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 48

W (continued)

Way Down East (1920)

The spiritually affecting, melodramatic performance of Anna Moore (played marvelously by Lillian Gish); the scene of the young, innocent country girl's ecstatic reaction to a marriage proposal, soon followed by the scene in which her playboy "husband" Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman) reveals that her marriage was only a mock ceremony; the sequence in which Anna baptizes her sick, newborn baby just before it dies in her arms; the innocent love scene by the river between Anna and David (Richard Barthelmess) with the title card: "One heart for one heart, One soul for one soul, One love for one love, Even through Eternity" - but Anna is reluctant to fall in love with David when reminded of the ghosts of her past - she sadly cannot allow him to say such things, feeling unworthy of him due to her checkered past: "So she tells him he must never speak like this again"; the classic casting-out scene in which she accuses and denounces Sanderson before entering into a fierce blizzard; and the final sequence of her daring, last-minute rescue by David from floating ice floes that are perilously close to a precipitous waterfall, in D.W. Griffith's silent melodrama

Way Out West (1937)

The scene of Stan and Oliver's discussion about the deed to the gold mine - delivered to the wrong woman ("That's the first mistake we've made since that guy sold us the Brooklyn Bridge"), their soft-shoe dance routine of "At the Ball, That's All" while outside the Mickey Finn Palace Saloon, the scene of Stan being wrestled and tickled for the gold mine deed - reduced to helpless laughter, Stan biting - chewing - and gulping pieces of his hat after losing a bet ("now you're taking me illiterally"), and the rope-pulley sequences with Ollie and then a mule (and Ollie on the other end) to try to retrieve the deed, in this Laurel and Hardy western comedy directed by James W. Horne

The Way We Were (1973)

The on-and-off, star-crossed romance-marriage-divorce between two radical opposites: Jewish political activist Kate Morosky (Barbra Streisand) and WASP writer Hubbell Gardner (Robert Redford), spanning from the 30s, through World War II to the McCarthy-era 1950's; and the tearjerking final scene in which they meet accidentially in New York as she is handing out "Ban the Bomb" leaflets, to the strains of Streisand's performance of the title song (Oscar-winning music from Marvin Hamlisch - "Mem’ries, like the corners of my mind / Misty water-colored memories of the way we were") when she characteristically brushes the hair back on his brow, in Sydney Pollack's melodramatic chick flick

Wayne's World (1992)

The original characters (spun-off from a sketch on TV's Saturday Night Live) Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) - two friends with their own local public-access TV show (in their wood-paneled basement) in Aurora, Illinois, noted mostly for their dialogue, sight gags, and catchphrases: "Excellent!", "Party On!", "She's magically babelicious", "Schwing!", "If you're gonna spew, spew into this", "Hurl", "We're Not Worthy" (spoken to Alice Cooper), and "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?", among others; also, the famous sing-a-long performance by Wayne, Garth and two friends of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in a car, in director Penelope Spheeris' crazy comedy

The Wedding Crashers (2005)

The plot about two intrepid Washington DC bachelors and lifelong friends John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) who invited themselves to nuptial receptions to pick up women and bridesmaids (including one named Claire (Rachel McAdams) and her "stage-five clinger" sister Gloria (Isla Fisher)); also the sped-up musical montage sequence (to the tune of "Shout") of the two scammers flopping around in bed with many partly-clothed and naked women from weddings, and the racy scene of Jeremy being seduced by sexually-insatiable Kathleen "Kittycat" Cleary (Jane Seymour) - the socialite wife of Treasury Secretary and presidential wannabe William Clearly (Christopher Walken) who requests that he rate her recent breast implants, in director David Dobkin's R-rated romantic comedy

The Wedding March (1928)

The extended flirtatious sequence of the meeting of dissolute Prince Nicki (director Erich von Stroheim) (on horseback) and commoner Mitzi (Fay Wray) outside St. Stephens as he prepares to participate in the Corpus Christi procession; also their courtship under an apple-blossom tree with a romantic kiss; the film's controversial and notorious orgy scene in a brothel populated by an assortment of Chinese, Nubian, and Polynesian women; and the wedding march itself when Nicki must marry crippled rich heiress Cecelia Schweisser (Zasu Pitts) for money instead - witnessed by a tearful Mitzi from the side, in director Erich von Stroheim's stately drama

Weekend (1967, Fr.)

