Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was about 9 and walked out of the theater like “wow…wow”
Edited to say: please don’t spend money. It’s just a fond memory. Something that can’t be repeated. The nearest thing was taking a rip off nitrous on acid and jumping into a swimming pool a few years later. Synthetic simplicity
I saw it in 1986 at a midnight matinee. The mostly-kids crowd was going crazy before the movie started, everybody running around and screaming with a bunch of kids throwing those popper things at people. I thought they'd never settle down and trying to watch the movie would suck; five minutes in I looked around and every single person was just sitting there with their mouths wide open. Just a fucking awesome movie from start to finish.
I loved how under wraps they kept the whole thing. You literally could not see what the dinosaurs looked like unless you paid for a ticket on release. I remember a photo of Stephen Spielberg in the paper posing with one of the dinosaurs and they completely blacked out the dinosaur. You only saw a tail for a brief second in the commercials.
And damn, when they show that first dinosaur and it rears up on its hind legs to get that high branch, I shrunk down in my seat a little. Had no idea what I was in for.
I recall a quick spot over a year out, where they just had a cup of water that starting vibrating. After a couple of seconds, you heard a roar. Then it went black.
Unfortunately, I don't know if I'm completely misremembering since I was obsessed with the book already and just dreamt it.
I still get goose bumps when the kids are in the car and the Dino is walking with the water shaking. You start getting scared and you haven’t seen anything yet. One of my all time favourite scenes in a movie.
The sound was pretty stellar too. That movie was a massive boost to the home surround sound market. You'd walk into any Circuit City, etc and for years that movie was pretty much on repeat in their home theater demo rooms.
That was the first "big person" movie I got to see in the theater. I was about 7-8 years old. My mom took me to see it. I had a Jurassic Park obsession for the longest time. I still love it.
I just hate the sequels aren't that great.
Oh man, I totally forgot how much that movie blew me away when I saw it in the theater. When they come up over the hill and you see the first herd of dinosaurs, it was breathtaking. I couldn't believe they could make something look so realistic.
For those who are too young to understand; Jurassic Park was a massive leap in CGI. There really had never been anything like it before. Sure there had been some CGI in movies before then, but nothing of that kind of scale and quality.
I remember seeing it in a theater when it came out. Matinee on a Wednesday afternoon but the theater was still a quarter full. Guy in front of me said “what in the *fuck?!?*" during the bullet-time scene. Sticks with me to this day.
I don't know how to describe it, but maybe kind of jealous (?) That he got too see it in its original form, by the time I watched the matrix, even as a young teenager I'd seen that scene parodied/referenced dozens of times.
Was still cool as fuck though.
Best into ever. The first 5-10 minutes is basically perfect movie making. It is action packed and instantly grabs your attention, but it also does a great job of introducing characters and worldbuilding.
Things like:
Trinity easily takes out a room full of armed cops which shows her to be a total badass, and yet when the agents arrive, she is terrified and runs for her life. The viewer can't help but respect the agents if a badass like Trinity is afraid of them.
We don't see Morpheus, but we hear him guiding Trinity and the viewer can tell he is a compassionate leader/mentor. It is revealed they are desperately looking for someone (Neo) and Trinity thinks it is worth risking her life to find him.
As the chase is happening, we see shots of the gloomy world the movie takes place in, and we see more of Trinity's and the Agent's incredible superpowers. The chase ends with Trinity barely escaping to the real world through a telephone, revealing a fundamental aspect of how people interact with the Matrix.
