Rooftop Confrontation

What better way to have an epic showdown than with enough stories high for a fatal ring-out and a Disney Villain Death?

Elan: I'm pretty sure a climactic duel is the proper procedure for dramatically defeating corrupt tyrants!
Tarquin: On a rooftop, no less. Exquisite.

— The Order of the Stick

Fighting on top of buildings is totally badass. Probably because of the risk of falling off. For whatever reason, often resulting from a Chase Scene or an attempted and botched escape (sometimes courtesy of a Climbing Climax), two characters wind up squaring off on a rooftop. Sometimes involves Roof Hopping if it takes place in the middle of a city, but sometimes a single rooftop can be just as badass, since it limits a character's maneuverability.

Of course, if the characters spend all their time in a crowded school or office building, the roof might be the only place that they feel like they have any room to maneuver for a fight. Bonus points if the building has some other reason to be up there, such as a rooftop garden, helipad, or basketball court.

Marvel Comics might be the trope codifier - rooftops are handy for superheroes as they allow a fight in the middle of the city without (too many) civilians getting in the way.

Traintop Battle is a mobile variant. See also Executive Suite Fight. Sniper Index contains related tropes, but in most cases only one of the participants is on a roof.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the beginning of Arachnid, Alice Fuji fights her master and father figure, Kumo, at the top of a building. Near the end she battles her evil disappeared biological father, Suzume Bachi, at the rooftop of her school.
• Assassination Classroom: In the Assassination Island arc, the final fight between Nagisa and Takaoka takes place on the helipad of a hotel.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The Individual Eleven practice a ritualized Mutual Kill on top of a rooftop; it ends with a sword-fight when one of them changes his mind. All of this is caught on tape and makes for a pretty horrifying news report.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Stardust Crusaders: Kakyoin and Joseph briefly fight DIO over the rooftops of Cairo, their Stands allowing greater mobility than DIO's.
  • Diamond is Unbreakable: Josuke battles Toyohiro Kanedaichi atop of his electrical tower Stand, Super Fly.
• The Love and Creed of Sae Maki, after saving Misao from the thugs bothering her, Sae drags her onto a nearby rooftop. Sae shakes and slams Misao against the guardrails while screaming that she loves Misao more than anyone else and demanding that she obey her every whim. After a shaken and terrified Misao apologizes, Sae orders her to Shameful Strip as a test of loyalty.
• Both the first and final battles of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's start with Vita attacking Nanoha on top of a building, though the battles quickly move elsewhere since all the characters can fly.
• Naruto:
  • Naruto's first fight with Sasuke takes place on the roof of the hospital where Sasuke had been staying.
  • Orochimaru fights Sarutobi on a rooftop. Sarutobi is quite cool with it though, as he makes up the Rooftile Shuriken jutsu during the battle (in the anime).
• One Piece:
  • The entirety of Luffy's fight with Blueno takes place on the roof of the courthouse of Enies Lobby.
  • Much later, in the Wano arc, Luffy and Kaido duke it out atop the Skull Dome in Onigashima.
• Parasyte:
  • In volume 7, Goto faces off against the military on the roof of a building. He massacres them.
  • Played with when Shinichi and Migi kill Hideo. They're both on rooftops, but different buildings, and Hideo doesn't know Shinichi is there (they deliberately picked a building out of Parasite detection range) until it's too late. Shinichi uses his new super strength to throw a rock straight through Hideo's heart, 300 meters away.
• In The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Sorata and Mashiro (well, mostly Sorata) confront Jin on the school roof for refusing to return Misaki's feelings, even though he's admitted he likes her. Things get heated enough that they come to blows, though Sorata is no match for Jin. He wasn't actually trying to win, just to buy enough time for Nanami and Misaki to get there before Jin left.
• Phantom Quest Corp.: Near the end of the fourth Incident File ("Lover Come Back to Me") Ayaka gets cornered on the roof of the Hadja's temple. Which culminates in a showdown between her and Mukyo, in one of the most well animated and choreographed sword fights in the series.
• Shamanic Princess loves to show characters posing dramatically on spires, columns, and the like, making the transition to rooftop combat irresistibly easy.
• Shenmue: Ryo fights both Lan Di and Dou Niu on the roof of the Yellow Head building.
• Variable Geo ends with the long awaited showdown between Yuka and Satomi, which takes place atop the Jahana research facility as it burns down around them. Except we're not allowed to see the outcome, since it immediately cuts to the credits, just as the match begins.
• In the film version of X1999, the final battle takes place on the roof of a tall building.
• In the TV version of Yamada Taro Monogatari (can't vouch for the manga here) Sugiura confronts Taro on the rooftop in an early episode.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! apparently kept trying to top itself on how high up people could confront.
  • Kaiba and Yuugi's climactic duel in the Duelist Kingdom arc takes place atop Pegasus's castle.
  • Later, during Battle City, Kaiba and Yuugi team up to face the mask team on top of a glass-ceilinged skyscraper where the losers would be sent plummeting.
  • The Battle city semifinals themselves take place on a blimp. Not in a blimp - exposed to the elements on top of it.

