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 42

S (continued)

Strange Days (1995)

The opening sequence of an illicit 'playback clip' (snuff clips are called 'blackjacks') of a failed robbery attempt recorded directly from a 'squid' (short for Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) in the cerebral cortex; 1999 sleazy ex-vice cop Lenny Nero's (Ralph Fiennes) ecstatic 'jacking in' playback of a sexy clip of ex-girlfriend Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis) filmed from a first-person perspective as he has sex with her, and later - Faith's harsh rejection of Nero ("You know one of the ways movies are still better than playback? The music comes up, there's credits, and you always know when it's over. IT'S OVER!"), another contraband snuff clip in which the murderer forces the female victim Iris (Brigitte Bako) to be 'jacked in' in order to experience her own brutal rape, strangulation and death (watched to Nero's horror), the exciting escape from a burning limousine by driving it through a fence and off a pier into the harbor waters (and an underwater escape through the trunk); and the climactic arrival of the millenium's New Year's Eve, in director Kathryn Bigelow's dystopic tech-noir

Strangers On a Train (1951)

The opening sequence introducing the duality of the two 'strangers on a train' with their distinctive shoes and a plan to "swap murders" - the two characters: the villainous psychotic 'stranger' character Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) and tennis ace Guy Haines (Farley Granger); also the many strikingly visual and auditory scenes, including the foreshadowing scream in the river-cave just before the scene of Bruno's murder of Guy's stifling wife Miriam (Laura Elliot) - a strangulation murder scene reflected in her thick-lensed glasses that have fallen to the grass on "Magic Isle" while in the distant background the amusement park's merry-go-round ironically plays "Strawberry Blonde"; the midnight meeting scene at an ironwork fence when a police car arrives; the scene of Bruno's demands that Guy kill his father; also the famous tennis match scene of Bruno watching tennis star Guy straight ahead of him as all the others watch the game; the society cocktail party scene in which Bruno jokingly demonstrated how he could simply murder someone by strangulation and actually choked one of the guests (Norma Varden); the cross-cutting between the scene of spectators watching a close tennis match and the scene of Bruno's retrieval of a cigarette lighter (to be used as planted evidence against Guy) accidentally dropped down a sewer grating; and the wrestling scene aboard a revolving out-of-control merry-go-round in the finale after the merry-go-round operator was shot and fell on the controls, in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller

Straw Dogs (1971)

An unflinching and violent film that was poster-advertised with the image of broken glasses belonging to David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a bookish, mild-mannered, pacifistic/aggressive American mathematician on sabbatical and living in a rural England town with his teasingly-seductive young British newlywed bride Amy (Susan George) who lets local laborers ogle her through the window; the scene of local thugs (one of whom was an ex-boyfriend) assaulting Sumner's wife in a graphic double rape scene (while Sumner was sent away on a hunting expedition in the woods) that led to his cathartic eruption and escalation of bloody violence (scalding, clubbing, shotgun blasts, etc.) to protect his wife and home ("This is where I live. This is me. I will not allow violence against this house"), in Sam Peckinpah's disturbing and provocative contemporary 'western' film that further ignited controversy over screen violence and sexual abuse of women in the early 70s (i.e., did she willingly encourage the first rape?)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

The sexy and electrifying image of an animalistic, muscle-bound, beefy and inarticulate Stanley Kowalski (Oscar-nominated Marlon Brando) in a torn, sweaty T-shirt, on the street, bellowing and screaming up to his wife: "Hey Stell lahhhh...", pregnant Stella's (Oscar-winning Kim Hunter) descent on the stairs when Stanley begs for forgiveness from her and they share a close embrace - with his ear against her swollen body to hear their unborn child's heartbeat, the scene of faded Southern belle Blanche's (Oscar-winning Vivien Leigh) conversation with the newspaper boy, the vicious interplay and tension between Stanley and Blanche, the "I'm the King around here..." dinner scene, Mitch's (Oscar-winning Karl Malden) scene with Blanche holding her face up to a naked light bulb, Blanche exclaiming "No, not now!" as the black-shrouded woman selling flowers moves straight toward her incanting: "Flores para los muertos," and the final confrontation (rape scene) between Stanley and Blanche in the apartment, and Blanche being led away to an asylum by an elderly gentleman with her farewell: "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers", in director Elia Kazan's brilliant film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

