Since King Kong climbed to the top of the Empire State Building in 1933, the movies have often relied on skyscrapers as a tense setting for action thrills. And the buildings, along with studio ambitions, keep getting higher. This summer, Dwayne Johnson will find himself atop the world’s tallest in the appropriately titled “Skyscraper,” and it’s not even his first go-round with a movie tower this year. Here, from the highest high-rise to the (relatively) lowest, is a look at how Hollywood has scaled action heights.

240th Floor

Skyscraper (2018)

Building: The (fictional) Pearl, Hong Kong

Height: 3,500 feet (without antenna)

Stunt: Leave it to one of the world’s biggest action stars to take on one of the world’s biggest buildings. Playing a disabled war veteran who now assesses security for skyscrapers, Dwayne Johnson springs to the rescue when the Pearl comes under attack. In the trailer for the movie, which opens July 13, the star performs a number of death-defying feats, but there’s one particularly eye-popping moment: when he hangs by his prosthetic foot from a rope on the side of the building.

160th Floor

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

Building: Burj Khalifa, Dubai

Height: 2,717 feet.

Stunt: As Ethan Hunt in the “Mission Impossible” franchise, Tom Cruise has taken stunt work to new heights (and has sometimes paid the price in injuries). Here, Hunt must scale the side of the Burj Khalifa to break into a server room on the 130th floor, which isn’t even the top. For the climb, he uses high-tech sticky gloves that malfunction. Mr. Cruise did indeed do his own dangling from the side of the building (in a harness) for key shots.

138th Floor

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Building: Glass Tower (fictional), San Francisco

Height: 1,834 feet.

Stunt: What’s worse than a building on fire? A really tall building on fire. In this star-studded spectacle, a high-rise has caught fire because safety standards are not quite up to code. In one particularly harrowing sequence, an evacuation is attempted using a scenic elevator. But an explosion loosens it, leaving it teetering in the sky with Faye Dunaway and others inside.

110th Floor

Rampage (2018)

Building: Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower), Chicago

Height: 1,450 feet.

Stunt: Just another day in Chicago with mutant gorillas, crocodiles and flying wolves attacking the city. As the havoc begins to topple Willis Tower, Dwayne Johnson and Naomie Harris, stranded on the roof, use a broken helicopter to hover over the building and ride the wave of its destruction to safety. And yes, that does look as crazy as it sounds.

102nd Floor

King Kong (1933)

Building: Empire State Building, New York

Height: 1,250 feet.

Stunt: In a scene that helped ignite Hollywood’s passion for action on tall buildings, King Kong, with Ann Darrow clutched firmly in his palm, scales the side of the Empire State Building all the way to the top. We see this mostly ina wide shot, the majesty of the architecture dwarfing even Kong as his silhouette slowly ascends.

98th Floor

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Building: Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago

Height: 1,171 feet.

Stunt: This movie, busy with visual effects and computer-generated characters, also has some moments of pure action, like a scene of Special Forces paratroopers leaping from a building to counterattack the Decepticons. This was done by BASE jumpers actually jumping from the roof of Trump Tower.

61st Floor

Furious 7 (2015)

Buildings: Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi

First tower: 1,002 feet. 80 floors.

Second tower: 854 feet. 60 floors.

Third tower: 714 feet. 61 floors.

Stunt: The go-big-or-go-home “Fast and Furious” franchise went very, very big with this Abu Dhabi doozy. Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) use a rare sports car to crash through one skyscraper and leap to another. When the brakes fail, they leap yet again into a third skyscraper.

55th Floor

Ghost Rider (2007)

Building: The Rialto, Melbourne

Height: 823 feet.

Stunt: In this action picture, Ghost Rider, the demonic, combustible motorcyclist played by Nicolas Cage, uses the side of a building like an interstate, speeding to the top to elude authorities. “The suspect is going up!” says an officer.

52nd Floor

Tower Heist (2011)

Building: A luxury high-rise, New York. The structure isn’t named in the movie but it is patterned after the Trump International Hotel and Tower (where some scenes were shot).

Height: 583 feet.

Stunt: A group of workers in the building try to break into an underhanded tenant’s penthouse to steal $20 million from his safe. One moment, played as much for comedy as for action, has Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy climbing the side of the tower on a cable that also happens to be holding a sports car as well as Matthew Broderick dangling underneath (it’s complicated). All the while, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is happening below.

35th floor

Die Hard (1988)

Building: Nakatomi Plaza (fictional), Los Angeles

Height: 490 feet.

Stunt: This film, which turned Bruce Willis into a bona fide movie star, owes a lot to “The Towering Inferno,” and “Skyscraper” owes a lot to “Die Hard.” The most climactic stunt has Mr. Willis as John McClane, fire hose wrapped around his waist, leaping from the top as the building explodes behind him in slow motion.

10th Floor

Safety Last! (1923)

Building: A fictional 12-story edifice that was portrayed by the shorter International Savings and Exchange Bank Building in Los Angeles.

Height: 10 floors.

Stunt: In this silent classic, Harold Lloyd climbs the side of the building, then hangs from a clock. A stunt this ambitious in an entertainment medium that was still relatively new was, and still is, quite the spectacle.