50 Greatest Movie Scenes Ever
44. "Tiny Dancer" - Almost Famous
Sometimes, all you need is a sing-along. It worked in Jon Favreau's deliciously infectious Chef (Sexual Healing), it worked in Anchorman (Afternoon Delight) and it's the reason why the best musicals transcend all other films for rewatchability. As a species, we love an earworm and if you manage to combine it with images that pull at something inside us too, it becomes even more effective and affecting.
That's very much the case for the tour bus sequence in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, in which we see young William Miller (Patrick Fugit) come-of-age in the coolest way possible - while on tour with a bona-fide rock band. The scene comes as the band is in tatters, having spectacularly fallen out and as they sit in stony silence, Elton John's iconic voice cuts through the tension and they all begin to sing.
It's the kind of feel-good brilliance that grabs you by the stomach and lurches you forward into its arms and then when Miller tells Penny Lane that he needs to go home and she tells him he is home, it's positively orgasmic.
[SG]
43. Thorwald Enters - Rear Window
Not as famous as Psycho nor as revered as 'best film of all time' Vertigo, Rear Window is really Alfred Hitchcock's best movie. The entire runtime is an exercise in suspending you to your seat, gripped by the action unfolding while Jeff (the always wonderful James Stewart) is stuck inside thanks to his broken leg.
Coming after the almost equally brilliant scene of Lisa entering Thorwald's apartment, which means you're already on edge, things take a turn for the worse when Jeff's phone rings and no one answers. Before long Thorwald himself is entering Jeff's apartment, leading to a thrilling encounter where this pressure cooker of a movie finally explodes.
The cinematography here is lush, and the panic horribly real, from the shadow-clad Thorwald to the flashes of the camera, to the dramatic fall out of the window that, actually ends up as a relief because it allows you to breathe again.
[JH]
42. The Elevator - Drive
Drive is all about the interplay between violence and romance - the push and pull between Ryan Gosling’s driver’s strive for domestic peace against his criminal after-hours job - and the culmination of these warring themes comes to a blistering head during a seemingly innocuous elevator ride late in the movie.
Entering the lift with girlfriend Irene ready to escape, the driver spots a gun on the man next to him, knowing he's there to take them out. Finally understanding there’s no longer a way to evade the punishment he's due, in this moment he decides to bid farewell to his last chance at a fresh start. He embraces Irene, the lighting goes down, and the two share one final kiss, somehow briefly escaping the reality of the situation for a tender goodbye.
However, when the lights come back up, the lush score is swapped out for the hum of machinery and Gosling explodes into a flurry of violence, with the pulpy crunch of his boot popping the thug's face overwhelming the scene. His two lives have finally been blurred, and the woman he loves has seen the monster he can be.
[JB]