Still speechless...too soon. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most profound, intense, or visually striking movie moments that we needed time to recover from. FYI, there are some spoilers on this list!
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00:00 - You said you've got a T-Rex?
00:01 - Uh-huh.
00:01 Say again?
00:03 We have a T-Rex.
00:06 - Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:08 And today we're counting down our picks
00:10 for the most profound, intense,
00:12 or visually striking movie moments
00:14 that we needed time to recover from.
00:16 - You've kept him alive so that he can die
00:18 at the proper moment.
00:20 - FYI, there are some spoilers on this list,
00:23 and we're not including animated movies.
00:25 Number 20, "Trinity Test," Oppenheimer.
00:29 - Are we saying there's a chance
00:31 that when we push that button, we destroy the world?
00:35 - Chances are near zero.
00:37 - Before the Trinity Test,
00:38 we're treated to bracing montages
00:41 and rapid-fire snippets of preparations
00:43 and safety precautions.
00:45 The entire movie has been leading up to this.
00:48 The urgency is clear.
00:50 It's time to see if Dr. Oppenheimer's theories
00:52 will become reality.
00:54 - The Trinity Test and the revelation
00:56 of the first atomic explosion to the world
00:59 is one of the most important moments in 20th century.
01:02 - Upon detonation, the movie slows to a crawl.
01:05 Where we might expect crashes, booms, and bangs,
01:09 silence fills the previously busy and frenetic soundtrack.
01:13 We're only left with the intense and oppressive light
01:16 of the first nuclear detonation in all its destructive
01:19 and seemingly never-ending clouds of fire.
01:22 It dawns on Oppenheimer, and us,
01:24 that he's opened Pandora's box.
01:27 We're still living with the consequences
01:29 nearly a century later.
01:30 - What was really interesting was going back
01:32 and trying to understand what these guys were thinking
01:34 and the terrible decisions that were placed
01:36 in front of them.
01:37 - I don't know if we can be trusted with such a weapon,
01:40 but I know the Nazis can.
01:42 - Number 19, "The Crop Duster," North by Northwest.
01:46 - That's funny, but that plane's dusting crops
01:49 where there ain't no crops.
01:51 - In this classic scene from suspense maestro
01:54 Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant plays an innocent man
01:57 on the run who ends up stranded on a country road.
02:00 He catches sight of a crop duster in a distant field.
02:03 That's not really out of the ordinary,
02:06 but isn't it coming just a little bit too close?
02:08 The constant shots of the plane heading right for the camera
02:19 is such an effective and efficient way
02:21 to put us right there in the scene.
02:23 We may know it's not real,
02:25 but it's hard to shut off that part of our brain
02:27 that gets antsy when something big and threatening
02:30 is coming right for us.
02:31 What's even more amazing is the scene
02:33 is mostly without music of any kind.
02:36 Number 18, "Night Vision," "The Silence of the Lambs."
02:40 From the moment we realize FBI trainee Clarice Starling
02:44 has stumbled upon the lair of serial killer Buffalo Bill,
02:48 our blood pressure is out of whack for the rest of the movie.
02:51 Pursuing him into his basement of terrors,
02:53 Clarice is suddenly thrown into darkness.
02:56 We assume the killer's POV as he stalks her
03:05 through the eerie green haze of his night vision goggles.
03:09 Our agent might just be outmatched
03:11 as she reaches out in the dark for her attacker
03:13 who could strike at any moment.
03:15 The villain is totally in control
03:18 and it's a terrifying position to be in.
03:20 The entire scene is a masterclass in suspense.
03:24 Number 17, "The Bagel,"
03:33 "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once."
03:36 - I got bored one day, when I put everything on a bagel.
03:40 - It may be about big, complicated things
03:43 like the multiverse, but this new classic
03:45 is also stunningly grounded
03:47 in the most universal of human experiences.
03:50 Despite all the noise of other universes,
03:53 what it's really about is a woman saving her daughter
03:55 from her own despair.