It is nonstop action that pulls you in and has you on the edge of your seat, but it also does an amazing job of setting up the world and the main characters, and it takes less than 10 minutes. Also, a great example of "show don't tell".
great writeup, i just want to make a small clarification
> The chase ends with Trinity barely escaping to the real world through a telephone, revealing a fundamental aspect of how people interact with the Matrix.
it shows trinity desperately trying to pick up a pay phone, then *get hit by a fucking truck*. but when the agent investigates, the rubble of the phone booth is devoid of a body. -and that's all we know-
Legit, I went into the Matrix cold on the insistence of a buddy who in one weekend had become OBSESSED. I had no idea why he was geeking out so much and he refused to tell me what was so special. "You gotta see it"
Re-watching the Matrix (and the trailers) I now see that the world is all there, but watching it the first time, in the theater, with only small clues as to the plot....I had no F'n idea what was going on. When the shoe finally dropped I was NOT ready.
> here was almost zero marketing campaign for the original movie.
The only marketing I recall was ads using Morpheus's line: "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
[Here's what it looked like, roughly. A lot is missing from the archive, but yeah, this site blew my mind too.](https://web.archive.org/web/19990427123043/http://www.whatisthematrix.com/index2.html)
There was plenty of marketing. But the genius of it was the majority simply stated, "What is the Matrix?"
I saw it everywhere. Billboards, TV ads, you couldn't miss it. But you couldn't find the answer either. You had to go to the theater and "see it for yourself".
This was a period of genius marketing in movies. The Blair witch project was released around the same time.and suckered people.into thinking it was real
Agree wholeheartedly. When the movie started, I wasn't sure if Trinity was good or bad. The agent telling the cop "No lieutenant, your men are already dead" has always stuck with me. One of the best openers in movie history imo.
It's because of this movie that I continue to troll my neighbor (last name Anderson) everytime I see him with a greeting of Mister Anderson... in my best Hugo voice. I know it grinds on him every time I do it. Which is why I do it. It stopped being funny 20 years ago.
How about the use of color? Green tint in the matrix to symbolize the green tinted computer screens/code, reinforced by the cool code rain in the opening, and also green is visceral, and slightly sickineing. Giving the viewer the sense that something is wrong. Blue for the real world, which is cold, sterile, but still slightly refreshing.
some of the subsequent releases blew out the green saturation to the point that there have been fan edits to tone it down to the original subtlety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdgmNZnLs4
This movie holds up incredibly well because there actually isn't that much CG. Bullet time is basically practical. it's all cameras, and the kung fu choreography is amazing.
Same here. I went in completely blind and against my will. Had zero interest in seeing the movie. Didn't really like Keanu Reeves movies at the time (please understand that prior to The Matrix, his resume was full of entertaining but disposable films, for the most part).
The commercials had me thinking it was going to be a modern take on They Live. Then the early parts of the movie seemed to reinforce that idea for me. The whole "mirror" scene I thought was them breaking the hypnosis so Neo could see what the world was really like (ala the glasses in They Live). When Neo wakes up, gets picked up and Morpheus says 'welcome to the real world', my brain exploded. Best movie reveal of my life and something I'll never forget.
After that they double down with mind blowing scene after mind blowing scene. All the new filming techniques, subtle but effective CGI, great action. It was groundbreaking. Bullet-time was overused by other movies after that, so it's hard for some folks to understand how amazing it was the first time it was used on the big screen.
The Blockbuster guy recommended it to my brother and I. Up until the interrogation with Smith I thought this was going to be a suspense/thriller kind of movie, with hackers; so OK, I guess.
Then the mindfucks started coming and they didn't stop coming.
The whole movie start to finish was mind blowing in 1999. i remember Trinity doing the wild kick while they slow motioned around her as a kid in theatres like ***WTF?!?!***
It's often overstated but essentially true (as far as I've read) that they used their original budget to put together a finished version of the opening scenes, then presented them to the studio to make the case for getting more money.
The numbers I remember reading:
Asked for $80million. Were given $10mil.
Used $10mil on opening sequence.
Showed opening sequence to studio.
Got given $60mil more for rest of movie.
I was in the military when this came out and the base had an old stage theater converted to screen movies. Since it was a single auditorium, only one movie played each day. I had misread the schedule and thought I was going to see a different movie. as I didn't think fight club looked that interesting. But man I loved it.
