Serenity (2005)

The opening scene of doctor Simon Tam (Sean Maher) rescuing his psychic 17 year-old, goth-like sister River Tam (Summer Glau) from her Alliance captors, led by the evil and sinister government Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who were experimenting on her brain and wishing to harness her power ("Given the right trigger, this girl is a living weapon"); and all the characters that composed the crew of the rogue Serenity transport spacecraft that took on the Tams as passengers - including Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion); also the scene in a way-station bar when River saw a subliminal secret message in an anime advertisement ("Miranda") - that triggered an aggressive attack; and the scene on the Outer Rim habitable planet of Miranda where the crew encountered only corpses and watched a terrifying hologram from scientist Dr. Caron (Sarah Paulson) who explained how the Alliance caused death on the planet by using a Pax drug released through the air processors - and thereby also contributed to the development of hyper-aggressive, menacing, flesh-eating Reavers; and the final standoff scene of the Serenity crew against the ferocious Reavers as Mal broadcast the truth of the hologram message ("I'm gonna show you a world without sin") after fighting the Operative and defeating him as River simultaneously battled the Reavers single-handedly and left a pile of their corpses at her feet to save the crew; and the concluding scene with River serving as Mal's co-pilot in a repaired ship (and Mal's final line: "We'll pass through it [storm] soon enough...What was that?"), in writer/director Josh Whedon's 26th century, sci-fi space action-adventure/western film (adapted from the TV series Firefly) - his directorial debut film

Sergeant York (1941)

The opening boom shot down a Tennessee river behind the credits, the scenes depicting Alvin York's (Oscar-winning Gary Cooper) Tennessee backwoods existence before the war, and the fast-paced action scenes of World War I including the tracking shots of York's scramble through no-man's land and his single-handed killing of over two-dozen German soldiers and the capture of dozens more, in director Howard Hawks' inspirational war biopic

A Serious Man (2009)

The series of unexpected batterings, trials and tormenting tribulations experienced by a perplexed, middle-class Jew in suburban Minnesota in 1967 -- a beleaguered, mild-mannered, Job-like university physics professor named Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg): a letter containing money given to him as a bribe by disgruntled South Korean student Clive Park (David Chang) to change his mid-term grade from an F to passing (and with additional threats of a lawsuit by the student's father), imminent tenure consideration with unofficial warnings from the chairman of the committee Arlen Finkle (Ari Hoptman) that anonymous letters had been received referring to his "moral turpitude," an expensive bar-mitzvah for his marijuana-smoking son Danny (Aaron Wolff) who loved listening to the rock group the Jefferson Airplane and complained repeatedly about poor TV reception from the rooftop TV antenna making it impossible for him to watch F-Troop, a rebellious, self-centered eldest daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) who was stealing money from her dad's wallet for a desired nose-job, his matronly, discontented and adulterous wife Judith (Sari Lennick) seeking a divorce because she was seeing overbearing, erudite, and unctuous widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), Larry's displacement from the house to the local Jolly Roger Motel along with his ailing, depressed, loser/odd-ball brother Arthur (Richard Kind) who had a sebaceous draining cyst on his neck and was suspected of both illegal gambling and sodomy, a property line dispute with his redneck, anti-semitic neighbor Mr. Brandt (Peter Breitmayer), his disorientation after spying on his nude-sunbathing, semi-abandoned, blase, promiscuous next-door neighbor Mrs. Samsky (Amy Landecker) from his rooftop while adjusting the antenna - who later offered to smoke a joint with him in her home (she asked provocatively: "Do you take advantage of the new freedoms?"), a triple fender-bender on the same day that Sy was killed in another automobile accident, repeated annoying phone calls from Dick Dutton at the Columbia Record Club for four-months non-payment of fees for receipt of the selection of the month, high-priced consultation with pessimistic divorce lawyer (Adam Arkin), and his unsuccessful encounters with three rabbis regarding his treatment by Hashem (aka God); in his last meeting, he pleaded: "I've tried to be a serious man, you know? Tried to do right, be a member of the community, raise Danny, Sarah, they both go to school, Hebrew school....Please, I need help"; his life was succinctly illustrated by a blackboard completely filled with physics formulas demonstrating "The Uncertainty Principle" -- as he told the exiting class when the bell rang: "It proves we can't ever really know what's going on. But even though you can't figure anything out, you will be responsible for it on the mid-term"; the clincher was a film-closing call from his doctor to ominously discuss recent X-rays (taken at the start of the film) amidst a threatening tornado, in this Best Picture-nominated dark comedy from the Coen Brothers [Note: At the end of the credits, it was noted: "No Jews Were Harmed in the Making of This Motion Picture."]

