The 25 Most Influential Movie Scenes of the Past 25 Years
hollywood issue longform movies oscars-live
Richard Lawson K. Austin Collins Condé Nast
Vanity Fair’s film critics on the scenes that have defined our era. Plus: Tom Hanks, Jordan Peele, Sofia Coppola, and more of the filmmakers and actors behind them reveal how they were made.
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Vanity Fair
“We had no idea what was going on. We didn’t know how many people to hire, how long it would take, but we dove in and blindly went forward. That’s the way to go, damn the torpedoes. In that sense, I look back at it fondly. From my standpoint, I was one of the grunts, I was not leading the charge. That was John Lasseter and Ralph Guggenheim who had to field all the trouble. For me it felt like an extension of school, a bunch of guys doing a fun project in their garage. It felt like something I would do even if they didn’t pay me. Like most things, you didn’t know at the time it was something to really value and pay attention to. My wife and I had just gotten married. I would work all day, come home and have dinner, and then she would come back to work with me and play video games while I animated late into the night.” —As told to Katey Rich

“The script was so well written and the horror genre was sort of lost at that time. I remember everything like it was yesterday. Night after night of shoots at this house crying and hyperventilating. I loved that we turned things on its head a bit. I was originally supposed to play the Neve Campbell role and then I had this epiphany that if I played Casey and got killed in the first scene, all bets were off. Kevin’s writing had this tongue-in-cheek quality to it that felt different and fresh—a new approach to horror. I think when you do something that gets parodied not once but dozens of times, you definitely get the feeling it had an effect on people.” —As told to Joanna Robinson

“When we shot this scene, it was cold and windy and awful down in Rosarito Beach. For the majority of it, we were outside. For the ‘King of the World’ scene, there was a separate piece of set—a tall tower-piece that just had the front of the ship. Leo and I would go on a construction lift and it would drop us off at the top, and then the lift would go away so that it wasn’t seen during filming. We were trapped on this little tower with our set coats so that we wouldn’t freeze. We were up there for hours because you would have to bring the lift back in, take it up, and then have us go down. So we were basically trapped up there. It was one of the most hysterical experiences. All I remember is we were very hungry. And at some point we both had to pee terribly and there’s no like, ‘Yeah, can we get the lift back in so that we can go to the restroom?’ There was none of that. We’re sitting there cold and hungry, and miserable, and having to pee. And on ‘action,’ it was supposed to be the most joyous experience in the world.” —As told to Laura Bradley

“I had a little concern about how it was going to be directed by two people. I love my brother, but I think it would be really challenging to direct a film with him. I was wondering how it was gonna be to be directed by these brothers, and the only time that there was any disagreement between them was in that scene. It was just about when I was gonna hit my head with those bowling pins, and Joel said, ‘Now, when you’re gonna hit the bowling pins, kind of wince a little bit, ’cause you’re gonna be expecting some kind of pain.’ And Ethan says, ‘No, really—you think so? I think he should be kind of smiling, like this is kind of fun to be a bowling ball.’ Joel said, ‘You really think so?’ And it kind of went back and forth like that then finally they just said, ‘Well, let’s shoot it both ways.’ That was the big disagreement.” —As told to Mike Hogan

“In our very first talk about the movie, Steven laid out how modern cinema technology made the movie possible in the first place—especially for the Omaha Beach sequence. He said no combat movie would have ever been like it. I knew immediately that our job as actors would be to behave and react in the actual physical moment, that we would be trained accordingly over time, and that anything that happened on-screen would be as it should. My rank as captain mattered in training. I had some responsibility and some luxury (my own tent!)—but on the set, the script played itself out. We all had our moments in the movie and rooted for each other. When I first saw the completed sequence, I wept. The landing, from the boats to the top of the bluff, was just too horrible to watch without becoming undone. People see that landing sequence as a seminal 20 minutes, not just in the history of war movies, but in all of cinema.” —As told to Katey Rich

