Great scene: I immediately thought about this when I saw the thread title!
The famous standoff from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Two that are probably not memorable to anybody but me:
- In The Last Starfighter, teenager Alex Rogan is tricked into defending the galaxy while a Beta Unit (essentially a robot) assumes his identity on Earth to act as bait for the interstellar hit men out to kill him. Alex’s girlfriend Maggie doesn’t know about the switch.
As Alex is getting ready to go to the final battle with his co-pilot (a “gung-ho iguana” who tells Alex to relax), the Beta Unit finally explains to Maggie what’s going on. He does this just before he crashes a truck into the landed spaceship of one of the interstellar bad guys, “killing” himself and the bad guy.
Maggie turns toward the camera, with the burning wreckage of the truck and spaceship in the background, looks up into the night sky, and says, “I love you, Alex Rogan.” Cheesy, hokey, and hackneyed as only an early 80s sci-fi scene can be, it still brought tears to my eyes.
- In Searching for Bobby Fischer, a young boy, Josh Waitzkin, faces his rival in a chess tournament. Josh has been tutored in chess by a professional teacher (Ben Kingsley), but he also loves playing speed chess in the park with streetwise Vinnie (played by Laurence Fishburne). Kingsley has warned Josh’s parents about the bad chess habits Josh picks up by playing with Vinnie.
In Josh’s final match against his rival, the two boys are in a tournament room by themselves, with the spectators (including Vinnie and Kingsley) watching via video screens. Josh commits an error early, and his queen is captured. Vinnie says “That’s all right, that’s all right, he’s just lettin’ the other kid get confident. I taught him that.” Kingsley exchanges a silent look with Josh’s father that conveys both “I told you so” and “He has no chance now.”
A few minutes later, Josh is able to capture the other boy’s queen, and the camera quickly switches to Vinnie in the other room. He points triumphantly at the video screen and says “There it is!” That, too, always makes me tear up … in fact, I’m a little misty right now just thinking about it.
This. Just… This (from A Matter of Life and Death)
Also from Powell & Pressburger films:
The hawk-into-spitfire moment from A Canterbury Tale - 3.29 in this clip. Also Colpepper’s monologue about English history and the Pilgrim’s Way. (4.14 - 5.21)
The ‘truth’ monologue from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
*I Know Where I’m Going *- “You’re the maid for me” (in fact, the whole céilidh sequence) and the last ten minutes or so (The curse of Kiloran)
Roy’s “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe” speech at the end of Blade Runner.
The line I remember from this too-forgotten gem is the alien telling Alex they wanted to know what happens when you fill a human brain to capacity. When Alex asks what happens, the reply is “It leaks”.
The line I remember:
“What do we do now?”
::eyeshield thing closes:: “We die.”
The Outlaw Josey Wales: “You a bounty hunter?”
The “Circle of Life” opening scene and Mufasa’s death in The Lion King.
The creation of the false Maria in Metropolis.
Visiting Santa in A Christmas Story (actually, every moment in A Christmas Story).
Edward G. Robinson ranting about suicide statistics in Double Indemnity.
When Andy’s cell in found empty in The Shawshank Redemption.
I saw A River Runs Through It five times, when it was at a dollar theater near me.
The last scene is the old man, standing alone, fishing the Big Blackfoot. The camera pulls back as the voiceover reads Norman Maclean’s haunting words.
“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”
I still get a chill.
Time Bandits, the Supreme Being chasing them down a corridor.
Beat me to this one. “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it”. Words to live by. Alas, this clip cuts off before that…
Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Bluto Blutarsky saying “Guess what I am now…” in Animal House.
TE Lawrence shooting Gasim, who’s life he had saved earlier, in Lawrence of Arabia.
Good choices. That whole scene around Alice jumping, though, was awesome. Uncas challenging, then being killed by Magua. Chingachgook dispatching Magua, this violent, twisted, seemingly superhuman villain like tossing away a gum wrapper, the whole chase sequence. The cinematography is beautiful. If I ever get a really huge TV, I’m getting whatever super-hi-res version is out at the time and just gonna stand in front of it and yell, “Let me have it!” like Kent did in Real Genius. Which brings me to my next scene.
“OK God: LET ME HAVE IT!”
A-yup.
Not great film but in Flight of the Intruder. Virgil Cole (Willem Dafoe) is lying injured with his spine broken by a bullet and surrounded by NVA soldiers who are using him as bait to bring a rescue chopper in. He gets on the radio to the leader of the Sandy flight and tells them to hit his position: “Do it Sandy. I’d do it for you.”
Then a long shot of the Skyraider arcing over the top of its climb and starting in for its final bomb run.
Sorry - messed up coding…
“Stand up, Miss jean-Louise. Your fathers passing.”
This was pretty good:
And a dramatic moment for us forensic geeks from ‘Manhunter’ starring William Petersen (sorry, couldn’t find a clip.)
There’s no dialogue as detective Will Graham steadily tries to find any connection between two families (both brutally murdered in similar fashion.)
He works out that the killer must have seen the family home movies - then suddenly realises that the killer could work for the firm that develops the films…