03:57 - The bagel is where we finally find peace, Evelyn.
04:00 - Rather than fight her as she has done the entire movie,
04:03 in the climax, Evelyn and her family save joy
04:06 from the swirling void of the bagel.
04:09 It's love that saves her, not some interdimensional battle.
04:13 This reconciliation is heart-wrenching,
04:15 not just because they're both in so much pain,
04:17 but because what Evelyn says is true.
04:20 She could be anything, anywhere,
04:22 but no matter their disagreements,
04:24 she still wants to be with her daughter.
04:26 - I will always, always want to be here with you.
04:31 - Number 16, "The Standoff,"
04:37 "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."
04:39 - $200,000, a lot of money.
04:41 We're gonna have to earn it.
04:45 - Sergio Leone's three-hour spaghetti Western
04:47 finds three armed outlaws facing each other in a duel
04:51 for a pile of stolen Confederate gold
04:53 buried somewhere in a desert cemetery.
04:56 They find themselves in a wordless standoff
04:58 for several minutes as each man waits to draw his gun.
05:02 The movie ratchets up the tension through editing
05:05 and progressively intrusive closeups of each man
05:08 as the music becomes faster, louder, and more epic.
05:11 (dramatic music)
05:14 Who's going to go for their gun first?
05:22 Who's going to make it out of this alive?
05:24 Will anyone make it out alive?
05:26 The suspense is practically killing us.
05:29 Number 15, "Private Pyle's Revenge," "Full Metal Jacket."
05:33 This Stanley Kubrick movie showed us
05:35 that the horrors of war aren't reserved for the battlefield.
05:39 Throughout the first half of this Vietnam War film,
05:42 a group of Marine recruits are terrorized
05:44 by the most sadistic drill sergeant in all of cinema.
05:48 One recruit, nicknamed Private Pyle
05:50 for his perceived lack of intelligence,
05:52 is driven to the breaking point by constant abuse
05:55 from his superior officer and his bunkmates.
05:58 - What side was that, Private Pyle?
06:00 - Sir, left side, sir.
06:01 - Are you sure, Private Pyle?
06:03 - Sir, yes, sir.
06:04 - How it ends is absolutely chilling,
06:07 but somehow nothing beats actor Vincent D'Onofrio's
06:10 menacing stare as he holds his loaded rifle.
06:13 It's such a jaw-dropping moment
06:15 that many critics thought the actual war scenes
06:17 in the second half couldn't live up to it.
06:20 - What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?
06:23 Didn't mommy and daddy show you enough attention?
06:26 - Number 14, "The Sunken Place," "Get Out."
06:30 - Now, sink into the floor.
06:34 - Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
06:35 - Sink.
06:36 - How do you visually portray a void?
06:39 A place that's not even a place, just a prison of the mind?
06:43 Well, Jordan Peele found a way.
06:45 In the scene that gave "Get Out" its most haunting image,
06:48 Chris is hypnotized by his girlfriend's mother,
06:51 who uses his past trauma to send him
06:53 to the aptly titled "Sunken Place."
06:55 - You're paralyzed, just like that day
06:58 when you did nothing.
06:59 You did nothing.
07:00 - Watching him unable to reconnect with his body,
07:03 his consciousness floating in space,
07:05 as she takes control of him,
07:07 we already know something is up with this family.
07:10 But when we see just what's at work here,
07:12 the dread, hopelessness, and evil of it all
07:15 is almost overwhelming.
07:16 - Now you're in the sunken place.
07:18 - Number 13, "I'm Finished," "There Will Be Blood."
07:22 - I'm finished.
07:24 - Ruthless, sadistic, and ultimately poisoned
07:27 by his own greed,
07:28 prospector turned oil baron Daniel Plainview
07:31 ends "There Will Be Blood" friendless,
07:33 alone, and covered in a preacher's blood.
07:36 After tricking the holy man who has dogged him for years
07:39 into revealing his own moral impurity,
07:42 Plainview unleashes a torrent of abuse.
