cipher Complete

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Movie:Lost in Translation
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When the Air Woven dropped, it was a hugely significant moment that pulled sneaker design and marketing into the 21st century. You didn't think you'd see Bill Murray wearing a pair, but in Sofia Coppola's 'Lost in Translation' he pulls them off with ruffled ease. Was there a correlation between a shoe that got an HTM makeover appearing here and a cameo from Mr. Hiroshi Fujiwara? Possibly.

49. The Nike Terra T/C: Base Of The Truffle Shuffle

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Movie:The Goonies
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Lawrence "Chunk" Cohen might have needed to shed a few pounds, but he was unlikely to take up running at any point. You can't knock his pick of the state-of-the-art Terra T/C though — a shoe that introduced the world to Phylon, a technology that was the Lunar foam of its day. Why isn't there a Terra T/C retro on the shelf?

48. Scotty Appleton Chases Crackheads In Phantoms

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Movie:New Jack City
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Ice-T knew the score. If you're going to engage in a spectacular pursuit of a young Chris Rock by foot — set in late '80s New York — do it in a hi-top like the Phantom Hi. Pookie rocks the adidas too and some of the styles that get worn throughout 'New Jack City' stay classic. Many of Nino's suits remain a stylistic no-go, but everyone should reacquaint themselves with this film.

47. adidas Summit, Official Shoe Of The Police Academy

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Movie:Police Academy
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Other than scope for hi-jinks on a day-to-day basis and sharing a dorm room with human sound effect lab Michael Winslow, the other incentive for joining the Police Academy for the first film was the standard issue footwear for training in — the adidas Summit (not to be mistaken with the Ransom by adidas Summit) running shoe in an appropriately po-po navy and white colorway. This is a pretty obscure sneaker that harks back to a simpler time for sports footwear.

46. Mo' Money, Mo' Infrared Jordan VIs

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Movie:Mo' Money
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This film had the beautiful Stacey Dash and a pair of White/Infrared Jordan VIs on Damon Wayans's feet when he's waiting for a phone call alongside his brother. That kind of offsets the rest of the movie's uneasy mix of comedy, AIDS jokes and blasts of violence.

45. Dances With Brooms (In Nike Blazers)

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Movie:Breakin'
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Laugh it up, but while the Blazer was already a budget part of the line by the time this film dropped, for an international audience not raised on the likes of George Gervin, beyond those who saw the Blazer on the likes of Tony Alva's feet, Turbo dancing around a broom to Kraftwerk in 'Breakin' (aka. 'Breakdance'), it was a revelation, even if the rest of this film was just a typical sub-culture exploitation.

44. Getting Hairy In The adidas Tourney

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Movie:Teen Wolf
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It's tough trying to work out what's on Michael J. Fox's feet in 'Teen Wolf' but it looks a lot like the adidas Tourney — a popular basketball sneaker for high schools and colleges at time-of-filming. This movie is festooned in adidas — a stark contrast to the Nike-centric 'Back to the Future' franchise that popped off the same year.

43. Pump It Up In Nottingham Forest

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Movie:Robin Hood: Men In Tights
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A better Reebok Pump moment in a slightly piss-poor film than the excruciating moment of Pump with Ben Kingsley in the '90s nostalgia of 'The Wackness', Dave Chappelle's decision to Pump up an anonymous looking Pump design is almost funny. It would have been funnier if it wasn't released two years after the Dee Brown "No Look" dunk it references.

42. Doc Brown Wore Nikes, Too

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Movie:Back to the Future
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Marty's not the only Nike wearer in 'Back to the Future'. Before the Libyans attack, Doctor Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D seems to be wearing a pair of Nike Vandals in a yellow or gold color. Are they a tricked-out version of the gold variant in line with the Doc's inventiveness and eccentricity?

41. At The Bottom Of The Ocean, No One Can See Your Air Max 87s

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Movie:Leviathan
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1989 b-movies were laden with good shoes, and Leviathan has a good glimpse of the covetable blue and white Air Max 87 when Amanda Pays's character puts them on. That's one of the few notable things about a horror film that dropped as part of a rush-released slew of deep sea terrors to cash in on 'The Abyss.' That, plus a tasteless conclusion where Peter Weller gives Meg Tilly the Chris Brown treatment.

40. Run Through The Jungle. In Scottie Pippens.

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Movie:George of the Jungle
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This is a terrible, terrible film. But the movie adaptation of 'George of the Jungle' incorporates an utterly unnecessary scene where George exits a crate in Africa, opens a Nike box and laces up in a pair of the anti-subtle Air More Uptempos. The camera dwells on the shoe and George runs off in to the wilderness in them. It's blatant to the point of obnoxiousness. Why a basketball shoe instead of a running shoe? And why do they come out of a Nike Air Muscle Max box?

