Greatest Film Moments and Scenes

GREAT MOMENTS and SCENES FROM THE GREATEST FILMS

An extensive collection of the most famous, distinguished, unforgettable or memorable images, scenes, sequences or performances, many from the greatest films of all time

Part 20

I (continued)
I Want to Live! (1958)	Hard-living, bad-luck woman Barbara Graham (Oscar-winning Susan Hayward) convicted of murder although she vows her innocence ("I despise the lawyers, all the ones who want me dead - I'm innocent"), and the final, realistic San Quentin gas-chamber execution scene when the heroine is advised: "When you hear the pellets drop, count ten, take a deep breath - it's easier that way" and her response: "How do you know?", and the clenching of her fist and slumping over in death, in director Robert Wise's grim and dramatic biopic
If... (1968, UK)	The violent, vengeful and bloody finale - an armed shoot-out and revolt by rebellious students from the rooftop of an oppressive, conformist English boarding school (a symbolic microcosm of a repressive Establishment-oriented society) during a Founder's Day ceremony; the attack was led by rebellious, anti-authoritarian anarchist Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell in his debut film role) - earlier, he had said: "one man can change the world with a bullet in the right place"; he was joined by other boys and an unnamed coffee-house waitress/girlfriend (Christine Noonan) who coldly shot the Headmaster between the eyes; the film's concluding "THE END" was substituted with "IF...", in director Lindsay Anderson's violent and controversial coming-of-age drama about youth rebellion
I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955)	The remarkable performance of Oscar-nominated Susan Hayward as showbiz singer/actress Lillian Roth as she descends into drunkenness ("I'm what you call an adorable drunk...I'm no good. That's the way it's gotta be. I'm just nothin'. A hopeless drunk...") and makes a comeback, in director Daniel Mann's dramatic biopic
Imitation of Life (1959)	The scene in an alley in which Frankie (Troy Donahue), the date of light-skinned Sarah Jane Johnson (Susan Kohner), racistly asks: "Is it true?...Is your mother a nigger?" - and then accuses her of lying and slaps her to the ground; and later the scene in a Hollywood motel room in which Sarah Jane allows her estranged black-maid mother Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) (who was in the employ of actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner)) to hold her just "once more...like you were still my baby," and the funeral scene with Mahalia Jackson singing "Trouble of the World" as Sarah Jane returns for the funeral and sobs at her mother's casket, in Douglas Sirk's great melodrama
I'm No Angel (1933)	One-ring circus and sideshow carnival barker's (Russell Hopton) tempting a crowded audience and introducing carnival queen and dazzling international small-time, vamp circus star performer Tira (Mae West) ("Over there, Tira, the beautiful Tira, dancing, singing, marvel of the age, supreme flower of feminine pulchritude, the girl who discovered you don't have to have feet to be a dancer"), and Tira's sauntering entrance on the catwalk and her purring to spectators: "A penny for your thoughts. Got the idea, boys. You follow me?", with further risque one-liners and memorable quips (""Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men"), and her self-defense in the final courtroom scene when she often sashays in front of the jury and at one point quips: "How'm I doin'?", in Mae West's second starring feature film comedy, by director Wesley Ruggles
In a Lonely Place (1950)	The scene in which beautiful but cool blonde next-door apartment neighbor Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) - first viewed voyeuristically in a window frame - provides an alibi for cynical, hard-living, self-destructive and volatile Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) after he is accused of murdering hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart); Steele's convincing 'visual' re-enactment of his idea of the murder (a strangulation: "You squeeze harder, harder") in an unforgettable dinner conversation scene, and his line of dialogue for a script told to Laurel while driving together: "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me"; Laurel's classic response to Dixon's query about his face: "I said I liked it. I didn't say I wanted to kiss it" - and Laurel's teary words of goodbye to him as he walks away after their relationship has deteriorated by film's end: "I lived a few weeks while you loved me. Goodbye, Dix", in Nicholas Ray's black and white film noir classic
In Cold Blood (1967)	The brutal mass murder crime (delayed in the film and shown only as a post-crime scene) against the four-member Clutter family in rural Holcomb, Kansas (November 15, 1959), surveyed by the camera, by ex-cons Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) looking for $10,000, the killers' long wait on death row in Kansas State Penitentiary and the image of Smith's face next to a rain-streaked cell window (that streaks his own face with rain drops) on the night he is scheduled to be hanged, and the execution by hanging scene (April 14, 1965), in Richard Brooks' adaptation of Truman Capote's best-selling non-fiction novel
In Old Chicago (1937)	The spectacular 20-minute sequence of the famous Chicago fire of 1871 with thousands fleeing into Lake Michigan as a panoramic shot shows the city totally ablaze, ending with a shot of the rebuilt city with modern skyscrapers, in director Henry King's urban drama/disaster film