The opening sexually-graphic "orgy" scene monologue in which affluent Parisian Corinne Durand (Mireille Darc), silhouetted and dressed in her panties and bra and sitting on a desk, describes to her fully-dressed lover-analyst an orgy between a couple (Paul and his wife Monique) and herself (as the camera shifts left and right, and zooms in and out); also the weekend journey of the bickering Durand couple: Corinne and husband Roland (Jean Yanne) to visit her parents in the countryside - with the famed over 8-minute long tracking shot (the longest of its kind at the time) - viewing surrealistic and nightmarishly apocalyptic images of the roads littered with traffic jams, car wrecks and accidents, bloody casualties, and burning cars; also the stark images of the slaughter of a chicken and a pig, in director Jean-Luc Godard's prescient and politicized film

Weekend at Bernie's (1989)

The memorable scenes involving the murdered corpse of boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser) who is propped up to appear alive - pretending to be the host of a weekend beach party in the Hamptons over Labor Day weekend; the scene of the two insurance company employees: slacker Larry (Andrew McCarthy) and uptight workalcoholic Richard's (Jonathan Silverman) speedboat departure that drags Bernie's body into buoys, and the off-screen scene of the visit of NY moll Tina (Catherine Parks) to his bedroom for sex (without noticing his unresponsiveness), in director Ted Ketchoff's summer sleeper hit black comedy

West Side Story (1961)

The opening prologue with aerial shots of Manhattan, the remarkably energetic Jerome Robbins' choreography especially in the opening balletic sequence filmed in New York's Hell's Kitchen district - between the Caucasian Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks; the dance at the gym with the first meeting of star-crossed lovers Maria (Natalie Wood) and Tony (Richard Beymer); the scene of Anita's (Oscar-winning Rita Moreno) passionate skirt-tossing dance with other Puerto Ricans on the rooftop in the singing of "America"; the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene re-enacted on a tenement fire escape with the singing of "Tonight" by both Tony and Maria; the biting satire of "Gee Officer Krupke," Maria's "I Feel Pretty" dance, and their sensitive exchange of love vows in the bridal shop in "One Hand, One Heart"; the action-oriented rumble/dance sequence leading to the killings of two rival gang leaders Bernardo (Oscar-winning George Chakiris) and Riff (Russ Tamblyn), and the melodramatic finale when Tony dies in Maria's arms as she kneels by his side (singing Somewhere: "Hold my hand and I'll take you there"), in co-directors Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise's Best Picture-winning adaptation of the popular Broadway musical

The Westerner (1940)

Quick-thinking Cole Harden's (Gary Cooper) sweet-talking of Jane-Ellen Mathews (Doris Davenport) for a lock of her hair; the drinking bout between Hardin and hanging Judge Roy Bean (Oscar-winning Walter Brennan); the exciting scene of the devastating cornfield fire set by the Judge's men to run off homesteaders; the scene of the theater curtain's opening revealing deputized Hardin standing on stage and ready for a gunfight with Judge Bean (the sole audience member) rather than a performance by British actress Lily Langtry (Lilian Bond) - 'the famous Jersey Lily'; and the Judge's wide-eyed, backstage death scene as he glimpses the fantasy woman of his life - she blurs in his vision as he falls dead, in director William Wyler's A-list western

What Dreams May Come (1998)

The tragic early scene in which pediatrician Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams) loses his two children Marie (Jessica Brooks Grant) and Ian (Josh Paddock) in an off-screen car crash, with his melancholy narration: "It was the last time Annie and I saw the children alive"; the scenes in which Chris, now also deceased four years later and in the afterlife, attempts to have his still-living, suicidal and grief-stricken artist wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra) acknowledge his existence (making her scrawl "I STIL EXST", and trying to contact her at his gravesite) -- and her violent sobbing reactions; the Expressionist painting world of Chris' heaven (using surreal Oscar-winning CGI effects); and the moment when mentor Albert Lewis (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) helps him create a "real" afterlife by carving a hole in a wall ("We all paint our own surroundings but you're the first guy I know to use real paint"); Annie's despairing suicide, and Chris' quest to rescue her lost soul from a tormented afterlife in 'hell' with the help of the dark-cloaked Tracker (Max von Sydow); the view of a vast, hell-based "farm" where dozens of souls are buried up to their necks; Chris' decision to share his wife's insanity rather than abandon her ("Sometimes, when you lose, you win"), and the re-uniting of wife Annie with her dead children in the afterlife during the finale, in director Vincent Ward's artistic, visually-astonishing afterlife drama (a cross between Ingmar Bergman's films and Stairway to Heaven/A Matter of Life and Death (1946))