The scene in which New Orleans debutante Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), the institutionalized niece of rich widow Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), wanders in a mental asylum with inmates reaching for her, and Catherine's climactic monologue and surreal murder scene in which she describes (with impressionistic flashbacks) the horrifying incident (cannibalistic homicide by Mexican youths) from the past summer that happened to her homosexual cousin Sebastian (unseen fully in the film) - he had used her beauty as a ploy to lure Italian beach boys closer to him for his own pleasure, in director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's melodramatic and lurid adaptation of Tennessee Williams' and Gore Vidal's play (toned down due to illusions to homosexuality, cannibalism, pedophilia, and incest)

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

The butler Burrows' (Robert Greig) speech to Hollywood comedy director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) about poverty ("Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned"), the classic chase scene of the studio's entourage trailing Sullivan and his first meeting and pairing with The Girl (Veronica Lake) in a diner, The Girl dressed as a male hobo and their wanderings as hoboes traveling across America to experience poverty for themselves; and the scene of a presumed-dead and incarcerated Sullivan in a prison farm watching a screening of a Pluto/Mickey Mouse cartoon - and laughing along with his fellow, hardened Georgia chain-gang prisoners, and Sullivan's inspired return to making film comedies: ("There's a lot to be said for making people laugh! Did you know that's all some people have? It isn't much but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan! Boy!"), in writer/director Preston Sturges' brilliant satire about movie-making

Summer of '42 (1971)

The nostalgic atmosphere of 1940s Nantucket Island, the three young teenagers (Oscy (Jerry Houser), nerdy Benjie (Oliver Conant) and Hermie (Gary Grimes)) and their sexual awkwardness and discussions, the scene of nervously purchasing a condom from an unsympathetic storeowner; and the touching scene of teenaged Hermie's sexual initiation and coming-of-age with a lonely, 22 year-old neighboring war bride Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill) after she learned by telegram that her husband had been killed in action; with tears in her eyes and slightly drunk, she put her head on Hermie's shoulder, slowly danced (barefooted) with him to the tune (the film's theme song) playing on a phonograph record, and tenderly kissed him a few times; she clasped his hand in hers and led him to her bedroom, where she removed her outer slip (and her undergarments) and beckoned him to join her in bed; the next day, she only left him a note explaining that perhaps the meaning of the event would come in time to him, in director Robert Mulligan's war-time, New England beachside summer romance and coming-of-age tale with Michel Legrand's famous score

Sunrise (1927)

Impressionistic visuals of the camera work, the erotic seduction scene under a moon in a misty swamp of a farmer (George O'Brien) being tempted by a wicked seductress (Margaret Livingston) to murder his young wife (Oscar-winning Janet Gaynor), the tension in the attempted drowning/murder scene, the scene of the young couple's tram ride into the city, and the romantic reconciliation sequences of their romantic day together in the city (as they kiss - the scenery changes behind them from traffic to a country scene), the church scene; and the loving reunion of the husband and presumed-drowned wife after she has been found, in director F.W. Murnau's silent film classic - the winner of the first 'Best Picture' Academy Award for "Artistic Quality of Production"