07:44 His unhinged analogy about milkshakes
07:47 is a perfect showcase for Daniel Day-Lewis's way
07:50 of making something that could sound ludicrous
07:52 into an intense and thrilling movie moment.
07:55 - I drink your milkshake.
07:59 (sucking)
08:01 I drink it up!
08:03 - Don't bully me, Daniel!
08:04 (screaming)
08:05 - The sudden violence of the ending
08:07 is filled with thematic meaning,
08:09 but most of all, it's just incredibly shocking.
08:12 Number 12, "What's in the Box?"
08:15 Seven, John Doe is clearly a calculated
08:18 and high-minded serial killer,
08:20 but the depths of his machinations
08:22 aren't fully known until the climax.
08:24 - I can't wait for you to see.
08:25 I really can't.
08:26 - Having lured the two arresting officers to the desert,
08:29 the delivery of a bloody box inspires Doe
08:32 to reveal the final part of his master plan.
08:35 He tells Brad Pitt's Detective Mills
08:37 that the box contains the head
08:39 of the young detective's wife.
08:41 - I took a souvenir.
08:42 Her pretty head.
08:46 - As the pieces come together,
08:47 we're left gripping our seats
08:49 as we realize Mills is being compelled
08:51 to kill Doe in retaliation
08:54 and embody the last sin, wrath.
08:56 - Saw you with the box!
08:57 What was in the box?
08:58 - Director David Fincher's masterstroke
09:00 is that he never lets us see what's in the box.
09:03 What may be the movie's most horrific
09:05 and unfair twist is left to our imagination.
09:08 Number 11, "Coffee's Execution," "The Green Mile."
09:12 John Coffee is a black man wrongly accused
09:15 and sentenced to death for the heinous murder
09:17 of two young white girls.
09:19 The truth is that he has supernatural power
09:22 to heal the sick and dying
09:23 and was found with the dead girls
09:25 after failing to heal them.
09:27 - I couldn't heal them.
09:30 I tried to take it back, but it was too late.
09:33 - Despite knowing the truth,
09:35 the officers of the prison are forced
09:37 to go through with his execution
09:38 while uncaring witnesses watch on.
09:41 Coffee's acceptance and relief
09:43 at leaving this world doesn't make it better.
09:45 - He kill 'em with they love.
09:48 That's how it is every day all over the world.
09:53 - If anything, it makes the waste
09:54 and the cruelty of everything he's gone through
09:57 even more sickening.
09:59 Number 10, "Call It," "No Country for Old Men."
10:03 Amidst all the drug dealing and robbery
10:05 set against the deserts of West Texas,
10:08 Anton Chigurh is by far the most terrifying person
10:11 in this Coen brothers' crime drama.
10:13 Actor Javier Bardem plays the stone-faced hitman
10:17 with no conscience or compassion.
10:19 - What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?
10:22 - In an early scene, he demonstrates
10:24 how he approaches killing like a game.
10:26 Chigurh toys with a gas station proprietor
10:29 who knows something's not right with him,
10:31 but can't quite put his finger on it.
10:33 - 1958.
10:35 It's been traveling 22 years to get here.
10:37 And now it's here, and it's either heads or tails.
10:41 - Of course, we know he's a vicious killer.
10:44 The way they talk around each other
10:45 becomes increasingly tense until Chigurh
10:48 makes the man unwittingly play heads or tails for his life.
10:52 - Don't put it in your pocket, sir.
10:54 Don't put it in your pocket, it's your luggage holder.
10:56 - Number nine, "Farmhouse Interrogation,
10:59 Inglourious Bastards."
11:01 The first 20 minutes of Quentin Tarantino's
11:03 "Inglourious Bastards" are a taut
11:05 and constricting chamber drama played in multiple languages.
11:09 During the German occupation of France,
11:11 the sadistic and disarming SS Colonel Hans Landa
11:15 arrives at a farmer's house
11:16 and acts the part of the smiling house guest.
