# Best scene in film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [August 30, 2024, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452 "2024-08-30T03:32:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/61 "2024-08-31T05:30:19Z")
I fell in love with this movie the first time I saw it, 50 years ago. It felt like I was reliving my childhood. I especially love this scene because it’s so poignant. I love the music in the background, and how the Wolfman magically appears in the middle of nowhere at 5:00 am. The line “Hey, I am not a young man anymore!” struck home even in 1974. It’s my second favorite movie after _ **Casablanca** _. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/yuVQG0BJjpw/maxresdefault.jpg "Curt meets The Wolfman - American Graffiti (Blu-ray 1080p)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuVQG0BJjpw) ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/62 "2024-08-31T05:46:36Z")
Not mentioned in the thread yet: The bank heist scene in Heat. Starling knocking on Buffalo Bill’s door alone while the FBI Strike Team is raiding the wrong house in Silence of the Lambs. ---
**Author:** ![Nyvaak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/63 "2024-08-31T09:21:50Z")
Holy cow! I saw the title of the thread and came here to mention, the Marseillaise scene in Casablanca, but two others have beaten me to it. > [@Baker](#): > > when the crowd in Rick’s place sings “La Marseillaise” to drown out the German officers > [@Gordon\_G](#): > > But it is the “Marseillaise” scene in _Casablanca_ which I have to agree is #1. Ilse’s expression has to combine pride and fear as she watches her husband sing. Yes, Ilse’s expression is more compelling than I have words for, but Yvonne’s face and glistening eyes bring me awfully close to tears myself. ---
**Author:** ![Nyvaak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/64 "2024-08-31T09:38:25Z")
And to quote Baker, > [@Baker](#): > > to show how different my tastes can be #2 is just the tiniest bit behind. For me, Number 2 is the farewell scene from _Mary Poppins_ where she has to leave the Banks children behind. What a challenge Julie Andrews faced: make it too subtle and clueless viewers like me won’t get it, too blatant and we have bathos. Andrews walked that tightrope perfectly. A few seconds of dialogue with a talking umbrella, and all of a sudden Mary Poppins goes from a two-dimensional “practically perfect” person to someone with yearnings and secret heartbreak of her own, a character with a destiny we can only ever guess about. Wow ! ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/65 "2024-08-31T10:56:24Z")
Best Comedy Scene (It’s a Tie): 1. [Peter Sellers in the War Room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T389Ljcg4gY) - Dr. Strangelove (sometimes the world just needs a good laugh while it’s ending). 2. [George C. Scott in the War Room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNC0YwuGLqg&t=1s) - Dr. Strangelove (nothing says “serious military discussion” like a bit of slapstick). Best Drama Scene (It’s a Tie): 1. [The Dawn of Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avjdKTqiVvQ) - 2001: A Space Odyssey (AKA “Monkey Business” but with cosmic stakes). 2. [“Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqCCubrky00) - 2001: A Space Odyssey (a reminder that even the smartest AI can be a little too human). ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/66 "2024-08-31T11:44:18Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > The three-way showdown in _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_. I can watch that over and over without getting bored. Same for the scene of Tuco running through the cemetery. One of my favorite movies, but my wife hates it. Especially those two scenes - she’d rather have dental work with old rusty razor blades than see or hear them. Yeah, I can only watch the movie when she’s not around. > [@madmonk28](#): > > The scene in the Big Lebowski when the Dude first meets Jackie Treehorn. Another one is near the beginning with the boys at the bowling alley having a confused, 3-way 3-topic discussion describing what happened and what to do next. 🤣 But that’s, ya know, just, like, my opinion, man. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/67 "2024-08-31T11:53:14Z")
I think this thread has happened before, but my noiminee is: **Absence of Malice** , the meeting in the Courthouse near the end of the movie. From the footsteps in the corridor to Wilfred Brimley saying “You have 30 days”, just perfectly blocked, acted, perfect lines of dialogue for the characters, just a great piece of film-making IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/68 "2024-08-31T12:19:39Z")
There were so many good scenes from from Akira Kurosawa’s 1980 classic _Kagemusha_, but I could only find [bits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9VdYB6r9MA) of it online. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/69 "2024-08-31T15:20:27Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Too difficult to select individual scenes from Pulp Fiction. Pretty much the whole thing. There’s one that’s so brilliant that it’s worth calling out. At then end, when Jules and Vincent are in the coffee shop, and we hear a voice yell “Garcon, coffee!” By that point in the film, we know what kind of people Jules and Vincent are, we know what kind of crisis Jules is going through after witnessing the miracle, and we know what Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are about to do. It’s just a perfect “oh, shit” moment, and then there’s a minute of Jules and Vincent talking until all hell breaks loose. