21: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly - The cemetery gunfight
(Sergio Leone, It, 1966)
According to screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni, his instructions for the climactic scene didn't go much beyond 'the three meet in the cemetery, one shoots first...' Which makes sense: there's hardly any dialogue, understandable for a film where the director didn't speak the same language as his stars. But what Leone could do was take the Western showdown to a point of delirious excess. The film ends with the gunmen - Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach - standing in the middle of a vast cemetery. Leone focuses in turn on their guns, then their faces, then their hands, editing faster the whole time, before closing in on the chillingly cold eyes of Van Cleef and Eastwood and then - finally - Eastwood shoots Van Cleef, who topples into an open grave. Ennio Morricone had already written his incredible, fantastically exciting score for the film, and the ending was shot -some claim- and edited -certainly- to the music, rather than the music having to fit an existing film. Most of the people who worked with Leone said he was an unpleasant and hugely shallow man. But with a camera and an editing suite, he was among the best.
22: The Shawshank Redemption - The escape hole is discovered
(Frank Darabont, US, 1994)
Feelgood movies arrive in all shapes and sizes, but arguably no other movie in the Nineties inspired as much affection and critical acclaim as The Shawshank Redemption. In a decade defined by cinema's increasing ability to dazzle using effects, this prison-set parable arrived as a welcome throwback. As director Darabont explains, "It says something positive about human nature". The friendship between urbane, wrongly convicted Tim Robbins and worldly wise Morgan Freeman provides the film's most touching moments. But when it comes to memorable moments, few things can match a good old-fashioned jailbreak. When Robbins seemingly vanishes from his cell overnight, prison guards and audience alike are confused. The answer lies behind the poster of Raquel Welch. Over several decades, Robbins has painstakingly carved out his escape route using a small rock hammer.
23: Alien - The birth of the alien
(Ridley Scott, UK/US, 1970)
Sometime in the dirty, distant future, the spacecraft Nostromo is making its way back to Earth after visiting an apparently dead planet. Crew member Kane (John Hurt) is the only casualty, having inspected one of a legion of egg-shaped vessels and been rathergraphically assaulted by its contents - a skeletal, fist-like creature that attached itself to his face and throat. Mysteriously, the creature seems to have died and removed itself and Kane is apparently fit and well, sitting at the dinner table with the others. With his first forkful he starts retching and suddenly he's on his back. Seconds later, a tiny, eel-like alien erupts from his stomach, spattering the appalled crew with blood. But although folklore now insists that director Ridley Scott didn't tell his cast what was going to happen, this isn't strictly true. "The rest of the cast knew the scene was about the birth of the alien," according to Hurt, "but they didn't know exactly what was going to happen."
Or as Scott put it: "If an actor's just acting terrified you don't get that genuine look of raw animal fear. What I wanted was a hardcore reaction, and I thought it best to give the actors an edge by not familiarising them with what was going to happen."
24: Dirty Harry - 'Do you feel lucky punk?'
(Don Siegel, US, 1971)
'Dirty' Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) appears at the scene of a foiled bank robbery. Casually eating a hot dog, he takes out his gun and blows away the scattering felons until only one remains. He grunts, 'Uh-huh. I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being as this is the .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and could blow your head clean off, you have to ask yourself one question, "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do you, punk?'
This classic scene is repeated at the end of the movie, when Callahan, now at the end of his tether, corners Scorpio, a serial killer who has been terrorising San Francisco, in a quarry in Marin County. This time, however, there is one crucial difference. Through gritted teeth, Callahan repeats his speech - although this time he assures Scorpio that the .44 Magnum will blow his head clean off. This scene marked Eastwood's transition from mythic spaghetti western hero to gritty urban tough guy.
View from the stalls
"'This is a Magnum.44, the most powerful handgun in the world? so, are you feeling lucky punk?' - a speech that every man would have loved to deliver, though some would deny it." Adrian Hewitt, Devon
25: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Chief Bromden escapes
(Milos Forman, US, 1975)
"One critic said that he never believed that such a good film could be made out of such a bad book. Another said that he never believed that such a bad film could be made out of such a good book." So said Milos Forman. It took 13 years for Ken Kesey's 1962 novel to make it to the big screen. The book had been immediately optioned by Kirk Douglas, who later passed on the rights to his son Michael after failing to make the film. Douglas Jr managed to interest Jack Nicholson and raise the $3m budget. Filming took place at the Oregon State Hospital. Many psychiatric inmates actually appeared in the film since its director Dr Dean R. Brooks thought the experience would prove therapeutic. To help his actors the Czech-born director picked a "model patient for every character in the movie and told each actor to track his model, to watch how he walked, talked, moved."
