The first appearence of Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia.
The starship battle at the start of Star Wars The New Hope.
the thirty seconds or so of the changing expression on tom hanks’s face just before he asks “is…is…he…smart?” in forest gump
Okay. I’ll throw out the gratuitous shallow movie first:
The Fifth Element.
Besides the awesome scene on the Interstellar Yacht where the Mercenaries are blowing Corbin’s cover (a bar) to bits, piece by piece, from around him, and he still manages to get out by exhausting all possibilities; the scene that really got me in that movie is when he finds the injured Leeloo. Up until this point Leeloo was the kickass soldier, saving everyone’s butt from certain danger. But that is where she gave up and broke down. Corbin comes to her rescue and has to carry her to the final altar.
In keeping with the same creator…
The Professional.
I agree that the scene when Matilda is outside Leon’s apartment, begging for her life, is powerful, but equally powerful is the whole scene when he outsmarts the SWAT team repeatedly, to give himself just enough time to tear a hole in the wall, just large enough for Matilda to get away.
Glengarry Glenross.
Possibly the only movie that Alec Baldwin (in a single scene) gave a good performance in…
Except for Hunt For Red October.
Every scene was a masterpiece. Possibly the best underwater movie…
Except for The Abyss.
The scene when the crew had to bring Lyndsay back to life after she forced herself to drown in freezing temperature water. That scene itself is a good ten minutes long, and I don’t remember breathing during it.
But, I have to end this with Miller’s Crossing.
The scene when Caspar’s men take the character played by Gabriel Byrne out to Miller’s Crossing to find the body that he was supposed to leave there. He knows that there is no body, and that his will be left there in place of it. Low and behold, there is a body, and his life is saved simply by a fluke.
Two favs that I know I’ve posted about before:
Jurassic Park
When Sam Neill and Laura Dern first see the herd of brontosauruses, or the apatosauruses, or whatever they’re calling themselves nowadays, poking their heads up … this actually makes me cry, because no matter how wonky the rest of the film is, how COOL would that be?
Peggy Sue Got Married
I think this might possibly be my favorite performance of all time, seriously. The scene where Kathleen Turner first “wakes up” back as a teenager, and has breakfast with her family, and it’s all very standard wacky hijinks. The phone rings, and she answers the phone … and she gets this look on her face, a crumply face look. It’s amazing to me because in these three seconds of film, the audience knows exactly what happened, which is confirmed when she chokes out “Grandma?” But she doesn’t even really have to say it, because you already know, because it’s the exact same look anyone would have if she answered the phone and it was her deceased grandmother.
As an aside, I once attended a talk Kathleen Turner gave to young actors, and one of the questions she was asked was how she selected the scripts she was going to do. Her answer was that as she reads the script, there is one line that will jump out at her, and she knows that she wants to do that part, and sometimes doesn’t even finish reading the script before accepting the role. That led to people asking about the various clincher lines for the movies in which she’s appeared, and (as I would have guessed) the grandma line was the one that did it for Peggy Sue.
Band of Brothers
I think there were a couple of moments in every episode that hit me like that. I could go on, but anyone who watched it knows, and anyone who didn’t needs to.
Nope; ‘Quinze!’
In no particular order:
The “You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it, Sam!” scene in Casablanca is great, but the one that gets me every time is The Marseillaise.
Even more powerful is the hydrangea scene in The Manchurian Candidate.
“Suddenly Seymour” in Little Shop of Horrors gets me because I’m thinking “He wants to be a romantic lead?!?!” and all of a sudden he makes it work.
The scene in Jurassic Park when the pleontologist (was it Sam Neill?), who has spent his life obsessing over nothing but bones, first sees an actual live dinosaur, and it turns to look at him.
The Untouchables - The scene in the train station, Sean Connery’s death scene and the rooftop sequence
Contact is a pretty flawed movie, but it has a fair amount to recommend it. Best of these, in my opinion, is the five-minute sequence starting with Arroway listening on her headphones and ending with her answering the question about who they should tell: “Everybody.” In a movie that makes a few serious missteps, this sequence is absolutely perfect. Jodie Foster’s performance is simply breathtaking; the writing is solid and plausible, as the scientists frantically dot their i’s and cross their t’s, desperate to be proven right but equally afraid of jumping the gun and looking like idiots; the sound effect for the transmission she receives is chilling; the production design is flawless, showing us a completely believable control room instead of a Michael Bay style high-tech temple…
I find many things about the film frustrating, but this five minutes absolutely moves me to tears. That, I believe, is exactly what that event would be like, and I feel privileged to have been allowed to witness even a fictional version of it.
