Greatest film sequences
 

There are some movies that have that one great sequence. The one that makes you watch the movie till it comes around, then you can shut the TV off and do whatever.

Some of my favorites are:
The highway scene in "Matrix Reloaded".
The shootout after the bank heist in "Heat".
The car chase in "Ronin".
The first 30 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan".

What are some of your favorites?

The reveal at the end of The Matrix.
The lightsaber fight in The Empire Strikes Back.
Denouement Baptism/Vengeance sequence in The Godfather.
The reveal at the end of The Usual Suspects.
Night before the battle sequence in Branagh's Henry V.
The air cavalry surfs, Apocalypse Now.
"Make 'em laugh," and "Lullaby of Broadway," from Singin' In The Rain.
Epoxy as j/o lube sequence from American Pie 2.
Sword fight in bamboo trees, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Crossing the Sea of Reeds, Prince of Egypt.
The last battle, Kurosawa's Ran.
The last 15 minutes of The Maltese Falcon.

I have to agree. I bought the soundtrack (wrongfully so) in order to have the music from that scene. Unfortunately, I need to by the score (I hope)


The Phantom's reprise of "All I ask of you" from Joel Schumacher's version of Phantom of the Opera.
The ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey.


Not that it is profound in itself but the ending of the Doctor Who Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned where the Doctor screams in vain, "I can do anything!" That single phrase really does capture the Doctor's powers and his rage that he can't fix the universe.

The song "Drum Crazy" from the Fred Astaire movie "Easter Parade" - where Fred tricks a kid into giving up the bunny he wants to buy. A great combination of tap dancing and drumming:

the driving sequence from solaris


the black hair sequence from kwaidan


the whole sequence is available on youtube in 5 parts.
the sound is stunning...you really ought to see this on a big screen and continuously, though. the sound only really does it's work in the last part of this sequence.


the opening of 8 1/2

Rocky - Cracking the egg, drinking it and beginning his workout alone at dawn.
Matrix - Saving Morpheus.
Brian Song - Sayers speech after Pic dies.
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Final shoot-out scene
Enter The Dragon - Bruce Lee fight with man who caused the death of his character's sister, and the fight sequences leading to his capture.

The first few that came to mind:

Taxi Driver - When DeNiro goes to rescue Foster
The Trial - the 10 minutes or so following Anthony Perkins' awakening
Original Sin - For the most torrid onscreen clean sex scene

Damn, there are so many!

One right off the top of my head:

Girl With a Pearl Earring--Griet is walking across the main room of the house, looking at Vermeer caressing his wife, and her heart is in her eyes.

Although there are literally hundreds, the first one that came to my mind is the chase scene on foot in Point Break. It really does have everything, even a dog being thrown at Keanu Reeves!

If I think of more I'll be back! (wait - that sounds familiar!) :thumbsup:

Ding, we have a winner.

Also The Dude's dream sequence in The Big Lebowski.

Seconded.

The Devil's Rejects scene when "To be treated" plays

Ending of "The good, the bad and the ugly"
In Kill Bill I when Uma Thurman calls for O'Ren to come out

The Elegy of Dunkirk Beach sequence in Atonement is what comes to mind right now.

"MMMM That is a tasty burger!"

The Secret Garden

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GkSnCSrSUhs&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GkSnCSrSUhs&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Serenity... the River vs Reavers scene...

I'm not sure if it is the "greatest" film sequence, but I really enjoyed the last scene of Big Night when Primo and Secondo (Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci) are cooking eggs. No dialogue for quite a long time, just the two of them quietly cooking.

Meet Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

Remember the last sequence of The Great Escape?

The two main action sequences in Children of Men - continuous shots that completely blew my mind away in theaters (and still does now!)

Are we thinking of the same reveal? "I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see"/Neo can fly reveal? Because the music there is Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine.



Red Lemon made me think of the Puttin' on the Ritz scene from Young Frankenstein, which is a classic comedy scene.

Also good is the lightsaber duel between Darth Maul and Obi Wan Kenobi/Qui Gon Jinn at the end of The Phantom Menace. It reinforces my theory that there isn't a film in existence that couldn't be improved by a Ray Park fight sequence.

Greatest? Easy. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Elsa, the sexy aryan moron, had crossed the seal with the grail which triggered some sort of earthquake. Elsa falls into a crack, reaching for the grail. Indy falls into the same crack, facing the temptation that had just killed Elsa. Henry Jones, holding his son's hand, calmly says, "Indiana... let it go."

Fucking awesome.

I really should have mentioned this one before: the "to the pain" sequence from The Princess Bride.

Bringing in Indy offers too many choices to even think about. How about three:

1) the Cairo chase sequence in Raiders
2) the monkey brains sequence in Temple
3) the Young Indy chase sequence (opening sequence) from Crusade

And also, the ending sequence of Casa Blanca is so very classic.

