20 Most Satisfying Movie Moments

By Adrian Smith /

11. Dudley Smith Gets Blasted - L.A. Confidential (1997)

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In L.A. Confidential, three detectives investigate a massacre at a diner in their own separate aways. And although at first their methods clash, it soon dawns upon the remaining two - by the books Edmund Exley and tough guy Budd White - that they've got more chance of solving the mystery if they team-up . At the end of the movie, then, it turns out that their mentor and friend, Captain Dudley Smith, has been the one behind everything all along, and he sets the pair up to die in a gripping shoot-out at a motel. Exley and Budd both survive this blazing gun battle, but Dudley manages to disarm them both, shoots Budd, and convinces Exley that his best way out is to lie about what's happened. As Dudley begins to walk away, convinced that Exley - whose by the books attitude has always preventing him from advancing his career - won't shoot him, the detective shotguns his Captain in the back. It's one of those movie moments you're sort of pre-empting, but boy is it satisfying when the old b*stard goes down, blown to pieces.

10. "So Play Nice" - Toy Story (1995)

Pixar transcended the boundaries of cinema when they made Toy Story, the first - and arguably best - feature-length computer animated film. The story concerns Andy's room, where Woody, a cowboy doll, is boss. That all changes, however, when Buzz Lightyear, a new age space toy, arrives on the scene and steals Woody's thunder. Though the pair bicker for much of the movie, they're forced to team up when they're captured by the psychotic kid next door, who has a tendency to blow toys up in his yard. Humans aren't supposed to know that toys are living things, of course, but Woody breaks the rules when Sid threatens to BBQ him and send Buzz into space on the back of a rocket: given what we've seen of Sid and his ways, Toy Story's most brilliantly satisfying moment occurs when Woody comes to life in Sid's hand, and warns him to "play nice" with a genuinely terrifying amount of malice. It's a great moment, made even more satisfying because we know Sid will be traumatised for life because of what happened that day.