Peter's 100 Favorite Movie Moments (at the moment)

This is inspired by a similar list ("Mr. Molly's 100 Favorite Movie Moments") posted as an Ain't It Cool article, which evidently is going to become a regular feature on the site.

I figured I would come up with a list of my own. It is subject to change. I'm kind of saddened to see how many of the movie moments come from the last 20 years; I like to think that I have a broader interest in film, but I guess my 'recent bias' is very strong.

  1. The chase/shooting sequence from Seven
  2. Bill Murray's last, inaudible line in Lost in Translation
  3. The opening credits of Castle in the Sky
  4. The closing credits of Kiki's Delivery Service
  5. The Stonehenge "scaling problem" in This Is Spinal Tap
  6. From The Iron Giant: "Superman."
  7. The ending of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (if only because it produces the peaceful feeling that you'd like to see the movie again sometime)
  8. HAN SHOOTING FIRST.
  9. From Rejected: "For the love of god, and all that is holy, my anus is bleeding!!!!"
  10. The European-vacation-in-twenty-seconds from The Rules of Attraction
  11. From The Accountant: "Have you ever even met anyone named Jim-Bob?!"
  12. The city construction in Das Rad
  13. That one falling guy who hits the propeller and then spins around and around, in Titanic
  14. The action that decides the last fight in Diggstown
  15. From The Life of Brian: "We are all individuals!" "We are all individuals."
  16. From Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the opening credits. Then the next opening credits. Then the final opening credits.
  17. Gene Kelly jumping up and down in a puddle in Singin' in the Rain
  18. Bill Murray's character trying to kill himself over, and over, and over, in Groundhog Day
  19. The "How do you feel about getting old?" dialog from Jackie Brown
  20. Charlie Kaufman learning A Valuable Lesson About Life from his dying brother in Adaptation
  21. From Shrek: "You are."
  22. The couple looking out at the abandoned drive-in screen at the end of Lone Star
  23. The montage of empty locations at the end of Before Sunrise
  24. The 'scimitar-versus-handgun' showdown in Raiders of the Lost Ark
  25. Jonathan Richman getting shot at the end of There's Something About Mary
  26. Tim Robbins getting severely (and hilariously) beaten with a rotary phone in High Fidelity
  27. Dr. Teeth consulting the script to The Muppet Movie in The Muppet Movie
  28. Wallace transports twenty sheep on a motorbike through a tunnel in A Close Shave
  29. The conga line that ends The Impostors
  30. The brief lens flare as the band boards the bus in Almost Famous
  31. From ... say anything: "Ding."
  32. Tara Reid's one and only line in The Big Lebowski
  33. The chase through thousands of closet doors in Monsters, Inc.
  34. The dance sequence in the train station in The Fisher King
  35. From Lilo & Stitch: "It's okay -- my dog found the chainsaw."
  36. The trailer for The Phantom Menace
  37. From Die Hard: "I have a machine gun now... ho ho ho."
  38. The car chase through oncoming traffic in The French Connection
  39. From Boogie Nights, the long, long, long unbroken opening shot.
  40. From X-Men: "How do I know it's you?" "You're a dick." <pause> "Okay."
  41. Rabbi Levartov's attempt to rapidly reassemble a hinge in Schindler's List
  42. The bone/spaceship transition in 2001.
  43. The flying cow in Twister.
  44. The huge, plunging triangles in the opening of the Fifth Symphony piece in Fantasia 2000
  45. Salieri reading a score by Mozart for the first time, in Amadeus
  46. From American Beauty: "... and now I own it. I rule!"
  47. A massive piece of masonry being hurled from Minas Tirith down to the feet of one of the besieging orcs, in The Return of the King
  48. Mike Judge and Jennifer Aniston dispute the correct quantity of 'flair' in Office Space
  49. The closing shot of the director's cut of Brazil
  50. The mammoth pile-up of cop cars in The Blues Brothers
  51. The video-store-in-an-action-movie sequence in The Last Action Hero
