Starship Troopers (1997)

In director Paul Verhoeven's science-fiction film:

• the brutal, training process by drill instructor Zim (Clancy Brown) - one beefy recruit has his arm broken and another has his hand impaled by a knife
• the infamous uni-sex shower scene with male and female soldiers (Dina Meyer) sharing the same open shower stalls
• the large-scale, visceral, extremely gory battle scenes between humans and mobilized giant alien bugs shown in a swarm
• the surprising, deeply satirical ending in which the entire film is revealed as a gung-ho recruitment ad for the futuristic military

Startup.com (2001)

In Jehane Noujaim's and Chris Hegedus' fascinating cautionary documentary tale about the dot.com collapse:

• the odyssey of govWorks.com's co-founders Tom Herman and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman in their meteoric rise to a $50M company with over 200 employees (with no real product) in 1999, to its failure and dissolution due to company excesses and ego
• the contrast between their friendship and the painful scenes in which Kaleil bars Tom from entering the building

State Fair (1945) (aka It Happened One Summer)

In this Richard Rodgers' and Oscar Hammerstein II's filmed musical by co-directors Jose Ferrer and Walter Lang:

• the lovely, long curly-haired, teen-aged ingenue Margy Frake's (Jeanne Crain) longings for love
• her first meeting with suave newspaper reporter Pat Gilbert (Dana Andrews) on the fair's rides
• their subsequent three-day romance

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

In director Charles "Chuck" Riesner's silent-era slapstick comedy:

• the comical sequence in which Steamboat Bill Jr. (Buster Keaton) tries on hats and his personality changes into a new character with each one
• the tremendous special effects of a destructive tornado/cyclone
• the spectacular, beautifully-choreographed, extremely dangerous stunt of the front of a two-story house falling forward - its second floor window opening is perfectly positioned to fall over bewildered young Bill standing in front of the building

Steel Magnolias (1989)

In Herbert Ross' tearjerking romantic comedy:

• the death scene of diabetic daughter Shelby Eatenton Latcherie (Julia Roberts)
• the graveyard scene around the casket in which grieving, strong-willed and feisty mother M'Lynn Eatenton (Sally Field) reacts to her daughter's death - raging and despairing angrily: ("I'm fine! I can jog all the way to Texas and back, but my daughter can't! She never could! Oh God! I'm so mad, I don't know what to do! I wanna know why! I wanna know WHY Shelby's life is over! I wanna know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was. Will he EVER know what she went through for him? Oh, God, I wanna know whyyyy! Whhhyyyyy?! Lord, I wish I could understand. No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way. I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first. I don't think I can take this. I don't think I can take this. I just wanna hit somebody til they feel as bad as I do! I JUST WANNA HIT SOMETHING! I WANNA HIT IT HARD!")
• Clairee's (Olympia Dukakis) offer of Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine) as a punching bag ("Here, hit this! Go ahead, M'Lynn. Slap her!")

Stella Dallas (1937)

In King Vidor's classic tearjerker:

• the touching, famous sequence of Stella (Barbara Stanwyck) and her daughter Laurel (or "Lollie") (Anne Shirley) waiting at her unattended birthday party - removing plates as regrets are received until they are the only ones
• the train berth scene in which her caring teenaged daughter comes down to "cuddle" with her mother who has overheard criticisms (about being "a common looking creature for a mother")
• a gauche Stella's self-sacrificing renunciation scene with Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neil) in which she suggests giving up her daughter for a better life
• the scene of Stella deliberately staging a vulgar appearance for her daughter in her showy, coarse and common style (reading a "LOVE" book, listening to loud music and smoking a cigarette)
• the unforgettable final wedding scene and Stella's reactions as she is standing alone in the rain at the outer gate gazing lovingly and adoringly - with tears in her eyes (and biting a handkerchief in her mouth) - through the mansion's window at her daughter's high-society wedding
• the ending in which the gathering crowd is told by a policeman to move along - and afterwards, Stella's joyful stride down the street as the film fades to black

The Stepford Wives (1975)

In Bryan Forbes' great and shocking cautionary feminist sci-fi/horror cult tale (an adaptation of Ira Levin's novel):