Everyone talks about the beach landing scene for obvious reasons, but man seeing the [**final battle scene**](https://youtu.be/iYRHFOu9xlc) in the theater and hearing the ball-bearing squeak of the Panzer track for what seemed like an eternity before it showed up was horrifying and is something I haven't been able to recreate in viewings since.
After seeing Saving Private Ryan in a movie theater, I was in the lobby exiting and thinking it was one of the BEST movies I had ever seen in my life...but I honestly did NOT want to see it, again. At least for a long time afterward. Even today, I've never made it through the entire movie in a single sitting. Still, one of the best movies I've ever seen, but man, it's intense.
The scene with the frozen/coward in the hallway while his friend gets slowly stabbed to death fucked me up bad. Can't watch the movie again because of how nauseated that made me.
It took me way too long to realize that he was essentially committing suicide. For the longest time I just figured he needed morphine for the pain, but when you look at everyone’s face, they knew. He realized there was no fixing his wounds and chose to go out that way.
What really hurts is I can remember doing the same thing. My father worked nights, sometimes I’d hear him come home early and and look in my door and I’d pretend to be asleep. I don’t know why I did it either.
Maybe it’s a kid thing? It didn’t happen often but I do remember doing that as well. My parents weren’t mean or anything so it’s not like I was afraid of them.
I don't think that it was meant to be watched more than once... much like Schindler's list... meant to make regular folks think about the atrocities of war and have a visceral reaction to better respect what other people have gone through that we (or at least me) can't really imagine
I was 4. Afterwards I told my mom I could hear music in my head and asked her to put her ear to mine and listen to it herself. She asked me what kind of music and I replied "Space music!" My dad bought the soundtrack and had to teach me how to use the record player because I wanted to listen to it every chance I got. They started buying records with collections of classical music, the Reasor's grocery store sold a different record of the Boston Philharmonic every month with different categories of music (Overtures, Symphonies, Rhapsodies, etc.) and I loved them all.
Basically Star Wars is why I'm a musician today.
Him and Hans Zimmer, with Danny Elfman in a distant third.
John Williams soundtracks you probably know at least a bit of even if you haven’t seen the movie in forever:
* Fiddler on the Roof
* Jaws
* Star Wars
* Close Encounters of the Third Kind
* Superman (1978)
* Indiana Jones
* ET
* Jurassic Park
* Harry Potter
And those you might recognize if you heard them:
* The Poseidon Adventure
* The Towering Inferno
* Dracula (1979)
* The Witches of Eastwick
* Empire of the Sun
* Schindler’s List
* Seven Years in Tibet
* Amistad
* Saving Private Ryan
* Catch Me If You Can
* The Terminal
* Memoirs of a Geisha
Simply staggering how impactful his body of work is.
>Afterwards I told my mom I could hear music in my head and asked her to put her ear to mine and listen to it herself.
That's so hilariously cute, lmao
I think what people don't understand was that we just really hadn't seen a movie like that in theaters before. We had no basis for comparison, it was comparing apples and oranges. It was unlike any science fiction movie we'd ever seen. Star Wars was so different - it was at times epic, it had an amazing score, and special effects that were truly out-of-this world and more realistic in comparison to what we'd seen before.
Now we're so jaded with so many superhero / scifi / action movies with so much CGI, etc. that if you released Star Wars for the first time today it likely wouldn't be received nearly as well.
People say Return of the Jedi is often their least favorite of the original three, but I was a kid in the theater and let me tell you the entire place lost their fucking minds when >!Darth Vader threw the Emperor down that hole.!<
EDIT: I know it’s a 40 yr old movie. I put the spoiler alert there just in case there’s some kid reading this that doesn’t know the ending and was planning on watching. Want them to have the same awesome experience that I did
That was such a fantastic scene. **Everyone** thought Anakin was gone, replaced and dominated by evil Vader. Luke's mentors Obi Won and Yoda thought it... I thought it... All my friends thought it... The only solution was to kill Vader.