Before shooting began Forman had lived in the nurses' quarters for three weeks enjoying unlimited access to every ward. After hiring Jack Nicholson as rebellious McMurphy, Forman took meticulous care with the lesser parts, auditioning 900 actors for the other inmates. Will Sampson played Chief Bromden in his first screen role, the result of Forman's tireless search for a giant American Indian actor. Sampson's undoubted career highlight occurred when he picked up a previously immovable water fountain, using it to smash a window and flee. Earlier he had suffocated hopelessly lobotomised McMurphy.
The director originally intended the Chief's symbolic escape to be the film's final scene, before deciding it was too ambiguous after viewing a rough cut. He asked for more money and shot two extra days showing the inmates awakening to the consequences of the Chief's action. That wasn't the only breakout during filming. After a crew member left a window open, a patient jumped out backwards, falling three floors and fracturing his shoulder. The local paper's headline ran: One Flew Out Of The Cuckoo's Nest.
26: Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Indiana shoots the swordsman
(Steven Spielberg, US, 1981)
In a sweltering bazaar, American archaeologist Indiana Jones is making his getaway from the Nazi-paid henchmen trying to stop him in his quest to find the lost Ark of the Covenant. An enormous, turbaned assassin steps up to confront him, giving an awesome display of swordplay as he flashes a huge scimitar with grim dexterity. Indiana's face goes through four seasons of expression: surprise, realisation, terror, panic - and then suddenly he remembers the gun in his pocket. Pulling it out, he calmly shoots his enemy dead and hurries on his way.
According to lore, the scene itself was just as pragmatic. Rather than take on a lot of difficult choreography and face a whole raft of retakes in the blistering sun, Ford asked if he couldn't just shoot the guy. The crew laughed and, fortunately for Ford, so did Spielberg, who immediately amended the script. Interestingly, Spielberg never thought the film would amount to anything more than a B-movie when he first came up with the idea during a Hawaiian holiday with his friend George Lucas, who was trying to avoid publicity after the surprise success of Star Wars. As a measure of how serious they were, the hero was named after Lucas's dog.
"I didn't see it as anything more than a better-made version of the Republic serials [of the Forties]," is Spielberg's line.
27: The Full Monty - The dole queue dance
(Peter Cattaneo, UK, 1997)
The events in The Full Monty might be a bit improbable, but no more unlikely than the events transforming a tired idea for a TV drama into the (then) biggest British film ever.
There are plenty of reasons why it rose above its origins - and has never been matched by its dismal imitators - but start with the acting and a script that stresses the men's desperation as much as the knock-about comedy. And then there are the small moments of genius, like the dole queue scene. It's surprisingly short: Dave (Mark Addy), Lomper (Steve Huison), Guy (Hugo Speer), Horse (Paul Barber) and Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) are all standing in one line; Gaz (Robert Carlyle) is in another. Donna Summer's 'Hot Stuff' comes on the radio, and Gaz starts nodding his head. Then Guy and Lomper start coyly moving to the beat. Horse and Dave are dancing more obviously, Then a space opens up in front of Gerald, and he tries a spin, before realising what he's done and bowing his head. The others look sheepish, but Gaz is grinning broadly.
And that's it: Cattaneo resisted the urge to stretch the scene, or have the DSS staff join in, or anything that would make it cheaper. And even the choice of music has a poignancy, according to Mark Addy. "The reason Peter Cattaneo chose to use Seventies disco is because he wanted it to be the kind of music the characters were listening to when they were growing up, when they had prospects. You were maybe doing an apprenticeship or whatever when Donna Summer was playing. It's stuff that's from a better time."