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

The two legendary screen rivals dueling onscreen - with the many scenes of ex-child actor and sister 'Baby' Jane Hudson (Oscar-nominated Bette Davis) terrorizing wheelchair-bound, hungry, crippled ex-movie star sister Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford), driven insane by feelings of jealousy (Blanche's success as a movie star while her career fizzled) and guilt (thinking she had crippled Blanche by running the car into her in an early scene); her petty tortures including the servings of "din-din": a dead pet parakeet and roasted rat; the scene of a grotesquely made-up Jane practicing "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" while dressed in a baby-doll suit (with her hair in golden curly locks) to corpulent gigolo pianist Edwin Flagg (Oscar-nominated Victor Buono in his film debut) in a demented attempt at a comeback as Baby Jane, Blanche's excruciating attempt to make her way down the staircase to phone for help - when Baby Jane unexpectedly arrives, Jane's response to Blanche's helplessness ("You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair") in her wheelchair - retorting: "But-cha ARE, Blanche! Yah ARE in that chair!", and the concluding beach scene in which a dying Blanche reveals the truth, with her final words, of the accident years earlier (Jane hadn't crippled her after all) with Jane's astonished reply: "You mean, all this time we could've been friends?", and a totally insane but deeply happy Jane (shot in soft focus) purchasing two strawberry ice cream cones, then dancing and spinning as a crowd gathers around her, in Robert Aldrich's Grand Guignol classic horror film

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

The film's premise: can a man and a woman be friends without sex becoming an issue?; the roadside cafe scene of fussy Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) ordering apple pie and ice cream ("But I'd like the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side. And I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real. If it's out of a can, then nothing." Waitress: "Not even the pie?" Sally: "No, just the pie. But then not heated") during a 1977 car trip from Chicago to NYC; the eleven year friendship/relationship between journalist Sally and political consultant Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) including the various split-screen scenes of them watching Casablanca (1942) and having phone conversations; the crowded New York deli-restaurant scene of Sally's simulated orgasm ("Ooooh. Oh, God. Oooooh. Oh God!..."), foot-noted by an elderly patron (director Rob Reiner's mother Estelle) exclaiming to the waiter at a nearby table: "I'll have what she's having"; the various vignettes of elderly couples reflecting on their relationships (with one-liners such as: "...you know a great melon"); and the last scene in which Harry frantically runs down a New York street (to the tune of Sinatra's "It Had to Be You") toward a hotel's crowded New Year's Eve party where he finally reaches Sally and expresses his love to her ("...I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible"), in Rob Reiner's popular romantic comedy from Nora Ephron's script

When Worlds Collide (1951)

The Oscar-winning special effects including a great fireball — a sun-sized body called Bellus — hurtling toward earth, and a rocket-propelled spaceship built on a ramp, and the film's catastrophic climax in which New York is struck by a tidal wave, in producer George Pal's disaster picture - a follow-up to Destination Moon (1950)

White Cargo (1942)

Tight sarong-clad, sultry, and exotic, dark-haired half-breed (Hollywood's code name for a non-white temptress) - an African, tan-skinned native girl named Tondelayo (Hedy Lamarr) seductively announcing herself with the popular catch-phrase in one of filmdom's greatest entrances: "I am Tondelayo"; and the concluding scene of her poisoning, in director Richard Thorpe's melodramatic remake of the 1929 original

White Heat (1949)

