Elder Legend
Yoir Aee Member
I'll kick off my personal 3, not in any particular order. Just 3.1,2, 3 Go!
Yout turn gaffers!
Yout turn gaffers!
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Top 3 Scenes in Cinema History
- Thread starter Elder Legend
- Start date
- Opinion
PaddyOCanager
Member
Your 1 and 3 are S tier for sure - true and real. I'm not saying these are the top 3 I just wanted to contribute some scenes that are up there:
honestly Inglourious Bastereds is filled with S tier scenes I just picked the opening one.
honestly Inglourious Bastereds is filled with S tier scenes I just picked the opening one.
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TwiztidElf
Member
I always enjoyed this scene. Hopper and Walken superb.
Sure racist, but it's their characters, or Hoppers character is intentionally poking Walkens character in his weakness.
I enjoy how Hoppers character knows what's coming no matter what, and just works Walkens character. The music works in perfectly too.
Instead of wiping the blood, he goes for another drag of the cigarette.
Sure racist, but it's their characters, or Hoppers character is intentionally poking Walkens character in his weakness.
I enjoy how Hoppers character knows what's coming no matter what, and just works Walkens character. The music works in perfectly too.
Instead of wiping the blood, he goes for another drag of the cigarette.
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ForAcademicPurposes
Member
lifa-cobex
Member
Putonahappyface
Member
Some of my choices have already been posted. Off of the top of my head these scenes were very good.
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt
Member
Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
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Apocryphon
Member
Men_in_Boxes
Member
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
DaleinCalgary
Member
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Going to have to go highbrow for this one.
1. Hidetora leaves the castle (Ran, 1985)
Unfortunately I can't find this scene on YouTube as it is in the film: there are low-quality, shortened versions and this one, which splices in other moments from the film as flashbacks (everything not taking place at the castle is edited in). This one is at least good quality and captures the scene's most powerful moments, even if it is less cohesive and powerful for being chopped up. In the original film, Akira Kurosawa's loose adaptation of King Lear, the cruel warlord, Hidetora, divides his kingdom between two of his three sons, both of whom swiftly turn on him. He and his army take refuge in an abandoned castle, but the following morning his sons' armies attack and he is forced to watch as his men are slaughtered and the power and respect he believed would forever be his as Great Lord, and the realisation that his sons' promises fealty were all lies in their ambition to usurp him, disintegrates before his eyes. As his castle is set on fire and he is unable to commit seppuku due to his broken sword, he descends into madness and wanders out into the battlefield. Rather than kill him, his sons and their armies part and watch him wander away into the wild mists and barren land beyond the castle gates. The scene is stunning not just from a technical standpoint, but how it brings together all the film's themes - the cruel delusion of power; the destructive nature of man passed on through generations; divine indifference to suffering - in a single, mostly wordless fifteen-minute sequence. It is deepened by a subtle allusion to Japanese mythology, in which it was said that the ghost of a killed Japanese king could be seen leaving his castle after his death. Without that context, Hidetora's sons decision to let him leave can be read as them recognising his madness and seeing no reason to kill him. That addition detail, though, beautifully ties the scene into the film's religious context. Add to that Toru Takemitsu's exquisite score, suddenly interrupted in the scene by a volley of gunfire as though the shattering of a dream (as Hidetora is too torn from his illusions), and the scene becomes the thematic centrepiece of a film I'd say stands alone as a feat of cinematic artistry beyond any other.
2. The McBain family massacre (Once Upon A Time In The West, 1968)
There are many more famous scenes in the Leone oeuvre than this, but for me this is the one which most elegantly, and brutally, captures his mastery of pacing, composition, sound, editing, and ability to make every shot and every line count for maximum impact. For context, the McBain family are awaiting the arrival of the father's new bride, Jill. In about six minutes, the scene sets up a tender but unsentimental portrayal of this family and their lives together. They're rough and poor and probably not the most intelligent, but also sincere and aspirational and even loving in their own way. As they prepare to leave to collect Jill, suddenly the ranch falls silent. Leone lets the suspense build and build, throwing out misdirections until the father realises the gunshot he heard has killed his daughter. The scene explodes into frenetic violence as the father and son are gunned down before they know what's happening. As the youngest son comes running out of the house and sees the gang which murdered his family emerging from the bushes, Ennio Morricone's ferocious score kicks in and the camera circles around the gang leader, played by Henry Fonda, the blue-eyed hero of the Western genre turned to evil as he draws his gun with one of the great pieces of one-line villain characterisation ("Now you've called me by name...") and murders the child, the gunshot cutting to the wailing horn of Jill's train pulling into the station. Leone had an underappreciated gift for using scenes as small vignettes to evoke lives and self-contained little stories, of which this is a masterclass. You know everything you need to know about the McBains in about a few minutes of screentime, which gives their murder a real emotion punch on top of the scene's already masterful construction.
3. The montage of kisses (Cinema Paradiso, 1988)
Cinema Paradiso tells the story of a young boy, Salvatore, who befriends the projectionist at the cinema in his little Italian town, from whom he learns a love of cinema and the ambition to pursue his dreams of becoming a director and escape the restrictive, puritanical existence laid out for him were he to stay. At the end of the film, he returns home many years later for the projectionist's funeral, having achieved his professional dreams but personally unsatisfied, still trapped by his regrets and an inability to move on from the woman he loved, whose father refused to let them be together. He is given a film reel that the projectionist bequeathed to him, and when he takes it back to Rome and plays it, discovers it is an spliced-together montage of all the kisses which the town priest forced the projectionist to cut out of the movies shown at their cinema. As Salvatore watches, he is overcome not just with the celebration of unbridled passion, a defiance of the authority figures which held him back for so much of his young life, but an appreciation of how his humanity and his filmmaking passion are one and the same. It recalls the joy of his time in the small booth with the projectionist, his sadness at the passing of those times, but also the thrill of escape and looking to the future. It is the character's past, present and future rolled into one wonderful sequence, scored with Ennio Morricone's characteristic blend of romance, melancholy, longing and hope.