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

The opening scene of a body floating face down in a pool in a rotting mansion while the corpse starts to narrate the flashback story ("Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. It's about five o'clock in the morning. That's the Homicide Squad - complete with detectives and newspapermen"); the scenes between cynical hack writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) and fading silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) - with her faithful butler/ex-husband Max (director Erich von Stroheim), the bridge game with her old "waxworks" friends, the moonlight funeral/burial of Norma's pet monkey in her backyard; the scenes watching her old silent movies (including Swanson's own disastrous and uncompleted Queen Kelly from 1928); the classic line: "I am big - it's the pictures that got small"; the New Year's Eve party scene, Norma's meeting with director Cecil B. De Mille on the set of a film; Norma's shooting of Joe and his capsizing into the pool, and deranged Norma's last great "entrance" and comeback scene as she makes the grand descent of her staircase - madly deluded that she is playing the part of Salome for the silent film cameras ("...and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my closeup") as police, cameramen and press corps reporters wait below, and the out-of-focus fade out to black at film's end, in director Billy Wilder's great black comedy/drama about Hollywood

Superman: The Movie (1978)

The image of the "Man of Steel" comic book Superman hero / alias bespectacled Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) with red cape and tights soaring over Metropolis, especially when he saves Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) as she falls from a helicopter and their conversation (Superman (politely): "Easy, miss. I've got you." Lois Lane (screaming): "You've got me? But who's got you?"); their flight over the city with Lois in a blue chiffon evening gown to find out how fast he can fly while she recites the poem Can You Read My Mind; the scene of Superman's flying chase next to an Army missile, and how he resolves various catastrophes when a Navy missile strikes the San Andreas fault; his anguished primal scream reaction to Lois Lane's death (by suffocation), and the scene of his light-speed circumnavigation of the globe to reverse time in order to bring Lois back to life, in Richard Donner's comic-book superhero classic

Super Size Me (2004)

The scathing expose of how McDonald's fast food - eaten for 30 days straight, resulted in rapid deterioration of writer/director Morgan Spurlock's health (constantly monitored by three doctors), and the shocking effectiveness of advertising used on children to buy the product (the image of Ronald McDonald), in writer/director Morgan Spurlock's Oscar-nominated documentary

The Sure Thing (1985)

The scene when college freshman Walter "Gib" Gibson (John Cusack) saw a photograph of his 'sure thing' dream date - a sexy "blonde in a string bikini" (Nicollette Sheridan) - and was lured to California by his buddy Lance (Anthony Edwards); also his dream fantasies of "traveling 3,000 miles to get laid" and meeting her in a Malibu beachhouse and being seductively whispered to: "You want it, I want it. You know I want it. You don't have to bulls--t to get it, and even if you do bulls--t me, you still get it" - and then later when she begged for more: "Come on, Giblet, one more time, one more time...It was so good. It was so masterful, relentless, but with a delicate touch. Confident, creative. I was overwhelmed. You're a true artist" - but then Gib ultimately realized that his smart, seemingly-incompatible, cross-country traveling companion Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) was more suited for him - even though he was promised: "Tonight is the first night of the rest of your sex life"; in his writing class after they both returned to the East Coast school after vacation and an English essay he had written titled The Sure Thing was read outloud by his teacher, Alison realized that he didn't sleep with his "sure thing" as he explained to her: "She wasn't my type" - and they shared a curtain-closing, feel-good ending kiss under the stars - in Rob Reiner's traditional comedy romance

Suspicion (1941)

The film's opening in total darkness in a train tunnel, the anagram game scene in which the word "MURDER" is formed and Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) falls faint to the floor, the shadows from the skylight in the front hall casting a giant spider-web appearing to trap Lina, the dinner conversation about murder while cutting into Cornish hens, the famous sequence in which handsome husband Johnny Aysgarth (Cary Grant) carries a glowing glass of milk (that may or may not be poisoned) upstairs to his sick wife Lina - and her staring at the glass which she thinks is poisoned, and the climactic scene of their car struggle in the final scene during a cliffside drive, in Alfred Hitchcock's classic suspense/thriller

Suspiria (1977)

