History Main / NoEscapeButDown

* ''[[Film/KillerAngels Devil Hunters]]'' ends with its PowerTrio - played by Creator/MoonLee, Creator/SibelleHu and Ray Lui - leaping off an exploding balcony when the movie's main villain chose to blow up himself in a TakingYouWithMeMoment. It's notable that the two actresses, Moon and Sibelle, ends up a little too close to the explosion when it happens, resulting in both of them suffering third-degree burns on their backs after filming.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'' and Jiminy Cricket escape Pleasure Island by jumping into the water from a cliff.

* Also happened during [[TheWarOnTerror 9/11]]. To quote one firefighter on the scene, "How bad is it up there that the better option is to ''jump''?"

** ''VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary'' inverts this at the pyramid in Atlantis. Lara chases [[BigBad Natla]] up the structure to stop her from executing her plans. When Lara reaches the top, Natla appears from behind with her mutants, cornering Lara and taunts her that she has nowhere left to go but down. Some exchange of words and shooting of a MacGuffin later, Natla tackles Lara over the edge to knock her into a lava pool below. Lara escapes by using her grappling hook on a ledge above to save herself while Natla takes the plunge instead.

* Koon and Anak subverted this in ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' when they made Quant think they had applied this trope to lure him to the lower exit of the Hide and Seek testing area while they headed for the upper one.

You're caught in a ChaseScene, when suddenly you hit a dead end--literally. You're at the edge of a cliff, or the roof of a skyscraper, or the lip of a sewer drain. [[ScyllaAndCharybdis Your pursuers are on your tail, and there is no escape]]. Well, [[TitleDrop No Escape But Down]].

* ''Manga/OnePiece''

** Arguably inverted with Sanji, [[spoiler: who spontaneously comes up with a flying technique in order to escape up when surrounded.]]

[[folder:Film--Animation]]
* This happens twice in ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}''-- First in the ChaseScene song "One Jump Ahead", when Aladdin escapes from the guards by grabbing a [[{{Foreshadowing}} carpet]], and then again when he and Jasmine have to flee his home.

* {{WesternAnimation/Pinocchio}} and Jiminy Cricket escape Pleasure Island by jumping into the water from a cliff.

[[folder:Film--Live Action]]

* Near the end of ''Star Wars Episode V: Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Luke Skywalker is hanging on by one hand over a seemingly bottomless pit. Rather than take the opportunity Darth Vader offers him [[spoiler: to rule the galaxy as father and son]], Luke lets himself fall.

* In "Literature/ClockpunkAndTheVitalizer," how Dolores [[spoiler:escapes both the condo and The Vitalizer’s clutches, taking the dive off the condo balcony and slowing time – slowing gravity's pull – to land safely]].

* At the end of the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "Za'ha'dum," John Sheridan is pursued by the Shadows [[spoiler: and what's left of his wife]] and ends up trapped on a balcony high above a miles deep pit in the center of the Shadow City. [[spoiler:Which makes him resort to remote activate his ship in orbit to aim at his position and [[NukeEm arm the two fusion bombs he stole.]]]] Facing certain death, he receives a telepathic message imprinted in his mind [[spoiler:by Kosh, before he died,]] urging him to jump. It all worked out, in the end.

* Yoon Sung leaps over the railing of a hi-rise building to escape being captured by the Secret Service in the KoreanSeries ''Series/TheCityHunter''.

** Rose does one in "The Doctor Dances". Although in that case [[spoiler:Rose "makes" the exit with Jack's squareness gun.]]
** Played with it in "Forest of the Dead", at a particularly tense moment where the Doctor was surrounded by possessed skeletons. Yes, really.
** "The Beast Below" features a more traditional one.
** A reverse of this was used by the Doctor in "Flesh and Stone." He flipped the gravity to fall up when escaping some Weeping Angels.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/ModestyBlaise'': In "A Present for the Princess'', Willie escapes from a trio of bandits by dropping off a broken rope bridge into a river.
[[/folder]]

* In ''VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves'' both Nate and Sully wind up leaping off a cliff into a river to escape pursuing Russian mercs... with a direct reference to the Butch & Sundance example mentioned above.