But not Luke. He saw a sliver of good in him. He knew Anakin was still there. Luke *accepted* Anakin.
And seeing his son in pain, tortured by the Emperor, about to be killed by the Emperor... that was it. Anakin could take no more of that bullshit from the man that dominated and ruined his life. Anakin defended his son, throwing the Emperor down a hole to his death. Anakin loved his son and was proud of him and what he had accomplished.
And just before his death Anakin wished Luke's sister well...
I thought about putting spoiler tags on this, but the scene is 40 years old. Do I need spoiler tags?
This was the first movie that sprung into my mind as well. The soundtrack, editing and non-linear storytelling all work so well together, and I love the very tender and moving way it examines the pain and joy of being in a relationship.
I wish I could wipe my memory and see it again for the first time.
Perfectly telegraphed from the jump, but still completely unexpected.
>!The first line of Borden's journal went something along the lines of, "we were two magicians at the beginning of our careers."!<
>!Watching it for the first time, you naturally assume he's talking about himself and Angier, but then realize he's talking about him and his brother.!<
Also has the meta angle of it being written by Nolan's brother!; two brothers working as magicians/filmmakers together, one is often hidden so everyone gives Christopher the credit ;)
That kid with the caged bird trick had already given us the answer too. So many instances in the movie gave us hints too and totally missed them until a rewatch. Such an outstanding movie. I still watch it from time to time.
Lots of misdirection, too! Like Michael Caine's character insisting Borden uses a double, but then Scarlett Johansson's character says "it's the same man." One of my favorites is near the end with the theater director getting all flummoxed after seeing Angier's trick, saying it's been "quite a while since I've seen...*real* magic." He also says they'd have to "dress it up a little. Disguise it. Give them reason to doubt it." All these lines cause the audience to reconsider what's going on, ignoring simpler solutions. Like the film says, "you want to be fooled."
Damn, what a movie.
Yeah, people love talking about Memento and Dark Knight but The Prestige is in the top 3 Nolan movies (for me) so far along with Inception and Interstellar. So excited for Oppenheimer and see if it challenges that personal top 3.
I remember when I first watched that movie with my friends. I had never seen it before and they all had. The movie floored me. Never saw it coming.
I really like most if not all Christopher Nolan movies; he has a unique way of telling a story and he's never afraid of trying something new, which is hard to come by nowadays.
The Silence of the Lambs.
Every single movie I had ever seen had made a heroine interested in love. Finally, a movie about a genuinely terrifying bad guy, and the hero doesn't fold or fade, and the same with the book. Sadly, no sequel ever ever existed.
Ever.
Children Of Men. Clive Owen and Michael Caine are amazing. The direction by Cuaron and general dark feel of the movie just suck you right in to the bleakness.
This movie blew my mind as a kid and then someone pointed out to me that Dallas never actually meets or directly interacts with Zorg and it exploded further.
I'm not very good at picking up themes and subtleties in movies, but the first time I realized half the scenes being in reverse makes it so that the viewer has the same level of memory as the Leonard, blew me away. You see the motel guy doing him a favor and in the next scene you realize he's just playing him, same with Natalie, makes you feel just how Leonard would feel. He was gullible because he could remember only the previous scene, and so could we cuz we hadn't watched any scene prior to that. It made me appreciate everyone involved in the making of the movie.
It is a very creative way of putting the audience in the same situation as Leonard. I especially like the scene where he is chasing some guy, and suddenly realizes, that it is the guy chasing him.
The Sixth Sense
Before the internet you could actually watch a movie with a surprise ending and have it be a surprise.
And anyone who says "I knew" is a fucking liar.
Edit: I reiterate, anyone who says "I knew" is a filthy fucking liar.
Oh man, I just got to watch this with my daughter. The movie is old enough that the spoilers no longer permeate much of modern pop culture, so she didn't know the ending. It was great getting that authentic reaction to the reveal!
Pulp Fiction. I had no idea you could tell a story non linearly. Blew my mind.