The dazzling, starkly chromatic, and gaudy cinematography (with rich pinkish reds and hazy blue colors) and meticulously-designed Hitchcockian set-pieces, the opening sequence of dancer-heroine Suzy Bannion's (Jessica Harper) surreal taxi-cab ride to Tans (Dance) Academy in Freiburg, Germany; the series of creatively-brutal and bloody murder scenes (i.e., the double-murder sequence: a repeated chest stabbing into a dancer's still-beating heart and then her body hanging from a rope, and the bisecting of another dancer by a falling shard of glass from a ceiling, and later - death in a room filled with razor wire); the rain of maggots, the bat attack, the trapping of blind pianist Daniel (Flavio Bucci) in a large public plaza where his seeing-eye dog rips out his throat; and the scene of undead Sara's (Stefania Casini) butcher knife attack on Suzy, in Dario Argento's stylistic gothic horror masterpiece

The Sweet Hereafter (1996)

The distressing, long-shot image at the mid-point of the film - of a yellow schoolbus filled with children skidding off the road and falling through ice on a frozen lake, in director Atom Egoyan's drama about the effects of the tragic accident on the residents of a Canadian town

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

The first look at the beetle-browed, thick-spectacled, pallor-faced, power-mongering NY columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) in the "21" Restaurant, his put-down of politician-Senator Harvey Walker (William Forrest) for dallying with a show-biz hopeful Miss Linda James (Autumn Russell) ending with his brilliant, but vitriolic and foul monologue toward lackey press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) that ends with the famous line "Match me, Sidney"; and the night scene in which Hunsecker gazes out and towers over the skyline from his high-rise parapet to survey the prone city below that he loves, possesses, and dominates like an imperious gargoyle; the revelation of Hunsecker's unnatural possessiveness of his sister Susan (Susan Harrison) - and his desire for her to break up with musician boyfriend Steve Dallas (Martin Milner) - causing her to attempt suicide by hurling herself from the high-rise balcony; and the final scene of her departure to escape from her smothering brother as she strides into the early morning sunlight at film's end, in director Alexander Mackendrick's examination of New York's dark underside from a script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman

Swing Time (1936)

The magical dancing rapport between gambler John "Lucky" Garnett (Fred Astaire) and dancer Penelope "Penny" Carrol (Ginger Rogers); the light courtship "Pick Yourself Up" scene in which dance instructor Penny attempts to teach pupil Lucky how to dance as he fakes ignorance and pretends to be a klutz and causes both of them to collapse to the floor after trying a simple dance step - and her huffing of "I can't teach you anything...No one could teach you to dance in a million years!"; also Lucky's singing of the Oscar-winning "The Way You Look Tonight" as Penny shampoos her hair, the formal "Waltz in Swing Time" in a spotlight and backed by a small orchestra, and "A Fine Romance" sung together in a snowy winter wonderland (and reprised at film's end); the black-faced tribute to Bill Robinson with "Bojangles of Harlem" in which he dances with a chorus line and then tap-dances along with three huge silhouette-shadows, and their stunning finale "Never Gonna Dance" on a dance floor with a stunning staircase, in director George Stevens' superb song-and-dance film

Swingers (1996)

The many quotable lines ("You're so money and you don't even know it!" - using money as an adjective meaning 'to be indisputably correct' or 'utterly gorgeous'); the lounge-hopping and pick-up efforts of five party-animal, show business wannabes in the singles scene - both in LA and Vegas; the discussion about their most favorite moments in movies like GoodFellas and Reservoir Dogs; the in-jokes about how "Everybody steals from everybody, that’s Hollywood"; Trent Walker's (Vince Vaughn) advice on how to pick up women: ("All I do is stare at their mouths and wrinkle my nose, and I turn out to be a sweetheart"); and the great but agonizing segment of wannabe stand-up comic Mike Peters (screenwriter-actor Jon Favreau) making multiple phone calls to the answering machine of a potential date named Nikki (Brooke Langton) that he just met in Los Angeles - covering all the various emotions that come to play in a male/female relationship, in Doug Liman's original and low-budget comic drama

Swordfish (2001)

The unnecessary money-shot sequence in which undercover agent Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry) is reading and sunbathing behind a book, and then lowers her book to reveal her toplessness, in director Dominic Sena's action crime/thriller

Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.

