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 3

A (continued)
As Good As It Gets (1997)	The scene of reclusive, vicious-spirited, obsessive-compulsive novelist Melvin Udall (Oscar-winning Jack Nicholson) befriending the Pomeranian dog Verdell of his gay artist-painter neighbor Simon Nye (Greg Kinnear), and the scene in his customary Greenwich Village cafe-restaurant when he makes a mean remark about Brooklynite single mother/waitress Carol Connelly's (Oscar-winning Helen Hunt) asthmatic son Spencer (Jesse James) - and her rage at him; and later after he pays for a specialist to treat her son (so that she could continue to wait on him) - her further anger at him when she rushes to his apartment in a rainstorm (causing her thin blouse to be soaked to the skin and see-through) and vows never to have sex with him; his later complimentary words to her: "You make me want to be a better man"; the masterfully funny scene of Melvin and Carol's dinner date in a Baltimore, Maryland seafood restaurant ("Do they serve hardshells?"), and their final clinch on the street after Melvin warns: "I'm gonna grab ya," in co-writer/director James Brooks' romantic comedy
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)	The scene of mastermind criminal Doc's (Sam Jaffe) explanation of his proposed robbery, the realistic depiction of all the criminals and their motivations in the crime, the actual jewel robbery and the clinically-delineated details of the tense heist (the nitro bottle, the alarm system), the minor memorable cameo role of a blonde, voluptuous mistress Angela (Marilyn Monroe) with corrupt lawyer Emmerich (Louis Calhern) - noted for his line: "Crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor", Doc's being caught by police because he obsessively (and voyeuristically) watches a young girl dance to jukebox music and delays his departure, and the final scene of a bleeding Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) stumbling from his car into Hickory Wood Farm - a sunny, Kentucky horse pasture, in director John Huston's crime caper
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)	A gang sniper's infamous shooting of a defenseless little girl named Kathy (Kim Richards) at an ice cream van (as she complains to her father about the erring ice-cream man: "I wanted vanilla twist!"), and the long siege and first attack on an abandoned Los Angeles police station by a violent, multi-racial urban street gang with guns that are silenced, in John Carpenter's gripping, cult classic horror-action film
Atlantic City (1981)	To the cassette tape playing Bellini's operatic Norma - the voyeuristic scene of seafood counter (oyster bar) casino worker Sally Matthews (Susan Sarandon) (who dreams of being a croupier in Monte Carlo), after work in a white tank top, rinsing her arms, throat and breasts with lemon juice at her kitchen sink to remove the fishy smell - while being watched in her apartment window from across the way by aging, numbers runner and petty crook Lou Pascal (Burt Lancaster); Lou's reminiscence to Dave Matthews (Robert Joy) on the boardwalk about the old days: "Yes, it used to be beautiful - what with the rackets, whoring, guns... The Atlantic Ocean was something then. Yes, you should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days"; also the motel room scene after Lou's killing of two gangland hoods to protect Sally (during a sour drug deal) - when he admits he had an exaggerated life: "I never killed anybody in my life...But I did tonight. You saw it," and his gleeful response to the TV news story of the murder: "Hey, that's me!...This story is going to be big all over the country: 'Gangland slaying rips apart Atlantic City!'"; and Lou's final promenade down the Boardwalk with broken-down gangster widow Grace Pinza (Kate Reid) - with a panning shot up to a view of a wrecker's ball smashing into an apartment before the closing credits, in director Louis Malle's drama
Audition (1999, Jp.)	The latter scenes of sadistic, torture and dismemberment revenge that seemingly-demure and dutifully-humble 21 year-old 'auditioned' bride-to-be Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina) exacts on middle-aged widower Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) with syringes, acupuncture needles, and piano wire; and the scene with the suddenly-lurching big burlap sack in the center of her living room as her phone rings, in director Takashi Miike's horrific romantic drama
