What are Your Choices for the Best Most Memorable Moments and Scenes in all of Cinema ?

There are so many but I think, for me, the most memorable moments aren’t simply a cinematic or even story driven event but often a combination of sound and vision that can raise even the simplest of scenes to another level. One very simple scene that I love is the three-way shootout at the end of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. It’s nothing special cinematically in itself, but combining it with Morricone’s score as it rises to a crescendo really does move it up a notch for me.
 
Hmm, lots for me but the 4 that spring to mind first are..
1. A boy and his dog when he chooses the dog and they eat his girlfriend
2. Get Carter (original) where Carter is shot in the end
3. Once upon a time in the west, the harmonica man scene - You brought two to many and finally..
4. Star wars ... the I love you / I know scene
oh and maybe, The Crow when he says it cant rain all the time and the girl realises who it is?
Their is about 1 million more, but I like scenes that catch the heart and make you pause and smile.
 
The opening scene in Star Wars: A New Hope was pretty iconic. The Star Destroyer seemed to go on forever.

Blade Runner has a few scenes. Another great opening scene as we see the cityscape of Los Angeles. Gouts of flame intercut with an eye. Vangelis's music really made that scene. Roy Batty's final "Tears In Rain" scene was inspired.

The Terminator also has a few brilliant scenes in it. My favourite is probably the Police station.

The musical scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Contact when the transmission is being received. Another example of sound and vision. It's a simple scene, but really well done.

The Thing has many, but the two that come to mind are the dogs in the beginning and the blood testing scene.
 
The Zoom Pull in Jaws [I fell of my seat in the cinema].
The baby carriage on the steps in The Untouchables [the same scene in Battleship Potemkin - where they borrowed it from - is almost as good]
"You Can't Handle The Truth!" in A Few Good Men [That whole scene really, dialogue doesn't get much better than that]
The space liner docking with the Space Station in 2001: a Space Odyssey [Kubrick at his best, just let the visual and the music tell the tale]
"La Marseillaise" scene in Casablanca [the whole film could count as far as I'm concerned].
 
What about Godfather 2 where Pacino is sitting in the room and one by one the others come in to pay their respects to the new Godfather. For me Pacino`s best scene, and the music in the background, so much atmosphere.
 
Rodders said:
The opening scene in Star Wars: A New Hope was pretty iconic. The Star Destroyer seemed to go on forever.

Blade Runner has a few scenes. Another great opening scene as we see the cityscape of Los Angeles. Gouts of flame intercut with an eye. Vangelis's music really made that scene. Roy Batty's final "Tears In Rain" scene was inspired.

The Terminator also has a few brilliant scenes in it. My favourite is probably the Police station.

The musical scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Contact when the transmission is being received. Another example of sound and vision. It's a simple scene, but really well done.

The Thing has many, but the two that come to mind are the dogs in the beginning and the blood testing scene.
Click to expand...
All these and...

The chest bursting scene in Alien. Unforgettable.
Ripley's 'nuke the site from orbit' line from Aliens.
Spock's death at the end of Wrath of Khan.

I'm sure I'll come up with others.
 
That Star Destroyer - I’d have signed up for the Empire there and then
La Marseillaise - made me want to be French
Title sequence from The Draughtsman’s Contract - waspish dialogue on steroids - in fact most of the film qualifies!
And from the sublime to the ridiculous...
“Open fire, all weapons!” - from Flash Gordon
 
Seeing Darth for the first time, seeing the Star Destroyer, seeing the Death Star, seeing ATATs - all very memorable.

Probably the thing that most stuck with me is seeing the annoying little green creature and (just like Luke) not realising he was the Yoda the Jedi master.

Other memorable things not mentioned - b&w turning to colour in Wizard of Oz for the first time as a child and then - years later - watching it again thinking 'I'm SURE it was in colour last time I saw it' and being surprised once again!
 
Rodders said:
The opening scene in Star Wars: A New Hope was pretty iconic. The Star Destroyer seemed to go on forever.

Blade Runner has a few scenes. Another great opening scene as we see the cityscape of Los Angeles. Gouts of flame intercut with an eye. Vangelis's music really made that scene. Roy Batty's final "Tears In Rain" scene was inspired.