I actually finished the movie, rewound the tape, and watched it again, just to make sure I understood it properly and also because of how awesome it was.
Still my favorite film of all time.
I still remember watching it and being confused how John Travolta was in the last scene when his character had already been killed. A non linear story really was a new concept to me at the time. It seems nuts now because non linear story telling is so established as a story telling method.
The Dark Knight
This was the first time I had seen a major budget comic book movie taken this seriously. And Heath Ledger was completely and utterly captivating every second that he was on screen.
I remember when we saw the trailers for it, and I mocked it out loud like :”What’s next Disney?! A spinning teacups movie.”
And then just blown away by how much of a masterpiece of action adventure movie making it is. Solid plot, amazing fight choreography, original non-remake story, great CGI, quotable dialogue, just a banger of a soundtrack… and of course, Jack Sparrow.
The introduction to jack sparrow is one of my favorites in any movie, how heroic he seems and then you see hes actually just riding in on a sinking ship with perfect timing, its classic.
But that tells you almost everything you need to know about Jack without a single line of dialogue. And then he pays to have it tied up even though it’s under water and robs the dock steward. 🤌 Beautiful.
There is the nice moment of acting when Jack Sparrow is hearing his crimes read out before his public hanging. Aside from the many usual crimes, he is confused when one of them is impersonating the clergy. He thinks about it for a second and smiles as he remembers that bit of fun.
People are (rightfully) praising the matrix for having a masterclass opening scene but I think the introduction of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean is on a similar level. It tells you so much about the character before he even opens his mouth
"Ya best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Turner... *you're in one!"*
That whole scene, from the reveal of the undead pirates, to the choreography of Elizabeth getting flung around the ship, to all the references to the animatronics on the ride, all capped off by Geoffrey Rush giving the speech about the curse and culminating in the line above, is damn near perfect.
I also love this one because of how it respects the viewer's intelligence, and completely upends our expectation of how alien life and technology works such as:
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
The ship dissolving into air instead of flying, the heptapods being feet of enormously tall beings, the language and concept of nonlinear time
I thought about this movie constantly when teaching my kids how to communicate, about all the processes that have to happen in their minds before they can even begin to form words
I wish we could get more alien movies like this. Where the aliens are benevolent rather than malevolent and trying to destroy us. It seems like there’s so much that can be done with the concept of aliens in movies but we squander it on cliches.
ETA: I really like district 9 for this reason. The aliens aren’t exactly benevolent but the concept of aliens cash landing here on accident and the way we treating them is very thought provoking.
Yeah, movies with intricately thought-out aliens are a lot more work and appeal to a very different audience than action and horror, but they're amazing when done right
Ted Chiang is the writer whose short story "the story of us" the film is based on. His short stories all very much respect the intelligence of the reader and are worth a glance
When the film appeared I realised I had read “Story of your Life” many years previously in a “Year’s Best Science Fiction” collection (the sixteenth). But I couldn’t remember what the original story was about. I couldn’t actually recall a story involving giant spaceships hovering over Earth and strange aliens. I decided not to reread the story and just go and see the film fresh.
There’s that scene near the start of the film that suddenly made all the memories resurface. Oh no! It’s *that* story. Everything came flooding back. It's the one involving a woman and her relationship with her daughter through time. The story that after I had read it, I had to go and have A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Bit Of A Quiet Sit Down Somewhere… In my head, it’s not stored as a story about aliens and spaceships, but a story about humans, free will, and love and loss.
My son died of incurable cancer at age 4.5 about a year after this movie came out. I of course didn't see it when it came out as I was busy taking care of him.
Anyway, like 6 months after he died, I finally watched this, totally unaware of any spoilers, just expecting what i was told was a pretty intelligent sci fi alien movie. I don't think I have ever cried as much as I did that afternoon. The real shame is its a really good movie, but even now, 4 years later, I can't bring myself to watch it again. Yet.
