61: Thelma And Louise - Drive over the cliff edge
(Ridley Scott, US, 1991)
Thelma: OK, then listen, let's not get caught.
Louise: What're you talking about?
Thelma: Let's keep going.
Louise: What do you mean?
Thelma: Go.
Louise: You sure?
Thelma: Yeah, yeah. Let's.
And they went, holding hands in a final act of defiance. For their troubles they made the cover of Time magazine, were spoofed on The Simpsons and paid homage to in a series of car adverts. Described by critics at the time as a feminist manifesto for the Nineties, Ridley Scott's film was an outlaws-on-the-run movie which carried extra resonance. The gun-toting fugitives, played by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, broke the rules for Hollywood screen heroines. Of course, this was a serious movie so they couldn't escape their fate. Instead of prison, the gal pals chose freedom. They drove off the cliff, the image froze, the screen turning white. Recalls Davis: "It was the last day of shooting, and the sun was going down. We looked at each other, and it was just so weighted for so many reasons. I mean, we were getting ready to kill ourselves as our characters, and we've had this incredible, fun relationship as humans, and this was us saying goodbye to this experience and stuff."
62: Trainspotting - Renton goes cold turkey
(Danny Boyle, UK, 1996)
In preparation for his career-defining role as funky junkie Renton, Ewan McGregor hung out with heroin addicts in Luxembourg (where he was shooting The Pillow Book).
"I got some of my look from them," he says. "And some physical ideas."
He opted against trying heroin - so, method acting it may not technically be, but McGregor's performance during his pivotal cold turkey scene is a tour de force of the most uncomfortable kind. To a pounding techno beat ('Dark And Long' by Underworld) and in a caricature of his bedroom with teenage boy's steam-engine wallpaper and Hibernian paraphernalia on the walls, Renton suffers the sweats, hallucinations and terror that go hand in hand with coming off heroin. Director Boyle pulls out all the visual stops, shooting from under the sheets, intercutting with an imagined game show in which Dale Winton asks Aids-related questions to Mr and Mrs Renton, and theatrically introducing other characters as ghosts in Renton's nightmare, including Diane (Kelly McDonald) singing New Order's 'Temptation'.
The climax to the ordeal is a hallucinated baby crawling along the ceiling - a rather obvious mechanical model, but no less unnerving - whose swollen, lifeless face turns around, Exorcist-style, before dropping on to a screaming Renton. Phew. No wonder National Heritage Secretary Virginia Bottomley declared that Trainspotting "leaves you in no doubt about the ravages of drug addiction".
63: Witness - Dance in the farm barn
(Peter Weir, US, 1985)
Astaire and Rogers didn't make the list but Ford and McGillis did. The awkward shuffle they do to Greg Chapman's version of 'What A Wonderful World' hardly merits a mention for its choreography. The setting is everything. The illicit attraction between the big city cop and rural Amish widow forms the emotional heart of the romantic thriller. In fact, the scene nearly didn't make it. A late addition to the project, Weir rewrote the script, stripping out much of its melodrama in his draft, including this particular scene. Instead, the noted Australian art-house director (Picnic At Hanging Rock) wanted to concentrate on the culture clash between Ford and the Amish. "Obviously the Amish element and the contrast between the two worlds was what interested me in the script," says Weir. It took his veteran producer Edward S. Feldman to convince him otherwise. "He kept saying 'remember the audience' and 'remember it's a thriller'." So, the Ford-McGillis relationship once again formed the crux of the film, andWeir reinstated the barn scene, though removing much of the original dialogue in favour of nuances and glances.
64: Manhattan - The opening sequence
(Woody Allen, US, 1979)
To the sound of George Gershwin and a montage of New York scenes, aspiring novelist Woody Allen narrates the beginning of his great novel about the city:
'Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion - er, no, make that: he - he romanticised it all out of proportion. Yes. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin. - Er, tsch, no.
Chapter One. He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles. - No, no, corny, too corny for a man of my taste. Can we?can we try and make it more profound?
Chapter One. He adored New York City. To him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out...No, that's a little bit too preachy. I mean, you know, let's face it, I want to sell some books here.
Chapter One. He adored New York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music?Too angry. I don't want to be angry.
Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. - I love this. - New York was his town, and it always would be.'
65: Manon Des Sources - César discovers he has a child
(Claude Berri, France, 1986)
The second half of the adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's L'Eau des Collines, Manon des Sources was filmed back to back with Jean de Florette. The two were unlikely international hits. Florette had greater critical acclaim, providing an eager audience for the sequel. Manon, which took up the action 10 years later, can lay claim to the most emotional scene. In the first film, two farmers, César (Yves Montand) and Ugolin (Daniel Autueil), conspire to drive a hunchbacked newcomer (Gérard Dépardieu) from his land, and he kills himself in a freak accident. In Manon, his daughter (Emmanuelle Béart) emerges to wreak revenge. The second tragedy is a result of the novel's fatalism. After many years, bachelor César's lost love visits him, telling him for the first time about the child he fathered. Most moviegoers had probably guessed the awful twist during her monologue. Their son had a hunchback. César had effectively killed his own offspring. His comeuppance is a literary conceit and lacks a measure of conviction on screen, but César's anguish is still terrible to behold.
