Best Movie Moment (2 Viewers)

[Spitfrnd]

Thanks to you guys, I just went out and bought "the Wild Bunch". Can't wait to figure out how to peel off the clear plastic so I can watch it!

Good for you mate, you won't regret it. Be sure to watch the interviews and movie making features. They are great with gems like how they did the famous bridge scene and how Sam made these established stars do without showers for days to get the right feeling for their roles and how they came up with the walk to the gun fight scene and much more. LOL, all this talk about it makes me want to stop working and put the DVD in; must resist, must resist. Enjoy.

 

[Warrior]

"True Romance , where Walken is a scilian mob boss and about to shoot dennis hopper. Hopper knows he's about to die, and delivers a history lesson to walken on the origin of scilians (can't reproduce on family forum)
But great scene from walken and hopper." A great scene, just beautifully acted by both parties.....

The running gun battle in "Heat" is awesome as well, the gun and spent shells bouncing off the ground sounds were powerful...........

 

[Spitfrnd]

...another good one with Al was RONIN which also had some good shootouts and imo the best (if not the longest) car chase scene in a movie. The French actor in RONIN was also in a often overlooked movie called LEON that also had some good gun fight scenes....

RONIN; now that's another movie I watch on a recurring basis; some many great scenes like:

Spence: We got shooters here and here. I tell you an old trick.
Sam: Hey...
[rubs the board]
Spence: What's your problem?
Sam: Draw again. Draw it again. You're the ace field man. Draw it again. It's a simple diagram. Just draw it again. Draw what you saw. Draw it again! Draw it again!
Sam: [Spence remains silent. Sam takes the marker and draws on the board] Two shooters. Car comes through here. Shooters across each other. Kill each other dead. Oh my, where'd you learn that?
Spence: In the regiment.
Sam: What regiment was that?
Spence: The 22nd Special Air Service.
Sam: What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford?
[repeats]
Spence: I don't like your attitude!
Sam: What's the color of the boathouse -...
Spence: **** off!
Sam: What's - -you got the gun. I'm unarmed. Do something. Go ahead. Do something. DO SOMETHING.
[Spence spills the coffee cup and Sam subdues him]
Sam: Tell me about an ambush. I ambushed you with a cup of coffee!

or

Sam: What's in the case?
Deirdre: That isn't necessary.
Sam: Is it heavy, is it explosive, is it chained to some unlucky bloke's wrist? Are we gonna have to chop it off?
Deirdre: All right. But I am not under any obligation to let you know...
Sam: If not, the price has gotta go up. I'll get you the case, but the price has gotta go up. If it's gonna be a amateur night, I want a hundred thousand dollars. I want it upfront. I want it in a bank account. I want another $100,000 when you get the case.
Deirdre: [after a phone conversation with someone] You'll get your money when we get the case.
Sam: The others too.
Deirdre: That is what I understood.

Such great acting by De Niro, Jean Reno (the Frenchman you mention), Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean, Michael Lonsdale, Jonathan Pryce and of course, Natascha McElhone (Deirdre) whom you just want to take home.

And then the "real" driving scenes with driving by Grand Prix level drivers through the streets of Nice. Frankenheimer even filmed the actors in the cars during the actual driving, now that made their expressions realistic

 

[kilted vampire]

Toss up between Alec Guiness and Robin Williams. Guiness quietly freaking out as plans the details for the funeral in Tunes of Glory Williams telling the Sgt. Major about what he needs in the end of Good Morning Vietnam.

 

[Wraith]

Ronin - Car scenes to rival Bullitt - outstanding.
Heat - Gun battle - yet to be beaten IMO.
Great films.

 

[theBaron]

And how can we forget "The Godfather"?

After the scenes in Hollywood, ending with Woltz waking up and finding his prize Arabian's head in his bed, we fade back to a close-up of Don Corleone, who raises an eyebrow, just barely, an almost imperceptible shrug, as if to say, "Meh." That's such a great shot.

Prost!
Bradley

 

[gk5717]

How about in "Goodfellows" when they are in the restaurant and Ray Liotta says to Joe Pesci "Your funny" and Pesci replies, "I,m funny? Do I amuse you", that whole sequence.
Gary

 

[The General]

One of my all time favorite scenes is from "Glory"; as the 54th marches onto the beach prior to assaulting battery wagner, Denzel Washington passes a Union soldier who had started a fight with Denzel earlier in the movie by disrespecting the colored troops with a line I can't use here.