Comic Books

• In All Fall Down, Portia trades blows with the Ghoul on a skyscraper after he interrupts her suicide attempt.
• In issue #3 of Mother Panic, the titular character fights Batwoman on a roof.
• Red Robin: Tim introduces Stephanie and Pru on a rooftop in Gotham only for Pru to pull a gun on Steph and say the reason she knows Ra's plan so well is because she was assigned to take her out. Stephanie disarms and pins her almost immediately, though Tim realizes with a grin that Pru's gun wasn't loaded and she really has switched sides. Later Dick and Damian casually take out a whole slew of League of Assassins ninjas on another Gotham rooftop.

Fan Works

• Avengers of the Multi-verse: Episode 7 sees Zak and Argost dueling each other atop the roof of Weird World.
• In Cosmic Warriors, Tuxedo Mask and Jadeite have their first shown altercation on a roof of what is either a large jewelry store, or a building near one.
• Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters: In Chapter 26, Viper and Jackie fight Tristan, the scorpion Shapeshifter, on the roof of Count Cornelius' mansion in Lannion, with Taranee and Hay Lin later flying in to provide support.
• The culminating battle of A.A. Pessimal's Discworld adventure Hyperemesis Gravidarum takes place on the rooftop when Assassin Johanna confronts the man who is out to kill her, who she (wrongly) believes has just been responsible for murdering her sister. To add a bit of operating difficulty, Johanna is, by her own count,^note Her count is out, as she shortly discovers, over eight months pregnant.
• Deconstructed in Lady Archimedes. When Hermione fights Bellatrix in the Great Hall rooftop after killing Voldemort for good, she slides down the rooftop, suffering tears in her robes and scrapes. It's even given a Lampshade Hanging that rooftop fights are not as easy as in movies.
• In Memento Vivere, a Final Fantasy X fanfiction, Auron and Jecht have one of these on Braska’s apartment building.
• In The Prayer Warriors, Jerry's last battle with Percy Jackson takes place on top of the church, because he considered it "a goofy site for all of (his) followers to see (his) victory."

Film — Animated

• Beauty and the Beast's Gaston chases the Beast onto the rooftops of the Castle.
• In The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney), Judge Frollo pursues Quasimodo and Esmeralda onto the rooftops of Notre-Dame of Paris, no less.
• Mulan fights Shan Yu on the roof of the Imperial Palace. Notably, he isn't dispatched by a Disney Villain Death but by being blown up by fireworks.