66: Once Upon A Time In The West - The mystery man's flashback
(Sergio Leone, Italy, 1968)
Leone was already successful through the Man With No Name trilogy of Italian horse operas, A Fistful Of Dollars (1964), For A Few Dollars More (1965). Here, Leone wanted to work with legendary western good guy Henry Fonda, take his snow-white screen image and turn it right round, casting him as a sadistic, immoral killer. Fonda's piercing blue eyes add a chilling edge to his character as a hired heavy, known as 'The Man', who is trying to force a widow off her land so it can be handed over to unscrupulous railroad developers.
A mysterious drifter (Charles Bronson) is going all out to stop him, which puzzles The Man, and at their final showdown he asks him bluntly, 'Who are you?' Bronson throws him a harmonica, a cue for a gruelling flashback in which The Man recalls the stranger as a young boy holding his older brother on his shoulders. The older boy has a noose round his neck, and if the younger boy slips, he will hang. The Man pushes a harmonica into the boy's mouth. 'Keep your lovin' brother happy,' he sneers, as Ennio Morricone's haunting score warns of the inevitable outcome.
67: Paris, Texas - The peepshow booth encounter
(Wim Wenders, WGer/Fr/UK, 1984)
The film that launched German Wim Wenders as a major English-language director was a cinephile's delight. In part it is a beautifully observed road movie, charting the emotional journey of an estranged father (Harry Dean Stanton) and son (Hunter Carson), stark landscape echoing state of mind. It is also a meditation on the absence of communication. Fittingly, the ironic location for climactic meeting between former lovers Stanton and Nastassja Kinski takes place at her workplace, a peepshow booth, which, it soon transpires, also acts as a confessional booth. They talk over the phone, separated by a window, unable to see or touch each other. The glass separating them is symbolic, but on its surface their superimposed faces connect. One of the longest 'moments' on the list, the growing recognition on Kinski's face as she hears her husband's voice, stands out. The film's central mystery, the history of their relationship, is revealed. So compelling is the dialogue, scenes run for minutes without a cut.
68: Play It Again Sam - Woody and the Oscar Peterson album
(Herbert Ross, US, 1972)
When Play It Again Sam, the original stage play, opened on Broadway in 1969, someone calculated that its three acts contained an amazing 155 laughs. Much of the play transferred straight to the screen, and many of its laughs still came from an early scene in which nerdy film journalist Allan Felix (Allen) attempts to impress a date, Sharon (Jennifer Salt), in his untidy Bogart-shrine apartment.
Having draped impressive artefacts around the place in preparation (opened books, a Bartok album sleeve, his 100-yard dash medal) and convinced himself of his 'tremendous poise', he falls to pieces on Sharon's arrival, entangling himself in his jacket and being unable to form words.
The killer pratfall comes when he removes an Oscar Peterson record from the turntable and puts it back in its sleeve. While talking, he gesticulates and the disc comes flying out of the sleeve, crashing off-camera. Attempting a recovery, Allen casts the sleeve in the other direction, causing further damage, and leans stylishly on the back of an armchair - which tips up, sending a coffee table's contents flying. He ends up in a heap on the floor.
Allen transferred his stand-up persona to the big screen in the Buster Keaton-influenced Take The Money And Run. And Sam helped to patent the clumsy, nebbish persona that became Allen's hallmark. The Oscar Peterson sleeve sight-gag may have been the turning point.
69: The Graduate - Sitting at the back of the bus
(Mike Nichols, US, 1967)
'This is Benjamin. He is a little worried about his future'.
That's the tagline which introduced the world to The Graduate, the iconoclastic Hollywood movie of the Sixties. Mike Nichols' film exposed a generation apparently uneasy with their parent's attitudes and lifestyle. The plot - a feted recent graduate embarks on a passionate affair with an older woman - was only half the story. To the melodies of Simon and Garfunkel's wistful soundtrack, Nichols showed there was something wrong in affluent southern California. The Graduate was also an example of more relaxed attitudes towards sex on screen. 'Mrs Robinson, you're trying to seduce me!' Hoffman spluttered. Elsewhere, he was depicted framed inside middle-aged seductress Anne Bancroft's stockinged leg. Nichols agonised about how to end the film after Hoffman has disrupted Ross's wedding shortly after she said 'I do'. As they escape angry guests on the back of a bus, the camera lingers on Hoffman's face for an unnaturally long time, signifying relief then apprehension about his uncertain future.
70: The Princess Bride - The clifftop duel
(Rob Reiner, US, 1987)
This novel and screenplay by veteran Hollywood hack William Goldman, is a loving spoof of the chivalrous adventure. Its most appealing character is Spanish adventurer Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), who has joined up with Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) to kidnap reluctant royal bride Buttercup (Robin Wright). They are being chased by the mysterious Man In Black (Cary Elwes). Montoya confronts him, sportingly using his weaker left hand. They start a duel, chatting as they go.
Montoya: You are wonderful!
Man In Black: Thank you. I've worked hard to become so.
Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man In Black: Then why are you smiling?
Montoya: Because I know something you don't know.
Man In Black: And what is that?
Montoya: I? am not left-handed!
He flips his sword to his right hand and drives the Man In Black back.
Man In Black: You are amazing!
Montoya: I ought to be, after 20 years.
(His opponent leans on a wall for support.)
Man In Black: Oh, there's something I ought to tell you.
Montoya: Tell me.
Man In Black: I'm not left-handed either.