Don't forget the sword fight between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo.

I mean the scene in the hallway just after Neo revived.

Just thought of another. From Blade Runner, the "tears in the rain" speech.

Oh yeah!

I also like the cathedral scene from Andrei Rublev. The opening is good, too.

The Odessa steps from Battleship Potemkin. One of the most quoted and parodied bits of film.

Man with a movie camera -- the whole thing.

It's kind of hard to say you like it, but the opening sequence of Triumph of the Will is a striking piece of filmmaking. I can't believe they had little Bush act it out again on that aircraft carrier. What was Karl thinking?

The horse head in the bed bit from the Godfather.

As for 2001, i prefer the monkey parts of 2001 to the end. The bone --> space ship cut is pretty good, and the monkeys-and-the-monolith parts are fun.

Jesus... I can't believe I forgot about that scene.

The fight scene from the Crow where Brandon Lee is taking out all of the bad guys in Top Dollar's club just to get to Skank.

O'ren and Bee fighting in the snow with the perfect score behind it... wow.

My favorite is a strange one: The montage in Donnie Darko while "head over heels" plays.

Props to the reveal in the USUAL SUSPECTS.

- The reveal in OLDBOY

- The reveal/ending (as well as the conversations leading up to that scene) in SE7EN

- "The ear" in RESERVOIR DOGS

- "The Mines of Moria" (including the Balrog scene) in FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

- "Everyoooooonnnnnnnee!!!!" from LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL

- Most recently: "I drink your milkshake!!!" from THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Memento - Carrie Moss's betrayal, "Find a pen, find a pen!"
The Thing - The angsty bound blood test scene
Predator - Rock 'n roll bursts after Jesse Ventura's character goes down
Taxi Driver - The improv bit in the mirror, "Are you talkin' to me?"

1. The battle of Helm's Deep in "LOTR: Two Towers"
2. The car chase in "The Seven Ups"
3. Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris in "Way of the Dragon"
4. Julius and Vincent retrieving the suitcase in "Pulp Fiction"
5. Bourne fighting a would-be assassin to the death in "The Bourne Ultimatum"
6. Col. Jessup's testimony in "A Few Good Men"
7. The shootout in "Heat"
8. Rabbit vs. Papa Doc (final battle) in "8 Mile"
9.Gen. Chang taunting Kirk in "ST6: The Undiscovered Country"
10. Doc Holliday answer Ringo's drunken challenge in "Tombstone"

Has anyone mentioned the ending of the original Planet Of The Apes?

No, not the dull Tim Burton one.

How about when Hooper and Quint are comparing scars on the boat while hunting the shark in Jaws? It's interesting because Brody (Roy Scheider) doesn't show off any scars though we know that he was shot in the line of duty. Robert Shaw is particularly compelling when he tells the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Have to think about it a little but this scene/sequence is one I have toooooooo whole heartedly agree. The music, the camera work, etc was absolutely stunning. The reason I bought the DVD and OST.

Absoloutly awesome that is!

The Beacons scene from LOTR:ROTK

Army of Darkness - When Ash is trying to get the Necromonicon and can't remember the right words to say.

Se7en - When John Doe reveals to Mills what is in the box and that his wife was pregnant. Then Mills shoots him.

Team America, World Police - The sex scene.

To name just a few.

The LOTR vs. Star Wars scene in Clerks II

The OD scene in Pulp Fiction

And I have to reiterate the highway scene in Matrix: Reloaded, as it was perhaps the coolest scene in any movie....

Except for, maybe, the trees attacking Eisengard in Two Towers. That scene gives me chills every time.

The Devil's Brigade, 1968 starring

William Holden
Cliff Robertson
Vince Edwards
Claude Akins
Carroll O'Connor

The scene when the Canadians arrive on the scene. Pulls at the heartstrings that does.



<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/g1awwAgU_t8&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/g1awwAgU_t8&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

So many greats have been mentioned already.......

I'll go with the end of Slingblade when Billy Bob cracks the dad over the head.

I also like when they all fight the lumberjacks together later in the movie.

I agree, that's good too. It's the bonding part of the movie eh? I got to get that on DVD.

1. The aforementioned Atonement scene
2. The Bathing Scene - A Midnight Clear (there isnt a better war movie in existence)
3. The Unicorns - Legend
4. Fluellen & Harry post The Battle Of Agincourt - Henry V (Kenneth Branagh)
5. The Battle of Stirling - Braveheart
6. Doc & Wyatt Playing Cards - Tombstone
7. Peace By Inches Speech - Any Given Sunday
8. The Devil's Appearnce in The Prophecy
9. Charge of Rohirrim - Return Of The King
10. The first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan

PS
My alltime favorite moment would probalby have to be Speirs running across the town in The Breaking Point. Sends shivers through my spine every time I see it but thats not techincally a "film."

