Ghostbusters – Ghostbusters (1984)
The Team: A crew of three New York parapsychologists, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis).
Key Member: Egon, who’s the one that tells everybody not to “cross the streams”. Why? “It would be bad.”
Too right.
Greatest Team Work: The ’busters unite atop the building at 55 Central Park West and – yes, by crossing the streams – manage to stop bad guy Gozer.
Who’s just taken on the form of a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Tasty.
Mals Crew – Serenity (2005)
The Team: The crew of Firefly-class spaceship Serenity, led by Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion).
Key Member: River Tam (Summer Glau).
She looks sweet and innocent, but there’s something dark glimmering under that wallflower surface.
Greatest Team Work: While Mal attempts to send a message by Mr Universe, his crew fight off Reavers.
It looks bleak until River steps in…
Seven Samurai – Seven Samurai (1954)
The Team: Seven – yes, we have to count Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune) – samurai who are hired by a farming village to protect them from raiding bandits.
Key Member: Kikuchiyo, who starts out as a joke and a fool, but soon proves himself worthy of the samurai title. Mostly.
Greatest Team Work: During the final battle, the samurai bleed and die for their charges.
Not all of them survive, but that’s no reflection of their tenacity and dedication.
The Wild Geese – The Wild Geese (1978)
The Team: A group of ageing mercenaries enlisted to take down a dictator in central Africa.
Among them are pilot Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore) and genius Rafer Janders (Richard Harris).
Key Member: Colonel Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), who leads the Geese with an iron will and oodles of class.
Greatest Team Work: Running out of time, energy and ammo, the team head for an airplane in order to make a bid for freedom.
The Goonies – The Goonies (1985)
The Team: Awesome outcasts Mikey (Sean Astin), Mouth (Corey Feldman), Data (Ke Huy Quan), Chunk (Jeff Cohen) and, yeah alright, older bro Brand (Josh Brolin), too.
Key Member: Chunk! None of the others would’ve been brave (or canny) enough to befriend Sloth (John Matuszak), who turns out to be a vital ally at the film’s climax.
“Heey youuuu guuuuys!”
Greatest Team Work: Working together, the Goonies manage to survive all of One-Eyed Willie’s traps.
Five Deadly Venoms – Five Venoms (1978)
The Team: Composed of five kung-fu fighters whose individual animal styles give them their names: The Centipede, The Snake, The Scorpion, The Lizard and The Toad
Key Member: Yan (Sheng Chiang), who’s charged by his dying master with tracking down the Five and teaming up with them.
Greatest Team Work: This epic final fight .
The Professionals – The Professionals (1966)
The Team: Led by weapons specialist Henry ‘Rico’ Fardan (Lee Marvin), this supremely badass team also consists of explosives man Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), horse wrangler Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan) and scout Jake Sharp (Woody Strode).
Key Member: Fardan himself, who’s not averse to spilling a little blood if needs must.
Greatest Team Work: The Professionals escape the clutches of evil bandit Jesus Raza (Jack Palance) by blowing up the walls of a gully, blocking out Raza’s forces.
The Avengers – Avengers Assemble (2012)
The Team: New S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and – later on – Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).
Key Member: Tony Stark aka Iron Man, of course. Without him needling everybody in just the right way, nobody would have anywhere near as much fun.
Greatest Team Work: You got massive, giant alien fish things? Who cares? We got The Avengers!
When Loki’s army invades New York, Iron Man and co save the city from utter devastation – though their John McClane approach to battles still leaves NY looking pretty worse for wear.
The Wild Bunch – The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Team: A group of aging outlaws, with Pike Bishop (William Holden) as their leader.
As the old West starts to disappear, they desperately attempt to find a way to survive. That invariably involves thieving.
Key Member: Angel (Jaime Sánchez). Jealous and hot-blooded, Angel doesn’t make things easy for the Wild Bunch.
Not least when he shoots dead an ex-lover in the arms of Mexican warlord Mapache (Emilio Fernández).
Greatest Team Work: The team face Mapache after he kidnaps Angel. When Mapache kills their buddy, an uber-violent fight kicks off…
The Dirty Dozen – The Dirty Dozen (1967)
The Team: A dozen war-time convicts who unite under Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) to bring down a German army fortress.
Key Member: Resiman, a tough-talking wise guy who don’t take shit from no-one.
Greatest Team Work: The climactic attack on the chateau, which leaves pretty much everybody battered, bruised – and in most cases – a little bit dead.