Film — Live-Action

• Angel Has Fallen: The Final Battle ends with a duel between Mike and Wade on the roof of the building where the latter just tried to kill the President again, Mike intercepting Wade before he can escape via helicopter and forcing him into a showdown.
• Near the beginning of Batman (1989), the title character confronts and fights two robbers on the roof of a building where they're counting their ill-gotten gains.
• The Crow: The final battle between Eric and Top Dollar takes place on the roof of a church.
• The final confrontation between Colin Sullivan and Billy Costigan in The Departed is on a rooftop, although the actual shooting happens in the lift when they reach the ground floor.
• The original Die Hard movie has this, with the plot-relevant roof being special because it doesn't survive the fight.
• The 1920 silent movie The Golem features a showdown between the Golem and Knight Florian on top of the Rabbi's observatory tower.
• A Good Day to Die Hard has the final battle between Jack and Komarov take place on the roof of a building.
• The Final Battle of Hardcore Henry culminates in Henry confronting Akan and his cyborg army on the helipad atop his corporate headquarters.
• The final fight between Connor and the Kurgan from Highlander starts on top of a warehouse. Both men fell through a skylight and the fight continued inside the warehouse.
• The climax of Hollywood Homicide ended up on a roof.
• In the film version of Ichi the Killer, the final confrontation takes place on the roof of the Yakuza apartment building.
• The climatic showdown of Internal Affairs pits Chan, an undercover cop, against his longtime foe Lau, a Triad mole in the police department. Their confrontation is on the same rooftop where Chang's handler, Wong, was murdered. This scene is reenacted in the American remake, The Departed. Lampshaded by Lau:
  "Do all undercover cops like rooftops?"
• The King Kong films traditionally have a climactic moment where the titular beast is fought atop a tall building. In the original 1933 film and the 2005 remake it's the Empire State Building, while the 1976 adaptation uses the Twin Towers instead.
• Last Action Hero: The climactic battle between Jack Slater and the Ripper occurs on a rooftop.
• The Matrix: During their Roaring Rampage of Rescue, Neo and Trinity confront several guards in the roof of the building where Morpheus is held captive. At one point, Neo manages to dodge all the bullets shot at him by an Agent... except two, which puts him at the mercy (as in, lack thereof) of the Agent until Trinity headshoots him.
• In Max Payne, the climax where Max confronts the mastermind of his family's murder occurs on a hele-pad on top of the Aesir Pharmaceuticals high-rise building.
• Freder and Rotwang on the cathedral rooftop in Metropolis.
• Predator 2. Lieutenant Harrigan fights the Predator on the roof of a building as part of a running battle with it.
• Rampant: The final battle between Lee Chung and Kim Ja-joon takes place on the roof of the burning palace.
• Denny and the drug dealer "tangle" in The Room (2003). The incident itself is never mentioned again.
• Scotland, PA ends with a fight between McBeth and Lt McDuff on the roof of a fast food restaurant.
• Subverted in Spider-Man 2. A fight between Spiderman and Octavius begins on the roof of a building, but they end up chasing each other all over the city.
• In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond fights Stromberg's henchman Sandor on a rooftop in Cairo. The fight ends with Bond engaging in a High-Altitude Interrogation before sending Sandor to Disney Villain Death.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Raphael heads for the roof after a fight with Leonardo. Suddenly, a bunch of Foot ninjas attack him. After their numbers grow, they manage to overtake him and throw him through a skylight and down into April's apartment. Later, the climactic battle against Shredder takes place on a different rooftop.
• They Live!: Nada and Frank are heading to the roof of the TV station with the intention of blowing out the signals to stop others from complying. Holly shoots and kills Frank before he can get there, but Nada and Holly's final confrontation, Nada's blow-out of the satellite, and Nada's death all happen on the roof.
• In Total Recall (2012), Quaid and Coohagen face off atop skyscraper-sized building, The Fall.
• The final showdown between Jake and Alonzo occurs on the rooftop of Alonzo's apartment in Training Day.
• Vampirella: Vampirella's final showdown with Vlad takes place on the roof of his base.
• Near the end of Who Am I? (1998) Jackie Chan faces off against the Big Bad's Co-Dragons, an Evil Brit and a Chinaman, atop a skyscraper, in one of his most death defying fight sequences ever, ending with No Escape but Down.

Literature

• In Animorphs, Ax chases Visser Three onto a rooftop to confront him for a one-on-one battle.
• In the backstory of Every Breath You Take, the most likely explanation for Virginia's death is that someone followed her up to the Met's roof, they had some kind of argument and the other person got angry enough to fling her off the roof to her death. It's eventually revealed that Virginia's nephew Tom went up to the roof with her and aggressively tried to persuade her to let him work for the family company, only to be coldly rebuffed. Tom did not take this well. Tom tries to claim Virginia fell by accident, but his version isn't physically possible based on the architecture of the roof.
• At the end of Fancy Apartments, the heroes are directed by the main villian to the roof for the final confrontation.
• In the Garrett, P.I. novel, Red Iron Nights, the final battle with/big reveal of the Big Bad takes place on a rooftop.
• In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore is killed after a very tense conversation in Hogwart's Astronomy Tower.
• Lampshaded heavily in all of Robert Rankin's books that feature Lazlo Woodbine, Private Detective. Lazlo only works four locations: his office, a bar, a back alley, and a rooftop, with the latter being reserved for the final denouement with the villain.
• After a very long battle in The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf ends the fight against the Balrog atop the highest peak of the Misty Mountains.
• The final confrontation in Night Watch (Series) (the book and the movie) happens on a rooftop. The movie has Anton fight with Zabulon with a halogen lamp (Zabulon is wielding a sword he has just pulled out of his spine). In the book, Zabulon is about to kill Anton with a powerful spell after Anton has a revelation about Svetlana but is stopped.
  • In the movie, the entire fight is choreographed by Zabulon to end up with Anton nearly killing Yegor by accident, resulting in the latter becoming a Dark Other.
• Rivers of London:
  • Forms part of the climax in "Moon Over Soho" and lets our hero throw a chimney stack at the Big Bad.
  • Occurs again at the end of "Broken Homes" where the returning Big Bad engineers one of these between him and Peter, then blows the building up underneath them.
• In Shakugan no Shana, the final confrontation between Yuji, Shana and Friagne happens on the roof of an abandoned department store.

