This is the first Star Wars movie where Harrison Ford is credited first. Composer John Williams received his 50th Academy Award nomination for this film. The flags at Maz Kanata’s castle feature references to several Star Wars villains, including Boba Fett and Hondo Ohnaka.
One of the most appealing things about Disney’s new line of Star Wars sequels was the prospect of seeing old favorites like Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker again. From the moment Episode VII was announced, fans speculated how life treated these icons in the years after Return of the Jedi and how much, if at all, the new films would follow the example of the Expanded Universe.
As it turned out, though, The Force Awakens only offered a brief, tantalizing glimpse of aged Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. The film closed with Rey making a steep climb and presenting a silent Luke with his long-lost lightsaber. It was a very unusual, even somber note for a Star Wars movie to end on. But it was also an ending that started a whole new round of speculation. This moment has only taken on new layers
thanks to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which followed up on Luke and Rey’s first encounter in a most unexpected manner.
Star Keanu Reeves lost 15 pounds in order to film the scene where Neo is freed from his Matrix pod. Neo hides his illegal computer discs in a copy of Simulacra and Simulation, which was required reading for all actors in the film. Both Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson were considered for the part of Morpheus.
After years of explosion-heavy special effects, die-hard action fans were getting weary. And while slo-mo was nothing new, the way in which the Wachowski Brothers and choreographer Yuen Wo Ping utilised it for their philosophy-flirting sci-fi sparked an SFX revolution and placed the franchise on the movie map for good.
After a brief lesson in Reality 101, cybermessiah Neo (Keanu Reeves) becomes aware that the world he inhabits is nothing more than an elaborate computer program - and one that can be exploited. With the rules of physics up for grabs, Neo and his rebellious group ricochet from one amazing action sequence to the next, but it was the culmination of a spectacularly freewheeling lobby attack that helped jaws hit the floor.
Perfectly paced, brilliantly timed and
seamlessly executed, the rooftop gunfight blended the very best of Eastern and Western cinema to fan-pleasing effect and created stunt standards (such as the midair freeze and rotating camera) that continue to be aped to this day.
Christopher Lee is the only member of the cast to ever actually have met author J.R.R. Tolkien. The combined filming time for all three Lord of the Rings movies clocked in at 274 days. Viggo Mortensen was cast as Aragorn four days into production, replacing actor StuartTownsend.
RELEASED: 2001
While Ian McKellen brought his usual Shakespearean gravitas to the role of Gandalf in the first part of Tolkien’s fantastical literary adaptation, it took one grandiose moment to transform him from everyone’s friendly neighbourhood wizard to badass destroyer of worlds.
The odd scuffle aside, the travelling band of Hobbits had emerged relatively unscathed from the first leg of their epic mission to Mordor. So by the time they made it to the Bridge of Khazad-dum, the arrival of an ancient skyscraper-sized demon of fire and shadow known as the Balrog was more than a little imposing.
Gandalf defends a crumbling subterranean bridge, (sort of) dying to allow the others to escape, uttering four words with enough conviction, power and majesty to match the moment’s breath-taking
visuals in a scene as incredible as Tolkien’s imagination deserved.
Patrick Swayze regularly chewed ice cubes during filming so that he wouldn’t give off any visible breath. Ghost was the highest-grossing movie of 1990, proving that romantic comedies can be big money-makers. Bruce Willis was offered the role of Sam but turned it down, fearing it would be too difficult to play a ghost for an entire movie.
Who knew throwing a pot could be so sexy and iconic? Frequently voted the most romantic moment of all-time, the pottery wheel scene in Ghost has been parodied so many times that it’s easy to forget the power of the original moment itself. The scene effectively conveys the intimacy between Sam (Patrick Swayze) and Molly (Demi Moore), making his murder all the more painful and heartbreaking.
It’s now difficult to imagine anyone else in the role of Sam, though apparently everyone from Tom Hanks to Kevin Bacon were considered for the part. But it’s the rare chemistry between the impossibly-toned Swayze and the likeable Moore that really sells the scene. However, arguably the most memorable aspect of the moment is the inspired use of Unchained Melody by The
Righteous Brothers. Such was the popularity of this scene, the song reappeared on the Billboard charts and hit #1 in the UK.
In the novella, Red is an Irishman, and Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman were considered for the role. The film was deemed a box office failure but eventually became one of the highest grossing home video releases of all time. Tom Hanks was originally offered the role of Andy Dufresne, but had to turn it down to focus on Forrest Gump.
When the wrongfully-imprisoned Andy Dufresne emerges, sodden with excrement, from Shawshank penitentiary, you can’t help but jubilantly share his liberation.
The Shawshank Redemption is a great but long film, and during its 142 minutes, Andy endures a lot - vicious beatings, a brutal rape, the promise of an acquittal being cruelly snatched away from him - so when he finally emerges, showered in rain and illumined by lightning, it’s an ecstatic rebirth.
Apparently actor Tim Robbins originally refused to be immersed in the muddy water at the end of the pipe, after a chemist tested the water and described it as ‘lethal’. But thankfully for the scene and our list, the actor tightly shut his mouth and dived into the toxic creek.