39. Aging Rapidly In Air Jordan IIs

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Movie:Warlock
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'Warlock' is good, idiotic fun that pays no heed to the budgetary limitations. Julian Sands drinks the fat of children and flies, Richard E. Grant is a witch hunter from the past who says stupid things in a weird Scottish accent and Lori Singer ages by decades each day because of a magic spell. They didn't skimp on the sneaker budget though, because Lori Singer's rapidly withering leading lady rocks the Air Jordan II for the final three-quarters of this fantasy horror flick.

38. More Stylish Than Zoolander

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Movie:Heavy Weights
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'Heavy Weights' is an unremarkable kid's comedy that's only good for Valium-addled transatlantic flights, but it's notable for two things — an early Judd Apatow writing gig and Ben Stiller in proto 'DodgeBall' jerk mode wearing the cult classic Air Huarache Light in the grape colorway. The sneaker's reputation has eclipsed the movie it made a cameo in.

37. Walking Tough High School Hallways In Air Maxes

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Movie:Lean on Me
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Honestly, you could single out any high school drama from 1984 to 1994 and yield screencap gold, but there's an unnatural amount of excellent sneaker sightings on the supposedly impoverished Eastside High School students. Morgan Freeman wandering corridors flanked by Tony 'Candyman' Todd, disarming thugs with a Tannoy and trying to talk Kid Ray out of that bad suit are classic moments, but the jump rope scene, where Joe Clark lightens up, features an Air Max 87 (back when it was an aspirational shoe) in the shot.

36. After A Day As A Woman, You Need To Kick Back In Suedes

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Movie:Tootsie
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What? You haven't been looking for sneakers in Academy Award nominated movies where Dustin Hoffman resorts to transvestism? Before he becomes Dorothy Michaels, Dustin's character rocks a fine pair of PUMA Suedes in both the film and on the poster and DVD artwork. Many tried to hunt this makeup down back in the day, to no avail.

35. Snootchie Bootchie Nootchies

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Movie:Clerks
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Motormouth Jay wears a surprisingly muted shoe when he's hanging outside the store in Kevin Smith's budget classic. Bob always seemed to be more of a Nike dude, but Jay's soon-to-be-retroed Saga II was a mid-price release that was never really meant for hardcore running. It's probably better suited for swearing, dancing and harassing folk outside a local retail operation.

34. What To Wear In Detention

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Movie:The Breakfast Club
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Physics club member Brian Johnson might be the nerd of the detained crew that make up the cast of John Hughes's classic brat pack flick, but he's actually the coolest in the club because of his footwear choice. The Nike Internationalist superseded old favorites like the Waffle Trainer and our flare gun packing friend wears this classic runner very well indeed. Additionally, Bender seems to wear something akin to the Nike Fortress Hi during his distraction session on the basketball court.

33. Who Said You Can't Play Tennis In Dunks?

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32. Air Jordan XII As Holster

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Movie:Shottas
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This Jamaican crime flick is addictive, but the film was far too yard to pay heed to wardrobe or period dress. Witness the appearance of a 1997 technical basketball shoe to stash a gun in a scene set in 1978. These guys were way, way ahead of their time on the footwear front and it's accompanied by some Hilfiger boxers in these wayback scenes too to maximise the sense of inaccuracy.

31. Kicking Ass In Retro Jordans

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Movie:The Crimson Rivers
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You think sneaker sightings are confined to English language? Incorrect. This Gallic action thriller has shades of 'Se7en' but Vincent Cassel as a young cop has a memorable bust-up with a whole group of skinheads and wears retro Jordan IVs to kick ass. Vincent Cassel's hip-hop roots run deep and director Mathieu Kassovitz has plenty of sneaker knowledge — as his learned appearance in 'Just For Kicks' attests.

30. Marty McFly Had Bruins Before You

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Movie:Back To the Future
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Marty McFly's all-American '80s teen persona is embodied in the Nike Bruin. Nike becomes a running motif to represent Marty's time zone, with a 2015 redux in the shape of the Mag when the sequel rolls around, yet the leather Bruin with the red Swoosh stays timeless. A glorious moment in product placement.

29. New Fits For Dunks

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Movie:School Daze
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Another deserved mention for Spike's 'School Daze' comes via the pajama party scene at the end. The attire of many males in attendance is pauseworthy — who goes to a party in briefs and sneakers alone? But appropriately for a college-based film, there's classic Dunks in attendance too. Kids, don't try this look at home or in public.