The opening train robbery sequence, Cody Jarrett's (James Cagney) mother-fixation sitting on Ma Jarrett's (Margaret Wycherly) lap, the instances that Cody shoots people through objects (a car trunk, an apartment door); the 'accident' scene in the prison's machine shop, the screeching of the machines that portrays Cody's mental state; the prison dining-hall sequence when word of Cody's mother's death is passed down and Cody has a beserk reaction - standing on and sprawling across the table; and Cody's final cry: "Made it Ma. Top of the world," including his fiery ending atop the gas tanks as they explode in the climax, in director Raoul Walsh's exciting Freudian-tinged gangster film

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

The end of the opening toon cartoon (Tummy Trouble) that remarkably combines animated characters and live actors, whiskey-voiced Toon-star Baby Herman Toon star Roger Rabbit , also the character of luscious sexpot Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner's voice, but Amy Irving's voice for singing), including her sexy and seductive swaggering performance near down-and-out, hard-boiled private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) of "Why Don't You Do Right?" at the Ink and Paint Club - and her famous line: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way"; the incriminating game of "Patty-cake" played by gag factory head and Toontown owner Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) and sexy Jessica; the characters of the Toon Patrol; the cab trip to Toontown; Judge Doom's (Christopher Lloyd) threat to 'dip' Jessica and Roger but his own demise in the bubbling acid; Eddie and Roger's noisy wet kiss; and the joyous conclusion with Porky Pig delivering his famous "That's all folks!", in director Robert Zemeckis' award-winning animated-live action tribute and parody of detective noirs of the 40s

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

The bawdy and saucy performance of Oscar-winning Elizabeth Taylor as Martha - probably her greatest role ever; her spouting of "What a dump!" to invoke Bette Davis; the scenes of social games including Humiliate the Host, Get the Guests, Hump the Hostess, and Bringing Up Baby with young colleagues from the university; the dramatic sequence in which history professor George (Oscar-nominated Richard Burton) finds a gun and points it at the back of Martha's head as she tells the guests an embarrassing incident from his past; Nick's (Oscar-nominated George Segal) and George's drunken banter in the yard revealing Honey's (Oscar-winning Sandy Dennis) false pregnancy; the emotionally-charged scene in the road house culminating in George's physical assault of Martha; the scene in which George realizes how he can ultimately triumph over Martha; and the final climactic sequence in which George purges and exorcises their son-myth by revealing their "secret", in director Mike Nichols' searing and visceral four-person drama - his debut film

The Wicker Man (1973)

The missing-girl investigation of repressed and devoutly religious Scottish policeman Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) on the remote island of Summerisle inhabited by openly-sexual pagan worshippers; his discovery of a potential virgin sacrifice of a missing young schoolgirl named Rowan (Geraldine Cowper) - and his encounter with the sexy inkeeper's daughter Willow (Britt Ekland) as she performs a nude dance in her room; the atheistic beliefs of the people's leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee); and the May Day finale in which Howe is burned alive ("Oh, my God!") as the perfect sacrifice in the massive hollow 'wicker man' statue (created of wicker materials designed to be used for fire sacrifices), in Robin Hardy's suspenseful and erotic horror cult film

Wild at Heart (1990)

The two lovers: violent 23 year-old ex-con and snakeskin-wearing, Elvis-obsessed Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) and horny goodtime 20 year-old Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern) ("This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top") with her monstrous and vindictive homicidal mother Marietta (Oscar-nominated Diane Ladd, Dern's real mother); their sexed-up dialogue: "Baby, you'd better run me back to the hotel. You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt"; their encounter with a dying and bloody car wreck victim (Sherilyn Fenn); the startling death scene of psychotic hitman Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe) as he blows his own head off during an aborted robbery of a feedstore, and the final scene of Ripley being visited by the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee), in director David Lynch's Wizard of Oz-related, lovers-on-the-run cult arthouse romance film

Wild Boys of the Road (1933)

The startling docu-style sight of multitudes of wandering (not wild) young boys (and one disguised girl Sally (Dorothy Coonan Wellman, the director's young wife)) forced to 'hit the road' (by freight train) during the Depression to look for work; and the constant threat of railroad dicks policing the freight yards and tracks and sending some of the transients to juvenile hall; also the excruciating scene of homeless Tommy (Edwin Phillips) losing his leg to an oncoming train, in William Wellman's neglected, but representative social-issue film/morality tale of its time from Warner Bros.