I don't know about "greatest" but the scene that comes to mind for me this morning is from and Lee Marvin movie "The Big Red One." WWII movie about the 1st infantry division. There's a scene where they're trying to quietly take out a German intelligence unit hidden in a insane asylum. Members of the unit sneak up on the outer guards and take them out with knives and bare hands. Once in the building they continue this tactic until the Germans catch on. A fire fight breaks out and bullets begin to fly. The patients calmly continue to eat as if nothing is amiss. A soldier drops his machine after being shot. One of the patients notices it sitting on the floor. He stops eating and crawls under the table. He picks it up, jumps on top of the table and yell's "I'm sane! I'm finally sane! I'm just like you, I'm sane!" As he laughs and empties the gun of all it's bullets he ends up killing several other patients. Yes, he's just like everyone else. He's sane.

Fight Club - Chemical Burn Scene

The fight scene from "They Live". Gotta be one of the longest two-person fight scenes ever filmed.

Great movie! I saw this in the theatre when it came out

Leto reminds me of another great moment:
Children of Dune, when Leto returns as a demigod and handles the guards and Alia with ease. Awesome.

Is this it? (hard to tell as the video wont load at work):

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DqmAUbM-lw8&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DqmAUbM-lw8&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Looks like the whole thing is on Youtube...

Found it:

I'll just mention one movie for now.
"The Bridge on the River Kwai"

When the British POWs are walking to the prison camp for the first time, they're whistliing the Colonel Bogey March, which always sends chills over me.

Then when they're ordered to build the bridge, and Alec Guinness defies orders, the Japanese commander has them punished by standing in the sun all day, then finally puts Alec Guinness in the hole, where he tries to break him.
The commander then realizes he can't break him, and he himself breaks down in tears when he realizes that if he can't get the bridge built on time, he'll lose face in his country's eyes.

When Alec Guinness walks out of the hole in triumph and walks stiffly to the prisoner's quarters, now that's a great scene.

The ending....the ending is madness. :thumbsup:

The scene in the LOTR movie when Arwen is racing back home with Frodo and being chased by the Ring Wraiths... and then when she gets to the river she turns to face them and wipes them out...

The final scene of Donnie Darko when "Mad World" cuts in...

Pleasantville, when suddenly colour is EVERYWHERE

United 93 - the crash

This one is good, but I prefer the "Forth Eorlingas" scene in The Two Towers.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the car chase from "Bullitt" No.1 for me
I second the Odessa Steps scene from "Potemkin"
Last would be a scene from "Matewan" with the line, "I wouldn't pee down his throat if his heart was on fire."

Sunshine - Mace in the 'Earthroom'

sunshine - Speech of the bomb, reassurance to Cassie.

Sunshine - Death of Keneda (favorite scene in any movie, it had before been "Tears in the rain" from Blade Runner)

Sunshine - Death of Searl

Sunshine - Death of Mace

Sunshine - The great jump (I swear this is the last one from Sunshine, it was a very artistic / fantastic movie)

Matrix Revolutions - The begining of the storming of Zion (Where the sentinals are bouncing along the wall)

Gladiator - The Sythe Chariots in the Coluseum

Cool Hand Luke - Eggs

Blow - Realizing his visiting daughter is a trick of his mind

A Beautiful Mind - When Russel Crowe's character receives the pens

Gangs of New York - "I'm going to teach you to speak English with this fucking knife!"

Hero - All the fight scenes

That's way too many, but there you go.

Tom Yum Goon
The bar scene. The guy goes in the bar kicks everybody's ass. Proceeds to make his way up the stairs and kicking ass along the way. All done in one take, I hear.

Boondock Saints - "THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!"
God I love Willem Dafoe in this scene.

Dreamscape - Opening Few Seconds






ROTLA - The Map Room






Scent of a Woman - The final speech






The Day After - Nuclear attack segment






American Werewolf in London - Transformation






Goodfellas - How am I funny?






Little Big Man - A good Day to Die






Trainspotting - Intro






The Two Towers - Gandalf's Fall






Salem's Lot - Let Me In






Jurassic Park - T Rex Scene






The Terminator - The Gun Shop






The Mist - The Pharmacy





Just to name a few. . .

+1!

Really?! This one? Really?! Not the last 15 minutes of ST2: The Wrath of Khan"? Or the opening sequence of ST: First Contact?

Here are some film sequences that I have seen hundreds of times, and I have to see them, if I see nothing else of the film.

Nah. The ending of ST2 was too weepy, and the battle scene in First Contact was just wasn't memorable.

The Ben-Hur chariot race:

Watched the old John Wayne flick "True Grit" this morning. The battle scene near the end. Wanye's character, Rooster Cogburn, takes on three bad guys, including "Lucky" Ned Pepper play by Robert Duvall. The scene is a stand off with the three bad guys at one end of an open meadow and Rooster at the other.