Se7en (1995)

The ingenuity of the clues at the various murder scenes (none of which are seen committed), the unforgettable, nail-biting, concluding climax in which maniacal serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) leads arrogant, hotshot replacement Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) and retiring veteran Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) to another sick and gruesome crime and souvenir - "her pretty head" in a bloody box, demonstrating the last two of the Seven Deadly Sins (gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, and wrath), in David Fincher's crime thriller

Seven Beauties (1976, It.)

The dream-like opening credits sequence with a jazzy tune (repeating the refrain: "Oh yeah"), about man's inhumanity to man throughout history (with stock WWII documentary photos of Mussolini and Hitler, bombs, and trench warfare); and the character of small-time Naples crook Pasqualino Frafuso (Oscar-nominated Giancarlo Giannini) who must support his many ugly sisters and mother; his time in an insane asylum (where he rapes a bound madwoman) after murdering and dismembering the pimp who coerced his sister into a life of prostitution, and then the scenes in a WWII Nazi concentration camp when a desperate, debased and unscrupulous Pasqualino trades sexual favors with the grotesquely-obese, whip-wielding commandant (Shirley Stoler) for survival (she tells him: 'You have found the strength for an erection, that's why you'll survive") - but he must also choose those to be executed (and kill his best friend); and the film's final shot - in closeup - of Pasqualino returning home and his sadly-spoken words to his mother: "Yes, I'm alive," in director Lina Wertmuller's tragi-comic war film (she became the first Oscar-nominated female director for this film)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

The dynamic dancing scenes (choreographed by Michael Kidd), especially the barn-raising scene with sensational gymnastic acrobatics (each of the brothers shows off on a single or double narrow plank), and then a choreographed fight in one of the greatest and most exuberant dance musicals from MGM, from director Stanley Donen

Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

The fantastic sequence in which Dr. Lao's (Tony Randall) pet fish becomes a 7-headed monster, in director George Pal's fantasy

The Seven Samurai (1954, Jp.) (aka Shichinin no samurai)

The 16th century epic plot of a town's protection from ferocious bandits by wise veteran leader samurai (Takashi Shimura as Kambei Shimada) and six other warriors (including a burly and arrogant Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune)), with the powerful sequence in which warrior Kambei posed as a monk (with head shaved and dressed in priest's robe) to rescue a 7 year-old child hostage held in a barn by a kidnapper-thief (who was killed with a bloodied sword - and fell in slow-motion) - in an intercut edited sequence with various crowd reaction shots; and the final rain-soaked battle in the mud, in Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece - later used as a template for The Magnificent Seven

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Girl's (Marilyn Monroe as a quintessential blonde) famous pose in a white dress flying and billowing up around her knees when a train whooshes by as she stands spread-legged astride a New York subway grating to cool herself during a hot summer ("Isn't it delicious?"), while paperback publisher and married Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) stands by and observes: "Sort of cools the ankles, doesn't it?", in director Billy Wilder's romantic sex comedy

Seventh Heaven (1927)

The love scenes in the 7th floor bohemian loft ("Seventh Heaven") between street angel-waif Diane (Best Actress winning Janet Gaynor) and Parisian sewer worker Chico (Charles Farrell) after her attempted suicide by stabbing, and the spiritual nature of their relationship while he was called to fight in the war (and was blinded) and she was a munitions worker - when they telepathically communicated with each other through their hearts and minds at 11, and their jubilant reconciliation in an ethereal shaft of light, in Frank Borzage's pure and sentimental melodrama

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

The tremendous special effects, stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen (the first in color!) including a giant Cyclops, a fire-breathing dragon, a sorcerer-shrunken Princess Parisa and bride-to-be (Kathryn Grant), and the thrilling sword fight between Captain Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) and a living skeleton, in director Nathan Juran's classic fantasy

sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

The many videotaped explicit discussions and revelatory intimate confessions filmed by Graham Walton (James Spader) as a substitute for his own emotion-less, impotent and dispassionate life ("I'm impotent...I can't get an erection in the presence of another person"); the scenes of his visit to his college buddy-turned-lawyer John (Peter Gallagher) and his neglected and frustrated wife Ann (Andie MacDowell) that reveals infidelity between the womanizing and philandering John and Ann's sexually-adventurous bartender sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo); also typical of the film -- the candid reflections of Ann, including her admission: "Anyway, being happy isn't all that great. I mean, the last time I was really happy... I got so fat. I must have put on 25 pounds", in director Steven Soderbergh's low-budget independent film winner of the Palm d'Or at Cannes - without nudity although with considerable discussion of sexual topics

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Evil personified in the chilling character of Uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) - the "Merry Widow Murderer," the cat-and-mouse game between Charlie and his young niece Charlie (Teresa Wright), the overhead shot in the library after she has learned the truth about him, the scene in the smoke-filled bar booth, the darkened back porch scene when she threatens to kill him, the garage carbon monoxide poisoning scene, and the scene of their struggle between train-cars and Charlie's demise as he falls off a moving train into the path of an oncoming train in the exciting conclusion, in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller

Shadowlands (1994)

The unlikely romance between C. S. "Jack" Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) and Jewish-American poet Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) - Joy's gauche first appearance in a British tea room ("Which one of you is Lewis?"); the scene of Jack realizing that he was truly in love with Joy during their first marriage of convenience after learning of her terminal bone cancer: ("It's impossible. It's unthinkable. How could Joy be my wife? I'd have to love her, wouldn't I? I'd have to care more for her...than anyone else in this world. I'd have to be suffering the torments of the damned. The prospect of losing her..."); the scene in which Jack remarried Joy, this time for love; Joy's instructing Lewis on preparations for sex, the scene of Lewis ordering room service, their "honeymoon" time together during her cancer's remission; the scene of Joy's quiet death in bed with Jack offering assurance: ("Don't talk, my love. Just rest...just rest" - and after a kiss just before she died: "I love you, Joy. I love you so much. You made me so happy. I didn't know I could be so happy. You're the truest person I have ever known..."); the scene of her young Narnia-loving son Douglas (Joseph Mazzello) suddenly waking up in bed, gasping with eyes wide as if knowing the very moment of her death; and Jack's scene of sharing tortured grief and uncontrollable weeping with Douglas in an attic following her death (Douglas: "I sure would like to see her again" Jack: "Me too"), in director Richard Attenborough's lavish romantic biopic and tearjerker

Shaft (1971)

The stirring Isaac Hayes' Oscar-winning introductory theme song, the opening appearance of sexy and cool black detective John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) emerging from a subway onto NYC's tawdry 42nd Street, and the final daring rescue scene, in Gordon Parks' definitive blaxploitation film

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

The scene of writers-cramped Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) unraveling the tight bound clothes of male-disguised Viola De Lesseps as Master Tom Kent (Gwyneth Paltrow), and the quip-spewing character of Queen Elizabeth (Oscar-winning Judi Dench), in John Madden's Best Picture-winning comedy-drama about the Bard while writing his future play Romeo & Juliet

Shampoo (1975)