In the Heat of the Night (1967)	Black stranger and Philadelphia homicide policeman Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) identifying himself when asked by bigoted Mississippi red-neck Sheriff Gillespie (Rod Steiger): "Virgil - that's a funny name for a nigger boy that comes from Philadelphia. What do they call you up there?" - with the famous, angry but noble one-line self-introduction: "They call me Mister Tibbs"; also the powerful greenhouse scene in which Tibbs trades an angry back-hand to the face of white suspect Eric Endicott (Larry Gates) and Endicott's retort: "There was a time when I could have had you shot"; and the final parting scene at the train station when the begrudging Sheriff and Tibbs show mutual respect and understanding for each other, in Norman Jewison's racial drama
In the Line of Fire (1993)	The effective taunting phone call scenes with conversations between haunted JFK Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) and menacing ex-CIA hit man Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) (calling himself "Booth") with the protective agent telling the crazed, cold and calculated killer that his daring plan to shoot the president dead isn't going to happen ("That's not gonna happen. I'm onto you" and "You'd better pray I don't find you, you punk"), and the climactic elevator car fight in which Leary purposely refuses Frank's hand, deliberately lets go, and falls to his death, in Wolfgang Petersen's thriller
In The Name of the Father (1993, UK)	The opening riot scene; and the triumphant scene of the dismissal of charges against wrongly-accused and imprisoned Irishmen (for 15 years) for an October 5, 1974 IRA bombing - including Gerry Conlon's (Daniel Day-Lewis) pronouncement: "I'm a free man and I'm going out the front door..." and his determination to continue defending the innocence of his father who died in prison as he told crowds outside: ("I watched my father die in a British prison for something he didn't do. And this government still says he's guilty. I want to tell them that until my father is proved innocent, until all the people involved in this case are proved innocent, until the guilty ones are brought to justice, I will fight on in the name of my father and of the truth!"), in director Jim Sheridan's political docudrama
In Which We Serve (1942, UK)	The last emotional address delivered by the sunken HMS Torrin ship's Captain E. V Kinross (Noel Coward) to his stalwart but depleted crew ("If they had to die, what a grand way to go!"), and the narrator's final words: "God bless our ships and all who sail in them", in director David Lean's and Noel Coward's morale-boosting war-time drama (Lean's first directorial credit)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)	Former Vice President Al Gore's (Himself) opening line: "I used to be the next President of the United States of America," and his masterful use of slides, computer graphs and photos - a multimedia lecture that he had delivered hundreds of times, to illustrate the disastrous results of global warming; his poignant recounting of the tragic lung-cancer death of his sister Nancy in their tobacco-growing Southern family - explaining how he wished that we could "connect the dots" more quickly; also the short clip "Crimes of the Hot" from the animated TV show Futurama, from an episode in which he guest-starred; and the famous scene in which he used a scissors-style fork lift to raise him up on the right side of a mammoth graphic to examine annual temperature and the high rate of CO2 emissions levels for the past 650,000 years measured by Antarctic ice core samples; and also his ultimate conclusion: "This is really not a political issue so much as a moral issue" in the harrowing, fact-based Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winner
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)	The sight of a shrunken, miniscule Robert Scott Carey (Grant Williams) after contaminating exposure to nuclear radiation/waste, the attack by his now-dangerous house cat, his snatching of stale cheese from a giant mousetrap, and his deadly battle with a giant spider; also his memorable, enlightened philosophical speech about being infinitesimal: ("Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something too! To God, there is no zero. I still exist!"), in director Jack Arnold's existential science-fiction film
The Incredibles (2004)	The unique storyline premise of superheroes being forced by the government into retirement and living out their quiet and private lives as a suburban family in a protection program: superstrong, red-suited and slobbish Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr (voice of Craig T. Nelson) and his stretchy wife ElastiGirl/Helen Parr (voice of Holly Hunter) who have three children, including the speedy Dash (voice of Spencer Fox) and the shy, invisible, force-field making teen Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell); the character of Buddy Pine - originally Mr. Incredible's number one fan - who became arch-nemesis Syndrome (voice of Jason Lee) because of Mr. Incredible's brush-off; and the character of sassy fashion-designer Edna Mode (voice of Brad Bird) who creates indestructible super-hero costumes; the kinetic action sequences, including the one in which Mr. Incredible battles spherical robots; the character of Mr. Incredible's best friend - the ice-themed Frozone/Lucius Best (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) and the humorous scene between Lucius and his off-screen wife Honey (Kimberly Adair Clark) about his super-suit and the "greater good", and the revelation of baby Jack-Jack's powers when Syndrome tries to kidnap him, in Pixar's Oscar-winning CGI animated film written and directed by Brad Bird
