Nixon (1995)

The recreation of the 1960 Presidential television debate between Richard M. Nixon (Oscar-nominated Anthony Hopkins) and John F. Kennedy (Himself); Nixon noisily playing "Happy Days Are Here Again" on the piano to drown out his wife Pat's (Oscar-nominated Joan Allen) complaints after losing to incumbent Pat Brown in California - and his famous line: "You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore"; the famous "I am not a crook" speech, and the scene in which a resigning and sobbing President Nixon prays with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Paul Sorvino) and his poignant conversation with a portrait of Kennedy ("When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they ARE..."), before delivering his TV resignation speech ("My mother was a saint..."), in Oliver Stone's documentary-drama with homage paid to Citizen Kane (1941) with its flashback structure, dinner-table scene and newsreels

No Way Out (1987)

One of the most infamous sex scenes of all time - the passionate love scene in the back seat of a limousine between Lt. Commander Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) and the Defense Secretary David Brice (Gene Hackman) mistress Susan Atwell (Sean Young) - punctuated by a glimpse of the Washington Monument; the scene of Brice's accidental murder of Atwell who fell from her second floor balcony; the surprising suicide of scheming, yet loyal aide Scott Pritchard (Will Patton) when his superior Brice tried to make him the fall guy in the murder of Susan Atwell; and the devious trick-surprise ending revealing Farrell's true loyalty (to the KGB) as fabled mole/spy 'Yuri', in Roger Donaldson's twisting political thriller (an update of the 1946 Kenneth Fearing potboiler The Big Clock, originally adapted for the big screen as The Big Clock (1948) and starring Ray Milland)

Noah's Ark (1928)

This silent film (part-talkie) featured intercut sequences of the Biblical story of the 'Great Flood', with a climactic flood sequence - that mixed minatures, double-exposures, and the full-scale destruction of actual sets; in a scene reminiscent of Cecil B. DeMille's earlier Biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1923), Noah (Paul McAllister) went on a mountain trek where in one dramatic scene he experienced a burning bush and the creation of giant tablets on a mountainside with flaming letters warning of a Flood ("to destroy all flesh") and commissioning him to build an Ark; just before the flood, virginal Miriam (Dolores Costello) was to be sacrificed by King Nephilu (Noah Beery) of Akkad - as the archer drew back his bow, he was struck by lightning; a fierce storm and another lightning bolt destroyed the temple and torrents of water caused a massive flood that ravaged everything, in this melodramatic epic directed by Michael Curtiz

Norma Rae (1979)

The inspirational scene in which small-town Alabama cotton mill union organizer Norma Rae (Oscar-winning Sally Field) holds up above her head a hand-scrawled, cardboard "UNION" sign while standing on a table -- causing her fellow factory workers to one-by-one shut down their machines in solidarity and stand up for their rights, in director Martin Ritt's social drama

North by Northwest (1959)

The memorable Saul Bass opening credits sequence set to Bernard Herrman's lively score; and the opening kidnapping scene when baffled New York adman Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken as double agent Kaplan; the drunk-driving sequence and the elevator scene when Thornhill's mother Clara (Jessie Royce Landis) asks his enemy assassins: "You gentlemen aren't really trying to kill my son, are you?"; the United Nations murder scene with Roger photographed while gripping a knife in a dead man's back; the seduction scene aboard a railroad car with cool blonde Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint); one of the most famous set pieces ever filmed -- Thornhill's standing at a deserted Highway 41 crossroads where a stranger stands across the road from him (widescreen) and wonders: "that plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops" and the famous pursuit-attack sequence by a deadly crop-dusting bi-plane in an open, flat and desolate field as Thornhill seeks protection in a cornfield, the dramatic editing that heightens suspense when the strafing plane crashes into an oil truck; also the art auction scene when Thornhill low-bids himself into the safe hands of the police; and the cliff-dangling episode at Mount Rushmore when Eve and Thornhill cling for their lives and he quips: "They (two previous wives) said I led too dull a life" - and the final, clever transition as Thornhill tugs on Eve (hanging on the immense carved stone face) and - CUT - pulls her up into a berth in the interior of a Pullman sleeping car (that heads into a tunnel), in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece of mistaken identity

Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Grauens (1922, Germ.) (aka A Symphony of Terror/Horror)

The scene of the appearance of hideous Nosferatu (undead) vampire in his castle in Transylvania in the Carpathian Mountains - a bald-headed and cadaverous creature with claw-like/skeletal fingernails, long teeth (or fangs) and bat ears - Count Graf Orlok (Max Schreck), who was seen glimpsed at a long distance, but then approached quickly (through dissolves) toward the horrified, visiting real estate agent Johannes Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) until he was completely in the curved, pointed doorway with a Gothic arch, revealing his ugly, scary figure; also the similar scene of Count Orlok rising straight up from his earth-filled coffin in the cargo hold of the double-masted "death ship" Empusa - causing the crazed first mate (who was hacking into the coffin) to run on-deck and hurl himself into the water; and the low-angle image of the predatory creature's walk across the prow of the ship (looking like a spider spinning his web in the rigging) transporting him to his new home in the north German town of Wisborg; also, the shadowy approach of the vampire's elongated hand as he climbed the stairs and reached out to a door and toward his stalking victim - an awaiting possessed Ellen Hutter (Greta Schroeder) - who had read in his book that "Deliverance is possible by no other means but that an innocent maiden maketh the vampire heed not the first crowing of the cock - this done by the sacrifice of her own bloode"; and finally, the scene of Orlok's death-fading away scene by exposure to sunlight at her window after the rooster crowed signaling the dawn, in this influential German expressionistic film by director F.W. Murnau

Nothing Sacred (1937)

The comic lady-beating scene between reportedly-dying Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) and hotshot newspaperman Wally Cook (Fredric March) to make Hazel look properly bruised and terminally ill, ending up with Hazel knocked out with a terrific punch, in director William Wellman's great screwball comedy

Notorious (1946)

This film contained the longest kiss in film history - in order to bypass the Production Code's restriction on a screen clinch beyond 3 seconds long - it was a passionate 3-minute kissing scene between American agent Devlin (Cary Grant) and sexy Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) that began on a Rio balcony, moved inside to the telephone where Devlin took a call and ended at the front door with them all the while talking and kissing; also the incredible, long and unbroken crane shot zeroing in on the key clenched in Alicia's hand (in closeup) that will unlock the wine cellar; the tense champagne party and wine cellar sequence where uranium dust is found in the bottles - and their ploy to fool WWII Nazi agent (Claude Rains); the scene of Alex's humiliating confession to his domineering mother (Mme. Konstantin) about his wife being an American agent; and the exciting and nerve-wracking finale with Devlin's ascent of the stairs to rescue Alicia on her deathbed, and carry her down the staircase in full view of the enemy and out to a car, and Alex's final summons, in this vintage Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller

Now, Voyager (1942)

The transformation of Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) from misfit, neurotic, ugly duckling spinster from Boston to vibrant beauty, the scene with psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) flipping through Charlotte's old photo journal/album, the balcony scene with Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid) - the first time he lights two cigarettes simultaneously and gives one to Charlotte who confesses "I'm immune to happiness" but then sheds tears of gratitude, the confrontational scenes between tyrannical mother (Gladys Cooper) and victimized but changed daughter (including her death scene), Jerry and Charlotte's sensitive scene at the Back Bay Station as he prepares to board a train, and the final famous tearjerking scene between them including his cool question "Shall we just have a cigarette on it?", the lighting of two cigarettes, and the final closing line as Charlotte looks up at the night sky while Max Steiner's score swells - "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon...we have the stars", in director Irving Rapper's great romantic tearjerker

The Nun's Story (1959)

The scene of the Belgian Congo native attacking and beating to death the nun in the hospital, and the final silent fadeout as Nun Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) removes her nun's habit, and slowly walks away from the convent out into the sunlit street, totally alone and without her nun's habit for the first time in many years, in director Fred Zinnemann's religious drama