Live-Action TV

• Annika (2021): A low-key one in episode 2.3, when Annika is trying to rig up a lawn chair on the roof to get some sun. Michael comes up to the roof to confront her, in the first episode after Annika has revealed the truth about Morgan.
• Happens in a first season episode of Battlestar Galactica where Six beats Sharon up on top of a building.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Prophecy Girl", Buffy's post-temporary-death rematch with the Master took place on the roof of the high school, and culminated with the Master being hurled through a skylight into the library.
• CSI: NY:
  • Mac and Clay Dobson in one episode of a several ep arc in season 3. Mac had busted a dirty cop and Dobson was released because of the cop's testimony being tossed out. He killed another person, though, and Mac chased him down, cornering him on the rooftop. Dobson waited to be cuffed, then jumped off the roof in an attempt to frame Mac for police brutality, though it eventually failed.
  • Mac & Flack confront a perp on a rooftop in the season 7 opener, "The 34th Floor," only to have the guy pull his gun on them in a successful Suicide by Cop gambit.
  • Mac has another one in the season 7 finale. During their fight, the perp gets ahold of his gun and attempts to shoot him point blank between the eyes, but the gun jams. Leads to him being dazed off and on thru the episode and having an epiphany at the end. One has to wonder if he had flashbacks to the Clay Dobson scenario.
• Season 3 of Dexter featured a rooftop confrontation between Miguel and Dexter towards the climax of the season. It was only a confrontation, not really a fight... but it was a pretty awesome scene anyway.
• Happy! has Nick's showdown with Very Bad Santa in the first season finale, atop the roof of the abandoned department store the latter uses as a lair.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The very first morphed battle occurs atop a building in Angel Grove.
• Although no actual physical fighting occurs, in Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty have a final confrontation on the roof of St. Bart's in "The Reichenbach Fall".
• In Soap Mary's first husband confronts Burt and tries to kill him on top of a building in mid-construction, so he can take over the constructing business.
• Discussed in an early episode of Due South, Huey and Louis are talking trash with Ray Vecchio, and they make tentative plans to duke it out on the roof of the precinct later.
• Ugly Betty: Wilhelmina waits for Betty on the roof, which is full of creepy old mannequins. The famous theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly plays as Betty approaches her.
• Veronica Mars: Veronica confronts the Season 2 Big Bad, Cassidy Casablancas, on the roof of the Neptune Grande after he leads her to believe that he's Mac by borrowing/stealing Mac's phone to text her. This also leads to him jumping off to his death.

Music

• The music video for Stabbing Westward's "Shame" features a young woman trying to escape from her psychotic ex-boyfriend. The final confrontation occurs on the roof of her apartment building where she tricks him into jumping off.
• "Oi! To The World", originally by The Vandals and later covered by No Doubt, is about a rooftop battle between a Middle Eastern punk and a skinhead on Christmas Day. The song ends with the punk saving the skin's life in the spirit of the season.

Pinball

• After correctly identifying the killer in WHO dunnit (1995), the player must take a taxi to Tony's Palace, then confront the culprit on the hotel rooftop and catch them before time runs out.

Professional Wrestling

• One of these with CZW owner John Zandig nearly killed "Sick" Nick Mondo, or rather should have killed or nearly killed him based on data on falls from such a height but merely convinced him to take a break from wrestling, after his next match.
• WWE's Money in the Bank ladder match in 2020 was held as a fight up WWE's headquarters, culminating in a battle on the roof. Two wrestlers were even thrown off the roof.

