After 10 years and three additional movies, one moment from the original John Wick still hasn’t been beaten. Since the first movie released, the John Wick franchise has become an absolute juggernaut action series. All the John Wick films grossed over a billion dollars combined, and Keanu Reeves is arguably the biggest star in the entire action genre today. Even though John Wick grew well beyond the bounds of what the original movie set up, the franchise still hasn’t managed to produce anything better than one perfect moment from its first outing.

The John Wick franchise has improved in almost every way possible since the original film came out in 2014. By the ending of John Wick: Chapter 4, the action scenes got bigger and more intense, John Wick’s kill count nearly doubled, and the world of John Wick expanded into a mᴀssive network of underground ᴀssᴀssins and secret societies. There are even several upcoming John Wick spinoffs in the works that should continue to bring the franchise to new heights. For all the improvements it has made, however, it still can’t beat this one moment.

John Wick’s “Baba Yaga” Scene Is Still The Franchise’s Best Moment 10 Years Later

The Original John Wick’s Baba Yaga Scene Was The Start Of John’s Legend

Even after 10 years of John Wick, the original movie’s Baba Yaga scene is still the franchise’s best moment. Viggo Tarasov’s (Michael Nyqvist) attempt to impress upon his son the gravity of the situation he’s just stepped into is where the legend of John Wick truly began. As Viggo fearfully explains why John is called the Baba Yaga and John takes a sledgehammer to his basement floor, it’s clear that John Wick is something special. None of the action scenes that followed could possibly convey just how scary John was to his enemies as effectively as the Baba Yaga scene did.

John Wick‘s Baba Yaga scene is so perfect that it has become the foundation of the entire franchise. That moment established John’s most notorious nickname throughout the rest of the films, it created his backstory with the Ruska Roma, and there’s even an upcoming John Wick anime dedicated to depicting the “impossible task” Viggo sent John on. John Wick: Chapter 2 even focused an entire fight scene on Viggo’s offhanded comment that he had seen John kill three men with a pencil. Every other John Wick movie has essentially been dedicated to showing that Viggo was right to consider John an unstoppable force of nature.

John Wick (2014) Has Aged Incredibly Well Even After Three Great Sequels

The Original John Wick Still Holds Up Even As The Franchise’s Action & Budget Increased

The Baba Yaga scene isn’t the only part of the original John Wick that has aged gracefully. Really, the entire film is still as good today as it was in 2014. Some fans even consider it the best John Wick movie in the franchise, and it’s plain to see why. The original John Wick is punchy, gritty, and grounded in a way the soaring action scenes and sprawling ᴀssᴀssin’s underworld prevented the later movies from achieving. As a standalone film, the original John Wick is still great, and it’s clearly reminiscent of classics like The Bourne Idenтιтy.

The first John Wick mastered its action and fight scenes, but it also presented such a thematically rich and emotionally moving story to go along with it. In just over 100 minutes, John Wick introduced audiences to John and his grief over his wife’s death, gave them a reason to root for him, and resolved his trauma. While the following movies definitely expanded the world outside of John himself, and John Wick 4 had a perfect ending to his character arc, none of them could develop John as perfectly as the original John Wick did.