10 Movie Moments We Waited Years For (That Lived Up To Expectations)

Good things come to those who...

By Simon Gallagher /

Warner Bros.

In the age of fan service meaning big money for movie studios, there's very much a feeling that something worth doing for effect has either already been done or will be at the earliest possible moment. If there's some call from potential audiences to see something - whether that's an adaptation of a hugely successful book series, a sequel, a pay-off to something previously seeded or the meeting of two characters or actors on screen for the first time - the conversation about it happening will already have happened in a boardroom somewhere.

Advertisement

It wasn't always this way though (and it isn't always now) and sometimes we were forced to actually wait for things. Unfortunately, though, the wait isn't always worth it - as in the case of Gwen Stacy's death or Batman fighting Superman - but there are movie moments from not even so long ago that prove that film-makers can deliver, even when their big moments have been hyped for years...

10. Voldemort Returns - Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire

Warmer Bros.

Obviously, Lord Voldemort's first appearance in the Harry Potter movie franchise comes at the end of the first movie, when it turns out he's living on the back of Professor Quirrell's head, but fans of the books and the films had to wait another four years before we got to see the real deal.

Advertisement

And for all of the changes Mike Newell chose to make to the original TriWizard Tournament from the books, the climax of the fourth Potter film delivered on that much-hyped moment wonderfully.

Set against the wonderful atmospherics of the graveyard, Ralph Fiennes' supernatural, serpentine performance and striking, creepy look were everything fans could ever have wanted. He was a colossus, almost viscerally affecting and haunting in a way that's usually reserved for horror movie villains and the almost flippant command to murder Cedric Diggory is like a grim crown on his reveal.

Advertisement