Theme Parks

• At Universal Studios:
  • In the finale of The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Spider-Man battles the Sinister Syndicate on top of several buildings.
  • Optimus Prime and Megatron's final battle is set atop a building in Transformers: The Ride.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: The final fight has Ann battling C's One-Winged Angel form on the rooftop of The Consortium's facility.
• Assassin's Creed II: One of Ezio's targets is hiding atop the highest tower in San Gemignano.
• Banjo-Kazooie: The Final Boss battle against Grunty takes place at the very top of her lair. After the battle, she falls all the way down to Spiral Mountain, leaving a deep Impact Silhouette in which she gets trapped by a boulder. This sets the stage for Banjo-Tooie, whose own final battle takes place at the top of Cauldron Keep, only this time Gruntilda faces the starring due while piloting the powerful Hag 1.
• Retired Hunter Djura in Bloodborne mans a Gatling Gun at the rooftop of Old Yharnam to protect the Beasts, you can confront him at the rooftop to get rid of him via Disney Villain Death, or, have audience with Darkneast Paarl first, and then head back to the said rooftop from below without him seeing you so you can befriend him and have a conversation.
• In Bully, Gary and Jimmy's final fight happens at the school's rooftop.
• Chrono Trigger: The team battles the Black Tyranno on top of the Tyranno Lair, and later has an outer space duel with Queen Zeal on top of her lair.
• In Crackdown, the battle against the Shai-Gen Corporation's leader is fought in the rooftop garden of his tower. He's more content to shoot at you from a higher balcony, unless you knock him off of it.
• The battle against Zenim in Daikaijuu Monogatari. He even falls off the roof when defeated.
• Dragon Age: Origins has a Final Boss battle with the Archdemon on the roof of Fort Drakon, the tallest building in Denerim.
• Fahrenheit (AKA Indigo Prophecy) has a fight above a roof between Lucas and the Oracle.
• Final Fantasy Legend II had one in Edo World atop the castle, at nightfall. Said rooftop also has special encounters which drop Flare tomes or powerful swords.
• The climactic battle of Final Fantasy Tactics' third chapter has you fighting Marquis Elmdore and a pair of assassins on the roof of Riovanes Castle.
• For the King: The main campaign's Final Boss is fought on top of his Evil Tower of Ominousness. For some reason, the heroes arrive by airship, then fight their way up from the ground floor to reach him.
• Gang Wars ends with the final stage being the players beating up Jaguar and his mooks on a helipad.
• At the climax of Tsumihoroboshi-hen in Higurashi: When They Cry, Keiichi and Rena square off on the roof of the school.
• Hong Kong Ninja: The Final Boss, Scorpion, is fought on the helipad atop his corporation building, and every now and then a helicopter will descend to drop triad mooks and ninjas to back him up.
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Right after watching Efilin get absorbed by Fecto Forgo, Kirby pursues Fecto Efilis up to the roof of a skyscraper in Lab Discovera, fighting them on the helipad.
• The finale of Left 4 Dead campaign "No Mercy" has the Survivors hold out against Infected at the top of Mercy Hospital while waiting for a rescue helicopter.
• If you don't manage to finish off the Shogun boss in MadWorld (by being really good) the boss is scripted to jump through the ceiling to land on the roof for a climactic showdown.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid: Snake and Liquid have an intense hand-to-hand duel atop Metal Gear Rex.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Raiden and Vamp have their final confrontation in the same place. Also, Snake and Liquid Ocelot have their own final brawl atop Outer Haven.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Sundowner is fought at the helipad atop World Marshal headquarters. Mistral also sort of counts, since her boss fight starts at the top of the refinery.
• Persona:
  • Persona 3: The Final Boss battle with Nyx takes place at the top of Tartarus.
  • Persona 5 Royal: The last battle against Dr. Maruki is settled at the very top of his palace.
• Planescape: Torment has an unusual example: you confront the Final Boss on the roof of the Fortress of Regrets, in a pocket of the Negative Energy Plane. Though you don't need to fight him if you've played your cards right and pumped up your Wisdom stat to 23 - you can either wish yourself into nonexistence or go for Talking the Monster to Death.
• Quake IV has three rooftop battles against Strogg soldiers, a Heavy Hovertank and a giant flying gorilla taking place atop each of the three communication towers before entering into the Strogg main tower.
• One of the boss fights in Red Steel 2 ends with Cutscene Power to the Max for both the boss and the protagonist. The boss manage to knock the hero all the way onto a roof and then they proceed to fight up there until the hero breaks the sword in half and pushes him off the building...apparently jumping up four stories is fine, but not falling down them.
• Resident Evil: Gun Survivor: The Final Boss battle, the Hypnos Tyrant's final form, is fought on the Umbrella HQ's Helipad. As Ark, he battles the monster while Lily and Lott makes their way into the heli, and if he wins, the following cutscene have Ark boarding the vehicle and taking off.
• River City Girls: The boss fight with Yamada is at the top of a construction site, and both he and the player party can fall off, but they just reappear on the roof after taking some damage.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage: The game has three rooftop confrontations ("Rooftop", "Rooftop 2", and "Manhattan Rooftop"), at three different sections of the game, each against Recurring Boss Shriek.