11:19 But the facade slowly falls away
11:21 as Landa puts the screws to the farmer
11:23 about his belief that he's hiding
11:25 a family of Jewish fugitives on his property.
11:28 - You're sheltering enemies of the state, are you not?
11:30 - The way Landa wears away at the man's sense of loyalty
11:33 to his neighbors, first in French, then in English,
11:36 is unsettling and efficient.
11:39 Once the scene comes to its bombastic
11:41 and tragic conclusion,
11:43 Landa has completely run circles around us.
11:45 (speaking in foreign language)
11:49 Number eight, "The Snap, Avengers Infinity War."
11:53 Having collected all the Infinity Stones,
11:56 the villainous alien Thanos activates the blip,
11:59 a catastrophic event which will turn
12:01 half of the universe's living creatures to dust.
12:04 What follows is one of the most tragic
12:06 and unthinkable sequences in the entire MCU.
12:10 - Steve.
12:10 - Fans watched in disbelief as Thanos' snap
12:19 did away with many beloved characters.
12:22 Black Panther's T'Challa, Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff,
12:26 and even the young Spider-Man, Peter Parker,
12:28 all turned to dust before our eyes.
12:31 - Mr. Stark?
12:32 - I don't feel so good.
12:37 - Parker's death is especially unsettling,
12:40 as he begs not to die before withering away
12:43 in his mentor's arms.
12:45 Fans would have to wait a year for the ending
12:47 to be reversed, but for once, the villain won out.
12:50 - Oh, God.
12:52 - Number seven, "Seconds From Rescue," "The Mist."
12:56 Stranded without gas or hope for escape
12:58 from the invading monsters,
13:00 the group of survivors from a besieged supermarket
13:03 make a silent agreement to go out on their own terms.
13:06 - For once.
13:07 - There's five of us.
13:13 - After only David is left, U.S. military appears.
13:17 "The Mist" departs, and within seconds,
13:20 the situation seems totally under control.
13:23 David is forced to realize he killed his fellow survivors,
13:26 including his eight-year-old son, for nothing.
13:30 "The Mist" is not just a horror story about monsters.
13:33 It's about what happens when people are abandoned
13:35 by the institutions that ground our everyday lives.
13:39 It's ironic, then, that the military,
13:41 an institution meant to protect us, does end up working.
13:45 And that's what makes it such a downer ending.
13:48 (screaming)
13:50 Number six, "Chestburster," "Alien."
14:00 Before we knew just what the titular villain is capable of,
14:04 things seemed weirdly low-key
14:06 and almost normal for the Nostromo crew.
14:09 Then comes one of the most memorable sequences
14:11 in movie history.
14:13 Celebrating the surgical removal
14:15 of an alien life form from his face,
14:17 an astronaut named Kane begins seizing violently
14:20 during dinner.
14:21 - What's the matter?
14:23 The food ain't that bad, baby.
14:24 - His fellow crew members watch in disbelief
14:29 as his chest bursts open,
14:31 and a reptilian creature emerges from his torso.
14:34 It's pretty safe to say mainstream audiences
14:38 had never seen anything like it before.
14:40 Even decades later, it still has the power to freak us out.
14:45 Number five, "Snape's Memories,"
14:47 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II."
14:50 Severus Snape was a pain in Harry Potter's side
14:53 for most of the series.
14:55 Still, his final moments had diehards and casual fans alike
14:59 practically sobbing in the theater.
15:01 - You have your mother's eyes.
15:03 - But even if his death scene weren't enough,
15:05 Snape's memories, which Harry is able to magically collect
15:09 from his teardrops, had us breathless.
15:12 - A part of Voldemort lives inside him.
15:17 - We've not only learned the true nature
15:20 of Harry's connection with Voldemort,
15:22 but we also learned that Snape's love for Harry's mother
15:24 compelled him to protect him.
15:26 As the series ramps up to its epic conclusion,
15:29 these revelations spill out like a frantic confession.