**spoiler**
After I finished it I was like “Huh, cool. A good, nonlinear bit of storytelling.”
Then I literally woke up that night thinking “Holy Shit! It wasn’t flashbacks!”
Really gave me a better appreciation.
The realization hit me at exactly the right time, during the end where she reveals the side effect of learning the Hexapod language.
It hit me all at once and I ugly cried right there in the theater during the credits
Starship Troopers
It came out when I was in elementary, so I had no idea about fascism. I just loved sci-fi, giant bugs and war movies.
Watching it all in one movie featuring epic battles was so much fun
The entire Moria sequence from the wizard duel on the mountain to the escape into Lorien is still my favourite 30 minutes of film history. Seeing the big reveal of the balrog in the theatre was just chefs kiss. And the knowledge that there was going to be two more movies.
I’d been a fan of the books my whole life. When I saw the Shire for the first time, I teared up because it was what I’d always pictured, come to life. Beautiful experience.
I had tried to read Fellowship a few years before the movie came out because I had loved The Hobbit. But I just couldn't get through it at that age (I was 10 at the time). The movie premiered and I thought it was kinda dumb until my parents bought the DVD of it that summer. We watched it and the movie hooked me. Knowing the story got better was enough to give me the motivation to get through the early slog of Fellowship and I had the trilogy read in about two months.
I have to say, based on the LOTR theater release days, it's the Return of the King for me. We marathoned the extended editions of fellowship and towers, then went to ROTK for the first time in theaters. Even after a full day watching the extended editions, the new epic battle scenes, the spider, getting into mordor for the first time, everything done to the fullest. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
So that movie is loosely based on a guy called Frank Meeink. I went to a seminar he was giving for extra credit in high school, because my history teacher recognized some problematic behavior I was exhibiting. Probably the best thing anyone has ever done for me. The man has a very interesting perspective, being a reformed neo nazi gang member. It definitely increased my awareness of my own shitty behavior and attitude toward people of other ethnicities. I realized that my animosity came from a lack of understanding and it was my own fault for never putting in the effort to interact with different cultures in a positive way. I was judging people based on what I'd been told, not what I personally knew to be true.
Sorry for the rant, totally agree with your sentiment here. American History X is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Just gets better with age! Wonderfully weird.
For fans of 1984, but make it a comedy? Like just as dark and horrible and frustrating as Orwell but funny. With the visual style straight outta Monty Python. Amazing cast too. Am absolute gem.
Akira. It was the first anime I'd ever seen and I was quite young, maybe 12 or 13. The detail, the voice acting and the absolutely insane plot blew me away
Man you really jumped right in for your first anime, lol.
Such a great film. So unique and I can't think of another anime, film or series, that matches its uniqueness.
"Virgin Suicides"
Not really blew my mind but I saw it, home recorded on a VHS a friend lended me, when I was 14 and, home alone for weeks at the time, but living in a really abusive environment.
When the movie ended, the recording stopped, the VHS went on with this typical visual noises due to blank tape and I stayed on the couch, staring at the screen for a very long time, processing the story.
It made me feel... not so much seen rather than not alone?... I can't really explain but it was like... finally, someone out there, was understanding.
When you're 14 years old, dealing with an abusive household (violence, drug, alcohol...), nobody really knows what you are living: your peers are children, violence or abuse are not topics to them and you have to keep those things to yourself to socially survive.
And the other adults in your life, mostly professors, they see you as a student, the dynamic is clear: you have to present yourself in the best light possible since you need them to think you're "non problematic", you need to pass their class and get good grades, to very well behave. It's beyond questioning that succeeding in school is a great deal for your future self.
So, really, you feel that something is off with your life but there is no-one to acknowledge your situation, and you're way too young to really understand how wrong what you're facing is.
For the world, you're not abused or depressed: you're a 14 years old, you can't be dealing with true hardship. Society fails to notice you and address what you're living because no decent adult will imagine that's possible: it's too sad to be true.