“When it came to shooting Neo dodging the bullets, it was on a stage with a green screen and more than 100 cameras. I was on a wire, and it was extraordinary to be the human piece of ‘bullet time’ and do something physically impossible. I threw myself back, did the choreography—everyone was really excited hearing the camera shutters. Then, of course, in Wachowski fashion, we did it a whole bunch more, looking for super-perfect. Then, we started to see ‘bullet time’ enter the mainstream in commercials, and the Wachowskis became a part of our visual language. You see them moving a camera like that now during football games. There’s nothing like the original, but it’s still always cool.” —As told to Joanna Robinson

“We needed a moment somewhere at the beginning top of the third act, where Heather finally comes to terms with what’s happening—and also takes some responsibility for what she’s done. We told Heather, ‘This is the deal: you’ve finally hit a wall and you need a sort of confessional now where you realize you may not get out of this, and you need to leave some kind of last will for your parents and your friends, and apologize.” We just laid that kind of emotional groundwork for her and let her improvise. It went on for, I don’t know, almost 15 minutes; we cut it down to just a few—the best moments. Once we saw the performance, we knew we had it. She ramped up into it, as you would expect—after she sort of got into the moment and really let it flow, both with her tears and her snot, which was profuse. Those are legit tears.” —As told to Laura Bradley

“I felt the audience could handle this scene being quite comic. Usually, we kept the lighting in the apartment moody—but when it came to filming this scene, I insisted we have all the lights on bright. I wanted it to be harsh and jarring; I was also thinking Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange. In the very last take, there was one of those lucky accidents that make filming worthwhile: Bateman had just finished killing Paul Allen in a frenzy, and he sits down on the couch and lights a cigar. As he did so, I saw that the blood had only spattered one-half of Christian’s face. In profile, he looked almost normal—but when you cut to another angle, you saw the bloody side. When it came out, the movie was loved and hated in about equal measure. It was only after a few years that its reputation grew in a way I can’t explain. I think the mixture of black comedy and horror and satire was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and maybe that very nightmarish portrait of society and Wall Street felt more relevant as time went on.” —As told to Hillary Busis

“Crouching Tiger is the opposite [of Brokeback]. I planned everything; everything worked against me. Even the weather. A lot of it was shot in the desert, it was really tough. There’s nothing. At that time, 1999, making that kind of scale of movie in China—it’s like a handcrafted space shuttle. That’s how it feels. The movie industry was not like today. People are not trained. To start something new, that was ambitious work. Crouching Tiger was meant to be a mainstream Chinese movie, but it hit so big here, even bigger than over there. That was unexpected. Every movie has its fate: sometimes it hits, sometimes you hit the wrong time. I’ve tasted both [laughs]. That one just took off.” —As told to Yohana Desta

“The King Kong moment came out of Denzel. I remember that moment because we were doing the scene, and he just started going off. I remember looking at the cameraman and saying, ‘I hope you got that, because I don’t think we’re going to get that again.’ Denzel came over to me and goes, ‘Whoo, I don’t know where that came from.’ It was exhausting for him, you saw him just go there in that place. It was one of those moments where it gave you chills. We shot anamorphic lenses, so anamorphic lenses are really sensitive to making sure everything’s in focus. My focus puller came up to me afterwards, his hands were shaking. I started hearing it referenced a lot in rap songs, a lot of rappers saying stuff about Alonzo, or Training Day, or “King Kong ain’t got nothing on me,” or “this is chess, not checkers.” The moment I realized it took on a different life was with Ethan Hawke. Ethan was in Harlem doing something one day and he called me and said, ‘Wow, I’ve got a whole new audience, all these people came up to me.‘ You just set out to make a good movie and somehow it became a cultural thing.” —As told to Katey Rich