1. Hidetora leaves the castle (Ran, 1985)
Unfortunately I can't find this scene on YouTube as it is in the film: there are low-quality, shortened versions and this one, which splices in other moments from the film as flashbacks (everything not taking place at the castle is edited in). This one is at least good quality and captures the scene's most powerful moments, even if it is less cohesive and powerful for being chopped up. In the original film, Akira Kurosawa's loose adaptation of King Lear, the cruel warlord, Hidetora, divides his kingdom between two of his three sons, both of whom swiftly turn on him. He and his army take refuge in an abandoned castle, but the following morning his sons' armies attack and he is forced to watch as his men are slaughtered and the power and respect he believed would forever be his as Great Lord, and the realisation that his sons' promises fealty were all lies in their ambition to usurp him, disintegrates before his eyes. As his castle is set on fire and he is unable to commit seppuku due to his broken sword, he descends into madness and wanders out into the battlefield. Rather than kill him, his sons and their armies part and watch him wander away into the wild mists and barren land beyond the castle gates. The scene is stunning not just from a technical standpoint, but how it brings together all the film's themes - the cruel delusion of power; the destructive nature of man passed on through generations; divine indifference to suffering - in a single, mostly wordless fifteen-minute sequence. It is deepened by a subtle allusion to Japanese mythology, in which it was said that the ghost of a killed Japanese king could be seen leaving his castle after his death. Without that context, Hidetora's sons decision to let him leave can be read as them recognising his madness and seeing no reason to kill him. That addition detail, though, beautifully ties the scene into the film's religious context. Add to that Toru Takemitsu's exquisite score, suddenly interrupted in the scene by a volley of gunfire as though the shattering of a dream (as Hidetora is too torn from his illusions), and the scene becomes the thematic centrepiece of a film I'd say stands alone as a feat of cinematic artistry beyond any other.
2. The McBain family massacre (Once Upon A Time In The West, 1968)
There are many more famous scenes in the Leone oeuvre than this, but for me this is the one which most elegantly, and brutally, captures his mastery of pacing, composition, sound, editing, and ability to make every shot and every line count for maximum impact. For context, the McBain family are awaiting the arrival of the father's new bride, Jill. In about six minutes, the scene sets up a tender but unsentimental portrayal of this family and their lives together. They're rough and poor and probably not the most intelligent, but also sincere and aspirational and even loving in their own way. As they prepare to leave to collect Jill, suddenly the ranch falls silent. Leone lets the suspense build and build, throwing out misdirections until the father realises the gunshot he heard has killed his daughter. The scene explodes into frenetic violence as the father and son are gunned down before they know what's happening. As the youngest son comes running out of the house and sees the gang which murdered his family emerging from the bushes, Ennio Morricone's ferocious score kicks in and the camera circles around the gang leader, played by Henry Fonda, the blue-eyed hero of the Western genre turned to evil as he draws his gun with one of the great pieces of one-line villain characterisation ("Now you've called me by name...") and murders the child, the gunshot cutting to the wailing horn of Jill's train pulling into the station. Leone had an underappreciated gift for using scenes as small vignettes to evoke lives and self-contained little stories, of which this is a masterclass. You know everything you need to know about the McBains in about a few minutes of screentime, which gives their murder a real emotion punch on top of the scene's already masterful construction.
3. The montage of kisses (Cinema Paradiso, 1988)
Cinema Paradiso tells the story of a young boy, Salvatore, who befriends the projectionist at the cinema in his little Italian town, from whom he learns a love of cinema and the ambition to pursue his dreams of becoming a director and escape the restrictive, puritanical existence laid out for him were he to stay. At the end of the film, he returns home many years later for the projectionist's funeral, having achieved his professional dreams but personally unsatisfied, still trapped by his regrets and an inability to move on from the woman he loved, whose father refused to let them be together. He is given a film reel that the projectionist bequeathed to him, and when he takes it back to Rome and plays it, discovers it is an spliced-together montage of all the kisses which the town priest forced the projectionist to cut out of the movies shown at their cinema. As Salvatore watches, he is overcome not just with the celebration of unbridled passion, a defiance of the authority figures which held him back for so much of his young life, but an appreciation of how his humanity and his filmmaking passion are one and the same. It recalls the joy of his time in the small booth with the projectionist, his sadness at the passing of those times, but also the thrill of escape and looking to the future. It is the character's past, present and future rolled into one wonderful sequence, scored with Ennio Morricone's characteristic blend of romance, melancholy, longing and hope.
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The Wheel of Fortune
Member
Nitty_Grimes
Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
DelireMan7
Member
nightmare-slain
Member
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nightmare-slain
Member
Alba gu bràth!
Wildebeest
Member
ssringo
Member
Lots of great stuff already so I'll just add this one. The tension is so damn thick and the lack of music only adds to it.
It's a great scene in and of itself but is also the culmination of everything that came beforehand. Stories of legendary gunmen getting exaggerated (or downplayed), how difficult it is to shoot a man, the folly of rushing your shots and how a lot of it can come down to just plain old luck.
One of my all time favorite movies and usually my answer for #1.
It's a great scene in and of itself but is also the culmination of everything that came beforehand. Stories of legendary gunmen getting exaggerated (or downplayed), how difficult it is to shoot a man, the folly of rushing your shots and how a lot of it can come down to just plain old luck.
One of my all time favorite movies and usually my answer for #1.
SirTerry-T
Member
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