28: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid - The final, doomed shootout
(George Roy Hill, US, 1969)
"Endings, frankly, are a bitch," concluded legendary screenwriter William Goldman, but at least once he got it exactly right. Having annoyed the US authorities a little too much with their impudent bank robbing, Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) have run off to Bolivia. Even the rare studio executives who liked Goldman's whimsical script didn't see why the outlaws couldn't make their final stand in the USA. Goldman's argument - that they should end up in Bolivia because that's what had happened in real life - didn't go down well, but he stood his ground. So Butch and Sundance are spotted in a tiny Bolivian village and start a gunfight with the local police. Bleeding, sweating and still bickering, they hide out waiting for a chance to break out.
Butch: I got a great idea where we should go next.
Sundance: I don't want to hear it.
Butch: You'll change your mind when I tell ya.
Sundance: Shut up.
While they argue about going to Australia, a whole battalion of Bolivian troops has arrived. We watch hundreds of men take up firing positions all over the little town.
Butch: Wait a minute - you didn't see LaForce out there, did you?
Sundance: LaForce? No, why?
Butch: Thank God for that. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.
They run out into the square, guns blazing. The picture freezes, and slowly fades back to the sepia tones the film starts with. Unlike their cinematic contemporaries Bonnie and Clyde, we never see them riddled with bullets. Instead we get both a truthful, doomed ending - and are left a heroic poster shot.
No doubt Ridley Scott kept it in mind when making Thelma And Louise.
View from the stalls
"It's one of those rare occasions where Hollywood allows itself to put a downbeat ending on a buddy movie. But it works because it's the right ending and because it looks as classy as hell." Andrew Clarke , London
29: North By Northwest - The crop-dusting plane
(Alfred Hitchcock, US, 1959)
You can do things differently if you're Hitchcock. When the great director sat down to create what would eventually become North By Northwest with screenwriter Ernest Lehman, he had no idea what would emerge. They had neither plot nor character in mind. "We'll talk about it and we'll come up with something," he confidently told Lehman. Luckily Hitchcock was inspired by an idea given to him by a journalist at a cocktail party: a secret government agency creates a non-existent decoy to throw its enemies off the scent. Within that framework, he wanted to play around with striking locations (Mount Rushmore) and different ways to menace his hapless protagonist. When Grant is attacked by the low-flying plane, after being lured to a desolate prairie crossing, it's the third attempt on his life - but the most vicious. The urbane urbanite is completely out of his depth, vulnerable to foes almost comical in their ingenuity and frightening power. A classic Hitchcock moment.
30: Seven - What's in the box?
(David Fincher, US, 1995)
Detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) have finally apprehended the killer responsible for some of the sickest crimes ever, all committed in disgust at the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, pride, sloth and lust. But the mysterious John Doe (Kevin Spacey) has a surprise for them - there are two more bodies, supposedly out in the marshland, and they head out to find them.
Mills: Where we headed?
John Doe: You'll see.
Mills: We're not just going to pick up two more bodies, are we, Johnny? That wouldn't be? shocking enough. Wouldn't keep you on the front page of the newspapers.
Doe: Wanting people to pay attention, you can't just tap them on the shoulder. You have to hit them in the head with a sledgehammer. Then, you have their strict attention.
Mills: What makes you so special that people should pay attention?
Doe: Not me. I'm not special. I'm not exceptional. This is, though - what I'm doing.
Mills: I hate to burst your bubble, but other than the fact that you're especially sadistic, there's nothing unusual about these precious murders of yours.
Doe: You know that's not true.
Mills: In two months, no one's going to even remember this happened.
Doe: You can't see the whole? the whole complete act yet. Not yet. But, when this is done, it's going to be?so?so?
Mills: Spit it out.
Doe: It's going to be flawless. People will barely be able to comprehend it. It will seem almost surreal?but it will have a tangible reality, so they won't be able to deny it. I can't wait for you to see. I can't wait?It's really going to be something.
Mills: Well, I'll be standing beside you the whole time, so you be sure to let me know when this whole, complete reality thing is done. Wouldn't want to miss it.
Doe: Oh, don't worry. You won't?
Minutes later, a courier appears with a gruesome special delivery. Doe finally checks off envy and wrath.
View from the stalls
"My third visit to a screening of this startling movie was motivated by the prospect of seeing again the dramatic effect this moment can have on an already rattled audience. Glorious stuff!" Alan Crump, Middlesex