The numerous sex scenes between studly playboyish LA hair-dresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) and three women - all in one day, as he later explained to conservative businessman Lester (Jack Warden) ("We're always trying to f--k them. They know it and they like it and they don't like it... that's just how it is. Look, it's got nothing to do with you, man. It just happened"): Lester's mistress Jackie Shawn (Julie Christie) - George's old girlfriend, Lester's wife Felicia (Oscar-winning Lee Grant), and Lester's seductive teenaged daughter Lorna (Carrie Fisher) - who wants to avenge her cheating mother through sex with her hairdresser ("You're my mother's hairdresser...Do you wanna f--k?"); the sensual way that George 'does' his clients' hair in the salon; and the scenes of having sex with Jackie in a steamy bathroom when interrupted by Lester (and they pretend to be doing her hair and tell him to close the door and not let the steam out), and at a party in front of a refrigerator door that slowly opens, illuminates and catches Jackie and George in the act; also the 1968 Nixon election-night victory dinner where Jackie gropes between George's legs under the table - and her famous bold response to executive Sid Roth (William Castle): "Most of all, I'd like to suck his c--k!", causing George to do a spit-take on a piece of chicken; George's inarticulate repeated expression: "You're great!" to all of his female conquests, and his quintessential question: "Want me to do your hair?"; and the final long shot of morally-shallow, miserable and hedonistic George looking down while atop a Hollywood/Beverly Hills bluff after losing Jackie to Lester, in Hal Ashby's sex comedy farce set during a 24-hour time period on November 4th, 1968 when Richard Nixon won the presidency

Shane (1953)

The lavish background settings of Wyoming, the legendary buck-skinned gunfighter Shane (Alan Ladd), the scene of Shane and Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) chopping up a huge tree stump, young Joey's (Brandon de Wilde) idolization of his hero, two large-scale fistfights, the saloon brawl, Wilson's (Jack Palance) entrance and role as a black-clothed evil gunman, the scene of Torrey's (Elisha Cook, Jr.) brutal death in a showdown as he is hurtled backwards onto a muddy street, Torrey's funeral scene in which his dog mourns at his master's coffin, Marion's (Jean Arthur) long farewell handshake, the final shootout between the evil and dark Wilson and Shane, and Joey's poignant cry after his hero ("...Come back...") as Shane rides away toward the mountains, in George Stevens' mythic western

Shanghai Express (1932)

The entrance of Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich) at the Peking train station before boarding the Shanghai Express, and further close-ups (with keylighting on her face or backlighting) showing her stunning persona and mystique, filmed with expressionistic shadows; also her most memorable line - "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily" delivered to former lover and surgeon Captain Donald 'Doc' Harvey (Clive Brook) as they stood side-by-side together on the train, framed by two windows, in the opening of director Josef von Sternberg's melodramatic romantic adventure film

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The incredible Shawshank Prison arrival scene of wrongly-convicted, mild-mannered banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) - an overhead helicopter shot that leaves the arriving drab-gray prison bus, ascends the main tower of the prison, and peers down into the prison courtyard where ant-like prisoners scurry toward the fenced-in arrival area to gawk and jeer while the new arrivals disembark; the religiously-fanatical Warden Norton's (Bob Gunton) speech to the inmates about what he believed in: Discipline and the Bible; Andy's first request of lifer friend Red (Morgan Freeman) - a rock hammer!; Red's narration about how sadistic cons cornered Andy: "I wish I could tell you Andy fought the good fight and the Sisters let him be...but prison is no fairytale world"; the liberating, uplifting scene of the inmates drinking cold beers on the sunny rooftop and feeling like 'free men' while the heroic Andy smiles off to the side in the shade, and the similar scene when Andy broadcasts Mozart's opera 'The Marriage of Figaro' over the prison P.A. system, Andy's and Red's discussion - while slumped against the yard wall - about their yearnings from freedom with Andy's decision: "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'"; and Red's wise statement about what "institutionalized" means during his third parole hearing -- followed by the emphatic rubber-stamped "APPROVED" on his file; the sad scene of Brooks Hatlen's (James Whitmore) suicide by hanging after carving "BROOKS WAS HERE" on the wooden arch above him; the discovery by the Warden of the escape hole in Andy's cell - covered over by a poster of Raquel Welch; the re-play of Andy's escape through the wall tunnel and sewage conduit and his exultant pose with his arms raised up from his half-naked body to the sky during a cleansing rainstorm - twirling, victorious and liberated after the prison break; the sequence of Red's discovery of Andy's letter in a field and his walk back through the field with grasshoppers springing into the air all around, and the final reunion scene on a beach in Mexico next to the Pacific Ocean, in Frank Darabont's (his directorial debut film) popular melodramatic adaptation of a Stephen King novella

