Lawrence rescuing Gasim from the Sun's Anvil in Lawrence of Arabia.
Luke, Han and Chewie rescuing Princess Leia from the Death Star in Star Wars.
Best of all, both these rescues are subverted by wild ironies; Lawrence ends up executing Gasim for carrying out a tribal vendetta, and Luke and Leia's getaway from the Death Star is a ruse cooked up by Darth Vader so the Millennium Falcon can be tracked to Yavin 4.
[startquote[Luke and Leia's getaway from the Death Star is a ruse cooked up by Darth Vader so the Millennium Falcon can be tracked to Yavin 4.
But Leia knows the escape was too easy. She's none too impressed, however, when the Walking Carpet/Fuzzball, Laser-Brain and Shorty 'plan' gets them all trapped in the detention block - "this is some rescue . . . when you came in didn't you have a plan for getting out?" To which Laser-Brain points out Shorty with the retort, "he's the brains, sweetheart!"
The rescue of the lovely Claudia Cardinale in the great 1966 western, The Professionals. It turns out she didn't really want to be rescued, but a great sequence.