“That probably would have been one of six or seven things that we shot that day. It just would have said, ‘Margot exits bus, Richie waits for her.’ But then that’s where you see Wes’s qualities, where you slow it down to 16 frames per second and then the great expression that Gwyneth has on her face. You get magic moments like the wind in her hair, and it’s slowed down, and you have Nico singing that beautiful Jackson Browne song. I can remember going to see The Doors with Owen and Wes in Austin, when it had first come out, and there was kind of the cool sequence where the Velvet Underground song “Heroin” was playing through this sequence of Jim Morrison being out of control. Those guys both kind of clenched up because they’d wanted to use the song “Heroin” in something. I’m just sitting there thinking, ‘God this is an incredible movie, what a scene, what a song,’ and they were both like, ‘Dammit, now we can’t use this song.’ These guys haven’t made a movie yet, but you get the feeling they’re in competition with Oliver Stone.” —As told to Katey Rich

“I’m uncomfortable watching the scene now, and I’m uncomfortable sitting there with him. But I wasn’t going to not put it in the film either. He revealed his core beliefs. But I remember feeling kind of sad about it later. Here’s a man who 40 years prior to that marched with Martin Luther King, and now in his elderly years had just turned into this angry white guy who believed that we should have these laws where it’s O.K. to shoot first and ask questions later. When the film came out, the N.R.A. was furious and they spent a lot of money, I think, on surrogates, putting them on newscasts, trying to attack me and attack the film. When they did that, it went on to break the record at the time for box office. When we started making that film there had not been a school shooting like Columbine. We thought, we need to make this film so this doesn’t become a thing. Now mass shootings are almost a daily occurrence. Our mission, I guess, failed.” —As told to Katey Rich

“We began to evolve this whole notion of Sméagol and Gollum being two very different personalities, one of which was the visceral controlling Gollum, but then this schizophrenic feeling toward Frodo and then the power of the ring was manifested by the Sméagol side, who became the younger brother that is manipulated and abused by the elder, brutal kind of sibling. And obviously that came into being fully in that scene. I knew it was a really important scene, you just have the feeling. At the world premiere at the Ziegfeld here in New York in 2002, I just remember when it came to that scene I literally felt the audience all as one lean forward in their seats. As an actor, I’ve never experienced anything like that, or hadn’t at that point. You could hear a pin drop, you could also hear people not kind of understanding— is this an actor, is it a real person? It felt kind of emotionally real and present. It was really gratifying.” —As told to Katey Rich

“I’m pretty sure it was our last day of shooting. We were exhausted, so I think it helped that they really were saying goodbye. I didn’t intend [the end] to be a big thing. He whispered something between them. It came from the tradition of Italian movies—they would just say numbers and figure out the dialogue later. [But] then we left it. We never seemed to be able to sum it up. I always liked that Bill Murray says it’s between the two of them. [Everybody] asks what he whispers to her. I just don’t get why it’s such a thing, but I’m touched that people feel connected to it. I hadn’t seen it for a long time, but I watched it last spring, because we went to Japan on a family trip. We were staying at the Park Hyatt, so I wanted to show [my daughters] the movie. Watching with 8 and 11-year-old girls really changed the way I looked at it. Like, what’s the shot of [Scarlett] in her underwear? [Bill’s] so much older than her. My daughters are raised in such a different generation. When it’s on TV, sometimes I’ll stop and watch it for 15 minutes or something. It’s like an old photo album. It’s fun when it pops up, but I don’t sit down and review my work. I go on and don’t really look back.” —As told to Yohana Desta

“The scene really came more from my life and a relationship that ended that I had, and that was kind of what I was like. I wrote Something’s Gotta Give like that. It wasn’t quite that extreme, but I am supposed to dramatize things. The scene is funny because it never ends. Because of the length of the montage, it’s not just, ‘I’m sitting on my bed with way too many Kleenex’; it’s, ‘Something happened to me that just changed me.’ Throughout the movie up to that point, she’s unclear what her new play is about. This gives her everything to write about. Having that kind of purpose got her through this. Honestly, there’s nobody that could have done it but Diane Keaton. She managed to make you feel the pain she was feeling, and she also made you laugh, within a second of each other.” —As told to Katey Rich