* In ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'', Ethan's final escape from the police takes him to the edge of a building's roof. It's up to you whether to surrender and go to prison (effectively taking Ethan out of the game), or simply fall backwards, hoping for the best. If you do, you'll apparently survive the fall with nothing but a few bruises, despite already having several cracked ribs and miscellaneous injuries at that point.
* One mission in ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad Of Gay Tony]]'' has Luis Lopez chase a bad guy up the [[strike:Empire State Building]] Rotterdam Tower. Once you confront him at the top, your only way off is to use the bad guy's parachute to base jump off the building.

* ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor (2010)'': "[[ScyllaAndCharybdis Bullets or broken bones?]] Bones heal."
* Near the beginning of ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria'', [[TheHero Stocke]] has to jump from a bridge to escape a powerful enemy.
* The character Eslaf Errol of ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion's'' in-game books ''Beggar'', ''Thief'', ''Warrior'', and ''King'' made escaping capture by jumping out of windows part and parcel of his trade.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': At one point, Yuna's plan to Send [[spoiler: Seymour]] was [[UnwantedAssistance accidentally spoiled]] by the party's (admittedly badass) rescue attempt, the villains using them as leverage to make her go through with the marriage. After all is said and done, the bad guys decide to still kill her friends. Yuna's solution? Leap off the tower head first and [[SuicidalGotcha summon Valefor mid-air to fly away on]] to distract the villains.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity'' has this at one point in the game after [[spoiler: you are separated from your partner]]; before fighting [[spoiler: Toxicroak and two other Pokemon,]] you end up on the edge of the cliff, and then, after deciding to slowly climb down, you are spotted. After the ensuing boss fight, you [[spoiler: have trouble fighting the rest, and Salamence appears to take you out.]] Eventually, [[spoiler: Hydreigon]] shows up and hits you with his tail, causing you to fall off the cliff before [[spoiler: Hydreigon]] catches you and flies off to the cave, in which afterwards you come to in said cave.
** ''VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary'' inverts this at the pyramid in Atlantis. Lara chases [[BigBad Natla]] up the structure to stop her from executing her plans. When Lara reaches the top, Natla appears from behind with her mutants, cornering Lara and taunts her that she has nowhere left to go but down. Some exchange of words and shooting of a MacGuffin later, Natla tackles Lara over the edge to knock her into a lava pool below. Lara escapes by using her grappling hook on a ledge above to save herself while Natla takes the plunge instead.

* [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad Emails]]: "Looks like I'm gonna have to juuuuump!" -- Dangeresque's CatchPhrase.

* During their first meeting, ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' and the Scotsman end up stuck on a narrow bridge with two mobs of bounty hunters closing in from either side. They initially try jumping off the side, but they each go a different direction and (being chained together) don't end up going anywhere. Jack cuts the planks beneath them and drops them into a swamp to escape.
* In the WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck cartoon "WesternAnimation/DonaldsCrime", Donald climbs the stairs of a skycraper to escape the law, and with no way out, jumps off the roof onto another building. Just barely--the bricks he tries to grasp give way one after another until he can climb back up.

* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' where after being unable to escape through the bottom of a collapsing tower, the heroes are forced to climb back ''up'' it and jump from the roof.

* ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'': Jen and Kira are cornered by Garthim at the edge of a cliff and have no alternative but to jump. [[spoiler: Fortunately Kira is able to fly them to safety. Because girl Gelflings, as we now discover, have wings.]]
* ''Film/ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid''. When the title characters are trapped against the edge of a cliff by the posse pursuing them, they decide to take their chances and jump into the river below.
* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' Biff corners Marty at the edge of a roof and Marty jumps. Something of a SuicidalGotcha since he lands on the roof of the Delorean hidden from Biff's view, only a few feet below.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing'', when the hobbits are chased by a farmer and his dogs.
* In ''Film/{{Apocalypto}}'' Jaguar Paw attempts to evade pursuit by leaping over a waterfall. His pursuers do follow, although one of them is killed in the attempt.
* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': Jake Sully's avatar leaps over a waterfall to escape a Pandoran beastie.
* ''Film/TheAvengers1998''. Mrs. Peel and her clone are fighting on a rooftop. When Steed arrives, the clone (realizing she's outnumbered) jumps off the roof to escape. We don't see what happened to her, but she turns up later with no explanation.
* In ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'' Trinity jumps out of the window when cornered by two agents. Neo's dreams foretell that she dies.

* In ''Film/Ravenous1999'' when Boyd jumps from cliff, without '''any''' landing spot. [[spoiler: He survives, but his leg is badly broken]].
* Happens early in ''Film/SinCity'' when Marv is escaping the cops.
* Near the end of ''Star Wars Episode V: Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Luke Skywalker is hanging on by one hand over a seemingly bottomless pit. Rather than take the opportunity Darth Vader offers him [[spoiler: to rule the galaxy as father and son]], Luke lets himself fall.
* ''Film/TheProphecyII'': The rogue ArchAngelGabriel, (who has gone to war with God due to Him favoring humans over angels) has chased the protagonist, a woman pregnant with an angel's baby, to the edge of a multistory industrial complex. She suddenly cocks her head to the side while Gabriel is doing a tirade, and says that God is speaking to her. Gabriel, who still loves God and hasn't spoken to Him in a long time, asks what He's saying. The protagonist comes closer, takes Gabriel in her arms, and replies "Jump." She then takes both of them off the edge. Gabriel gets ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice while she is miraculously unharmed. (Well, relatively.)
* ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'':
** Kirk and Bones are involved in a chase scene which ends with them jumping off a cliff into the ocean below.
** Harrison escapes the wreckage of [[spoiler:the ''Vengeance'']] by jumping off it.
* A variant in the 1910 short film ''[[Film/WhiteFawnsDevotion White Fawn's Devotion]]'', in which the man being chased is driven to the edge of a cliff--whereupon he pulls out a rope, ties it to a rock, and tries to rappel down. One of his pursuers gets there soon after and starts hacking away at the rope with a knife while the man tries to get down.
* In ''Film/TronLegacy'', the hero is in this situation when being cornered by a security guard on the rooftop of the Encom building. He does a SuicidalGotcha and escapes using his HammerspaceParachute.

* In ''Film/TheManFromKangaroo'', John and Muriel leap from the stage coach as it thunders across Hampden Bridge into the Kangaroo River.
* In ''Film/KissTheGirls'', during her escape from the SerialKiller Kate has to decide whether to leap off a 150 foot waterfall or be recaptured. She takes the jump and gets away.
* In ''Film/DeathHouse'', Agents Boon and Novak, trapped on a floor with violent psychopaths, decide jump down the elevator shaft, hoping to supplies their descent by skidding down the elevator cable.
* ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate''. Our heroes are in a Hummer hanging off the side of a dam by an attached parachute. Then an implacable KillerRobot from the future appears at the top of the dam. So Grace cuts the parachute cords.
-->'''Grace:''' Strap in.\\
'''Sarah:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Right, otherwise this might be dangerous.]]
* The woman in TheTeaser of ''Film/TimberFalls'' gets cornered by Deacon on the edge of a cliff. With nowhere else to go, she jumps off the cliff. She misses the river and smashes into the rocks beside on the bank (not that landing the river would have helped given the depth).