Their eyes meet and the Union soldier yells "Give em Hell 54th!", setting off loud cheers from the Union troops watching the 54th march off to their deaths.

Gives me chills everytime I see it.............

That was the exact movie moment I was going to post. I just thought I'd read a few others first.

That gave me more than just chills. It brought a tear to this old soldier's eye.

 

[UKReb]

Thanks to you guys, I just went out and bought "the Wild Bunch".Mike

Mike
I would be interested in your reaction after watching the Bunch for the first time, as you will now most probably be aware it remains one of my favorite films of all time and have lost count on how many times I have watched it. However, it is also 40 years old and may not have the same impact on you as it had on me and I'm assuming, based on his comments, Spitfrnd as well. Fully aware though that one guy's fave movie could be bordering on another's guy's threshold of boredom.

That's why this thread is so darn fascinating. I have always been an advocate that peoples favorite movies are really in most cases best movie moments or scenes rather than the whole movie. As indicative in all the comments posted here they inevitably fall into two categories either visual or vocal scenes, an excellent example of a classic visual scene is your gun battle in Heat which consists of outstanding choreography and sound-effects with no vocals apart from a few utterances of "Go". Then you have vocal scenes from great one-liners to mini-speeches that can dampen your eyes or just wow! you with the power of the words.

It is these that personally raise my goose-flesh and I'll give you a couple of my favorites. Eastwood- as has been discussed here- is the master of the great throwaway or put down liners. His Dirty Harry quotes have now become a little played out but if you listen carefully he slips them into practically all of his movies this one is from a great little film "In the Line of Fire" where he plays Frank Horrigan an almost retired secret service agent from the old-school. He is surrounded by the new whiz kid agents who have 15 degrees each from Yale, Cornell and MIT and they want nothing to do with this out of date agent and Eastwood is only on the case because the wouldbe assassin has selected him as the fall guy with continuous phone taunts. Eastwood has been asked to attend the first meeting of agents

Rene Russo (one of these smart new SS agents) " What makes you think he'll call you again?"
Eastwood "Oh! he'll call again. He's got uh!..... "panache"
Russo "Panache?"
Eastwood "Yeah! it means....uh!....flamboyance"
An indignant Russo "I know what it means"
Eastwood "Really? I had to look it up"

A cracker quote perfect for the scene and perfectly delivered by Eastwood.

Second example-this time powerful words beautifully delivered by Orson Welles in a real oldie "The Third Man" where he plays drugs racketeer Harry Lime in post-war Vienna. In this scene on the famous Riesenrad Ferris Wheel (still there by the way as I took a ride on it earlier this year) Welles is attempting to vindicate his racket to an old friend who is openly disgusted with this illegal business. The final lines of the scene Welles decided had no real impact so he wrote the following himself.

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock"

Although technically wrong as it was the Germans who invented the cuckoo clock nevertheless perfect scene and perfectly delivered. These and all the other posters comments are prime examples of the magic of the movies that can effect movie-goers to generate their best movie moments. TV has never been able to quite imitate those moments apart of course from re-running all these great movies.

Reb

 

[Rob]

Mike
I would be interested in your reaction after watching the Bunch for the first time, as you will now most probably be aware it remains one of my favorite films of all time and have lost count on how many times I have watched it. However, it is also 40 years old and may not have the same impact on you as it had on me and I'm assuming, based on his comments, Spitfrnd as well. Fully aware though that one guy's fave movie could be bordering on another's guy's threshold of boredom.

That's why this thread is so darn fascinating. I have always been an advocate that peoples favorite movies are really in most cases best movie moments or scenes rather than the whole movie. As indicative in all the comments posted here they inevitably fall into two categories either visual or vocal scenes, an excellent example of a classic visual scene is your gun battle in Heat which consists of outstanding choreography and sound-effects with no vocals apart from a few utterances of "Go". Then you have vocal scenes from great one-liners to mini-speeches that can dampen your eyes or just wow! you with the power of the words.

