Oscars 2014: 18 Sublime Moments That Define Best Picture Nominees

10. The Opening Scene - Gravity

Once Gravity gets going it never lets up on the suspenseful peril. And fortunately for moviegoers, Gravity wastes no time before tossing its protagonist Doctor Ryan Stone into a battle for survival in space. Sure, the first few minutes are incredibly peaceful and make deep space seem a beautiful experience to add to any bucket list, but that's before an onslaught of debris comes hurling at everyone. What's most impressive about this sequence isn't Ryan attached to a shuttle, getting twirled up and down violently, and then detaching to drift through space, but the cinematography behind it all. Throughout the first 18 minutes of Gravity, there is only one cut-away, essentially rendering most of it as one take. Couple that with all the special effects and the dreadful score, and those first 18 minutes really set the stage that Gravity would be an experience unlike anything the industry has ever seen before. And somehow, director Alfonso Cuaron consistently tops himself scene after scene throughout the rest of the film.