Independence Day (1996)	The scene of hot Marine pilot Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) swiftly punching out an alien that crash-landed in Arizona near the Grand Canyon with his retort: "Welcome to Earth", the unleashing of global destruction - with the incredible image of huge spaceships zapping and destroying major cities (i.e., New York and LA) with their firepower across the globe - especially the destruction of the White House in DC, and President Thomas J. Whitmore's (Bill Pullman) rousing speech to pilots before the final attack: "And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!" We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!", in Roland Emmerich's blockbuster disaster film with great special effects
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)	The awe-inspiring sight of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) silhouetted against the image of a nuclear explosion in the late 50s during secret testing in the Nevada desert, which the adventurous archeologist escapes by hiding inside a lead-lined refrigerator; and the exciting conclusion in which lead psychic KGB operative Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and her henchmen enter the Mayan temple's inner chamber where 13 aliens ("inter-dimensional beings") with crystal skeletons (arranged in a circle) are seated and the retrieved crystal skull is restored onto the spinal cord of one of the aliens - followed by Irina's death from an overload of knowledge; her remains and those of other henchmen are taken into a vortex sucking them into a giant spaceship (in another dimension?) above them; after Indy and his friends escape from the crumbling temple, they watch from afar as the temple collapses, the whirling, spinning flying saucer creates a vortex in its ascension, and the valley floor is covered over by Amazonian waters, in the fourth entry in the action-adventure series
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)	The amazing stuntwork during the "Young Indiana Jones" prologue sequence (with River Phoenix playing a teenaged Indiana Jones); the amusing and witty repartee between Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and his father Dr. Henry Jones (Sean Connery), a professor of antiquity - such as: "We named the dog Indiana"; their search for the Holy Grail (the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper) and combat the Nazis, including Indy's retort to his dad: "Don't call me Junior", and the scene-stealing moment when his father chases a flock of seagulls along a beach with his opening/closing umbrella as an unlikely weapon - and the technique inadvertently causes a strafing enemy plane to be blinded and crash; also, the rat-infested catacombs and sewers under Venice, the many chase sequences (with a train, zeppelin, boat, airplane - through a tunnel!, motorcycle, etc.) and the climactic battle with a giant Nazi armored tank; and the final, supernatural showdown in the Middle Eastern Canyon of the Crescent Moon where they must encounter various villains and booby traps before they can find the sacred cup - with the climactic scene in which Nazi sympathizer Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) is tricked by Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) into drinking from a false Holy Grail, causing him to age rapidly and disintegrate into dust -- and the guardian Grail Knight's (Robert Eddison) calm observation: "He chose... poorly", in Steven Spielberg's third in the series
Indiscreet (1958)	The split-screen telephone conversation between avowed bachelor and international financier Philip Adams (Cary Grant) and rich London actress Anna Kalman (Ingrid Bergman) in different hotel rooms, in director Stanley Donen's sophisticated romance/comedy
The Informer (1935)	The tense atmospheric scenes of shadowed, fog-filled Irish streets, the scene of a "wanted" poster (advertising the reward) clinging to Gypo Nolan's (Oscar-winning Victor McLaglen) leg as he walks down a Dublin street foreshadowing his traitorous betrayal of his best friend Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford) to the fearsome 'Black and Tans' for twenty pounds, the poignant scene when Gypo bumps into a man and slowly realizes that he is blind, the scene when the coins fall to the floor from Gypo's pocket during the wake for Frankie, drunken Gypo's examination by the IRA 'kangaroo court' and his confession: ("I didn't know what I was doing, I was drunk...Isn't there a man here who can tell me why I did it?"), and the climax in a church where a mortally-wounded Gypo pleads for forgiveness from the dead man's mother (Una O'Connor) and is told: "You didn't know what you were doing" and then falls dead at the foot of a cross, in director John Ford's political drama
Inherit the Wind (1960)	The hoopla surrounding the infamous "Monkey Trial" reenactment, with two unforgettable lawyers upstaging each other - Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and Matthew Brady (Fredric March), and the scene of Brady's testimony on the stand and Drummond's questioning of the scientific authority of the Bible: ("The Bible is a book. It's a good book. But it is not the only book."...So, you, Mathew Harrison Brady, through oratory or legislature or whatever, you pass on God's orders to the rest of the world! Well, meet the Prophet from Nebraska! Is that the way of things?! Is that the way of things?! God tells Brady what is good! To be against Brady is to be against God!"), in director Stanley Kramer's great courtroom drama
The Innocents (1961)	The film's atmospheric opening with the Uncle's words: "Do you have an imagination?" and the repeated images/sounds of death and decay, the 'ghostly' ethereal appearances of a mysterious man and woman seen by repressed and slightly deranged Bly House Victorian governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr); the passionate kiss between Miss Giddens and young 'ghostly' Miles (Martin Stephens) - the orphaned, seemingly 'innocent' nephew of wealthy Bly House estate owner (Michael Redgrave) whom she believed was the reincarnation of the previous governess Miss Jessel's (Clytie Jessop) violently murdered Irish groom and estate's valet Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde); Miles' eerie recitation of a poem, beginning: "What shall I sing to my lord from my window?...", and the final interrogation sequence in the greenhouse when Miss Giddens forced Miles to admit that the ghost of Quint existed - leading to his collapse and death, in Jack Clayton's scary melodrama with a co-adapted script (by Truman Capote) of Henry James' classic The Turn of the Screw
Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939)	The entire doomed love affair between married world-famous concert violinist Holger Brandt (Leslie Howard) and his 6 year-old daughter Ann Marie's (Ann E. Todd) comely piano teacher Anita Hoffman (Ingrid Bergman in her first American film); the scene in which Holger begged Anita not to get on a train (she was going away to Sweden to escape their forbidden affair); the use of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as a metaphorical idea and musical theme; and the scene at a tombstone on the French Riviera with its words: "Mon amour dure apres la mort (My love endures after death)" - and her leaving of him: "I have been an intermezzo in his life", and her tears after she had bid him good-bye (without telling him that she was leaving him) -- followed by her Dear John letter: ("...But we know in our hearts that love like ours is wrong -- that it drags itself down with remorse and fears, and the unhappiness of others..."); and the startling, heart-breaking scene in which Holger's daughter was struck by a car when rushing to greet her father, and Holger's line to his bitter son Eric (Douglas Scott): "You see, Eric, even if you don't need me anymore, now it's I who need you"; and the last shot in which wife Margit (Edna Best) forgave Holger for his mid-life crisis/affair: ("Holger ...welcome home ...Holger, welcome home!"), in Gregory Ratoff's romantic melodrama
Into the Wild (2007)	The concluding sequence - titled 'Final Chapter: Getting of Wisdom' - of free-spirited, idealistic, arrogant college-grad adventurer Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) (aka Alexander Supertramp) on his way to a remote portion of Alaska in 1992 after forsaking his estranged family and many friends along his wanderlust journey, and meeting up with Salton Sea (California) elderly widower and leather worker Ron Franz (Oscar-nominated Hal Holbrook), and their discussion on a rocky hilltop about where to find human happiness ("From the bits and pieces I've put together, you know, from what you told me about your family, your mother and your dad, and I know you've got your problems with the church too, but there's some kind of bigger thing we can all appreciate, and it sounds like you don't mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love, and when you love, God's light shines on you"), followed by their tearful parting scene when Ron proposes paternalistically to adopt 'Alex' ("When I'm gone, I'm the end of the line...I could be, say, your grandfather"); also the final scene of Chris' prolonged death due to starvation and poisoning after eating inedible Wild Sweet Peas (mistaken for Wild Potato Alaska Carrot) and his final words scrawled in block letters into his journal: "HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED" - and the incredible pull-back shot from his face gazing up at the light in the back of his abandoned 'magic bus' home as he expires - followed by an actual self-portrait photograph of Chris sitting next to his bus, in director/writer Sean Penn's documentary-styled, ill-fated odyssey
Intolerance (1916)	The epic-sized sets, especially in the ancient "Fall of Babylon" segments; the exciting last-minute rescue of the Boy (Robert Harron) from execution with the delivery of a pardon by his wife, the Dear One (Mae Marsh) in the early 20th century America segments; the Mountain Girl's (Constance Talmadge) efforts to avert the attack of Persian King Cyrus upon Prince Belshazzar (Alfred Paget); and the recurrent image of a mother (Lillian Gish) endlessly rocking a cradle, in D. W. Griffith's epic silent film classic
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)	The opening scene (and closing scene - bookends) of Dr. Miles Bennell's (Kevin McCarthy) paranoic fear and mania about alien takeover in Santa Mira, California - a metaphor for the Communist threat; the first view of a strange, corpse-like cadaver lying on a pool table - with an unfinished, half-formed, mannequin-like humanoid face and no fingerprints, and then another fearful discovery in the greenhouse scene of another repellent, unfeeling pod that resembles and takes on human features; the frightening, terrifying reaction Miles experiences after kissing his sweetheart Becky (Dana Wynter) - discovering that she has been transformed and become one of the clones, and the final warning as Miles runs down a busy highway with heavy traffic and screams into the camera: "You're next!", in Don Siegel's cautionary sci-fi film
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)	The cameo of Kevin McCarthy (the star of the original film) running through the San Francisco city streets warning everyone about the alien menace ("They're coming!"), the despairing, climactic ending in which a pod-replica of city Health Department chemist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) rises from the bushes, and the scene in which Department of Health inspector Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) screams with a piercing, accusatory howl (and the camera descends into the blackness of his open mouth) when he points his finger and confronts the still-human Nancy Bellicec (Veronica Cartwright), in Philip Kaufman's effective remake of the 1956 classic sci-fi/horror film