Sometimes, films scare us…sometimes, they move us to tears.
And sometimes, they have us laughing our butts off.
There's a reason we love movies so much, and it has everything to do with a well-crafted
scene.
These are just a few cinematic scenes that are practically perfect in every way.
The 1996 slasher film Scream, just one of the many horror classics conceived by Wes
Craven, was at once a love letter to horror films as well as an effective addition to
the genre in its own right.
"No, please don't kill me Mr. Ghostface.
I wanna be in the sequel!"
Set in a small town with a history of tragic murders, the film centers on Sidney Prescott,
a seemingly normal teen who starts getting mysterious phone calls as she and her friends
are stalked by an unknown entity known as "Ghostface."
Before Sidney even appears, there is a lengthy opening scene featuring Drew Barrymore as
Casey Becker, a teenager enjoying a night at home when she starts getting some unsettling
phone calls.
At first, Casey is unfazed by these odd calls, assuming the person on the other end of the
phone is simply playing a rude prank, but before long, she starts getting nervous, and
once she sees her gutted boyfriend posed in her backyard, her panic intensifies.
As her parents arrive home at the end of the evening, the camera zooms in on her body hanging
from a tree on the property, finally cutting to the opening credits and capping off a perfect
encapsulation of both Craven's vision and the horror genre.
Despite initially flopping at the box office, Frank Darabont's magnum opus The Shawshank
Redemption went on to become one of the most beloved films of the 20th century, even earning
a spot on AFI's Top 100 list.
Telling the story of Andy Dufresne, a wrongfully imprisoned man serving two consecutive life
sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary, the film paints the grimmest possible picture
of prison life.
Andy is brutalized every single day until he figures out a scheme where he can help
financially manage the prison as well as lend a hand to his fellow inmates with their money
troubles.
The signature scene of the entire film is the moment when Andy escapes from the prison
through a rock tunnel that took nearly 20 years to build.
As he emerges from the tunnel, which is filled with human waste and filth, he stands clean
and victorious in the rain, basking in a hard-fought victory the audience feels right along with
him.
It's a perfect moment of human triumph, and Darabont created a completely unforgettable
image that will continue striking an emotional chord in viewers for years to come.
Adapting the Lord of the Rings series, comprised of three novels by J.R.R.
Tolkien, was no easy feat, but clearly one man was up to the job: Peter Jackson, who
used his home country of New Zealand as the stand-in for Tolkien's Middle-earth.
The films were critical and commercial smashes, with the final installment, The Return of
the King, winning a whopping 11 Oscars.
In the first of the three films, The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo, a timid and inexperienced
hobbit of the Shire, embarks on his long journey to destroy the One Ring that could control
the entire world.
During his journey with the "fellowship" of nine, made up of hobbits, men, elves, dwarves,
and wizards alike, the group needs to cross through the dangerous Mines of Moria, home
to ancient monsters that lurk far underground.
When they encounter a Balrog, an enormous demon made of fire, all hope seems lost, until
the powerful wizard Gandalf sacrifices himself to get Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship
to safety.
"Fly, you fools!"
With still-impressive special effects, an ideal action set piece, and strong performances
across the board, it's no wonder that…
"You shall not pass!"
…has become a part of the cultural lexicon.
Thanks to director Quentin Tarantino's vision of a non-linear gangster fairytale, 1994's
Pulp Fiction is regarded as one of the best films of not just the 1990s, but the back
half of the 20th century.
With an all-star cast that includes John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames,
Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, and Tim Roth, the film follows several different stories
as they eventually converge, with the entire plot happening out of order as well as beginning
and ending at the exact same point during a diner robbery.
Though the film is filled with plenty of unforgettable scenes, the most memorable is arguably Mia
Wallace's overdose and the aftermath that follows.
Wallace, played by Thurman, misidentifies Vega's drugs after an evening out, and promptly
snorts them.
After rushing an unconscious Mia to his dealer's house, Vincent ends up stabbing her in the
heart with an adrenaline-filled hypodermic needle to revive her.
Between the ensuing insanity that takes place over Mia's still body and Thurman's reaction
to the needle, this scene is shot and written so perfectly that you almost feel like you're
a part of the action.
"If you're alright, then say something."
"Something."
A great opening can perfectly set the tone for a film, and few are as famous as the sequence
that opens Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the classic horror movie that made millions of people
suddenly reconsider taking a dip in the ocean.
The film itself, which is considered one of the best movies of all time, starred Richard
Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider as a marine biologist and police chief trying to take down a man-eating
great white shark that is terrorizing a resort town in New England, and though they're ultimately
successful, the shark takes several lives in the process.
Thanks to an often unreliable mechanical shark on set, Spielberg ended up not showing his
toothy antagonist in many scenes, creating a Hitchcock-esque thriller where the main
villain's mere presence evoked fear.
This is perfectly displayed in the opening scene: After a party on the beach, a young
girl and her boyfriend take a swim during which they are both attacked and the girl
is eaten by the shark.
By filming crucial parts of the scene from the shark's perspective and using menacing,
and now iconic, music by John Williams, Spielberg takes a "less is more" approach to creating
this unforgettable scene.