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)	The scenes of actor Mike Myers as a cryogenically frozen 60s spy who battled his villainous arch-enemy Dr. Evil (Myers also), who gave an initial inflation-challenged ransom of "One... MEEE-llion dollars!"; Evil's bizarre relationship with cloned son Scott Evil (Seth Green), including the scene in which he keeps shushing Scott: ("Let me tell you a little story about a man named Sh!") and the inappropriate Family Counseling speech by Evil to his therapist: ("The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin?...At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking - I highly suggest you try it"); in one classic honeymoon scene, Austin Powers cavorted naked with Elizabeth Hurley as glamorous "shagadelic" Vanessa Kensington with their private parts teasingly hidden by strategically-placed objects; there were "fem-bots" with guns in the tops of their bikinis who attempted to seduce Austin Powers, catchphrases such as: "Bee-have", "Sake it to me baby!", "Yeah, baby, yeah", "Do I make you horny, baby?" and "Shall we shag now or shall we shag later?", and Powers' denial (easily refuted) that a Swedish-made penis enlarger is "his bag", in this fast-paced comedy (filled with gags, both verbal and visual) - the first of the PG-rated series of James Bond spoofs with Mike Myers
Away From Her (2006, Canada)	The film's opening scene of the closeness in the long-term relationship of 44 years - exemplified by cross-country skiing in secluded, rural northern Ontario, Canada - between devoted retired college professor Grant Andersson (Gordon Pinsent) and his beloved, increasingly-disoriented, silver-haired wife Fiona (65 year-old Julie Christie) who is on the verge of Alzheimer's disease; and Grant's frequent recollections of a younger 18 year-old Fiona (Stacey LaBerge) and how she proposed to him (voice-over: "I never wanted to be away from her. She had the spark of life"); also the scenes of an introductory tour of the Meadowlake retirement center by its chirpy, smooth-talking director Madeleine Montpellier (Wendy Crewson) and the steadfast visits (after an initial 30 days of absence) of Grant to see Fiona - although she becomes increasingly attached and doting to mute, wheelchair-bound patient Aubrey Bark (Michael Murphy) and tells persistent, slightly jealous and bewildered visitor Grant: "He doesn't confuse me at all" - possibly as 'punishment' for her husband's extra-marital indiscretions with students during the early years of their marriage; and the scenes in the nursing home during Grant's frequent visits when he speaks to sympathetic, friendly and plain-spoken nurse Kristy (Kristen Thomson) who offers her pager number, and with an understanding punk teenager named Monica (Nina Dobrev) who is visiting her grandfather, complimenting Grant during a visit about his devotion: "I should be so lucky"; also the scene of Grant reading to Fiona from the book "Letters From Iceland," and the final scene of unconditional love when Fiona briefly remembers her husband and his self-less care for her ("I'm a very lucky woman") - after he has begun an affair with Aubrey's abrasive, pragmatic and outspoken wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) - as the camera spins around the embracing couple to the tune of K.D. Lang singing Neil Young's "Helpless"; in 28 year-old actor/writer Sarah Polley's marital drama - her remarkable debut feature film
The Awful Truth (1937)	The scene of the disruption of Lucy's (Irene Dunne) song recital, and the scene of Lucy pretending to be Jerry's (Cary Grant) drunk sister at the home of his new fiancee - and her rowdy rendition of a vulgar nightclub routine and song, My Dreams Are Gone With the Wind, the image of the two of them riding motorcycles in evening dress, and the final connecting-bedrooms scene and the image of reunited, male and female cuckoo-clock figurines entering the same opening, in director Leo McCarey's great screwball comedy - one of the best of all time
B
Babe (1995)	The remarkable talking animals (including the sheepdog, the duck, the elderly ewe, the trio of singing mice, and runty, orphaned piglet Babe), and the rousing storybook finale in which sheep-herding Babe is victorious (with the password Baah Ram Ewe) in the prestigious National Sheepdog Championships contest and is told by kind-hearted, prideful owner Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell): "That'll do, pig, that'll do," in director Chris Noonan's Best Picture-nominated animal tale