S (continued)
Strange Days (1995)	The opening sequence of an illicit 'playback clip' (snuff clips are called 'blackjacks') of a failed robbery attempt recorded directly from a 'squid' (short for Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) in the cerebral cortex; 1999 sleazy ex-vice cop Lenny Nero's (Ralph Fiennes) ecstatic 'jacking in' playback of a sexy clip of ex-girlfriend Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis) filmed from a first-person perspective as he has sex with her, and later - Faith's harsh rejection of Nero ("You know one of the ways movies are still better than playback? The music comes up, there's credits, and you always know when it's over. IT'S OVER!"), another contraband snuff clip in which the murderer forces the female victim Iris (Brigitte Bako) to be 'jacked in' in order to experience her own brutal rape, strangulation and death (watched to Nero's horror), the exciting escape from a burning limousine by driving it through a fence and off a pier into the harbor waters (and an underwater escape through the trunk); and the climactic arrival of the millenium's New Year's Eve, in director Kathryn Bigelow's dystopic tech-noir
Strangers On a Train (1951)	The opening sequence introducing the duality of the two 'strangers on a train' with their distinctive shoes and a plan to "swap murders" - the two characters: the villainous psychotic 'stranger' character Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) and tennis ace Guy Haines (Farley Granger); also the many strikingly visual and auditory scenes, including the foreshadowing scream in the river-cave just before the scene of Bruno's murder of Guy's stifling wife Miriam (Laura Elliot) - a strangulation murder scene reflected in her thick-lensed glasses that have fallen to the grass on "Magic Isle" while in the distant background the amusement park's merry-go-round ironically plays "Strawberry Blonde"; the midnight meeting scene at an ironwork fence when a police car arrives; the scene of Bruno's demands that Guy kill his father; also the famous tennis match scene of Bruno watching tennis star Guy straight ahead of him as all the others watch the game; the society cocktail party scene in which Bruno jokingly demonstrated how he could simply murder someone by strangulation and actually choked one of the guests (Norma Varden); the cross-cutting between the scene of spectators watching a close tennis match and the scene of Bruno's retrieval of a cigarette lighter (to be used as planted evidence against Guy) accidentally dropped down a sewer grating; and the wrestling scene aboard a revolving out-of-control merry-go-round in the finale after the merry-go-round operator was shot and fell on the controls, in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller
Straw Dogs (1971)	An unflinching and violent film that was poster-advertised with the image of broken glasses belonging to David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a bookish, mild-mannered, pacifistic/aggressive American mathematician on sabbatical and living in a rural England town with his teasingly-seductive young British newlywed bride Amy (Susan George) who lets local laborers ogle her through the window; the scene of local thugs (one of whom was an ex-boyfriend) assaulting Sumner's wife in a graphic double rape scene (while Sumner was sent away on a hunting expedition in the woods) that led to his cathartic eruption and escalation of bloody violence (scalding, clubbing, shotgun blasts, etc.) to protect his wife and home ("This is where I live. This is me. I will not allow violence against this house"), in Sam Peckinpah's disturbing and provocative contemporary 'western' film that further ignited controversy over screen violence and sexual abuse of women in the early 70s (i.e., did she willingly encourage the first rape?)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)	The sexy and electrifying image of an animalistic, muscle-bound, beefy and inarticulate Stanley Kowalski (Oscar-nominated Marlon Brando) in a torn, sweaty T-shirt, on the street, bellowing and screaming up to his wife: "Hey Stell lahhhh...", pregnant Stella's (Oscar-winning Kim Hunter) descent on the stairs when Stanley begs for forgiveness from her and they share a close embrace - with his ear against her swollen body to hear their unborn child's heartbeat, the scene of faded Southern belle Blanche's (Oscar-winning Vivien Leigh) conversation with the newspaper boy, the vicious interplay and tension between Stanley and Blanche, the "I'm the King around here..." dinner scene, Mitch's (Oscar-winning Karl Malden) scene with Blanche holding her face up to a naked light bulb, Blanche exclaiming "No, not now!" as the black-shrouded