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

W (continued)
Way Down East (1920)	The spiritually affecting, melodramatic performance of Anna Moore (played marvelously by Lillian Gish); the scene of the young, innocent country girl's ecstatic reaction to a marriage proposal, soon followed by the scene in which her playboy "husband" Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman) reveals that her marriage was only a mock ceremony; the sequence in which Anna baptizes her sick, newborn baby just before it dies in her arms; the innocent love scene by the river between Anna and David (Richard Barthelmess) with the title card: "One heart for one heart, One soul for one soul, One love for one love, Even through Eternity" - but Anna is reluctant to fall in love with David when reminded of the ghosts of her past - she sadly cannot allow him to say such things, feeling unworthy of him due to her checkered past: "So she tells him he must never speak like this again"; the classic casting-out scene in which she accuses and denounces Sanderson before entering into a fierce blizzard; and the final sequence of her daring, last-minute rescue by David from floating ice floes that are perilously close to a precipitous waterfall, in D.W. Griffith's silent melodrama
Way Out West (1937)	The scene of Stan and Oliver's discussion about the deed to the gold mine - delivered to the wrong woman ("That's the first mistake we've made since that guy sold us the Brooklyn Bridge"), their soft-shoe dance routine of "At the Ball, That's All" while outside the Mickey Finn Palace Saloon, the scene of Stan being wrestled and tickled for the gold mine deed - reduced to helpless laughter, Stan biting - chewing - and gulping pieces of his hat after losing a bet ("now you're taking me illiterally"), and the rope-pulley sequences with Ollie and then a mule (and Ollie on the other end) to try to retrieve the deed, in this Laurel and Hardy western comedy directed by James W. Horne
The Way We Were (1973)	The on-and-off, star-crossed romance-marriage-divorce between two radical opposites: Jewish political activist Kate Morosky (Barbra Streisand) and WASP writer Hubbell Gardner (Robert Redford), spanning from the 30s, through World War II to the McCarthy-era 1950's; and the tearjerking final scene in which they meet accidentially in New York as she is handing out "Ban the Bomb" leaflets, to the strains of Streisand's performance of the title song (Oscar-winning music from Marvin Hamlisch - "Mem’ries, like the corners of my mind / Misty water-colored memories of the way we were") when she characteristically brushes the hair back on his brow, in Sydney Pollack's melodramatic chick flick
Wayne's World (1992)	The original characters (spun-off from a sketch on TV's Saturday Night Live) Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) - two friends with their own local public-access TV show (in their wood-paneled basement) in Aurora, Illinois, noted mostly for their dialogue, sight gags, and catchphrases: "Excellent!", "Party On!", "She's magically babelicious", "Schwing!", "If you're gonna spew, spew into this", "Hurl", "We're Not Worthy" (spoken to Alice Cooper), and "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?", among others; also, the famous sing-a-long performance by Wayne, Garth and two friends of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in a car, in director Penelope Spheeris' crazy comedy
The Wedding Crashers (2005)	The plot about two intrepid Washington DC bachelors and lifelong friends John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) who invited themselves to nuptial receptions to pick up women and bridesmaids (including one named Claire (Rachel McAdams) and her "stage-five clinger" sister Gloria (Isla Fisher)); also the sped-up musical montage sequence (to the tune of "Shout") of the two scammers flopping around in bed with many partly-clothed and naked women from weddings, and the racy scene of Jeremy being seduced by sexually-insatiable Kathleen "Kittycat" Cleary (Jane Seymour) - the socialite wife of Treasury Secretary and presidential wannabe William Clearly (Christopher Walken) who requests that he rate her recent breast implants, in director David Dobkin's R-rated romantic comedy
The Wedding March (1928)	The extended flirtatious sequence of the meeting of dissolute Prince Nicki (director Erich von Stroheim) (on horseback) and commoner Mitzi (Fay Wray) outside St. Stephens as he prepares to participate in the Corpus Christi procession; also their courtship under an apple-blossom tree with a romantic kiss; the film's controversial and notorious orgy scene in a brothel populated by an assortment of Chinese, Nubian, and Polynesian women; and the wedding march itself when Nicki must marry crippled rich heiress Cecelia Schweisser (Zasu Pitts) for money instead - witnessed by a tearful Mitzi from the side, in director Erich von Stroheim's stately drama