Baby Doll (1956)	The first sensational image of white-trash, 19 year-old 'baby doll' child bride "Baby Doll" Meighan (Oscar-nominated Carroll Baker) sucking her thumb in a childlike crib while being spied upon through a hole in the adjoining wall by sexually-frustrated husband Archie (Karl Malden); vengeful Sicilian Silva Vacarro's (Eli Wallach in his screen debut) numerous seduction scenes of Baby Doll - in the back seat of a rusty, wheel-less Pierce-Arrow, in a double-seated swing in the yard, in an adjoining room where he kisses her under a switched-off bare bulb as Archie speaks on the phone nearby, and at the stark dinner table when they share hunks of bread dipped in raw greens; and Baby Doll's trip to town with Archie and her demands for an ice cream cone; and in the child's nursery in a memorably lewd sight - the scene of Vacarro mounting and sitting astride a small wooden hobby horse - rhythmically rocking back and forth on the tiny toy whose head is hardly visible between his legs - he playfully gyrates back and forth to the raunchy accompaniment of the rock song "Shame on You"; and Vacarro's attempt in the attic to get Baby Doll to sign papers against her husband regarding arson, in director Elia Kazan's scandalous, pot-boiling, condemned and censored film (for its time) by the Legion of Decency
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)	The scene of Georgia's (Lana Turner) discovery of Jonathan's (Kirk Douglas) affair with starlet Lila (Elaine Stewart) and her reaction in the hysterical, screaming out-of-control car sequence; and the final image of the director, actress and screenwriter eavesdropping together on one telephone receiver, in director Vincente Minnelli's show-business related drama
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)	The credits sequence with the Streamliner diesel train racing across the arid desert, the image of Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) as a one-armed stranger in a hostile Western town, his visit to Adobe Flat (home of a Japanese farmer/war hero named Komoko), thug Coley's (Ernest Borgnine) daredevil pursuit of Macreedy's jeep in the desert, the karate-chop fight scene in Sam's greasy-spoon Bar and Grill when a taunted and fed-up Macreedy ("You're not only wrong, you're wrong at the top of your voice") subdues Coley, and the nighttime deadly struggle between Macreedy and Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) and Macreedy's inventive making of a Molotov cocktail, in John Sturges' masterpiece about racial prejudice
Badlands (1973)	The opening voice-over, monotone narration of South Dakotan, magazine-addicted teenager Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek): ("My mother died of pneumonia when I was just a kid. My father had kept their wedding cake in the freezer for ten whole years. After the funeral, he gave it to the yardman. He tried to act cheerful, but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house"), the image-filled torching of Holly's house after the killing of her widowed father (Warren Oates) by her unstable ex-garbage collector boyfriend - a James Dean look-alike named Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen); Kit's execution of a basketball; their killing spree and flight through the Badlands and into the wild frontier of Montana, and their final dance in the car's headlights (to the tune of Nat King Cole singing A Blossom Fell on the radio) before Kit is captured, in the debut film of 29 year-old director Terrence Malick
Bambi (1942)	The visually-beautiful and musically-expressive animated Disney classic based on the Felix Salten story, with cute and lovable rabbit Thumper and bashful, loveable skunk Flower, the coming-of-age scene of young stripling Bambi stumbling over his shadow and having trouble with his footing when taught how to walk/run/hurdle by Thumper, Bambi's first visit to the meadow, and his lesson on how to slide across the ice - and ending up spread-eagled; wise old Owl's humorous sex-education speech on the power of falling in love ("twitterpatted"); the traumatic, off-screen (sound of gunshot) death of Bambi's mother by Man - hunters in a snow-covered meadow and the small fawn's fearful cries of "Mother, where are you?" during a raging snowstorm, and the buck's fateful message ("Your mother can't be with you anymore"), Bambi's fight with a rival deer for doe Faline, and the scene of protecting her from a pack of mad dogs, the destruction of the forest by fire, and the final scene of a grown Bambi proudly taking his place and standing with his 'Prince of the Forest' father, silhouetted against the sky, in Disney's classic feature-length animation