  52. The first musical response from the alien ship in Close Encounters
  53. From Chinatown: "I like my nose. I like breathing through it."
  54. Edward G. Robinson explains exactly why it couldn't be suicide, in Double Indemnity
  55. Michelle Yeoh gracefully and valiantly defends a block of tofu in Wing Chun
  56. The opening voiceover from The Mighty.
  57. The laughable "Unix interface" from Jurassic Park.
  58. Quentin Tarantino's explication of Top Gun, in Four Rooms
  59. The Good Will Hunting II: Hunting Season sequence in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
  60. "Wheel... of... fish!" on UHF
  61. The "place that no man should ever see!" in Being John Malkovich
  62. Ringo takes a walk in A Hard Day's Night
  63. Alec Baldwin chews out the sales team in Glengarry Glen Ross
  64. Woody Allen asking passers-by how they keep romance alive, in Annie Hall.
  65. The opening credits of Monsoon Wedding
  66. The initial robbery in Bottle Rocket
  67. "I want my six dollars!" from the Mr Sinus presentation of Mac & Me.
  68. "'Yeah, triple that and ya got me,' says Ronnie the Bear," from the 'Wizard People, Dear Reader' version of Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone.
  69. From Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: "I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul... than enter heaven without you."
  70. David Spade freezes the film for a short football-analysis-like monolog in The Emperor's New Groove.
  71. The actors hang out at the catering table with the people they are portraying, in American Splendor.
  72. The history of the apartment in City of God.
  73. A jaguar complains of the London Zoo's paucity of red meat, in Creature Comforts
  74. The opening fight sequence of The Matrix
  75. Jim Carrey's last line in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
  76. Stanley and Stella make up (after the famously bellowed "STELLA!") in the Kazan Streetcar Named Desire
  77. Kenneth Brannagh's brilliant re-punctuation of this line: "Love me? Why?! It must be requited." in Much Ado About Nothing.
  78. That one time at the Drafthouse showing of A Hard Day's Night, where the projector broke down in the last couple of minutes, and within seconds, the whole crowd started singing the last song from the film.
  79. When the sailors realize the ship they attacked had a crew aboard, in Das Boot.
  80. The tearful dialog at the end of You Can Count on Me.
  81. The explication of why Star Wars is oppressive, in Mallrats.
  82. The resolution of the last shipboard battle of Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan
  83. The short sequence (wherein Skrat tries to procure an acorn) that begins Ice Age.
  84. The creative use of a lawnmower in Dead/Alive.
  85. Everybody follows Steve Martin -- or more precisely, his nose -- to the scene of a fire, in Roxanne.
  86. From Ghostbusters: "If somebody asks you if you're god, you say yes!!"
  87. Also from Ghostbusters: Rick Moranis, in a situation of some duress, causes a brief but totally-silent pause at a dinner party.
  88. Zeppo does a piano solo for a crowd of children, in A Night at the Opera
  89. The "Elephant Room Medley" in Moulin Rouge.
  90. The "Find the Fish" game from The Meaning of Life.
  91. From Punch-Drunk Love: "Are you threatening me?!" "Well... yeah." "Well... okay, then."
  92. The poisoned-drink game from The Princess Bride
  93. Any one of the puppy-squishings in A Fish Called Wanda
  94. From Memento: "No. Wait. He's chasing me."
  95. The trashcan through the window in Do the Right Thing.
  96. Kevin Kline, in maximum discomfort, advises not to do it in the shower (as it wastes time and electricity) in The Ice Storm
  97. From The Big Lebowski: "The old man told me to take any rug in the house."
  98. The animated baby angrily storming off-set at the start of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
  99. The 'boom stick' speech from Army of Darkness.
  100. The giant singalong at the end of There's Something About Mary.

Footnotes

One page links to PSRHundredMovieMoments: