Given the importance that critics and film scholars tend to heap on it, it's not surprising that Battleship Potemkin has been referenced in other films. The most famous - or perhaps infamous is a better term - example came in The Untouchables and the train station sequence with the runaway pram, but it is not the only notable example that references the same source scene. Terry Gilliam's Brazil also pays homage openly: in its final act the hero Sam is rescued by the resistance after being tortured and interrogated. The escape party flee against the backdrop of a gun fight, while running down a large set of stairs with the military in pursuit. Caught in the middle of battle, a cleaning lady is shot and her vacuum cleaner goes rogue, careering down the steps. The Battleship Potemkin was essentially a revolutionary propaganda film against Russian imperialism, and its most famous, and important sequence is one of the most widely referenced (if not always overtly) in more modern film history. Director Sergei Eisenstein believed that films should be constructed as a series of conflicts, which he saw as the ultimate expression of art and Eisenstein illustrates his concept with the massacre on the staircase. There's no denying the similarities between the two scenes, or indeed what the later film owes its predecessor. The Recreation of this scene makes sense given that both films share a common theme of rebellion, and equally Brazil parodies propaganda and the Battleship Potemkin is very much a work of political propaganda. Having this scene transplanted into Brazil is a kind of inside movie metaphor and an inside joke as well. Which other iconic scenes have you seen before? Share your own picks below in the comments thread.
Given the importance that critics and film scholars tend to heap on it, it's not surprising that Battleship Potemkin has been referenced in other films. The most famous - or perhaps infamous is a better term - example came in The Untouchables and the train station sequence with the runaway pram, but it is not the only notable example that references the same source scene. Terry Gilliam's Brazil also pays homage openly: in its final act the hero Sam is rescued by the resistance after being tortured and interrogated. The escape party flee against the backdrop of a gun fight, while running down a large set of stairs with the military in pursuit. Caught in the middle of battle, a cleaning lady is shot and her vacuum cleaner goes rogue, careering down the steps. 