* In the ''Series/QueenOfSwords'' episode "Death to the Queen", the cornered Queen escapes by diving off the cliff into the ocean.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** Rose does one in "The Doctor Dances". Although in that case [[spoiler:Rose "makes" the exit with Jack's squareness gun.]]
** Played with it in "Forest of the Dead", at a particularly tense moment where the Doctor was surrounded by possessed skeletons. Yes, really.
** "The Beast Below" features a more traditional one.
** A reverse of this was used by the Doctor in "Flesh and Stone." He flipped the gravity to fall up when escaping some Weeping Angels

* ''Series/KolchakTheNightStalker'' episode "Bad Medicine". The Diablero is chased up to the top of the building by security guards, then jumps off and disappears. He used his magical powers to turn into a raven and fly away.
* Happens on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' when Faith jumps off the roof of her apartment building to escape Buffy and lands on the top of a truck, but the landing knocks her unconscious. It probably happens other times on ''Buffy'' too but that's the one that jumps to mind (no pun intended). Having a gaping stomach wound doesn't help...

* Chance, of ''Series/HumanTarget'', did this at least twice: one was a legitimate jump off a 12 story building into SoftWater; in another he pretended to jump off a tall building, actually grabbing a gargoyle adorning the roof.

* On ''Series/WhiteCollar'' Neal has to get to the penthouse of a highrise building and swap a painting for a forgery before Peter shows up and catches him in the act. He simply takes the elevator up but does not have the time to escape the same way. Just as Peter is entering the apartment, [[spoiler: Neal jumps off the top of the building and opens up a parachute]].

* On ''Series/TheBionicWoman'', Jaime jumped out a window to escape Fembots. It was too high a fall for her bionic legs to take, and she was injured seriously.
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': In "Public Enemy", Arrow, Arsenal and Canary escape from the Vigilante Taskforce by leaping off the roof of the building where they are cornered; firing grapple lines to slow their descent as they fall.
* A RunningGag on ''Series/GetSmart'': The villain, exposed and cornered by the good guys, prepares to jump out a window. The heroes warn him he won't survive. He gloats that he'll get away because there's an awning or the like to break his fall, gets off one last evil laugh or WeWillMeetAgain one-liner, and jumps. Max goes to the window, looks down, turns back to face the room, and says, "[[CatchPhrase Missed it by *that* much.]]"

* The woman in TheTeaser of ''''Film/TimberFalls'' gets cornered by Deacon on the edge of a cliff. With nowhere else to go, she jumps off the cliff. She misses the river and smashes into the rocks beside on the bank (not that landing the river would have helped given the depth).

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' (the movie version), when the hobbits are chased by a farmer and his dogs.

* {{Disney/Pinocchio}} and Jiminy Cricket escape Pleasure Island by jumping into the water from a cliff.

* In the WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck cartoon ''Disney/DonaldsCrime'', Donald climbs the stairs of a skycraper to escape the law, and with no way out, jumps off the roof onto another building. Just barely--the bricks he tries to grasp give way one after another until he can climb back up.

* Even more tragic variant of this trope happened in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII on Japanese remote islands, such as Saipan and Okinawa, invaded by US forces. Most times the civilians, fearing the [[RapePillageAndBurn assumed atrocities]] to be committed by the Americans, rather jumped off the shore cliffs into the sea than surrendered.

* Also happened during [[TheWarOnTerror 9/11]]. To quote one firefighter on the scene, "how bad it is up there that the better option is to ''jump''?"

* In ''Film/WhenDarknessFalls'', Nina's family tries to force her to suicice because they think that she destroyed the family honor. She then locks herself in her room together with her sister Leyla and escapes through the window before the family can open the door with a picklock.

* ''OnePiece'' in Impel Down.

* A rather less tragic example from Word War II saw British Airman Nicholas Alkemade leap from his bomber to escape death by burning. He fell 18,000 feet without a parachute and suffered only a sprained ankle.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' Biff corners Marty at the edge of a roof and Marty jumps - onto the the roof of the Delorean hidden from Biff's view, only a few feet below.

* In ''Film/KissTheGirls'', after her escape from the SerialKiller Kate has to decide whether to leap off a 150 foot waterfall or be recaptured. She takes the jump and gets away.

* ''Film/TheHungerGames'': When Katniss uses the Tracker Jackers to draw off the Careers, she ends up falling out of the tree while trying to rapidly climb down it.