Scene dialog:

Lucky Ned Pepper said, "Well, Rooster, will you give us the road? We have business elsewhere!"

Rooster said, "Harold, I want you and your brother to stand clear! I have no interest in you today! Stand clear and you will not be hurt!"

Harold Permalee's answer was to crow like a rooster, and the "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" brought a hearty laugh from his brother Farrell.

Lucky Ned Pepper said, "What is your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?"

Rooster said, "I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience! Which will you have?"

Lucky Ned Pepper laughed. He said, "I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!"

Rooster said, "Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!" and he took the reins in his teeth and pulled the other saddle revolver and drove his spurs into the flanks of his strong horse Bo and charged directly at the bandits. It was a sight to see. He held the revolvers wide on either side of the head of his plunging steed. The four bandits accepted the challenge and they likewise pulled their arms and charged their ponies ahead.

Natuarlly Rooster does them all in.

Tyler Durden "verses" The Narrator in Fight Club
The moment when Bruce Willis realises he's dead in the sixth sense
The gun fight with Neo and Trinity from The Matrix

The chilling reveal at the end of "Les Diaboliques".
Taxi (the original french movie), the chase scene towards the end when they exit Marseille to go to the freeway. Awesome music that goes with that scene.
Most of Heath ledger's scenes in The Dark Knight.
Batman Begins: when Ras al guhl burns his house down.

Agreed, pretty much all of the Heath Ledger's screen time in The Dark Knight was just fantastic. From his dark mirthful sense of humour, right down to his twisted insanity.

The final fight scene in V for Vendetta's amazing...

"No, what you have are bullets, and a hope that when your guns are empty, I'll be dead."
-----Added 7/8/2008 at 01 : 53 : 32-----
The final battle was awesome too. Spoiler: Three-way fight between Batman, the SWAT team, and the Joker and his men, and Gordon's desperation to save the corrupted Dent.

Meryl Streep as Ethel Rosenberg helps Ben Shenkman to perform Kaddish in "Angels in America". Completely amazing.

Medea Goes to Jail - when Medea figures out Vanessa is cheating "You can't hit that woman. Let me get you some mace."
D.E.B.S. - bar scene "You owe me 50 bucks."
Sweeney Todd - the whole song and dance about how different folks would taste.
Hard Candy - the balls scene
Friday - the very first scene and the one with "you gots to be a stupid MFer to get fired on your day off."
Sister Act 2 - Joyful Joyful
Bone Collector - "you know it's illegal to molest the handicapped"
Wanted - the last one

I know only one of which is really action related (like most of these) but they are still my favorite scenes.

Ugh I HATED that scene. The bullet-time bugged the crap out of me.

The opening scene in El Topo. Can't find a video for it but it has little boy penis in it anyways so maybe that's a good thing (not why I like it! haha). It's just got an iconic -- to me -- atmosphere. A lonely desert.

In Stalker, the scene where the 3 people are right outside the room and they wax philosophic. But again, I can't seem to find a video so this scene (the ending) is also very cool.

I like the ending of V for Vendetta, though that fight scene is cool. I like the ending because it pumps me up.

There are tons but there's a few anyways. I mean, every movie I like has an awesome scene in it or 80.

The Obi-Wan/Vader and Yoda/Sidious fight scenes at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Particularly the fight between Obi-Wan and Vader.

Say what you will about the rest of the movie or the prequels, those final fights are undeniably kickass.

Some that come to mind that I didn't see posted:
The graveyard scene at the end of "Saving Private Ryan"
The car chase scene in "The Blues Brothers"
The chest-burster scene from "Alien"

COOL HAND LUKE

What we've got here is...failure to communicate." — spoken by "The Captain", the prison warden played by Strother Martin, during the film's early stages.


CASABLANCA (couldn't pick just one)

Rick: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.

Rick: You know what I want to hear.
Sam: [lying] No, I don't.
Rick: You played it for her, you can play it for me!
Sam: [lying] Well, I don't think I can remember...
Rick: If she can stand it, I can! Play it!

Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid.

Rick: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.


GODFATHER I

Michael: My father's no different than any other powerful man, any man who's responsible for other people. Like a senator or a president.
Kay: You know how naive you sound?
Michael: Why?
Kay: Senators and presidents don't have men killed.
Michael: Oh, who's being naive, Kay?

I think this opening scene of Roger Dodger is amazing. Dialogue and humor definitely count.

I was just thinking of this topic last night. The scene from Shawshank Redemption where the warden starts to go nuts after Andy escapes, then trhows a stone through the poster on the wall. Then they discover the gaping hole Andy dug over twenty years.

Forgot one of my favs..

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - the alien ship communication and landing (the original version not the one where they show the inside of the ship)