Bananas (1971)	The opening scene of the play-by-play commentary of a Latin-American president's assassination for ABC's Wide World of Sports - provided by sportscaster announcer Howard Cosell (Himself), as he asks the dying leader: "I suppose that now we will have to announce your retirement" and "Well, of course, you're upset"; also the scene of nerdy Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen) as a consumer product tester with a malfunctioning exercise-machine ("The Execucisor"), and aspiring playboy Fielding's nervous purchase of a porno magazine and his cringing when his order is screamed out by the clerk ("Hey Ralph? How much for a copy of Orgasm?"); his cowardice in a subway mugging by two thugs (including a young Sylvester Stallone in his screen debut); his breakup with red-headed radical Nancy (Louise Lasser) and his whining: (Fielding: "How am I immature?" Nancy: "Well...intellectually, emotionally and sexually." Fielding: "Yeah, but in what other ways?"); also the scenes of his involvement as a fake-bearded revolutionary guerrilla in a tiny Latin American banana republic as the guest of dictator Gen. Emilio M. Vargas (Carlos Montalban) and the scene of a dinner toast when he tensely begins chewing on his glass, his ordering hundreds of sandwiches for his troops before being installed as El Presidente; and his US trial scene in which he cross-examines himself and objects to the judge ("I object your honor. This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. I move for a mistrial"); and the closing televised wedding honeymoon night scene with Nancy that is viewed as a boxing match by commentator Howard Cosell, in actor/director Woody Allen's early anarchic slapstick comedy
The Band Wagon (1953)	The 8-minute, dreamy, film-noir, pulp B-movie, jazz-dance spoof on Mickey Spillane's "The Girl Hunt Ballet" in the film's climactic performance of long-legged femme fatale Gaby Gerard (Cyd Charisse) and Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire); also two other numbers: the sublime Astaire-Charisse love duet in Central Park titled "Dancing in the Dark," and the elegant softshoe dance of Tony and pretentious producer-director Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan) to "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan," in director Vincente Minnelli's great movie musical
The Bank Dick (1940)	The words of advice given by Egbert Souse (W.C. Fields) to his future son-in-law Og Oggilby (Grady Sutton) - "Surely, don't be a luddie-duddie, don't be a moon-calf, don't be a jabbernow, you're not those, are you?"; and the scene when he is hired as a vigilant bank security dick - he chokes a young boy in a cowboy outfit waving a toy gun - believing that he is a holdup man - as the bratty boy walks out of the bank, he ridicules the guard's shiny, bulbous red nose: "Mommy, doesn't that man have a funny nose?" His mother chides him for making fun: "You mustn't make fun of the gentleman, Clifford. You'd like to have a nose like that full of nickels, wouldn't you?"; also Egbert's Black Pussy Cat Cafe drinking routine; also Souse's use of a Mickey Finn to hold off effeminate, inquisitive and persistent bank examiner J. Pinkerton Snoopington (Franklin Pangborn); and his memorable, zany, slapstick getaway car chase scene as a "hostage" with a terrified robber - it is a superbly-timed chase - the cars (Souse's car is followed by the local police, the bank president, and a representative from the movie company) zoom and circle around, barely avoiding crashing into each other or other obstacles in the path - the getaway car careens through streets, over ditches (over the heads of ditchdiggers), around curves and up a mountainside, missing collisions at every turn with the pursuit vehicles. When asked by the thug in the back seat to give him the wheel, Egbert matter-of-factly pulls it off the steering column and gives it to him; when the robber is struck unconscious and apprehended, Sousè is an unlikely hero once again for thwarting another heist, in one of W.C. Fields' classic comedies