Weekend (1967, Fr.)	The opening sexually-graphic "orgy" scene monologue in which affluent Parisian Corinne Durand (Mireille Darc), silhouetted and dressed in her panties and bra and sitting on a desk, describes to her fully-dressed lover-analyst an orgy between a couple (Paul and his wife Monique) and herself (as the camera shifts left and right, and zooms in and out); also the weekend journey of the bickering Durand couple: Corinne and husband Roland (Jean Yanne) to visit her parents in the countryside - with the famed over 8-minute long tracking shot (the longest of its kind at the time) - viewing surrealistic and nightmarishly apocalyptic images of the roads littered with traffic jams, car wrecks and accidents, bloody casualties, and burning cars; also the stark images of the slaughter of a chicken and a pig, in director Jean-Luc Godard's prescient and politicized film
Weekend at Bernie's (1989)	The memorable scenes involving the murdered corpse of boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser) who is propped up to appear alive - pretending to be the host of a weekend beach party in the Hamptons over Labor Day weekend; the scene of the two insurance company employees: slacker Larry (Andrew McCarthy) and uptight workalcoholic Richard's (Jonathan Silverman) speedboat departure that drags Bernie's body into buoys, and the off-screen scene of the visit of NY moll Tina (Catherine Parks) to his bedroom for sex (without noticing his unresponsiveness), in director Ted Ketchoff's summer sleeper hit black comedy
West Side Story (1961)	The opening prologue with aerial shots of Manhattan, the remarkably energetic Jerome Robbins' choreography especially in the opening balletic sequence filmed in New York's Hell's Kitchen district - between the Caucasian Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks; the dance at the gym with the first meeting of star-crossed lovers Maria (Natalie Wood) and Tony (Richard Beymer); the scene of Anita's (Oscar-winning Rita Moreno) passionate skirt-tossing dance with other Puerto Ricans on the rooftop in the singing of "America"; the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene re-enacted on a tenement fire escape with the singing of "Tonight" by both Tony and Maria; the biting satire of "Gee Officer Krupke," Maria's "I Feel Pretty" dance, and their sensitive exchange of love vows in the bridal shop in "One Hand, One Heart"; the action-oriented rumble/dance sequence leading to the killings of two rival gang leaders Bernardo (Oscar-winning George Chakiris) and Riff (Russ Tamblyn), and the melodramatic finale when Tony dies in Maria's arms as she kneels by his side (singing Somewhere: "Hold my hand and I'll take you there"), in co-directors Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise's Best Picture-winning adaptation of the popular Broadway musical
The Westerner (1940)	Quick-thinking Cole Harden's (Gary Cooper) sweet-talking of Jane-Ellen Mathews (Doris Davenport) for a lock of her hair; the drinking bout between Hardin and hanging Judge Roy Bean (Oscar-winning Walter Brennan); the exciting scene of the devastating cornfield fire set by the Judge's men to run off homesteaders; the scene of the theater curtain's opening revealing deputized Hardin standing on stage and ready for a gunfight with Judge Bean (the sole audience member) rather than a performance by British actress Lily Langtry (Lilian Bond) - 'the famous Jersey Lily'; and the Judge's wide-eyed, backstage death scene as he glimpses the fantasy woman of his life - she blurs in his vision as he falls dead, in director William Wyler's A-list western
What Dreams May Come (1998)	The tragic early scene in which pediatrician Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams) loses his two children Marie (Jessica Brooks Grant) and Ian (Josh Paddock) in an off-screen car crash, with his melancholy narration: "It was the last time Annie and I saw the children alive"; the scenes in which Chris, now also deceased four years later and in the afterlife, attempts to have his still-living, suicidal and grief-stricken artist wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra) acknowledge his existence (making her scrawl "I STIL EXST", and trying to contact her at his gravesite) -- and her violent sobbing reactions; the Expressionist painting world of Chris' heaven (using surreal Oscar-winning CGI effects); and the moment when mentor Albert Lewis (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) helps him create a "real" afterlife by carving a hole in a wall ("We all paint our own surroundings but you're the first guy I know to use real paint"); Annie's despairing suicide, and Chris' quest to rescue her lost soul from a tormented afterlife in 'hell' with the help of the dark-cloaked Tracker (Max von Sydow); the view of a vast, hell-based "farm" where dozens of souls are buried up to their necks; Chris' decision to share his wife's insanity rather than abandon her ("Sometimes, when you lose, you win"), and the re-uniting of wife Annie with her dead children in the afterlife during the finale, in director Vincent Ward's artistic, visually-astonishing afterlife drama (a cross between Ingmar Bergman's films and Stairway to Heaven/A Matter of Life and Death (1946))