28. Wayne Explains The Omega Flames

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Movie:High Hopes
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We have to give some credence to the arthouse side of things beyond the bubblegum nonsense, and strangely, one of the greatest sneakers ever appears in a Mike Leigh film. If you don't know about the bafflingly un-retroed Nike Omega Flame — a runner in some pretty gaudy colors, Japanese and European collectors know the deal. Main character Wayne gets quizzed by a bohemian couple about his distinctive (and wise) choice of footwear in a scene from 'High Hopes.'

27. Q Passes On The Pumps

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Movie:Juice
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As Spike Lee's cinematographer, did 'Juice' director Ernest Dickerson learn the art of sly product placement? Forget Tupac's 40 Belows for a second and look at the early scene where Omar Epps's character looks to his brother for morning sneaker approval. Trying on a trio of Pump styles including the Twilight Zone, Court Victory and Omni Zone, his sibling denies each pick and Q settles for a shoe that looks a little like the Nike ACG Caldera. Was this all a Reebok Pump diss? Hard to say.

26. Anything But The TRXes

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Movie:McVicar
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The greatest sneaker sightings are the ones where they're the star of the scene. The opening of classic Brit-prison flick 'McVicar' depicts no less than The Who's Roger Daltrey battling prison guards over his "trainers" — a pair of the legendary adidas TRX lightweight running design. That was a sought-after shoe on UK shores in its heyday, making it worth serving extra time for.

25. Obnoxious American Wears Infrared Air Max 90s, Offends England

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Movie:King Ralph
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Fans of bad American comedies between 1987-1997 will yield sneaker-spotting gold. We know that John Goodman's Ralph is boorish from the off because he wears sneakers, yet they're never peasant class — he's even rocking a crown and Grape Jordan Vs on the poster. During a cricket match, the titular Ralph breaks the game's decorum by wearing Air Max 90s in their definitive colors.

24. Blind, Deaf And ACG

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Movie:See No Evil, Hear No Evil
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Forget the fact that this film has a young Kevin Spacey as the villain, or that it's a spectacularly tasteless comedy. What is tasteful is a deaf Gene Wilder's choice of footwear — the oft-underrated Nike Air Pegasus ACG's mix of running and trail styling. How he came to be wearing them is a mystery and it's tragic that Richard Pryor's blind character would never be able to appreciate his friend's footwear choice.

23. Jake Shuttlesworth Gets The New Jordans

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Movie:He Got Game
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How do you win your estranged son's trust? By wearing a killer pair of basketball shoes. Spike's penchant for product placement hadn't diminished in the decade that has had passed since he first depicted MJ sneakers on celluloid, and a scene where an ankle-tagged Denzel visits a sports store and is talked into buying a pair of White/True Reds. Then there's Jesus's Foamposite Pros and Booger's Terra Sertigs — but if we tried to cram that all in, this list would get too Spikecentric.

22. Radio Raheem Fights The Power In Air Revolutions

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Movie:Do The Right Thing
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While Buggin' Out was bugging out over his Air Jordan IVs — very contemporary at time of filming — Radio Raheem was rocking 1987's pioneering Air Revolution (the first Nike basketball shoe with visible air) in the 1988/89 red and white makeup. This towering design suits the owner (was the sneaker and owner synergy a deliberate move on Spike's part?) as he adopts Robert Mitchum's 'Night of the Hunter' speech, bellows about batteries, acts oddly, loses his stereo and is the tragic victim of heavy-handed policing. The world needs another retro of this shoe in OG colors with a strap that actually fits. Mookie's Air Trainer SCs (now called the Air Trainer III) are worthy of note too.

21. Forget The Red Cap, Give Me The Zissous

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Movie:A Life Aquatic
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Wes Anderson always showcases excellent attention-to-detail and the custom adidas that appears in 'A Life Aquatic…' is no exception. The director might be a New Balance type of guy, but this subtly modified adidas Rom had fanboys campaigning for this watery SMU to get a real release, complete with yellow laces and shades of blue in the stripes. The geeks didn't win that battle, so they have to resort to making their own variations.

20. Air Force IIs For The Kid Inside

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Movie:Big
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Everyone loves the FAO Schwartz piano scene in 'Big' and Tom Hanks wears the legendary Air Force II for it. This shoe was huge in New York at the time amongst those in the know, but Tom rocks the performance leather legend well too. The scene is foot-centric enough to be a product placement dream come true. Sneaker fanatics have a tendency to be big kids, and Tom's choice of Air Supports elsewhere in the film displays further taste in excellent footwear.

