5. Adrenaline Shot - Pulp Fiction (1995)
When we first learn of Mrs. Mia Wallace, gang leader Marsellus Wallace's wife, she is the woman who may or may not have received a foot massage from a gangster who found himself on the wrong side of a multi-story fall into glass. Later in Pulp Fiction, we meet Mia and see that she is a quirky, fun-loving milkshake fanatic with an artillery of leftover bad puns and a casual cocaine habit. When she comes across a bag of white powder in Vincent Vega's jacket pocket, she assumes that the drug contained inside is cocaine and not heroin. Unfortunately for Mia, Eric Stoltz' Christ-like drug-dealer Lance had recently run out of balloons, the normal transport medium for the fine white China. She helps herself to a rail of Mr. Vega's drugs and collapses on the floor, nose bleeding and mouth drooling. When Vega stumbles upon her body, he rushes her to Lance's house knowing that if Mrs. Wallace dies on his watch it would assuredly result in his own untimely demise. A frantic car ride and frenetic manhunt for a syringe and little black medical book later, we see Vega marking up Mia's chest with a red sharpie. He cocks his arms back and plunges the needle into her heart, injecting the life-saving shot of adrenaline. Her eyes open, she screams and runs around the room. Trippy, man. This scene was so intense at the time of the movie's release that during one of the initial screenings at a film festival, an audience member reportedly blacked out. Ultimately, it turned out that it was just a diabetic who had had either too much insulin or not enough Junior Mints to go with his popcorn, but the story stuck and a legendary scene was made.