Barbarella (1967)	The infamous, teasing, slow-motion opening credits sequence that strips 41st century comic-strip heroine Barbarella (Jane Fonda) of her space-suit outfit; and the unusual elbow-sex scene and sexploits with a hairy primitive (her reaction to physical love: "But no one's done it for hundreds of centuries!"), a blind winged angel Pygar (John Phillip Law) ("An angel doesn't make love - an angel is love") and a lesbian evil Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg) ("You are very pretty, Pretty-Pretty"); Barbarella's escape from being pecked to death by songbirds ("This is really a much too poetic way to die!"); the "sex pill" scene between goofy revolutionary Dildano (David Hemmings) and Barbarella (which causes her hair to curl); Durand Durand's (Milo O'Shea) unsuccessful attempt to kill Barbarella with pleasure by orgasmically "playing" her with a euphemistic pipe organ ("Sonata for Execution of Various Young Women") and his aghast reaction to her defeating the machine ("What kind of girl are you?! Have you no shame?!"), in director Roger Vadim's psychedelic cult classic and sexual satire
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)	The climactic scene in which poet Elizabeth Barrett (Norma Shearer) struggles out of the tyrannical grasp of her domineering father (Charles Laughton), in director Sidney A. Franklin's historical romance based on the successful stage drama
Barry Lyndon (1975, UK)	The film's second dueling scene of impetuous and jealous young Irish rogue Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) against competing suitor Captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter) for the affection of his cousin Nora Brady (Gay Hamilton) - with Barry's stubborn assertion ("I'm not sorry and I'll not apologize"); the bare fist-fight between Barry and a burly fellow soldier Poole (Pat Roach); the battle scene of British soldiers marching toward the French troops in rows and being mowed down - with the death of Barry's friend Captain Grogan (Godfrey Quigley) in a muddy ditch; the brief affair between Barry and a young Prussian war bride/mother (Diana Körner); Barry's admission of spying for Prussian Captain Potzdorf (Hardy Krüger) to nobleman Chevalier de Balibari (Patrick Magee): ("I have a confession to make to you. I'm an Irishman..."); the scene of Barry's first flirtatious meeting with Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) during a gamester session; the scene of Barry's detestable step-son Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali) accusing his father of abuse toward the Lyndon family during an afternoon concert in the drawing room ("...his brutal and ungentlemen-like behavior, his open infidelity, his shameless robberies and swindling of my property, and yours") and Barry's brawling retaliation; the sad death scene of Barry's son Bryan (David Morley) after being thrown from a horse - with his parents at his bedside; and the film's lengthy third duel scene of Barry vs. his stepson ("I have not received satisfaction"); and the final shot of Lady Lyndon reacting to Barry's name as she signs his yearly annuity/bribe (to stay away), in director Stanley Kubrick's three-hour visually-stunning costume drama (with astonishing, gorgeous candlelit cinematography by John Alcott and oil painting-like tableauxs) adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 novel with stately voice-over narration by Michael Hordern
Barton Fink (1991)	The scene of eccentric movie studio mogul Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner) supplicating himself by a swimming pool and kissing the feet of wiry-haired, thick-framed black-eyeglass-wearing New York playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) when he asks the writer to give him a wrestling picture with Wallace Beery within a week ("We need that Barton Fink feeling"), the fiery scene in which Fink's traveling insurance salesman/psychotic homicidal neighbor Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) returns to the rundown Hotel Earle in Hollywood of 1942, shoots two cops waiting for him there, and whistles before exclaiming: "Brother, is it hot!", and the last scene in which the bewildered playwright, suffering terminal writer's block, finds himself on a beach with Meadows' brown paper-wrapped parcel and a bathing beauty (Isabelle Townsend) - his dream girl from a picture on the wall of his surreal hotel room #621. After she greets him with "It's a beautiful day," he asks: "Are you in pictures?" to which she responds: "Don't be silly," in this Coen Brothers classic