19. That Doughboy Street Flow

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Movie:Boyz N The Hood
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You don't expect to see Air Flows on cinema screens. Especially in 1991 — a while since they'd originally dropped — and in South Central Los Angeles. But keep your eyes peeled at the end of the film and you'll see Doughboy curb serving to a fiend (at least he's dressed like a fiend with a bugged-out shorts and trackpants combo) who wears Nike's neoprene forefather to the legendary Huarache.

18. Have To Keep Those Air Jordan IIs Clean

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Movie:School Daze
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For some reason 'School Daze' isn't cited as a seminal Spike film or a great movie for sneaker spotting. While it's as heavy-handed as hell, there's gems in the wardrobe department. For starters, there's a lengthy dorm room meeting shot of some Air Jordan IIs being lovingly cleaned as Larry Fishburne's character holds court — an underrated Jordan (especially when they're Italian made) in an overlooked movie.

17. Future's So Bleak, Gotta Wear Officials

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Movie:Blade Runner
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Deckard knew that hunting down replicants required a stealthy sneaker. The solution? The adidas Official shoe — a stealthed-out take on the adidas Stan Smith (or Robert Haillet if we're being pedantic) shoe, with a tweaked outsole. Ridley Scott's occasionally subtle futurism gives Harrison Ford an extra degree of cool, as he takes a quasi-formal design intended for referees and officials and takes it to somewhere equally neon lit, but a little more dystopian. A trenchcoat and all-black-everything on the feet is a strong look.

16. When Fighting A Terminator, Wear Nikes

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Movie:The Terminator
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When Kyle Reese is blasted back from the future without clothes in 'The Terminator' he knows he can't beat a murderous hitman android naked. So he robs a department store and takes some Nike Vandals from a bin that have an appropriately tech-noir colorway of black and silver. Seeing as this model never seemed targeted at basketball play, maybe saving mankind was its performance intent. Had Kyle set that dial to one year later, he could have robbed some Nike Terminators from a Georgetown player's kit bag.

15. Axel Foley Takes His Countries to Beverly Hills

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Movie:Beverly Hills Cop
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Evidently, maverick members of Detroit po-po favour a surprisingly restrained sneaker. For all his loudmouth ways and epic amounts of profanity, the adidas Country is a muted choice, but Axel Foley's outfits have aged pretty well for the leading character in an '80s blockbuster and this shoe got plenty of show in both the film and the extensive promotional materials around it.

14. "Kiss My Converse!"

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Movie:The Last Dragon
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This film left a generation of kids looking for that glow and kicking their peers in the face on the playground, but beyond the influence, there's a significant spot of product placement amid the silliness. Sho'nuff's threatening order to "Kiss my Converse!" is a classic moment in '80s cinema — quotable brand name greatness. It precedes Willie D's 'Read These Nikes' moment by a few years and even inspired Jadakiss to name an unreleased mixtape after Sho's gruff outburst.

13. Mama Said That Life Was Like a Box of Nikes

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Movie:Forrest Gump
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Forrest isn't disappointed by this offering from Jenny, as the lovable dimwit is gifted with a pair of classic leather Cortez. Rather than gangbanging and throwing up his set or hatching schemes à la Costanza, he actually opts to run in the dual density masterpiece — as was the original intent of the shoe. Salutes to the filmmakers for tapping up the archives to get the original packaging too.

12. Air Jordans Before Joining Up

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Movie:Police Academy IV
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If the first 'Police Academy' was an adidas zone, the fourth part went Nike to us. To offset the grief of losing Guttenberg, who left the franchise after this film to make flicks with Selleck and Danson before his career went balsa, we get a shot of a 'Public Domain' era Bones Brigade bizarrely body doubling for David Spade and his crew with plenty of rapid closeups of Jordans on their feet in the film's opening.

11. Mars Blackmon's True Love

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Movie:She's Gotta Have It
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Spike's cinematic dedication to the Jordan line was evident from his 1986 breakthrough. The director's depiction of the childish but enduring Nola suitor who takes being dumped badly created a pop culture figure who'd take the Air Jordan franchise to the next level. While the film's black and white, those Jordans are blue and black. This film sows the seeds for too much to list in a solitary paragraph.

10. Nike Trainers Are Quite Versatile

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Movie:Batman
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When your brand makes Batman's batboots, you know you've made it. Batman's outfit shocked a few puritans around the release of Tim Burton's interpretation - many seemed stuck on Adam West-style smedium, stretchy attire. To accompany the new bulletproof Batman, he got special editions of Bo Jackson's Air Trainer III (originally called the Air Trainer SC) as part of his lofty footwear.

