Always liked Doc Holiday in that movie.
Doc: “Wyatt Earp is my friend”
Other cowboy: “Hell Doc, I got lots of friends”
Doc: “I don’t”
Also, “I’m here, Huckleberry”
Without that phone call, I think there’s a good chance Taken becomes underappreciated action porn instead of a major hit that spawns sequels. Because while it was a great line in the movie, its real value to the film is that it made for one of the most riveting movie trailers that I can remember.
JAWS has many great memorable scenes, most notably (and already mentioned) was Robert Shaw telling the story of delivering the Hiroshima bomb, but two other scenes come to mind that “make” the movie for me:
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The first time we see the entire shark swim by the boat. “That’s a twenty footer.” “Twenty five…three tons of 'im” Finally, it’s not imagination anymore, the shark is real…real big.
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In the hospital, after the shark attack at the beach, and Brody’s son is being treated for shock. He pulls the mayor (who’s been in denial the entire movie) into another room, pulls the curtain and tells him to hire Quint to kill the shark. The Mayor is horrified, can hardly speak, and when he does, he mutters about acting in the towns’ best interest. Finally, he looks at Brody and says, “my kids were on that beach too…”
In Bambi Meets Godzilla the scene that “makes it” is when we first see Godzilla’s foot come down.
Rear Window When Grace Kelly flashes that she has the wedding ring to Jimmy Stewart and Raymond Burr catches her doing it, then looks up and spots Jimmy Stewart watching him. It’s oh crap, he knows you know.
Apocalypse NowThe seen where Martin Sheen shoots the wounded civilian to finish her off rather than evacuate her to a hospital and slow down his mission. Perfect example of the cold brutality of war.
The Deer Hunter Yes, the Russian Roulette scene. Almost makes it worth sitting through the interminable wedding scene.
Schindler’s List I imagine Spielberg would want you to say the pink coat on the black and white pile of salvaged clothing from the murdered, but I think the Nazis storming the ghetto and firing their weapons up through the floors to kill any Jews that might be hiding in the floor above.
The Godfather The tension building up as Michael prepares to do the assassination in the restaurant. Coppola’s direction and Pacino’s eye movements created suspense as you know that Michael is about to change his life forever.
The Longest Day Red Buttons helpless as his parachute has him trapped on the steeple and he’s watching the carnage unfold below him.
the Shawshank Redemption Morgan Freeman relating the sleepless night that he had, thinking that his friend had hung himself and then thinking the worst when he failed to emerge from his cell the next day.
His gun is empty-empty? It’s been a long time, but I completely forgot that.
The only thing that makes Star Trek V worth watching are the scenes of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy around the campfire while camping in Yosemite.
I was thinking of that scene:
“I told you not to stop. Now, let’s go.”
On the other hand, I feel the definitive scene for that movie is when they are faced with “God” and Kirk steps up to pick at a loose thread in the narrative:
“What does God need with a Starship?”
Worth noting, William Shatner’s original vision for the film was for Kirk & Co. to get to the center of the galaxy and realize that they have not found God, but rather Satan. The Studios shot that one down.
The timeless classic, Street Fighter: The Movie, I think went from being a forgettable cheesefest to something greater when Raul Julia playing M. Bison gives his casual smack-down of Chun-Li’s motive rant:
An absolutely great scene in an otherwise forgettable movie: in DeMille’s Samson and Delilah, Samson (Victor Mature) has been blinded and put on display in the temple, and tormented by dwarves for the Philistine crowd’s delight, and then he has [del]Hedley[/del] Hedy Lamarr lead him up to the pillars, with everybody laughing at him. He starts trying to push them over, which makes the crowd laugh even harder. Then there’s an almost subsonic grating as one of the pillars starts to move, and then it cracks, and all of a sudden the crowd goes silent, and then you can hear the base of the pillar grating as it moves some more, and then the whole temple comes crashing down. Too bad it’s at the end of the movie; lots of people probably walked out before they saw it, but it’s one of my favorite scenes of all time.