The Nutty Professor (1963)

The Jekyll-Hyde character in the film: buck-toothed, whiny-voiced, nerdy and naive scientist Professor Kelp, and the hip, greasy-haired and obnoxious ladies man alter ego Buddy Love - who sings "That Old Black Magic" upon his first appearance, in this farcical comedy written, directed, and acted by Jerry Lewis; remade by Eddie Murphy as The Nutty Professor (1996) over three decades later as obese - with Murphy playing most of the roles of the Klump family in the film

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

The great, Grammy-winning musical soundtrack (bluegrass, old-time gospels, African-American spirituals, and country) throughout the film, the singing and recording of "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" on a radio station by the Soggy Bottom Boys - silver-tongued, escaped convict and con-man Ulysses Everett McGill (who likes Dapper Dan hair pomade) and his fellow escaped Mississippi chain-gang cons Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) - and their encounters with a church congregation singing "Down to the River to Pray" while being baptized, with seductive sirens, with a one-eyed two-faced Bible salesman Big Dan Teague (John Goodman - representing the Cyclops), and with a Ku Klux Klan rally (with the red-robed Grand Wizard singing "O Death"), in the Coen Brothers' episodic 30s Homeric odyssey

The Odd Couple (1968)

Opposing, incompatible male roommates (both divorced from ex-wives Blanche and Frances) in a Manhattan apartment - compulsive, prissy, neat, tidy and know-it-all Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon) and ultra-slobbish sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) who fight in the kitchen: (Felix: "It's not spaghetti, it's linguini." Oscar (after throwing the linguini at the wall and making a mess): "Now it's garbage"), and Oscar's reaction to the note he finds from Felix on his pillow: ("'We're all out of cornflakes, F.U.' It took me three hours to figure out 'F.U.' was Felix Ungar"), in director Gene Saks' version of Neil Simon's comedic play/screenplay

Odd Man Out (1947, UK)

Gritty black and white cinematography, the scene of underground leader Johnny MacQueen (James Mason) after being fatally wounded in an ill-advised robbery and being left behind by a get-away car - and his stumbling through the streets of Belfast (disguised), the expressionistic chase sequences, Johnny's hallucinatory imaginings of faces from his past in the bubbles of his spilled beer and his delirious vision of paintings flying off a wall, and the powerful finale at the snowy Belfast docks when girlfriend Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan) and Johnny embrace (she promises: "It's a long way, Johnny, but I'm coming with you - we're going away together" and then fires two shots at police closing in on them) and they die in each other's arms, in director Carol Reed's taut and suspenseful crime-chase drama

Of Human Bondage (1934)

The most famous sequence in which blonde, trashy cockney waitress Mildred (Bette Davis) viciously tells off club-footed medical student Philip Carey (Leslie Howard), in director John Cromwell's romantic drama

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

Scenes of Sgt. Emil Foley's (Oscar-winning Louis Gossett, Jr.) tough drill instruction and counsel, notably of trainee Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) brought up unwanted by his father in the Philippines - with Zack's powerful determination to not quit his recruit training: (Foley: "I want your DOR...All right, then you can forget it! You're out!" Mayo: "I ain't gonna quit...Don't you do it! Don't you - I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to g... I ain't got nothin' else. I got nothin' else"); also the erotic love-making scene between Zack and one of the 'Puget Debs' -- paper factory worker-girlfriend Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger), and the rousing finale in which graduate-trainee Zack carries a surprised Paula away from her factory job (as her fellow employees wished her well: "Way to go, Paula! Way to go!") - to the sounds of "Up Where We Belong", in director Taylor Hackford's crowd-pleasing romantic drama

The Old Maid (1935)