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)	The two legendary screen rivals dueling onscreen - with the many scenes of ex-child actor and sister 'Baby' Jane Hudson (Oscar-nominated Bette Davis) terrorizing wheelchair-bound, hungry, crippled ex-movie star sister Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford), driven insane by feelings of jealousy (Blanche's success as a movie star while her career fizzled) and guilt (thinking she had crippled Blanche by running the car into her in an early scene); her petty tortures including the servings of "din-din": a dead pet parakeet and roasted rat; the scene of a grotesquely made-up Jane practicing "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" while dressed in a baby-doll suit (with her hair in golden curly locks) to corpulent gigolo pianist Edwin Flagg (Oscar-nominated Victor Buono in his film debut) in a demented attempt at a comeback as Baby Jane, Blanche's excruciating attempt to make her way down the staircase to phone for help - when Baby Jane unexpectedly arrives, Jane's response to Blanche's helplessness ("You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair") in her wheelchair - retorting: "But-cha ARE, Blanche! Yah ARE in that chair!", and the concluding beach scene in which a dying Blanche reveals the truth, with her final words, of the accident years earlier (Jane hadn't crippled her after all) with Jane's astonished reply: "You mean, all this time we could've been friends?", and a totally insane but deeply happy Jane (shot in soft focus) purchasing two strawberry ice cream cones, then dancing and spinning as a crowd gathers around her, in Robert Aldrich's Grand Guignol classic horror film
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)	The film's premise: can a man and a woman be friends without sex becoming an issue?; the roadside cafe scene of fussy Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) ordering apple pie and ice cream ("But I'd like the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side. And I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real. If it's out of a can, then nothing." Waitress: "Not even the pie?" Sally: "No, just the pie. But then not heated") during a 1977 car trip from Chicago to NYC; the eleven year friendship/relationship between journalist Sally and political consultant Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) including the various split-screen scenes of them watching Casablanca (1942) and having phone conversations; the crowded New York deli-restaurant scene of Sally's simulated orgasm ("Ooooh. Oh, God. Oooooh. Oh God!..."), foot-noted by an elderly patron (director Rob Reiner's mother Estelle) exclaiming to the waiter at a nearby table: "I'll have what she's having"; the various vignettes of elderly couples reflecting on their relationships (with one-liners such as: "...you know a great melon"); and the last scene in which Harry frantically runs down a New York street (to the tune of Sinatra's "It Had to Be You") toward a hotel's crowded New Year's Eve party where he finally reaches Sally and expresses his love to her ("...I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible"), in Rob Reiner's popular romantic comedy from Nora Ephron's script
When Worlds Collide (1951)	The Oscar-winning special effects including a great fireball — a sun-sized body called Bellus — hurtling toward earth, and a rocket-propelled spaceship built on a ramp, and the film's catastrophic climax in which New York is struck by a tidal wave, in producer George Pal's disaster picture - a follow-up to Destination Moon (1950)
White Cargo (1942)	Tight sarong-clad, sultry, and exotic, dark-haired half-breed (Hollywood's code name for a non-white temptress) - an African, tan-skinned native girl named Tondelayo (Hedy Lamarr) seductively announcing herself with the popular catch-phrase in one of filmdom's greatest entrances: "I am Tondelayo"; and the concluding scene of her poisoning, in director Richard Thorpe's melodramatic remake of the 1929 original
White Heat (1949)	The opening train robbery sequence, Cody Jarrett's (James Cagney) mother-fixation sitting on Ma Jarrett's (Margaret Wycherly) lap, the instances that Cody shoots people through objects (a car trunk, an apartment door); the 'accident' scene in the prison's machine shop, the screeching of the machines that portrays Cody's mental state; the prison dining-hall sequence when word of Cody's mother's death is passed down and Cody has a beserk reaction - standing on and sprawling across the table; and Cody's final cry: "Made it Ma. Top of the world," including his fiery ending atop the gas tanks as they explode in the climax, in director Raoul Walsh's exciting Freudian-tinged gangster film