Basic Instinct (1992)	The infamous police interrogation scene when ice-pick murder suspect/millionaire mystery novelist and bi-sexual Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) first smokes in the no-smoking area ("What are you going to do? Charge me with smoking?") and then openly crosses her legs - a full underwear-free view - to flirtatiously tease a panel of policemen facing her; her oversexed taunting line to Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) - "Have you ever f--ked on cocaine, Nick? (long pause) It's nice"; and other outrageous dialogue by scriptwriter Joe Eszterhas, such as: "Well, she got that magnum cum laude pussy on her that done fried up your brain"; also Catherine's openly seductive lesbian dance with Roxy (Leilani Sarelle) in a nightclub to taunt the detective, and Nick's controversial, brutal love-making scene with police psychiatrist Beth Gardner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), in Paul Verhoeven's erotic thriller
Batman (1989)	Danny Elfman's memorable, brooding march score during the opening credits when a Batman logo is revealed, Anton Furst's revolutionary, Oscar-winning art direction/set design of a Gotham City (part Blade Runner, part comic book) with massive architecture and statuary, the first appearance of Batman (Michael Keaton) to a crook: "I'm Batman", the first appearance of growling mob enforcer Jack Napier after being dropped into acid; the famous, oft-imitated "plastic surgery" scene in which Jack (seen from behind, face hidden) after having reconstructive facial surgery demands a mirror, and upon looking at his face in the mirror moans at first before laughing maniacally and smashing the mirror -- and his first memorable entrance as The Joker, in which he tells his boss Carl Grissom ("Jack? Jack is dead. You can call me... Joker!"), the post-coital moment when blonde photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) wakes up to see Bruce Wayne swinging like a bat while doing his exercises, the many classic one-liners by the cackling, villainous Joker ("Winged freak terrorizes? What'll they get a load of ME!", "Where does he get those wonderful toys?", and "If you gotta go, go with a SMILE!"), the murder of a disloyal subordinate with a lethal joy-buzzer ("Oh, I've got a live one here!"), the flashback in which Bruce remembers his parents being murdered by Jack - and the killer's chilling line: "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my victims!", Vicki's ride through a dense forest in the Batmobile en route to the Batcave; the ironic silhouette of the Batplane against the moon to form the Batman logo, the death of the Joker - plunging from a cathedral spire with a gargoyle attached after his climactic dual with Batman, and the ending in which the Batsignal is revealed followed by the closing shot of Batman standing alone in a heroic pose on the top of a building, the guardian of his city, in Tim Burton's influential and dark blockbuster about the comic-book superhero
The Battleship Potemkin (1925)	The extremely famous Odessa Steps montage sequence of the indiscriminate execution and massacre of civilians by rows of the Czar's Cossack's troops during the failed, real-life 1905 revolution - including the images of angry citizens, and of a young mother being cut down and her baby carriage carrying her infant bouncing and tumbling down the harbor steps in Odessa (later copied in Brazil (1985), and The Untouchables (1987)), and a woman being shot in the face (shattering her glasses), in Russian director Sergei Eisenstein's classic film with revolutionary uses of montage and editing
Beau Geste (1939)	The memorable puzzling opening sequence in which a relief column of French Foreign Legionnaires soldiers crosses the Saharan desert dunes and arrives at a strangely silent Fort Zinderneuf, the brutality of sadistic Sergeant Markoff (Brian Donlevy) toward deserters; and the unraveling of the 'Blue Water' Sapphire mystery - with the final line tearfully spoken by a grateful Lady Patricia Brandon (Heather Thatcher) after she finishes reading Beau's (Gary Cooper) letter: "Beau Geste? Gallant gesture. We didn't name him wrongly, did we?", in director William Wellman's adventure drama