In the novella, Red is an Irishman, and Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman were considered for the role. The film was deemed a box office failure but eventually became one of the highest grossing home video releases of all time. Tom Hanks was originally offered the role of Andy Dufresne, but had to turn it down to focus on Forrest Gump.
There were more than a few sceptics when Heath Ledger was cast as The Joker in The Dark Knight. The guy from A Knight’s Tale? Really? But The Joker’s ever-changing anecdote about how he received his facial scars - culminating in the terrifying inquiry ‘Why so serious?’ - was enough to convince everyone that Ledger had not only successfully brought The Joker to life but in doing so had created the definitive screen version of the character.
It’s all in Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance: the erratic tenor of his voiceviolently fluctuating between a shrill giggle and a psychotic growl - and the disgusting way in which he slobbers onto his rouged lips. In this scene, the unhinged raconteur sticks a knife into the mouth of one of Gotham’s meanest gangsters and executes him with glee, asserting his dominance as the preeminent criminal force within Gotham, and more than a formidable opponent for Christian Bale’s Batman.
Rod Taylor revealed that the seagulls were fed a concoction of wheat and whiskey in order to compel them to stand still in the frame. According to Alfred Hitchcock, roughly 3200 birds were used during shooting. Actress Tippi Hedren appears in The Birds II: Land’s End, but as a different character named Helen.
Melanie (Tippi Hedren) sits down for a smoke on a bench outside a school. Unbeknownst to her, birds start to land on a climbing frame behind her. One bird lands, and begins to hop from bar to bar. Next time we cut back, there’s four. Five. Eight. Eventually there is a legion of birds. To create an armada of birds a variety of effects were used. In some scenes Hitchcock used real footage of birds, while in others, he used trained birds and more than a few obedient papier-maché crows.
The scene is made even more unnerving by the absence of music. Hitchcock’s long-time collaborator Bernard Herrmann served as ‘sound consultant’ to the film, but there is no screeching orchestral score to punctuate the reveal. Instead, it’s simply accompanied by the sound of school children singing.
Future movie stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are among the thousands of extras included in the Fenway Park scene. Actor Ray Liotta batted right-handed and threw left-handed in the film, the opposite of the real Shoeless Joe Jackson. The grass sod used for the baseball field died in the summer heat, forcing the crew to regularly paint it green.
If ever a movie moment was crafted to make a man cry, it’s the game of catch at the end of Field of Dreams. Based on the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, the film tells the tale of Ray Kinsella, an all-American good guy working an Iowan farm with his young family. One night he hears a voice whispering “If you build it, he will come” and so logically Ray builds a baseball diamond and awaits the arrival of seven of the 1919 Black Sox.
But Field of Dreams isn’t a film about disgraced baseball players getting another opportunity to play ball, nor is it one about a madman destroying his farming livelihood for the sake of the voices in his head. Rather, it’s a film about a son getting to play catch with his long-dead father one last time, the film’s finale turning the toughest lumps of testosterone into whimpering wrecks.
Editor Margaret Sixel won the Academy Award for Best Editing despite never having edited an action movie before. Immortan Joe actor Hugh Keays-Byrne previously played a villain in the original Mad Max. Plans for the film first began in 2003, and at the time George Miller intended for Mel Gibson to reprise the role of Max again.
Fans might not have realized it coming into the movie, but Mad Max: Fury Road is really the story of Imperator Furiosa, not Max Rockatansky. Charlize Theron’s rugged heroione is the beating heart and soul of the film, while Max is basically just along for the ride.
With that in mind, the true emotional climax of the film comes as Furiosa, Max and their companions finally arrive at what they think will be an idyllic paradise, untouched by the postapocalyptic hell that’s consumed the rest of the planet. Instead, Furiosa discovers that there is no “Green Place,” and that she risked life and (remaining) limb on a fool’s errand.
Given everything Furiosa and her comrades had suffered up to that point, the viewer can’t help but feel for the character as she falls to her knees and lets out a dramatic scream. Sometimes life just isn’t fair, especially in a future wasteland.
The iconic movie poster and final scene featuring Elias is based on an actual wartime photograph taken by Art Greenspon. Oliver Stone wrote the original draft in 1971 with the hope that The Doors frontman Jim Morrison would star. Stone became the first Vietnam veteran to direct a major motion picture about the Vietnam War.
Inspired by the director’s own tour of duty in Vietnam, Oliver Stone’s 1986 war classic brings the barbaric nature of the guerilla conflict - and its morality-skewing mental effect on the American soldiers - to life in unsettling, disturbing style, including one death scene that’s visually and contextually iconic.
Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) had been one of the few good men in the battalion, defending Taylor (Charlie Sheen) when he’s being bulled, and clobbering Sergeant Barnes for his immoral approach to Vietnamese interrogation. As their rivalry escalates, Barnes secretly guns him down in cold blood before callously walking away and declaring him dead.
As the platoon helicopters out, they turn to see a sole, lonely figure running into the
clearing, flanked by countless Vietcong soldiers. In a scene that tragically echoes a legendary military photograph, and to the heartbreaking score of Adagio for Strings, Elias falls, forsaken for both an internal and external conflict that’s futile at every turn.