woman selling flowers moves straight toward her incanting: "Flores para los muertos," and the final confrontation (rape scene) between Stanley and Blanche in the apartment, and Blanche being led away to an asylum by an elderly gentleman with her farewell: "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers", in director Elia Kazan's brilliant film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)	The scene in which New Orleans debutante Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), the institutionalized niece of rich widow Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), wanders in a mental asylum with inmates reaching for her, and Catherine's climactic monologue and surreal murder scene in which she describes (with impressionistic flashbacks) the horrifying incident (cannibalistic homicide by Mexican youths) from the past summer that happened to her homosexual cousin Sebastian (unseen fully in the film) - he had used her beauty as a ploy to lure Italian beach boys closer to him for his own pleasure, in director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's melodramatic and lurid adaptation of Tennessee Williams' and Gore Vidal's play (toned down due to illusions to homosexuality, cannibalism, pedophilia, and incest)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)	The butler Burrows' (Robert Greig) speech to Hollywood comedy director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) about poverty ("Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned"), the classic chase scene of the studio's entourage trailing Sullivan and his first meeting and pairing with The Girl (Veronica Lake) in a diner, The Girl dressed as a male hobo and their wanderings as hoboes traveling across America to experience poverty for themselves; and the scene of a presumed-dead and incarcerated Sullivan in a prison farm watching a screening of a Pluto/Mickey Mouse cartoon - and laughing along with his fellow, hardened Georgia chain-gang prisoners, and Sullivan's inspired return to making film comedies: ("There's a lot to be said for making people laugh! Did you know that's all some people have? It isn't much but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan! Boy!"), in writer/director Preston Sturges' brilliant satire about movie-making
Summer of '42 (1971)	The nostalgic atmosphere of 1940s Nantucket Island, the three young teenagers (Oscy (Jerry Houser), nerdy Benjie (Oliver Conant) and Hermie (Gary Grimes)) and their sexual awkwardness and discussions, the scene of nervously purchasing a condom from an unsympathetic storeowner; and the touching scene of teenaged Hermie's sexual initiation and coming-of-age with a lonely, 22 year-old neighboring war bride Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill) after she learned by telegram that her husband had been killed in action; with tears in her eyes and slightly drunk, she put her head on Hermie's shoulder, slowly danced (barefooted) with him to the tune (the film's theme song) playing on a phonograph record, and tenderly kissed him a few times; she clasped his hand in hers and led him to her bedroom, where she removed her outer slip (and her undergarments) and beckoned him to join her in bed; the next day, she only left him a note explaining that perhaps the meaning of the event would come in time to him, in director Robert Mulligan's war-time, New England beachside summer romance and coming-of-age tale with Michel Legrand's famous score
Sunrise (1927)	Impressionistic visuals of the camera work, the erotic seduction scene under a moon in a misty swamp of a farmer (George O'Brien) being tempted by a wicked seductress (Margaret Livingston) to murder his young wife (Oscar-winning Janet Gaynor), the tension in the attempted drowning/murder scene, the scene of the young couple's tram ride into the city, and the romantic reconciliation sequences of their romantic day together in the city (as they kiss - the scenery changes behind them from traffic to a country scene), the church scene; and the loving reunion of the husband and presumed-drowned wife after she has been found, in director F.W. Murnau's silent film classic - the winner of the first 'Best Picture' Academy Award for "Artistic Quality of Production"
