It may be clichéd that a picture is worth a thousand words, but the age-old adage couldn't be more true for cinema. A motion picture is, obviously, what people leave their houses for and expect to see when they go to the cinema, but it's a single, static image that many remember when they eventually leave their seats and gossip about the latest flick they've seen at their local.
It's because of this that revered directors devote themselves entirely to crafting each scene perfectly, compromising on nothing to ensure that every image is as memorable as the last. It's why movie scenes can have an almost endless amount of takes, and why prop positioning, character movement and dialogue delivery is scrutinised to the tiniest detail.
This intense dedication to perfection is ultimately why this list even exists, and just like painters are rewarded with praise for a perfect piece or a sculptor is recognised for a flawless creation, so to, should film directors be applauded for shots that stick in the audience's mind long after the end credits have crawled up the big screen.
There are far more than 20 perfect shots in all cinema's sci-fi history, but these are some of the best you'll find.
20. Jurassic Park
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A couple of Spielberg's films have featured in this list already, but nothing defines a perfect shot quite as well as the T. Rex does in Jurassic Park.
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If the film's main purpose (other than to entertain), is to highlight the potential dangers of resurrecting dead species, then this shot is basically a visual representation of that line of thought.