15:32 They answer questions that have been on our minds
15:35 since the first movie, and then throw us for a loop
15:38 by telling us things we'd never even considered.
15:41 Number four, "Normandy Invasion," saving Private Ryan.
15:45 Putting the camera right in the middle of the action,
15:48 the opening scenes of this World War II epic
15:50 create an explosive and deeply disturbing battle sequence.
15:54 For 10 minutes, bullets rip through the air,
15:57 explosives rain down, and characters we just met
16:01 are gunned down and set ablaze before our eyes.
16:04 (eerie music)
16:07 (guns firing)
16:09 Despite the shaky cam approach,
16:15 director Steven Spielberg ensures we never miss a detail.
16:19 He forces us to look at the real devastation of war
16:22 in all its terror and shell shock.
16:24 This is not a Hollywood epic with the bells and whistles
16:27 of studio sets and unnatural lighting.
16:30 It's raw, bloody, and visceral.
16:33 - We're in business, definitely!
16:34 I'm a side of the whole!
16:36 - Number three, "Stargate Sequence," 2001, a space odyssey.
16:41 Stanley Kubrick's philosophical space epic
16:44 is about a lot of things.
16:46 Trapped astronauts, a killer supercomputer,
16:49 human evolution, and godlike alien life forms
16:52 are just the tip of the iceberg.
16:54 But if you're looking for explanations,
16:56 you won't find them here.
16:58 - I'm sorry, Dave.
17:00 I'm afraid I can't do that.
17:02 - The last act contains little to no dialogue,
17:05 as Dr. David Bowman flies his pod into the alien monolith,
17:09 unwittingly entering an alternate dimension.
17:12 Haunting music and a barrage of cutting edge,
17:14 psychedelic neon light effects wowed audiences in 1968.
17:19 (dramatic music)
17:22 Even if you aren't vibing with it,
17:30 it's such a surreal and bizarre way to end a movie
17:33 that you can't help but gawk.
17:35 Number two, "Brachiosaurus Sighting," "Jurassic Park."
17:39 The first time Sam Neill, Laura Dern,
17:42 and Jeff Goldblum's characters enter "Jurassic Park,"
17:45 the scene plays out like pure magic.
17:48 We only get their reactions first,
17:50 but the slow build has us on the edge of our seats
17:52 when we finally get a look at our first dinosaur,
17:55 a brachiosaurus passing by us.
17:58 (dinosaur roaring)
18:01 (dinosaur roaring)
18:04 No one captures wonder and awe on screen
18:09 like Steven Spielberg.
18:11 Whether it's the character's excitement,
18:13 John Williams' score,
18:14 or the wonder of the groundbreaking CGI effects,
18:17 it's hard not to sit and stare in amazement
18:20 at what a movie can do.
18:22 - Welcome to "Jurassic Park."
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18:42 Number one, "Arriving in Oz," "The Wizard of Oz."
18:46 - Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
18:50 - The brooding, sepia-toned life
18:52 of little Dorothy Gale from Kansas is turned upside down
18:56 when a cyclone picks up her house
18:58 and drops it into the land of Oz.
19:01 To immerse viewers in this vibrant new world,
19:03 the filmmakers behind this 1939 classic
19:07 decided to film the scenes in Oz
19:09 in lush, out-of-this-world color.
19:12 The technicolor world Judy Garland steps into
19:15 is striking, glamorous, and full of the elaborate artistry
19:18 that made the golden age golden.
19:20 More than a gimmick, this change highlights
19:23 what makes the movie so special.
19:25 Even a child watching it now might be totally shocked
19:28 by the sudden transition from sepia tone to full color.
19:32 - Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
19:35 - But I've already told you, I'm not a witch at all.
19:38 Witches are old and ugly.
19:39 - Do you agree with our picks?
19:41 - Yeah.
19:42 That was good.
19:44 - Get your jaw off the ground and leave us a comment.
19:47 Did you enjoy this video?
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