The Terminator also has a few brilliant scenes in it. My favourite is probably the Police station.

The musical scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Contact when the transmission is being received. Another example of sound and vision. It's a simple scene, but really well done.

The Thing has many, but the two that come to mind are the dogs in the beginning and the blood testing scene.
Click to expand...
I was just about to write the "tears in the rain" scene in Blade Runner. Favorite movie scene of all time!
 
I might be biased ;) , but the best has to be the trip into the star gate from 2001 - the music, the visuals, the state of mind...


Closely followed by the dawn of man


I need to watch the film again
 
Last edited:
The moment in Apocalypse Now when, during the 'ride of the Valkyries' when a Viet Cong woman throws a grenade into the hospital helicopter followed by her and her associate being gunned down by 'cavalrymen' in copters above.

It's difficult to explain why it has such an effect on me. Perhaps the extreme brutality of warfare?

Sticking on Vietnam films, Robert De Niro calculating the odds for the 'Russian Roulette tournament' in The Deer Hunter always sticks in my mind, despite the fact I've only watched the film once. The tension!
 
The first 15 minutes of Once Upon a Time in the West - silent but for the ambient sound of the setting, until the screeching whistle of the approaching train - wherein really nothing of note happens, except for the brilliant building up of tension and expectation.

Das Boot, when the submarine is lying crippled on the sea-bottom and the Ghost reports the completion of enough repairs to be able to rise and surface.

Already mentioned above: The chest-bursting scene from Alien, the three-way shoot-out in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and the 'Rain in Tears' scene from Bladerunner.

A Matter of Live and Death (1946), wherein the scene of a courtroom in the heavens. At the end the shot is panning out, to turn into the view of the Milky Way type galaxy. For some reason this shot has stuck itself in my memory.

'The Run' from Forrest Gump.

The very last scene from Jeremiah Johnson.
 
Any appearances of the shark in Jaws.
Jeff Goldblum's final conversion into Brundle Fly in The Fly.
The first time the T-Rex roars in Jurassic Park.
Almost every shot in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Too many to mention.
 
A Touch of Evil's opening is stunning. Superb cinematography and tension and all in one take. I actually thought it was a lot longer than the 3:40 seconds it is - which must say something about the power of it:


A lot of funny scenes stick in my head, but they work better in the context of the film. The bees & chainsaw scene from Tucker & Dale vs Evil is still funny, but hilarious in the context of the film:


One Cut of the Dead is sort of two main scenes. The first can be awkward at times, but you have to watch it, and everything comes clear in a brilliant 35-minute (one-take) final scene.

A scene of a struggling single mother in I, Daniel Blake is possibly the most heartbreaking scene I've seen.

The scene on the train (The Sixth Station) in Spirited Away is stunning and beautiful in every way - the animation, the music and that moment in the film.

The final action scene in Mission: Impossible - Fallout managed to take craziness to a new level.

The Handmaiden managed to make a tooth-filing scene erotic.

The reveal in Infernal Affairs (2002) is almost up there with the ending to The Usual Suspects.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - aren't the opening scenes in The Shire just wonderful? Lots of great scenes in this film.

I don't think Toy Story 3's finale and the water in the glass in Jurassic Park need any explanation.
 
Inception

First one, near the start, is when Leonardo DiCaprio shoots his colleague Arthur in the head, starting a fantastic rush...

...then right at the end, after a great hommage to The Spy who Loved Me (Austria backdrop), Ariadne throws herself off the top of a skyscraper to 'ride the kick' back...

...finally Cobb's journey to his children, right at the end, that finishes with the spinning top.

(Hans Zimmer's music really helps as well, I must add!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Extollager Saving wood pulp by typography choices, etc. Technology 5
Astro Pen "You have two choices." Is that logically impossible? Grammar & Spelling 30
B Movies and TV Shows in Which , Had You been a Character You Would Have Made Decidedly Different choices Than They Made . General Film Discussion 24
B What Are Your Choices for Worst Comedy Films Of All Time? General Film Discussion 83
Paul_C Age, and book choices Book Discussion 13

Similar threads


Back
Top