It is these that personally raise my goose-flesh and I'll give you a couple of my favorites. Eastwood- as has been discussed here- is the master of the great throwaway or put down liners. His Dirty Harry quotes have now become a little played out but if you listen carefully he slips them into practically all of his movies this one is from a great little film "In the Line of Fire" where he plays Frank Horrigan an almost retired secret service agent from the old-school. He is surrounded by the new whiz kid agents who have 15 degrees each from Yale, Cornell and MIT and they want nothing to do with this out of date agent and Eastwood is only on the case because the wouldbe assassin has selected him as the fall guy with continuous phone taunts. Eastwood has been asked to attend the first meeting of agents

Rene Russo (one of these smart new SS agents) " What makes you think he'll call you again?"
Eastwood "Oh! he'll call again. He's got uh!..... "panache"
Russo "Panache?"
Eastwood "Yeah! it means....uh!....flamboyance"
An indignant Russo "I know what it means"
Eastwood "Really? I had to look it up"

A cracker quote perfect for the scene and perfectly delivered by Eastwood.

Second example-this time powerful words beautifully delivered by Orson Welles in a real oldie "The Third Man" where he plays drugs racketeer Harry Lime in post-war Vienna. In this scene on the famous Riesenrad Ferris Wheel (still there by the way as I took a ride on it earlier this year) Welles is attempting to vindicate his racket to an old friend who is openly disgusted with this illegal business. The final lines of the scene Welles decided had no real impact so he wrote the following himself.

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock"

Although technically wrong as it was the Germans who invented the cuckoo clock nevertheless perfect scene and perfectly delivered. These and all the other posters comments are prime examples of the magic of the movies that can effect movie-goers to generate their best movie moments. TV has never been able to quite imitate those moments apart of course from re-running all these great movies.

Reb

Clint's films are amongst some of my very favourites.Its Easy to forget now as they were many years ago,just how shocking Dirty Harry was as he was the first 'maverick' cop as it were.The same can also be said of his Spaghetti Westerns,shockingly violent for their day but much more realistic than many of Johns Waynes films.

Funny they showed that clip from the third man on the BBC the other day,a real classic.

Rob

 

[UKReb]

Clint's films are amongst some of my very favourites.Its Easy to forget now as they were many years ago,just how shocking Dirty Harry was as he was the first 'maverick' cop as it were.The same can also be said of his Spaghetti Westerns,shockingly violent for their day but much more realistic than many of Johns Waynes films.
Rob

Interesting point you raise there Rob as Wayne was the second choice after Sinatra to play Dirty Harry. He turned it down but soon after the film's release he realised he had made a mistake and tried to recover that with his own so so version "Brannigan" a couple of years later. And there old mate lies my claim to fame

Brannigan was filmed in the UK and in particular Covent Garden area, in 1974/5 a friend of mine, a florist, travelled every morning the 20 or so miles to get his flowers from the Garden in London. He told me that Wayne was filming on location, so I travelled up with him. I hung around after my chum left to watch the Duke's arrival and filming, he eventually arrived in a stretch Lincoln (first I had ever seen) and walked to his caravan on site waving to all the people there. These were the days before heavy body guards and the massive security we get today so I walked up to him to shake his hand nervousy mumbling "Mr Wayne I've been a fan of yours ever since I was a tacker"
He stopped smiled took my hand and said "Good on ya! fellah" Boy was I proud of that but in that brief instance I noticed a number of things; His height he really was a big big man, I'm nearly a 6 footer myself and rarely have to look up to speak to anyone but I had to stretch my neck to talk to him; Age freckles on his hand; the silver bracelet he always wore on most of his movies; and shock of shocks visible sacking under his toupee- at the time I had no knowledge of his baldness.
A great moment for this old Reb that is still vivid today and a great joy that I actually met the man.