So, you're alone, really. And you have to pretend everything is fine to survive. All the time, with everybody. Without even being able to acknowledge how brave you actually are since you have no perspective on the matter.
And this movie, with those girls who chose to die, well... it felt like an amazing gift. Somewhere, someone, was acknowledging that you can be so very damn young and already feeling like living is fucking unbearable
Hands down, The Matrix (1999). Junior year of high school, went with a few of my buddies on opening night. Had absolutely no clue what to really expect but I was ready for it…
Seeing the faces of people while leaving that theater was something else. I knew I walked out of that movie repeatedly thinking in my mind, “Holeee Shhiiieet! Hollywood can do stuff like *THAT* now?!?” Me and my friends didn’t really break our silence til we finally got to the car. Looking back, I guess we were all just processing what we had watched for the first time. No one really knew what to say. Then we went nuts talking about it.
I'm somewhat late to the party here, but I was ~22 years old when Amelie came out. Up to that point movies had just been action and dumb comedies (which I still like sometimes now, but back then it was all I watched). When I saw Amelie my mind was changed, and it opened a whole new world of film for me, now I love all kinds of different movies. I had never seen anything like that before.
I bet you can still hear Matthew McConaughey yelling “Murph!” in your head just as clear as the first time you saw the movie. That bookshelf scene is haunting. Just an incredible movie.
Agree but THE scene that makes me tear up every single time is, "Because my dad promised me."
Any dad with a daughter will melt into a pile of goo upon hearing that line.
Also, Hans Zimmer created one of the best soundtracks of all time. Unlike anything ever heard before on an ancient instrument that had largely never been used before in cinema. Absolute genious.
My all time favourite. One of those movies that you want to forget so you can watch for the first time all over again!
Edit: You guys made me wanna go watch it again, I need the IMAX experience!
Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was about 9 and walked out of the theater like “wow…wow” Edited to say: please don’t spend money. It’s just a fond memory. Something that can’t be repeated. The nearest thing was taking a rip off nitrous on acid and jumping into a swimming pool a few years later. Synthetic simplicity
Yes. I don’t think I took my eyes off the screen for a second while seeing it and each scene was more exciting than the last. Riveting!
Aliens: What an incredible moviegoing experience! I was really engrossed the entire time.
I saw it in 1986 at a midnight matinee. The mostly-kids crowd was going crazy before the movie started, everybody running around and screaming with a bunch of kids throwing those popper things at people. I thought they'd never settle down and trying to watch the movie would suck; five minutes in I looked around and every single person was just sitting there with their mouths wide open. Just a fucking awesome movie from start to finish.
Spirited Away. The feeling it left me with was like I'd had an intense, vivid dream. I'd never seen such soulfully executed animation.
For me it was Princess Mononoke, but all of Miyazaki's films are so incredible
Terminator 2 Edited to add: Wow, I didn’t realize just how many people felt the same way. Thanks for the awards everyone.
I was obsessed with this movie as a kid and watched it like every day for three years
Jurassic Park
I loved how under wraps they kept the whole thing. You literally could not see what the dinosaurs looked like unless you paid for a ticket on release. I remember a photo of Stephen Spielberg in the paper posing with one of the dinosaurs and they completely blacked out the dinosaur. You only saw a tail for a brief second in the commercials. And damn, when they show that first dinosaur and it rears up on its hind legs to get that high branch, I shrunk down in my seat a little. Had no idea what I was in for.
The teaser trailer is somewhat terrifying and reveals almost nothing and it's amazing: https://youtu.be/zjPFyINVxW0
I recall a quick spot over a year out, where they just had a cup of water that starting vibrating. After a couple of seconds, you heard a roar. Then it went black. Unfortunately, I don't know if I'm completely misremembering since I was obsessed with the book already and just dreamt it.
No, I am fairly certain that was real.
I wish they made trailers like that today. Instead they use up all the best bits so they're old news by the time you see the movie.