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)	The end of the opening toon cartoon (Tummy Trouble) that remarkably combines animated characters and live actors, whiskey-voiced Toon-star Baby Herman Toon star Roger Rabbit , also the character of luscious sexpot Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner's voice, but Amy Irving's voice for singing), including her sexy and seductive swaggering performance near down-and-out, hard-boiled private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) of "Why Don't You Do Right?" at the Ink and Paint Club - and her famous line: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way"; the incriminating game of "Patty-cake" played by gag factory head and Toontown owner Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) and sexy Jessica; the characters of the Toon Patrol; the cab trip to Toontown; Judge Doom's (Christopher Lloyd) threat to 'dip' Jessica and Roger but his own demise in the bubbling acid; Eddie and Roger's noisy wet kiss; and the joyous conclusion with Porky Pig delivering his famous "That's all folks!", in director Robert Zemeckis' award-winning animated-live action tribute and parody of detective noirs of the 40s
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)	The bawdy and saucy performance of Oscar-winning Elizabeth Taylor as Martha - probably her greatest role ever; her spouting of "What a dump!" to invoke Bette Davis; the scenes of social games including Humiliate the Host, Get the Guests, Hump the Hostess, and Bringing Up Baby with young colleagues from the university; the dramatic sequence in which history professor George (Oscar-nominated Richard Burton) finds a gun and points it at the back of Martha's head as she tells the guests an embarrassing incident from his past; Nick's (Oscar-nominated George Segal) and George's drunken banter in the yard revealing Honey's (Oscar-winning Sandy Dennis) false pregnancy; the emotionally-charged scene in the road house culminating in George's physical assault of Martha; the scene in which George realizes how he can ultimately triumph over Martha; and the final climactic sequence in which George purges and exorcises their son-myth by revealing their "secret", in director Mike Nichols' searing and visceral four-person drama - his debut film
The Wicker Man (1973)	The missing-girl investigation of repressed and devoutly religious Scottish policeman Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) on the remote island of Summerisle inhabited by openly-sexual pagan worshippers; his discovery of a potential virgin sacrifice of a missing young schoolgirl named Rowan (Geraldine Cowper) - and his encounter with the sexy inkeeper's daughter Willow (Britt Ekland) as she performs a nude dance in her room; the atheistic beliefs of the people's leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee); and the May Day finale in which Howe is burned alive ("Oh, my God!") as the perfect sacrifice in the massive hollow 'wicker man' statue (created of wicker materials designed to be used for fire sacrifices), in Robin Hardy's suspenseful and erotic horror cult film
Wild at Heart (1990)	The two lovers: violent 23 year-old ex-con and snakeskin-wearing, Elvis-obsessed Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) and horny goodtime 20 year-old Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern) ("This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top") with her monstrous and vindictive homicidal mother Marietta (Oscar-nominated Diane Ladd, Dern's real mother); their sexed-up dialogue: "Baby, you'd better run me back to the hotel. You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt"; their encounter with a dying and bloody car wreck victim (Sherilyn Fenn); the startling death scene of psychotic hitman Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe) as he blows his own head off during an aborted robbery of a feedstore, and the final scene of Ripley being visited by the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee), in director David Lynch's Wizard of Oz-related, lovers-on-the-run cult arthouse romance film
Wild Boys of the Road (1933)	The startling docu-style sight of multitudes of wandering (not wild) young boys (and one disguised girl Sally (Dorothy Coonan Wellman, the director's young wife)) forced to 'hit the road' (by freight train) during the Depression to look for work; and the constant threat of railroad dicks policing the freight yards and tracks and sending some of the transients to juvenile hall; also the excruciating scene of homeless Tommy (Edwin Phillips) losing his leg to an oncoming train, in William Wellman's neglected, but representative social-issue film/morality tale of its time from Warner Bros.