“Episode III was all green screen: they had us on green disks on a green floor with a green background, and a guy on the floor rotating us like chickens, as we lunged at each other with lightsabers. What keeps you emotionally grounded is the other actor. Episode II, I was on my own, speaking to thin air. But this scene was harrowing for Obi-Wan. I lose Anakin, and we see the danger of what it might lead to in Episodes IV, V, and VI. For all my moaning about green screen, I did enjoy playing Obi-Wan and this link to Alec Guinness. George Lucas wanted to do something very different with the prequels. That’s why people felt cheated. It was upsetting when people would laugh and joke about it. Now, many years later, the prequels meant a lot to the generation that were kids then. So from smirking, cynical opinions, now I’m getting feedback from the kids they were made for. I’m really happy about that.” —As told to Joanna Robinson

“Steve said, ‘Just shoot me actually getting my chest waxed, because I’m very hairy, and I’m sure it would hurt. And it would be funny to see me in pain.’ So we hired an actress who claimed to be a professional chest-waxer. When we shot the scene, it seemed pretty clear that she’d lied on her résumé. Steve almost lost one of his two nipples. He was bleeding—we had to use C.G.I. technology to remove most of the blood, because it was too troubling to look at. Paul [Rudd] was the one who noticed that it was turning into a shape that looked like a Halloween pumpkin. And then as soon as we noticed that he was looking like a man-o’-lantern, we made a point of telling the waxer to continue in that configuration. It was really funny, and it’s all because of how Steve reacts. He’s actually in intense pain, but he completely stays in character, doing jokes while basically being tortured.” —As told to Hillary Busis

“That scene was actually [shot] in a reservoir, in a small parking place. It has the best view of this Canadian mountain. There was snow, there was water—it was perfect. I remember building up to that [scene], I did something weird with the camera, kept moving it, to freak [Ledger and Gyllenhaal] out a little bit. Keep them fresh. It was a rough shoot for the actors, I would say. Heath was very intense; he didn’t want a lot of distraction. He was just very specific about the goal he wants to hit. Jake, on the other side, he was very young, at times naughty, experimental. That would drive Heath crazy sometimes . . . [but] in one take, Jake hit it. That speech came from one take. It was beautiful, but they didn’t believe me. Actors, they’re all skeptical. The reason I wanted to do the movie is that one line: ‘All we have is Brokeback.’ It’s not even that line [‘I wish I knew how to quit you’]. I questioned that line in the script. ‘Is that too much?’ Everybody picked that line up. None of us expected it.” —As told to Yohana Desta

“Obviously, everybody thought we should do [it] in C.G. And for a couple of months, we were all satisfied with the main idea. But every time I thought about it, something felt really weird and wrong. Something told me that shooting that scene in green scene was going against everything else that we’d done. By doing tests, I realized that if I was able to hang the camera from the roof of the car, maybe I could do the entire shot in one shot. That was important, because it’s a way of immersing the audience—and also not glamorizing violence. By doing everything in real time, I think you feel the desperation and the claustrophobia of the characters. It’s a very long story, but I found all these pieces that were made for other things. I came back to Los Angeles, and we put together this thing that’s called the H dolly on top of a car. And in only one week, we put together this thing that nobody has ever done before.” —As told to Krista Smith

“We didn’t have a really good ending. Paul had written a few different scenes; very early in the scripting, there was a reporter coming to talk to Daniel at his mansion, and that didn’t fly. The end of the movie just didn’t seem to have a point. Once the part of Eli Sunday was re-cast and it became Paul Dano, it turned into a totally different character. The milkshake line—I think everyone cocked their head and laughed when they read it, like, ‘What?’ Daniel is an amazing actor, and has a bit of a crazy process, and he just completely glommed on to that moment. He’s got to ramp up the energy and his anger and his character’s desperation, up to the point where he can kill Paul Dano’s character. I wanted the scene to be very surprising and just grip you by the throat. It’s a ludicrous ending. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s unexpected. But for that kind of movie, it’s the right ending. Anything less spectacular would be a bit of a letdown.” —As told to Hillary Busis

