20 Most Perfect Scenes In Cinema History

This, along with Neil LaBute’s 1997 movie In The Company Of Men, remains the definitive study of toxic masculinity under pressure. It’s even set in a bottle; an open plan office environment filled with hard-nosed salesmen competing for commission and bonuses.

David Mamet’s adaptation of his own award-winning play is, as you’d expect, stuffed full of gruffly propulsive dialogue. Here it’s delivered by an embarrassingly strong cast, including Ed Harris, Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Jonathan Pryce, Alec Baldwin and, in this stand-out scene, Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey.

In the aftermath of an office break-in, and supercharged by having made a big score, Lemmon’s Shelley Levene tears strips off Spacey’s office manager Williamson for screwing up a colleague’s sale, dripping with scorn - until he lets slip information he couldn’t possibly know unless he’d been the burglar.

Tasting blood in the water, Williamson returns the favour, savaging Levene as only Spacey can. It’s visceral, brutal stuff, so compelling that, ironically, it’s actually difficult to watch.

Some might have gone for the infamous Always-Be-Closing scene, in which uber-alpha Blake (Baldwin) unleashes a string of profane insults to supposedly motivate the men in the office. However, that’s a one-hander, one written specifically for the film - specifically for Baldwin, in fact, so that the actor would sign on and attract the financing they needed to begin shooting.