• the scene of new Stepford, Connecticut suburban wives Joanna Eberhart and Bobbie Markowe (Katharine Ross and Paula Prentiss) noting suspiciously that their seemingly-perfect neighbor housewives only clean house and bow to their husband's needs
• the garden party among the housewives and malfunctioning Carol's (Nanette Newman) quote: "I'll just die if I don't get this recipe!"
• the scene of the failed consciousness-raising session/discussion as the wives extol the virtues of Easy-On spray starch
• Bobbie acting robotically in the kitchen while serving coffee to Joanna - being stabbed to test her humanity ("Do you bleed?") - and going berserk due to severed wiring (twirling and repeating monotonously: "I was just going to give you coffee? How could you do a thing like that? I thought we were friends!")
• the startling scene in which Joanna comes face to face with her semi-complete, sunken dark-eyed robotic double
• the image of the last haunting scene - all of the flowery-dress-wearing wives pushing their shopping carts in the supermarket

The Sting (1973)

In this Depression-Era, Best Picture-winning crime/comedy from director George Roy Hill:

• the ragtime music of Scott Joplin on the soundtrack
• the introduction of con artist Henry Gondorff/Mr. Shaw (Paul Newman) to Johnny Hooker/Kelly (Robert Redford): "Glad to meet you, kid, you're a real horse's ass"
• the tricky "sting" heist that they orchestrate on racketeer mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) in the film's conclusion
• the last lines of dialogue: (Henry: "You not gonna stick around for your share?" Hooker: "Nah. I'd only blow it")

The Straight Story (1999)

In director David Lynch's atypical drama:

• the low-key reunion scene between 73 year-old Iowan widower Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) - after a long 6-week ride across Iowa and into neighboring Wisconsin on his lawn mower/tractor - and his sick brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) on the front porch

Strange Days (1995)

In director Kathryn Bigelow's dystopic tech-noir:

• the opening exciting action sequence of an illicit 'playback clip' (a "snuff" clip called a 'blackjack') of a failed robbery attempt of a Chinese restaurant by masked criminals, with one of the robbers falling six stories from the side of a building and smashing into the sidewalk ("It gets you pumpin'...one man's mundane and desperate existence is another man's Technicolor")
• it was recorded (or "wired") directly from a head device called a 'squid' (short for Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) connecting into the cerebral cortex ("It's pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex")
• the scene of late-1999 sleazy ex-vice squad cop and peddler of illegal software clips Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) ecstatically 'jacking in' to playback a clip of sexy ex-girlfriend Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis) filmed from a first-person perspective, as they roller-skated together in Venice, CA - and then in her apartment where she stripped and they had sex together (to the tune of Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds")
• aspiring singer Faith's harsh rejection of pining Nero at her club ("You know one of the ways that movies are still better than playback? 'Cause the music comes up, there's credits, and you always know when it's over. IT'S OVER!")
• another contraband snuff clip, watched to Nero's horror, in which the murderer forces the female prostitute/victim Iris (Brigitte Bako) to be 'jacked in' in order to experience her own brutal rape, strangulation and death
• the scene of Lenny's exciting escape from two corrupt "loose-cannon" cops when his street-savvy friend - limousine chauffeur-security bodyguard Lornette "Macey" Mason (Angela Bassett), drives their gasoline-soaked burning limousine through a fence and off a pier into the harbor waters (and they make an underwater escape through the trunk)
• the scene of the brutal assassination of outspoken militant black rapper Jeriko One (Glen Plummer) shot execution-style by two corrupt, rogue LA cops Steckler and Engelman (Vincent D'Onofrio and William Fichtner) during a random traffic stop
• the climactic arrival of the millennium's New Year's Eve high atop the downtown Bonaventura Hotel punctuated by Lenny's fight to-the-death against long-haired, menacing ex-cop turned PI Max Peltier (Tom Sizemore), Iris' killer, before Max falls to his death
• the arrest and death of both cops on the street after the riotous crowd comes to heroic Mace's rescue
• the concluding clinch between Lenny and Mace as the New Year of 2000 begins

Strangers On a Train (1951)

In Alfred Hitchcock's thriller:

• 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)
  - tennis ace Guy Haines (Farley Granger)
• 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
• 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
• 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

Straw Dogs (1971)

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?):

• 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)
• Amy allowing local laborers to ogle her half-naked 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)
• 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")

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

In director Elia Kazan's brilliant film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play:

• 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"
• the final confrontation (rape scene) between Stanley and Blanche in the apartment
• Blanche being led away to an asylum by an elderly gentleman with her farewell: "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers"

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

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):

• New Orleans debutante Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), the institutionalized niece of rich widow Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), wandering in a mental asylum with inmates reaching for her
• 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