“I was there maybe an hour and a half, because I think at that time, I had my own mustache and goatee. Having been a comic-book fan my whole life, and knowing who Nick Fury was and the history of it, to go into a comic-book store and see myself on a comic book was like, ‘Wait a minute. This is awesome.’ And if that had been what it was, that would have been fine. But actually, it bred a real presence beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s been a real joy to be able to hang out with all of these superheroes and find out who they are, find out how Nick Fury fits in their world, without having a particular superpower—other than being very persuasive. It’s pure joy. Doing Iron Man was the initial step for me to [get to] a space of, ‘O.K., how do I want to present him? Is he cool? Is he rough? Is he harsh? Is he humane?’ Finding that sweet spot that’s going to make people care about how he is, and want him to be a part of that universe.” —As told to Julie Miller

“I told Chris the music was too loud—you couldn’t hear the lines. He said, ‘I wrote them. I can do what I want.’ He was right; people do remember the lines. He could have done 200 different cop-out endings, but he put that ending on. It’s hard to pull off a satisfying ending, if you’re that ambiguous. One second longer, or one sentence or note different, and it would have been a different movie. When Heath Ledger was cast, there was an outcry from an audience, forgetting that it’s not for us to ask what they want to see—it’s for us to make something they can’t even imagine. It’s a Batman movie, but not what you imagine a Batman movie to be. And it surprised everyone. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” —As told to Joanna Robinson

“We all knew that Rob and Kristen were more indie spirits in a way, because [of] the way they dressed, what they read, what music they listened to, what movies they liked. They weren’t just super-big, popular-movie type people. I guess the fact that they did not know this was going to be this big, crazy, mainstream juggernaut—they knew me a little bit from Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown. They knew I would have that sensibility. If Twilight was known to be a blockbuster, it wouldn’t be a female director. I think they trusted me, exploring this first love, but nobody thought it would turn into this crazy-worldwide-blockbuster insanity. The good thing is that it gave them enough worldwide cred and clout that they could green-light all these super-interesting films later in their careers. I think it’s an amazing ripple effect.” —As told to Katey Rich

“I remember Adam Fogelson, who was running the studio at the time, and Donna Langley, they were really kind of excited about going bigger and bigger. Their mantra was you guys don’t have capes, but we’re the proletariat superheroes. We need to start delivering that. The foundation of the family and brotherhood are so strong, now what we have to do is focus on the spectacle and kind of one-upping each film in terms of the spectacle and wish fulfillment and enjoyment of watching the scenes. I remember when we were in the favelas in Rio, the police were saying, ‘You guys are safer than the police.’ Everyone would open up their doors and they would offer whatever they had. We were for the people, we were representing the people. We were saying despite where you come from you can be empowered, you can be effective, you can have your own code and you can be honorable. That’s something I remember like yesterday.” —As told to Katey Rich

“I always had this concept of the place that you’re falling toward when you’re going to sleep, and you get that falling sensation and catch yourself. And if you didn’t catch yourself, where would you end up? I had this hellish image, and I thought of this idea of, ‘What if you were in a place, and you could look through your own eyes as if they were literal windows or a screen, and see what your body was seeing, but feel like a prisoner in your own mind—the chamber of your mind?’ The moment I thought of that, it immediately occurred to me the theme of abduction and connection to the prison industrial complex that this movie was sort of presenting a metaphor for. It was a very emotional discovery. I remember having so much fun writing it, but at that moment when I figured out this weird, esoteric, but also emotionally brutal form of suffering to put the character through—I literally cried writing the scene.” —As told to Julie Miller