Reb

 

[Rob]

Interesting point you raise there Rob as Wayne was the second choice after Sinatra to play Dirty Harry. He turned it down but soon after the film's release he realised he had made a mistake and tried to recover that with his own so so version "Brannigan" a couple of years later. And there old mate lies my claim to fame

Brannigan was filmed in the UK and in particular Covent Garden area, in 1974/5 a friend of mine, a florist, travelled every morning the 20 or so miles to get his flowers from the Garden in London. He told me that Wayne was filming on location, so I travelled up with him. I hung around after my chum left to watch the Duke's arrival and filming, he eventually arrived in a stretch Lincoln (first I had ever seen) and walked to his caravan on site waving to all the people there. These were the days before heavy body guards and the massive security we get today so I walked up to him to shake his hand nervousy mumbling "Mr Wayne I've been a fan of yours ever since I was a tacker"
He stopped smiled took my hand and said "Good on ya! fellah" Boy was I proud of that but in that brief instance I noticed a number of things; His height he really was a big big man, I'm nearly a 6 footer myself and rarely have to look up to speak to anyone but I had to stretch my neck to talk to him; Age freckles on his hand; the silver bracelet he always wore on most of his movies; and shock of shocks visible sacking under his toupee- at the time I had no knowledge of his baldness.
A great moment for this old Reb that is still vivid today and a great joy that I actually met the man.

Reb

Wow Reb what a moement and a lifelong memory for you.Nice one.He made some westerns that i enjoyed very much 'True Grit' 'sons of Katie Elder' etc.Maybe not the best actor in the world but certainly one of its biggest stars.I remember seeing an interview with him in which he described the moement he had to tell his son he had cancer.He told him i've got the big 'C',to which his son replied 'you mean the Clap'!.

Rob

 

[Dickbuttons]

In the movie, Sahara staring Humprey Bogart, when at the end of the film, he states what's been happening, "I've been out of this war for a few days, and he is told, "the Limies stopped the Gerries at El Alamein." Bogart states they would have liked to know that, as the film flashes back over all the crosses over the graves of the soldiers who were lost.

 

[1879fanatic]

"Ben Shockley, don't you die on me!"

"Nag, nag, nag"

 

[Louis Badolato]

For my money, the greatest scene in a movie is the "Les Marseillais" scene in Casablanca, the greatest movie ever made. The scene when all the Nazis are singing and Victor Lazlo (Paul Heinreid) gets up, and tells the band to play "Les Marseillais", and the band leader looks over at Rick (Humprey Bogart), and he nods yes, and the band breaks into that wonderful anthem, and everybody gets up and joins in singing the Nazis into silence. It gives me goosebumps every time I see it.

And the scene following it is really funny. The Nazi Major Strasser goes to the Viche French Prefect of police Louis (played with typical excellent humor by Claude Raines) and tells him that Rick is dangerous and the club must be shut down. Louis replies "For what reason?" Strasser tells him to find a reason. Louis blows his whistle and declares the club is closed until further notice. Rick comes running up and shouts "on what grounds!" Louis says "I am shocked, shocked to find out that there is gambling on the premises!" At that point one of the employees comes up and hands Louis his winnings.

 

[Spitfrnd]

Mike
.That's why this thread is so darn fascinating. I have always been an advocate that peoples favorite movies are really in most cases best movie moments or scenes rather than the whole movie. As indicative in all the comments posted here they inevitably fall into two categories either visual or vocal scenes, an excellent example of a classic visual scene is your gun battle in Heat which consists of outstanding choreography and sound-effects with no vocals apart from a few utterances of "Go". Then you have vocal scenes from great one-liners to mini-speeches that can dampen your eyes or just wow! you with the power of the words.

It is these that personally raise my goose-flesh and I'll give you a couple of my favorites. Eastwood- as has been discussed here- is the master of the great throwaway or put down liners. His Dirty Harry quotes have now become a little played out but if you listen carefully he slips them into practically all of his movies this one is from a great little film "In the Line of Fire" where he plays Frank Horrigan an almost retired secret service agent from the old-school. He is surrounded by the new whiz kid agents who have 15 degrees each from Yale, Cornell and MIT and they want nothing to do with this out of date agent and Eastwood is only on the case because the wouldbe assassin has selected him as the fall guy with continuous phone taunts. Eastwood has been asked to attend the first meeting of agents
....

Reb

Insightful observation Reb, spot on for me as well. I would say our most favorite movies tend to have more of our most favorite scenes, which as you say can be a mix of vocal, as in your In the line of Fire quote, or visual, as in that great walk to the final showdown in the Bunch.