One of David Fincher's most highly regarded films, 1995's Se7en is a classically dark
and twisted thriller from the acclaimed director, as well as one of his first big hits.
Starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, the film centers on two detectives, Mills and
Somerset, tracking a violent and creative serial killer who taunts police by leaving
his victims in deliberate arrangements meant to evoke the seven deadly sins.
With each crime carefully covered up and meticulously planned, the detectives have no leads until
John Doe arrives at the police station covered in blood to confess.
Doe then leads both detectives to a remote spot in the desert to show them his final
crime, revealing that he has been guilty of the sin of envy, leading him to murder Mills'
pregnant wife Tracy, and presenting Mills with Tracy's head in a box.
"Because I envy your normal life…"
"Put the gun down, David."
"...it seems that envy is my sin."
"No, what's in the box?"
"Not 'til you give me the gun."
"What's in the f---ing box?!"
In response, an enraged Mills shoots Doe, representing wrath and doing exactly what
Doe wants.
The scene, with its sepia-toned color scheme, tense music, and impeccable performances,
is a master class in thrillers, especially since the audience never even sees the contents
of the box.
We don't need to.
In fact, the scene is better, and more gut-wrenching, with just the mental image.
The final moments of The Usual Suspects, the 1995 neo-noir mystery film starring Kevin
Spacey as Verbal Kint, one of the sole survivors of a shootout led by a notorious crime boss
named Keyser Soze, are regarded as one of the best twist endings in film history.
The script focuses almost entirely on Kint's recollection of the events preceding the film,
which involves a group of gangsters attempting to pull off a complicated heist in order to
get revenge on the NYPD, only to be foiled by Soze, who seems more like an urban legend
than a real person.
As the detectives frantically try to figure out which person in the story could possibly
be Soze, Kint's bail is posted, and he leaves the police station…and as he does, his physicality
completely changes; his limp goes away, and his non-functioning hand suddenly works.
Back at the station, the detectives realize that Kint was Keyser Soze the entire time,
but they're too late, he's already escaped.
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
No matter how many times you've seen the film, the ending still completely works, especially
once you can look back at all the clues the film laid throughout to lead viewers to solve
the mystery themselves.
Christopher Nolan rebooted the Batman franchise to rave reviews in 2005 with Batman Begins,
but that was nothing compared to 2008's The Dark Knight, widely regarded as one of the
best films of the decade, as well as the gold standard that future superhero movies would
strive for.
Nolan cast Heath Ledger, then mainly known for arthouse dramas and teenage romantic comedies,
as the Joker to play opposite Christian Bale's Batman.
And, though the casting was initially controversial, the bet paid off handsomely.
Tragically, Ledger passed away in January of 2008 before the film's summer release,
but his performance in the film remains one of the best of all time.
"See, madness, as you know, is like gravity.
All it takes it a little push!"
There are almost too many incredible scenes featuring Ledger to narrow them down to one,
but one of his best occurs when he crashes a high society gala to torment Harvey Dent,
terrorizing guests and throwing glasses of champagne with reckless abandon.
The scene is a perfect encapsulation of chaos on any scale, whether that means committing
murder or simply making a mess as the Joker traverses the party, cackling as he eats off
random trays and explains his disfigured face.
"Now, I'm always smiling!
A little fight in you, I like that."
What's left to say about the original Star Wars, one of the most influential and beloved
films of all time?
The story of Luke Skywalker, a young Jedi who must confront the Galactic Empire alongside
the virtuous Rebel Alliance, is one of the most important movies ever made.
Its success spawned a universe of sequels and spinoffs, creating an entire industry.
The first film released in the series, A New Hope, made worldwide stars out of Mark Hamill,
who played Skywalker, along with co-stars Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.
The film's final battle scene, the trench run at the Death Star, is among the most famous
in a film arguably filled with iconic moments, and it's easy to see why: Director George
Lucas and his crew used mostly practical effects to create a stunning 15-minute sequence during
which Luke and a squad of Alliance pilots attack the Death Star, eventually blowing
the fortress-like ship to smithereens by bombing an exhaust port.
Tense, thrilling, and victorious, it's Star Wars at its very best.
One of the most famous directors in history, Alfred Hitchcock is responsible for some of
the most famous and unforgettable scenes in all of film, arguably led by that infamous
shower scene in Psycho.
As Marion Crane, a young woman who stops at the Bates Motel, Janet Leigh seems to be the
hero of the story, but in a perfect subversion of expectations, Marion is stabbed to death
by an unseen attacker while taking a shower at the motel.
The scene, which has no score or music until the murder, focuses tightly on Leigh, which
only increases the audience's sense of dread when they see a shadowy figure through the
shower curtain.
The camera then lingers on Leigh's body, eventually contrasting her open eye with the open drain,
allowing for a sense of symmetry.
This three-minute scene, which contains only 45 seconds of action, remains one of the gold
standards of the horror genre, so much so that an entire documentary about it, 78/52,
was released in 2017, offering viewers a whole new insight into this masterful cinematic
moment.
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