100 Great Movie Moments

by Roger Ebert


Part 1
To honor the centennial of cinema, film critic Roger Ebert posted a list of his "100 Great Movie Moments" on his website, dated April 23, 1995. Filmsite.org notified Ebert of some corrections to the list, reposted the corrected list and also added illustrations for each of the "movie moments"

100 Great Movie Moments (unranked)
(Links are to "Greatest Films" reviews)
Description of Moment
Screenshot

1. Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind": "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

2. Buster Keaton standing perfectly still while the wall of a house falls over upon him; he is saved by standing exactly in the location of an open window, in "Steamboat Bill, Jr."


3. Charlie Chaplin being recognized by the blind girl in "City Lights."

4. The computer Hal 9000 reading lips, in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

5. The singing of "La Marseillaise" in "Casablanca."

6. Snow White kissing Bashful & Dopey on the head in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."


7. John Wayne putting the reins in his mouth in "True Grit" and galloping across the mountain meadow, weapons in both hands.

8. Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo," approaching Kim Novak across the room, realizing she embodies all of his obsessions - better than he knows.

9. The early film experiment [by Eadweard Muybridge] proving that horses do sometimes have all four hoofs off the ground.

10. Gene Kelly singin' in the rain in "Singin' in the Rain."

11. Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta discuss what they call Quarter Pounders in France, in "Pulp Fiction."


12. The Man in the Moon getting a cannon shell in his eye, in the Georges Melies film "A Voyage to the Moon."

13. Pauline (Pearl White) in peril, tied to the railroad tracks, from the 1914 serial, "The Perils of Pauline."

LOST EPISODE

14. A boy running joyously to greet his returning father, in "Sounder."

15. Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face in "Safety Last."

16. Orson Welles smiling enigmatically in the doorway in "The Third Man."

17. An angel looking down sadly over Berlin, in Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire."

18. The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination: Over and over again, a moment frozen in time.

19. A homesick North African (Moroccan) man named Ali, sadly telling a barmaid Barbara (posing in a doorway) that what he really wants is not sex but couscous, in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul."

20. The Road Runner, suspended in air.
To Part 2
Greatest Film Moments and Scenes (by Filmsite)
Greatest Moments and Film Scenes Mini-Quiz (by Filmsite)
What is a 'Great Film Scene' or 'Great Film Moment'? (by Filmsite)
Tribute to 100 Greatest Classic Scenes and Moments (by Filmsite)


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