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/70 "2024-08-31T15:27:15Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > Maybe he had fired his pistol earlier and hadn’t bothered to reload. Also it was (is still is?) common for anyone carrying a revolver (going back to cowboys) to leave one chamber empty for the hammer to rest on safely. Yes, we know how safety conscious Harry Callahan is. I don’t think that’s it. We see later in the film that Harry enters a gunfight with six shots. My best guess is that _Dirty Harry_ was made in a simpler time, when people didn’t rewatch movies and dissect every detail as we do now. So the director (or editor, whoever) didn’t give much thought to counting shots in the first gunfight. Or the extra shots may have been edited out. If anyone here knows the answer, I’ve always been curious. > [@Baker](#): > > I saw that movie when it came out, in an older downtown theater in Washington State. The Paramount in Tacoma? That’s where I saw it, more than once. I remember the ad on the entertainment page of the News Tribune said “now in it’s XXth week.” It was there for at least a year. The Paramount became the Pantages at some point; been to a couple concerts there, too. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/71 "2024-08-31T17:00:47Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There were so many good scenes from from Akira Kurosawa’s 1980 classic _Kagemusha_, but I could only find [bits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9VdYB6r9MA) of it online When the castle in Ran is under attack, Hidetora in totally shocked state of mind as all the fire arrows go whizzing past him without hitting him is exemplar, made even better by only having music on the sound track. My idiosyncratic nom is the ending of French Connection II; Popeye hunting his nemesis while gasping for breath, finally catches up to Charnier’s boat, and plugs him twice, for good. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/72 "2024-08-31T17:20:59Z")
From LOTR: Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” A very brief scene in ‘A Wonderful Life’, when George suddenly realizes that he truly has never been born and that this is really happening to him. James Stewart does a slow turn and looks directly into the camera with a look of horrified realization on his face. James Cagney and the grapefruit in Public Enemy. Unscripted, which made Mae Clark’s reaction very real. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/73 "2024-08-31T17:30:07Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > There’s one that’s so brilliant that it’s worth calling out. At then end, when Jules and Vincent are in the coffee shop, and we hear a voice yell “Garcon, coffee!” By that point in the film, we know what kind of people Jules and Vincent are, we know what kind of crisis Jules is going through after witnessing the miracle, and we know what Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are about to do. It’s just a perfect “oh, shit” moment, and then there’s a minute of Jules and Vincent talking until all hell breaks loose. It would take it’s own thread to go over all the good stuff in Pulp Fiction. My strongest memory from my first viewing were the opening scene with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. We would see this a lot more from Tarrantino and it’s one of his best storytelling techniques - dropping us into the middle of a story that’s already in progress. He wasn’t the first to do this, certainly. But I was struck by how effective it was. They’re having this conversation and before you know it, they’ve decided to rob the place. I knew within minutes I was seeing something very unusual and possibly great. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/74 "2024-08-31T19:07:51Z")
A number of the ones already mentioned are among my favorites, including the Casablanca one in the OP. One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the train station scene in The Untouchables. The baby carriage. Ness (Costner) making a Ness-like decision to go after the carriage. George (Andy Garcia) sliding in. “You got him?” “Yeah, I got him. " Take him.” ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/75 "2024-08-31T21:12:24Z")
This was a critically panned movie, but Slim Pickens in 1941. Hollis T. “Holly” Wood was captured by the Japanese off the California coast. The sub’s compass wasn’t working, and he had gotten a compass from a box of de-licous Carmel coated corn. He swallowed it, and said “you boys ain’t gettin’ diddly doo shit out of me.” They proceeded to force him to drink prune juice. He made noises sitting on the terlit, and when the Japanese crew came into the head he jumped down from the overhead pipes onto them. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/76 "2024-08-31T23:19:20Z")
_ **OMG, your post brought back the name of the theater to me!!!** _ I was only there the once, as I saw most of my movies on post. But I remember the line stretching way down the sidewalk, a couple blocks maybe. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/77 "2024-08-31T23:25:43Z")
I initially misread your first sentence and thought “Slim Pickens was making war movies in 1941?” 🫢 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/78 "2024-08-31T23:26:52Z")
So did I. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/79 "2024-08-31T23:59:27Z")
The movie is full of continuity markers like that. Did you notice Vincent walking to the toilet over Honey Bunny’s shoulder in the opening sequence? I didn’t until I was showing it to one of my EFL classes, after watching it at least five times! ---
**Author:** ![saucywench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2024, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452/80 "2024-09-01T20:01:52Z")
Excellent choice! Love that movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-scene-in-film/1006452.md?page=5)