Sunset Boulevard (1950)	The opening scene of a body floating face down in a pool in a rotting mansion while the corpse starts to narrate the flashback story ("Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. It's about five o'clock in the morning. That's the Homicide Squad - complete with detectives and newspapermen"); the scenes between cynical hack writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) and fading silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) - with her faithful butler/ex-husband Max (director Erich von Stroheim), the bridge game with her old "waxworks" friends, the moonlight funeral/burial of Norma's pet monkey in her backyard; the scenes watching her old silent movies (including Swanson's own disastrous and uncompleted Queen Kelly from 1928); the classic line: "I am big - it's the pictures that got small"; the New Year's Eve party scene, Norma's meeting with director Cecil B. De Mille on the set of a film; Norma's shooting of Joe and his capsizing into the pool, and deranged Norma's last great "entrance" and comeback scene as she makes the grand descent of her staircase - madly deluded that she is playing the part of Salome for the silent film cameras ("...and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my closeup") as police, cameramen and press corps reporters wait below, and the out-of-focus fade out to black at film's end, in director Billy Wilder's great black comedy/drama about Hollywood
Superman: The Movie (1978)	The image of the "Man of Steel" comic book Superman hero / alias bespectacled Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) with red cape and tights soaring over Metropolis, especially when he saves Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) as she falls from a helicopter and their conversation (Superman (politely): "Easy, miss. I've got you." Lois Lane (screaming): "You've got me? But who's got you?"); their flight over the city with Lois in a blue chiffon evening gown to find out how fast he can fly while she recites the poem Can You Read My Mind; the scene of Superman's flying chase next to an Army missile, and how he resolves various catastrophes when a Navy missile strikes the San Andreas fault; his anguished primal scream reaction to Lois Lane's death (by suffocation), and the scene of his light-speed circumnavigation of the globe to reverse time in order to bring Lois back to life, in Richard Donner's comic-book superhero classic
Super Size Me (2004)	The scathing expose of how McDonald's fast food - eaten for 30 days straight, resulted in rapid deterioration of writer/director Morgan Spurlock's health (constantly monitored by three doctors), and the shocking effectiveness of advertising used on children to buy the product (the image of Ronald McDonald), in writer/director Morgan Spurlock's Oscar-nominated documentary
The Sure Thing (1985)	The scene when college freshman Walter "Gib" Gibson (John Cusack) saw a photograph of his 'sure thing' dream date - a sexy "blonde in a string bikini" (Nicollette Sheridan) - and was lured to California by his buddy Lance (Anthony Edwards); also his dream fantasies of "traveling 3,000 miles to get laid" and meeting her in a Malibu beachhouse and being seductively whispered to: "You want it, I want it. You know I want it. You don't have to bulls--t to get it, and even if you do bulls--t me, you still get it" - and then later when she begged for more: "Come on, Giblet, one more time, one more time...It was so good. It was so masterful, relentless, but with a delicate touch. Confident, creative. I was overwhelmed. You're a true artist" - but then Gib ultimately realized that his smart, seemingly-incompatible, cross-country traveling companion Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) was more suited for him - even though he was promised: "Tonight is the first night of the rest of your sex life"; in his writing class after they both returned to the East Coast school after vacation and an English essay he had written titled The Sure Thing was read outloud by his teacher, Alison realized that he didn't sleep with his "sure thing" as he explained to her: "She wasn't my type" - and they shared a curtain-closing, feel-good ending kiss under the stars - in Rob Reiner's traditional comedy romance
Suspicion (1941)	The film's opening in total darkness in a train tunnel, the anagram game scene in which the word "MURDER" is formed and Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) falls faint to the floor, the shadows from the skylight in the front hall casting a giant spider-web appearing to trap Lina, the dinner conversation about murder while cutting into Cornish hens, the famous sequence in which handsome husband Johnny Aysgarth (Cary Grant) carries a glowing glass of milk (that may or may not be poisoned) upstairs to his sick wife Lina - and her staring at the glass which she thinks is poisoned, and the climactic scene of their car struggle in the final scene during a cliffside drive, in Alfred Hitchcock's classic suspense/thriller