I also really like ITLOF and many more of Clint's movies; I think I own more that half of them. I have always considered him a brilliant actor, with a taciturn, restrained style reminiscent of the great Gary Cooper. This has always placed him in contrast to the dominant method acting style of some of his great Hollywood contemporizes like Hackman, Duvall, Clift, Brando, Dean, Pacino, Hoffman and De Niro (Interestingly, I think De Niro moved quite a bit in that direction in Ronin). For maybe that or because he has seemingly never been your typical Hollywood insider, I think he has he still has not received the critical acclaim he deserves for his acting, which has steadily improved overtime. I think he deserved Oscar nominations for The Good, Bad and the Ugly, The Outlaw Josie Wales, ITLOF and that he should have won over Pacino for Unforgiven and again for Million Dollar Baby. He has provided us with so many great movie moments as actor and director over such a long period of time. Ironically, while he started in the shadow of the Duke, whom I also much appreciate and admire, I think he has far exceeded Wayne's accomplishments with sadly half the credit.

 

[lancer]

greetings all. great thread, i have really enjoyed all the comments and opinions. i agree that the big shootout in HEAT is outstanding. it comes out of nowhere and never lets up. imo best in movies. RONIN is another great if underrated movie not least because our favorite hobby has a bit part. my vote for best movie moment occurs in john ford,s THE SEARCHERS. brad, played by harry carey jr., returns to camp claiming to have seen lucy, his girlfriend, in the indian camp. ethan, played by john wayne, then says, "what you saw wasn't lucy." brad-"oh, but it was i tell you..." ethan-"what you saw was a buck wearing lucy's dress. i found lucy back in the canyon, wrapped her in my coat, buryed her with my own hands. thought it best to keep it from you." brad-did...did they...was...was she...?" ethan-"what do you want me to do? draw you a picture? spell it out? don't ever ask me. as long as you live don't ever ask me more." brad then rides to his death in torment. this is as powerful a scene as has ever been put on film, imo. my favorite film by my favorite director, starring my favorite actor, john wayne.

 

[Spitfrnd]

..RONIN is another great if underrated movie not least because our favorite hobby has a bit part. ....

Great point lancer, I think I may have gotten a subliminal push from that, lord knows I have watched that movie enough. Forgive my ignorance, but who made the figures shown in that scene? They looked a bit like EoE as I recall but I have never taken the time to match them up.

 

[UKReb]

greetings all. great thread, my vote for best movie moment occurs in john ford,s THE SEARCHERS. brad, played by harry carey jr., returns to camp claiming to have seen lucy, his girlfriend, in the indian camp. ethan, played by john wayne, then says, "what you saw wasn't lucy." brad-"oh, but it was i tell you..." ethan-"what you saw was a buck wearing lucy's dress. i found lucy back in the canyon, wrapped her in my coat, buryed her with my own hands. thought it best to keep it from you." brad-did...did they...was...was she...?" ethan-"what do you want me to do? draw you a picture? spell it out? don't ever ask me. as long as you live don't ever ask me more." brad then rides to his death in torment. this is as powerful a scene as has ever been put on film, imo. my favorite film by my favorite director, starring my favorite actor, john wayne.

Spot on comment lancer and what makes that particular scene all the more interesting and powerful is a quote from Carey's book "Ford's Company of Heroes" he stated that he fluffed his lines a couple of times during this scene and old man Ford (hardly the most patient of Directors with young actors) rebuked Carey, Wayne stepped in and said to Ford "Aw come on coach give the kid a break let's just roll it again". Finally they canned the scene but Carey said that on each take Wayne was word and expression perfect so much so that him and Jeff Hunter who was also in the frame were absolutely petrified of Waynes expressive acting during that Lucy scene.

In my opinion Ford was and is the greatest of all American directors and was the instigator of the mythic western. He had the eye of the painter, the soul of the poet and the heart of the ordinary American-a genuinely unique combination.

Reb

 

[trooper]

The charge at Beersheba in "The Lighthorsemen" takes a lot of beating for spectacle, as does Pickett's Division in "Gettysburg". For sheer hilarity Indiana Jones, confronted by a huge opponent doing all sorts of fancy moves with a scimitar, just pulls out his pistol and shoots him. For sobering moment the radio exchange between Jack Hawkins and John Gregson in "Angels One Five" as Gregson goes down.