  • Spider-Man (PS4) pits Spider-Man against Doctor Octopus on the roof of Oscorp Tower at the climax of the story.
• This is a running theme in Splatoon's multiplayer maps, with Moray Towers, Flounder Heights, New Albacore Hotel, Eeltail Alley, and Crableg Capital all taking place either entirely or partially on building roofs.
• Street Fighter II: Ryu's traditional fighting stage is set atop the roof of a Japanese temple.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario World: The fight between Mario/Luigi and Bowser takes place in the roof of the latter's castle. Bowser is driving his Koopa Clown Car (where he alse holds Princess Peach captive) and performs his attacks while hovering airborne with it.
  • Super Mario 64: The third and last fight against Big Boo in Big Boo's Haunt takes place in the balcony of the Ghost House. Upon winning, Mario (or whoever is being played as in the remake) has to climb to the roof to grab the Star.
  • Mario Party: Island Tour: Bowser, the Final Boss of his mode (Bowser's Tower), is fought in the topmost peaks of his evil tower. He's driving his Koopa Clown Car and shoot fireballs at the player's character, who has to hit some Dice Blocks to acquire cannonballs to later use them as projectiles when a cannon appears (after running out of ammo, the player has to move onto a new spot and repeat the process). When Bowser's HP falls below half, he'll add new attacks like shooting a longer and quicker succession of fireballs, shooting fireballs upward so the fall onto the player's character like a volcanic rain, and performing a Ground Pound with his vehicle; lastly, the Dice Blocks will vary their numbers, thus also varying the number of cannonballs the player receives upon hitting them. After Bowser is defeated, it's revealed that he was just a copy and the real Bowser kicks the character out of the tower, encouraging them to climb the tower once again.
  • Luigi's Mansion: Upon meeting King Boo during the endgame, Luigi is dragged to the painting where Mario is trapped, which transports him to the mansion's roof. It is there where he fights King Boo (who is disguised as Bowser).
  • Luigi's Mansion 3: Since the game has all its boss fights take place on various floors of the Last Resort hotel, of course the final battle with King Boo takes place on the rooftop. Well, that and the reason the battle takes place outside of the hotel is because the final phase has him create a magic picture frame large enough to swallow up the whole building.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • TMNT: Tournament Fighters: The SNES version uses a rooftop overlooking the Manhattan skyline for Michelangelo's background.
  • TMNT: Shredder's Revenge has two of these. Episode 7, Roof Running Reptiles is almost entirely set on various rooftops, as Bebop and Rocksteady try to escape from the Crystal Palace mall (and by proxy the Turtles) by running from rooftop to rooftop. Episode 14, Wrath of the Lady, starts with our heroes standing on a rooftop so that they can fight the Krang-piloted Statue of Tyranny.
• In Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics, a Sega Genesis game based on Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Tom confronts Aunt Figg on the roof of the cabin in the final level.
• The final level of the first Twisted Metal takes place on rooftops. For the first time in the game, falling off of a building is a possible way to die or kill your enemies. Then Minion shows up and reveals that falling doesn't kill him.
• Unavowed begins with this having happened to the Player Character, with the titular group finally tracking their demon-possessed body down and restraining it, allowing a much-needed exorcism to be performed. Later in the game, the final confrontation takes place within a pocket dimension, on top a mirrored version of the Empire State Building, with the Player Character confronting the Summoner one last time, Book Ending the game.
• From the Unreal franchise:
  • Unreal II: The Awakening features a mission where you guide a scientist up to the very top ceiling of a large skyscraper.
  • Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2004 feature the map Morpheus, which takes place atop of three skyscrapers whose height spans up to the space.
  • 2003 and 2004 also feature the map Plunge, Morpheus' Spiritual Successor, which adds a fourth skyscraper, and the Bombing Run map Skyline, with each team and the ball getting an own skyscraper each.
  • 2004 has also the downloadable official map Icarus for the Onslaught gamemode, which was set to be included with the game but wasn't finished in time. It spans several skyscrapers, each with their own nodes, and two of them feature the Leviathan, kept in that position.
• In Vigilante, the fifth and final stage has the player fighting on top of girders high above street level.
• The Warriors has a multiplayer mode dedicated to having fights occur on rooftops and the object is to be the last man standing by throwing everyone else off.
• XenoGears: One of Fei's recurring duels with Ramsus occurs near the top of Babel Tower.
• Climactic showdowns in the Yakuza series are prone to taking place atop a very tall building.
• Yooka-Laylee being a Spiritual Successor to Banjo-Kazooie, its final battle partially takes place on a roof: The titular duo originally faces Capital B at the topmost room of his lair, but it turns into a rooftop confrontation when Dr. Quack accidentally opened the room's roof and raised the floor (He was supposed to activate lasers, but he pushed the wrong button).