Spinster old maid Aunt Charlotte (Bette Davis) listening in horror behind a drawing-room door to the whispered love between Tina (Jane Bryan) and her young man, Charlotte dancing alone in an upstairs bedroom realizing she is old, the scene of Charlotte and Delia (Miriam Hopkins) facing each other in a quarrel on the stairs on the eve of the girl's marriage, the tearjerker sequences of Charlotte 'almost' telling her unknowing illegitimate daughter the truth of her parentage on the eve of her wedding day, and the final scene of the new bride's last kiss given to her aunt, in director Edmund Goulding's melodramatic tear-jerker

The Old Man and the Sea (1958)

The old Cuban fisherman/Narrator (Spencer Tracy) speaking to the gigantic marlin he is trying to land ("You're feeling it now, fish...and so, God knows, am I"), in director John Sturges' adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway story

Old Yeller (1957)

The episodic scenes in which stray golden retriever dog Old Yeller gallantly and heroically protects young Travis (Tommy Kirk) and the family from a rabid wolf and many other animal incidents (wild horses, raccoons, snakes, bears, rampaging hogs, and angry mother cows), and Travis' realization that he must pull the trigger on his infected and dying rabid companion, and the conclusion when he replaces Old Yeller with a new puppy, in Disney's live-action drama with a tragic ending

Los Olvidados (1950, Mex.) (aka The Young and the Damned, and The Forgotten Ones)

One of the greatest, and harshest films ever made, set in the slums of Mexico City, and the horrific, sadistic, murderous brutality of the juvenile delinquent gang led by the amoral, violent reform school escapee Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) who commits acts of petty crime, and beats rival Julian (Javier Amezcua) to death in a half-constructed high-rise building's shadows, and other such disturbing imagery as an abandoned boy called Big Eyes (Jesus Navarro) suckling from a goat, the homosexually-pedophilic advances on the sympathetic main character - the youngest gang member named Pedro (Alfonso Mejía) who prostitutes himself to survive, the poignant image of a bloody-nosed, battered Pedro looking forlornly through a dirty window, and the famous unsettling dream (in slow-motion) that Pedro has of his mother floating after him with a raw piece of meat and Julian's bloody dead body under the bed (he witnessed the murder) with chicken feathers floating in the air, and the sensous imagery of a young lady seductively pouring milk on her thighs; also the killing of Pedro by Jaibo (who is, soon after killed by the police -- a stray dog running toward the camera is superimposed over his face as he dies), and the graceless disposal of Pedro's body by being put in a sack and carried out of town on a donkey -- while Pedro's mother passes in the street, ironically not knowing her son is dead, in Luis Buñuel's nihilistic cautionary tale

The Omen (1976)

The setup - American ambassador to England Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) substitutes orphaned Damien for his wife Katherine's (Lee Remick) still-born child; the scene of Damien's (the Devil's own son, the Anti-Christ, with the 666 sign on his scalp) (Harvey Stephens) 5th birthday party when his nanny (Holly Palance) goes into the mansion's attic, ties a noose around her neck, stands out on the ledge of the window, and jumps and hangs herself (and shatters the second floor glass windows with her swinging body) after calling out her final words: "Damien, look at me. I'm over here. Damien, I love you. Look at me, Damien. It's all for you," as Damien's view is shielded by his mother Katherine, but a big smile is visible on his face; also, the scene in which baboons from the zoo instinctively recognize Damien's devilish-nature and attack the car carrying Damien and his mother; also the scene of the impalement death of Father Brennan (Patrick G. Troughton) by a freak storm outside a church after warning Thorn that he has adopted Lucifer's son; and the scene of Damien maniacally pedaling his tricycle and knocking his mother over the second-floor railing to the menacing sound of ''Ave Satani''; the demise of hapless photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) by decapitation when a sheet of plate glass flies off a truck that loses its brakes and slices through his neck; and the scene of bloodied Thorn dragging his screaming son to a church altar to sacrifice him, in Richard Donner's original film

On Golden Pond (1981)