Suspiria (1977)	The dazzling, starkly chromatic, and gaudy cinematography (with rich pinkish reds and hazy blue colors) and meticulously-designed Hitchcockian set-pieces, the opening sequence of dancer-heroine Suzy Bannion's (Jessica Harper) surreal taxi-cab ride to Tans (Dance) Academy in Freiburg, Germany; the series of creatively-brutal and bloody murder scenes (i.e., the double-murder sequence: a repeated chest stabbing into a dancer's still-beating heart and then her body hanging from a rope, and the bisecting of another dancer by a falling shard of glass from a ceiling, and later - death in a room filled with razor wire); the rain of maggots, the bat attack, the trapping of blind pianist Daniel (Flavio Bucci) in a large public plaza where his seeing-eye dog rips out his throat; and the scene of undead Sara's (Stefania Casini) butcher knife attack on Suzy, in Dario Argento's stylistic gothic horror masterpiece
The Sweet Hereafter (1996)	The distressing, long-shot image at the mid-point of the film - of a yellow schoolbus filled with children skidding off the road and falling through ice on a frozen lake, in director Atom Egoyan's drama about the effects of the tragic accident on the residents of a Canadian town
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)	The first look at the beetle-browed, thick-spectacled, pallor-faced, power-mongering NY columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) in the "21" Restaurant, his put-down of politician-Senator Harvey Walker (William Forrest) for dallying with a show-biz hopeful Miss Linda James (Autumn Russell) ending with his brilliant, but vitriolic and foul monologue toward lackey press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) that ends with the famous line "Match me, Sidney"; and the night scene in which Hunsecker gazes out and towers over the skyline from his high-rise parapet to survey the prone city below that he loves, possesses, and dominates like an imperious gargoyle; the revelation of Hunsecker's unnatural possessiveness of his sister Susan (Susan Harrison) - and his desire for her to break up with musician boyfriend Steve Dallas (Martin Milner) - causing her to attempt suicide by hurling herself from the high-rise balcony; and the final scene of her departure to escape from her smothering brother as she strides into the early morning sunlight at film's end, in director Alexander Mackendrick's examination of New York's dark underside from a script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman
Swing Time (1936)	The magical dancing rapport between gambler John "Lucky" Garnett (Fred Astaire) and dancer Penelope "Penny" Carrol (Ginger Rogers); the light courtship "Pick Yourself Up" scene in which dance instructor Penny attempts to teach pupil Lucky how to dance as he fakes ignorance and pretends to be a klutz and causes both of them to collapse to the floor after trying a simple dance step - and her huffing of "I can't teach you anything...No one could teach you to dance in a million years!"; also Lucky's singing of the Oscar-winning "The Way You Look Tonight" as Penny shampoos her hair, the formal "Waltz in Swing Time" in a spotlight and backed by a small orchestra, and "A Fine Romance" sung together in a snowy winter wonderland (and reprised at film's end); the black-faced tribute to Bill Robinson with "Bojangles of Harlem" in which he dances with a chorus line and then tap-dances along with three huge silhouette-shadows, and their stunning finale "Never Gonna Dance" on a dance floor with a stunning staircase, in director George Stevens' superb song-and-dance film
Swingers (1996)	The many quotable lines ("You're so money and you don't even know it!" - using money as an adjective meaning 'to be indisputably correct' or 'utterly gorgeous'); the lounge-hopping and pick-up efforts of five party-animal, show business wannabes in the singles scene - both in LA and Vegas; the discussion about their most favorite moments in movies like GoodFellas and Reservoir Dogs; the in-jokes about how "Everybody steals from everybody, that’s Hollywood"; Trent Walker's (Vince Vaughn) advice on how to pick up women: ("All I do is stare at their mouths and wrinkle my nose, and I turn out to be a sweetheart"); and the great but agonizing segment of wannabe stand-up comic Mike Peters (screenwriter-actor Jon Favreau) making multiple phone calls to the answering machine of a potential date named Nikki (Brooke Langton) that he just met in Los Angeles - covering all the various emotions that come to play in a male/female relationship, in Doug Liman's original and low-budget comic drama
Swordfish (2001)	The unnecessary money-shot sequence in which undercover agent Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry) is reading and sunbathing behind a book, and then lowers her book to reveal her toplessness, in director Dominic Sena's action crime/thriller