Webcomics

• Adventure Dennis has its final climactic battle take place on a rooftop.
• Girl Genius: Agatha has a fight in the rain on top of the highest rooftop in Mechanicsburg with a brainwashed Gil when he tries to "save" her from his father by kidnapping her for him.
• Homestuck: No matter what the timeline, Dave Strider has a thing for these. In Act I, he was throwing down with his brother over a pair of Sburb beta discs; his Alpha timeline version in Act VI makes his last appearance shredding the evil juggalo presidents in a fight on top of the White House.
• In The Order of the Stick, Elan duels his father Tarquin on a rooftop after realizing that the man is evil. His adversary approves of the location choice.

Web Video

• Critical Role: During Scanlan's solo mission to cause a distraction during the group's assault on the new nobles of Whitestone he has a brief but impressive confrontation with Count Vekmire: A gnome fighting a goliath on the roof of a burning building during a thunderstorm!

Western Animation

• Amphibia:
  • In the Season 2 finale "True Colors", Sprig and Grime briefly fight on a rooftop while the heroes are trying to stop the toad takeover of Newtopia.
  • The penultimate episode "All In" has Anne agreeing to battle King Andrias on the top of a building to fully stop the invasion of Earth.
• The opening sequence of Batman: The Animated Series features Batman confronting bank robbers on a rooftop. At the end of the episode "Showdown", Jonah Hex has a knife-sword fight atop an airship.
• The Cuphead Show!: In "Sweater Luck Next Time", once Cuphead and the Devil are at the top of the Obliterator's tower, and the Devil gives him a pat on the shoulder before discovering that Cuphead doesn't have the protective sweater on him, the battle for his soul ensues, as the panicked crowds can do nothing but watch as the Devil corners him and starts pulling out his soul before Mugman enters the fray by quick thinking and places the sweater on the villain, pushes his brother's soul back into his body, and watches the fireworks along with everyone else before getting on the ride with his brother.
• DuckTales (2017): The episode "Escape from the ImpossiBin!" has a rooftop battle in which the kids (and Donald) fight a paranoid Mrs. Beakley on the roof of McDuck Manor.
• Gravity Falls has Dipper battling a living wax statue on top of the Mystery Shack.
• The Legend of Korra: The climax of "And the Winner is...." has Lin team up with Korra, against the Equalists, on the roof of the probending arena.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Many of the Turtles' battles with the Shredder and the Foot happen on rooftops in the original comics, 2003 series, 90s movies, the 2012 cartoon, and the 2014 reboot.
• The Village: The gardener, wrongly accused of murder, escapes from his cell and hides on the roofs. The jerkass husband (the actual murderer) catches him, leading to a confrontation and fight on the roof which ends with the husband falling to his death.
• Wakfu: In Season 2, Eva confronts Remington and Grany Smisse across the rooftops of Rubilaxia.

---