She Done Him Wrong (1933)

Gay Nineties saloon singer Lady Lou's (Mae West) seductive encounter and invitation to Salvation Army Capt. Cummings (Cary Grant), and other liberated, brazen double-entendres and unabashed one-liners, in director Lowell Sherman's classic comedy

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

The sunset scene of soon-to-be retired Capt. Nathan Brittles (John Wayne) sitting at the gravestone of his wife Mary Cutting Brittles and speaking to her while he waters the flowers; the cinematographically-beautiful dark line of clouds and lightning in a thunderstorm as the cavalry patrol passes through director Ford's favorite scenic locale - Monument Valley, and the scene of his last day when Brittles' C troops give him a silver pocketwatch with the inscription "Lest we forget" that he tearfully reads with his glasses, in the second of director John Ford's "cavalry trilogy"

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)

The scene of lovelorn projectionist Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton) trying unsuccessfully to court his sweetheart (Kathryn McGuire) with a box of candy, his pacing after and shadowing his suspect/rival suitor the Sheik (Ward Krane) when they take drags upon the same cigarette; the series of quick, jump-cutting film edits and abruptly-changing montage of scenes behind Sherlock Jr. after he falls asleep in the projection booth and his dream figure walks around the theatre (unnoticed) and then steps into the 'silver screen' and magically becomes part of the projected shifting scenes, a 'movie in a movie' - he walks down stairs and falls over a garden bench or pedestal, finds himself on a busy street, a mountainous precipice, a lion's den, a desert in the middle of tracks with an approaching train, and a rock surrounded by the ocean where he dives headfirst into a snowbank, and then a return to the opening garden; the tense scene when Sherlock is set up to be murdered during a pool game with one ball that is supposedly a bomb; Sherlock's dive out of a window into a hoop dress; the amazing stunt of his near-fatal collision with a train (he covers his ears and ducks his head) as he rides on the handlebars of a driverless motorcycle, and the final boy-gets-girl sequence in the projection booth when the flustered 'detective' follows the cues of the leading-man actor on screen and kisses his girlfriend, in actor/director Buster Keaton's silent-era comedy classic

The Shining (1980)

The opening scene with aerial camera work following a car to a mountainous Colorado resort - the sprawling and soon-to-be snowbound Overlook Hotel, Danny's (Danny Lloyd) Steadicam-filmed ride on a Big Wheel bike tracked through the corridors of the hotel (with accompanying sounds as the wheels hit the floor and the rug) and his frightening ghostly visions (the murdered twin girls, the bloody elevator, etc.), Jack Torrance's (Jack Nicholson) bar-side exchanges with ghostly bartender Lloyd (Joseph Turkel) where he is told: "Your credit's fine, Mr. Torrance", the grisly bathtub hallucination experienced by Jack in off-limits Room 237 when he discovers that the illusory, beautiful bather he is kissing is a corpse, wife Wendy's (Shelley Duvall) discovery that her struggling husband's manuscript/writing on the typewriter is truly insane (there are endless reams of pages all with the phrase: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"), Danny's repetition of the words "Redrum " - later reflected in a mirror to reveal the word "Murder", the scene in which Wendy clobbers Jack with a baseball bat on the stairs, the image of a decadent sexual act of fellatio being performed in a bedroom; and the memorable scene of diabolical Jack's climactic stalking and homicidal chase after his wife and son with an axe with his demented bellowings ("Wendy, I'm home" and "Then I'll huff and I'll puff...") and 'Johnny Carson's Tonight Show' greeting: "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!" through a splintered door; also Jack's demise in the frozen Maze, and the final revealing zoom-in shot toward a photograph, in Stanley Kubrick's horror classic