In fact, I may watch it again tonight. Just that sequence. That’s all I need. Pure intellectual adrenaline.
Hector vs Achilles in the final battle at Troy.
That was an amazing fight scene.
Someone will have to confirm this for me, but at the climax of one of Toshiro Mufune’s movies (I think it’s “Yojimbo” but I’m not sure. It could be “Mushashi”), he has a Samurai face-off with his nemesis. Toe to toe. Swords sheathed. They pull, and slash in one fluid movement. There’s a pause, and Mufune’s enemy falls dead.
It’s hard to describe just how effective this looked on the screen, because they both draw so quickly and you see blood flying all over the place from the slash, but not who got it. Great, memorable scene, even if I couldn’t remember the title.
Man, that whole movie leaves me breathless. Course I’m a major hockey geek 
My favorite part in that one is the part after they play the swedish national team. AGAIN!
My first thought in this was the part in the first Crow movie in the club. It’s the gunfight with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult in the background. That is the best fight scene in movies period.
In the first X-Men movie:
Wolverine has the guy pinned up against the wall with two of his claws popped and a third slowly heading towards the guy’s throat. The bar owner jacks a 12 gauge against Wolvie’s ear and he pops the claws in his other hand and slices the gun in half.
The look on Wolvie’s face was worth every penny they paid Jackman.
The D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan.
The launch of Apollo 13 in Apollo 13. All digitally re-created, but so bleemin’ accurate some real Apollo Astronauts thought Ron Howard had managed to find and restore some actual launch footage they had never seen.
For that matter, the scenes in Apollo 13 starting at the point where the CO2 begins to climb.
The “Festa” in the Godfather PArt II, the first wide angle shot of the parade moving down the street. A shot of exquisite beauty.
Oh my god, there are so many good ones…
Mullholand Drive:
When Rebeca del Rio sings Llorando (crying)
Punch Drunk Love: Many scenes here…
Mainly when Barry goes up and has his cute pleaing with his girl promising how he didn’t want them to hurt her and how he had a lot of pudding and how he could go anywhere in 6-8 weeks when he redeemed the cupons.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
Many scenes here, but mainly the one at the end…
Also Lost in Translation has many cool scenes as well…
Tuco running through the graveyard at the end of The Good the Bad and the Ugly gets me every time. The music and the visuals create a very memorable scene, one I’ve tunred my DVD player on just to watch many a time.
The bookshop scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
Jim Carrey is have all of his memories of Kate Winslet are erased. This involves memory flashbacks; when a memory appears, he is hooked into a computer which zaps that memory. So as soon as he starts to remember things, they start to disappear. Most of the movie is breathtaking, but my favorite was a conversation he had with her in a bookshop. The effect starts subtly. First, you see the titles and covers of the books go to white. Then the other patrons’ faces go featureless. Then the books start to disappear off the shelves, then the shelves go, then the whole shop. Leaving just Carrey and Winslet; when she disappears there is no memory left and it abruptly cuts to the next memory to be erased.
Jurassic Park: the T.rex breaks through the fence
The Howling: Eddie shifts in front of Karen
Another that just occurred to me is the opening sequence of Master and Commander.
The ship is sailing along in the fog, silent except for a creak of rigging and a chuckle of water now and then, when the lookout aloft calls down that he thinks he saw a mast. The two midshipmen on deck rush to the bow, see nothing but fog, and wonder if they should call the captain. Then here he comes with with his telescope in hand and peers into the fog. Nothing … nothing … and there it is! He turns with a look of glee on his face, slaps the telescope closed, and says “Gentlemen, we’ll beat to quarters!” And then that long drum roll starts …
(Those who care may notice that I proofed this post more carefully than the one above. No guarantees!)