9. B-Boys And Their Pumas

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Movie:Beat Street
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PUMA officially endorsed 'Beat Street's big budget 'Wildstyle' bite, but it was effective product placement. This film is beyond corny. When the film's protagonists weren't being hassled by the man, we could see them break in a railway station, clad in PUMA gear. That had a vast effect on a hip-hop audience hungry for anything rap-related, where the shoe remains deified as a hip-hop icon. R.I.P RAMO.

8. Vans Slip-Ons Plus Skull Equals Rhythm

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Movie:Fast Times at Ridgemont High
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"That was my skull!" Jeff Spicoli remains a role model — entering fast food outlets shirtless, ordering pizzas in the classroom and wearing vulcanized Vans long before they went epidemic beyond the west coast. The checkerboard pattern became a bestseller and when Jeff smashes his shoe against his head straight out the box post-bong, classic status was conferred.

7. The Chump Wears Command Forces

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Movie:White Men Can't Jump
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Woody Harrelson's Billy Hoyle uses whiteness as part of the hustle, but his sneakers are pretty serious. Sidney rocked the fine Flight Lites in this film too, but David Robinson's vast Air Pressure aided shoe is a focal point. We see homages and we've even seen that underrated heel pattern on the heel of a few other silhouettes, but this model's never had a retro — presumably, retroing Pressure technology would an expensive project — as only a cluster of cash-strapped ironists would buy a pair.

6. Ripley Stomps Aliens in Her Reeboks

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Movie:Aliens
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While Ripley had to get over the trauma of her daughter aging and dying during her inadvertently lengthy hypersleep, she got some good future sneakers after that extended snooze. The Alien Stomper (originally promoted as the Aliens Fighter) was a Velcro-aided sci-fi hi-top reinterpretation of old favorites like the BB series in a killer colorway. These toured as a promo "prop" and went on sale a few years later in a slightly altered form.

5. Data Saves The Day In Sky Forces

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Movie:The Goonies
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Data from the Goonies was the racial stereotype we aspired to be. The plastic false teeth on a spring? Awesome. Giving the Asian kid the wacky inventor role probably wouldn't pass today, but without Data's madcap inventions, the Goonies would probably have been subject to execution-style slayings via the Fratellis. Data's "Slick Shoes" — a tricked out pair of Nike Sky Force Hi save the day with their oil-releasing properties.

4. Bruce Lee Leaves Onitsuka Logos on Heads

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Movie:Game of Death
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Bruce Lee is synonymous with Onitsuka's slimline masterpiece — Quentin Tarantino even riffs on it in 'Kill Bill' — and Kobe used it as inspiration for a colorway of his Zoom Kobe V. Before Wiz, Bruce popularized black and yellow, but in his garbled and weirdly edited final flick, we see him in similarly colored adidas racing flats and some low-cut vulc adidas shoes too. It's inconsistent but effective, adding to the jumbled Bruce Lee mythos.

3. Where We're Going We Won't Need Laces

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Movie:Back To the Future Part II
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When people talk about the second 'Back to the Future' film, they talk about Marty's self-fastening Nikes before any talk of the plot. These caused an audible gasp in theatres worldwide, and the speckles, the aqua and grey colorway and the hi-top looks were eerily prescient of what gets kids hyped in 2011. We're still waiting on a release for this shoe and several Nike Air and Zoom homages in recent years just up that sense of anticipation.

2. Michael Jordan Gets Dogged in Triaxes

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Movie:Space Jam
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Sorry, the internet doesn't need another tract on why the 'Space Jam' Air Jordan XIs are amazing. If you don't know by now, you're beyond hope. So as a break from the norm, we'll look at another shoe in the same film — the Air Max Triax that Michael Jordan is wearing when the bulldog leaps on him. There was no way that this film wasn't going to rank pretty highly in this list, and it might contain the greatest cinematic SMU ever.

1. Buggin' Out Gets His Jordans Scuffed

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Movie:Do the Right Thing
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The damage to Buggin' Out's cement Air Jordan IVs from a Tropicana-swigging white boy in a Larry Bird tee is a great cinematic moment, as this righteous individual uses a substantial scuff to bemoan gentrification. For all the bluster (and an alleged outlay of $108 including tax), and despite it being the hottest day of a New York summer, Buggin' Out resorts to bellowing rather than a heavily-discussed beatdown, but he embodies the frustration of anyone with even the mildest sneaker disorder, making this the greatest of all sneaker movie moments.