The opening scene in which adoring wife Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn in the fourth Oscar-winning role of her career) excitedly tells her cantankerous "old poop" 80-year-old husband Norman, Jr. (76 year old Henry Fonda in an Oscar-winning role and his last film), upon entering the Golden Pond cabin: "Come here, Norman. Hurry up. The loons! The loons! They're welcoming us back!"; Norman's distress at his failing physical and mental health and Ethel's famous comforting quote: "Listen to me, mister, you're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it"; Norman's harsh, cutting response to estranged daughter Chelsea's (real life daughter Jane Fonda) 45-year-old lover Bill Ray's (Dabney Coleman) request if he could sleep with his daughter: "...I'd guess I'd be DELIGHTED to have you abuse my daughter under my own roof. Would you like the room where I first violated her mother? Or would you be interested in the master bedroom?..." and Bill's indignant verbal parry: "You're having a good time, aren't you?...Chelsea told me all about how you like to have a good time messing with people's heads...But I think there's one thing you should know while you're jerking me around and making me feel like an asshole. I know PRECISELY what you're up to. And I'll take just so much of it..."; their 13-year old son Billy's (Doug McKeon) response to Norman's question of what he does with girls he picks up: "Suck face"; Chelsea's complaint about dealing with her father: "I act like a big person everywhere else. I'm in charge of Los Angeles, and I come here, I feel like a little fat girl"; the scary Purgatory Bay scene in which Norman is catapulted into the water when the speedboat crashes into a rock in a near-fatal accident, and Ethel rescues them - diving into the cold water herself (Hepburn did the scene without a wetsuit); the scene of Ethel's slapping Chelsea hard when she calls Norman a "selfish son-of-a-bitch" and her angry retort: "That son-of-a-bitch happens to be my husband"; Billy catching the legendary trout 'Walter' with Norman; the heart-tugging reconciliation scene between a teary-eyed Chelsea and her father Norman: (Chelsea: "It just seems that you and me have been mad at each other for so long..." Norman: "I didn't think we were mad; I thought we just didn't like each other" - ending with "I want to be your friend") - in which she touches his knee, culminating with Chelsea eagerly doing "a real goddamned back-flip" off the diving board for an appreciative Norman; and the final scene in which Ethel prays when Norman collapses due to angina ("Dear God, don't take him now. You don't want him. He's just an old poop") and Norman's famous proposal in his final line to Ethel, using slang he has learned from Billy: "Wanna dance or would you rather just suck face?", in director Mark Rydell's warm-hearted Best Picture nominated family drama based on screenwriter Ernest Thompson's off-Broadway stage play

On The Town (1949)

The opening show-stopping song-and-dance number "New York, New York (It's a Wonderful Town)" by sailors on leave Gabey (Gene Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra) and Ozzie (Jules Munshin), featuring all the prominent sights of New York City; and other musical numbers shot on location (it was the first major musical to be filmed on location), in director Stanley Donen's musical comedy

On The Waterfront (1954)

The realistic dialogue and sets of grimy Hoboken, the scene in which dockworker and ex-fighter Terry Malloy (Oscar-winning Marlon Brando) and Edie Doyle (Oscar-winning Eva Marie Saint) get acquainted, and then in a neighborhood saloon he tells her: "Boy, what a fruitcake you are"; Father Barry's (Oscar-nominated Karl Malden) delivery of a sermon and last rites over the body of dockworker Kayo Dugan (Pat Henning) and the priest's ride on the pallet up and out of the hatch (and heavenward) with Dugan's body on it; Terry's emotionally-naked and famous: "I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody..." speech in the back seat of a taxi-cab scene with mobster/lawyer older brother Charley (Oscar-nominated Rod Steiger) about a rigged boxing match that ruined his boxing career and the moment that Charley draws a gun on his sibling; Terry's smashing down the door of Edie's apartment and soon after his discovery of Charley's corpse hanging on a longshoreman's hook in an alley, Terry picking up one of his dead pigeons on the roof, the bloody fight with corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly (Oscar-nominated Lee J. Cobb) and a battered but triumphant, masochistic Terry leading the longshoremen in the finale, in Elia Kazan's Best Picture-winning film