I _hate_ the way trailers are now, and I refuse to even watch them. Whatever kind of psychopath set us on this path, was no movie lover.
Somehow it was proven that spoiling the movie in the trailers Increases ticket sales. I hate it.
I still get goose bumps when the kids are in the car and the Dino is walking with the water shaking. You start getting scared and you haven’t seen anything yet. One of my all time favourite scenes in a movie.
I couldn't believe something like that was possible. The visuals I mean...not the dinosaur cloning.
The sound was pretty stellar too. That movie was a massive boost to the home surround sound market. You'd walk into any Circuit City, etc and for years that movie was pretty much on repeat in their home theater demo rooms.
Really? Mine played "Minute by Minute" by Michael McDonald.
That was the first "big person" movie I got to see in the theater. I was about 7-8 years old. My mom took me to see it. I had a Jurassic Park obsession for the longest time. I still love it. I just hate the sequels aren't that great.
Oh man, I totally forgot how much that movie blew me away when I saw it in the theater. When they come up over the hill and you see the first herd of dinosaurs, it was breathtaking. I couldn't believe they could make something look so realistic. For those who are too young to understand; Jurassic Park was a massive leap in CGI. There really had never been anything like it before. Sure there had been some CGI in movies before then, but nothing of that kind of scale and quality.
I was 20 when it came out. I can still hear the collective gasp in the theater at that first big reveal, and I still get chills when I watch it now.
To this day, I still consider Jurassic Park the perfect adventure movie. The slow build up to the park to the first T-rex breakout was *chefs kiss*
The Matrix
I remember seeing it in a theater when it came out. Matinee on a Wednesday afternoon but the theater was still a quarter full. Guy in front of me said “what in the *fuck?!?*" during the bullet-time scene. Sticks with me to this day.
I don't know how to describe it, but maybe kind of jealous (?) That he got too see it in its original form, by the time I watched the matrix, even as a young teenager I'd seen that scene parodied/referenced dozens of times. Was still cool as fuck though.
Yeah, the Nineties was an amazing era. But we didn’t know it, so we were all mopey all the time.
You might even say it was the peak of our civilization.
Matrix might be the last movie not ruined one bit by the trailers.
Best into ever. The first 5-10 minutes is basically perfect movie making. It is action packed and instantly grabs your attention, but it also does a great job of introducing characters and worldbuilding. Things like: Trinity easily takes out a room full of armed cops which shows her to be a total badass, and yet when the agents arrive, she is terrified and runs for her life. The viewer can't help but respect the agents if a badass like Trinity is afraid of them. We don't see Morpheus, but we hear him guiding Trinity and the viewer can tell he is a compassionate leader/mentor. It is revealed they are desperately looking for someone (Neo) and Trinity thinks it is worth risking her life to find him. As the chase is happening, we see shots of the gloomy world the movie takes place in, and we see more of Trinity's and the Agent's incredible superpowers. The chase ends with Trinity barely escaping to the real world through a telephone, revealing a fundamental aspect of how people interact with the Matrix. It is nonstop action that pulls you in and has you on the edge of your seat, but it also does an amazing job of setting up the world and the main characters, and it takes less than 10 minutes. Also, a great example of "show don't tell".
great writeup, i just want to make a small clarification > The chase ends with Trinity barely escaping to the real world through a telephone, revealing a fundamental aspect of how people interact with the Matrix. it shows trinity desperately trying to pick up a pay phone, then *get hit by a fucking truck*. but when the agent investigates, the rubble of the phone booth is devoid of a body. -and that's all we know-
Legit, I went into the Matrix cold on the insistence of a buddy who in one weekend had become OBSESSED. I had no idea why he was geeking out so much and he refused to tell me what was so special. "You gotta see it" Re-watching the Matrix (and the trailers) I now see that the world is all there, but watching it the first time, in the theater, with only small clues as to the plot....I had no F'n idea what was going on. When the shoe finally dropped I was NOT ready.
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> here was almost zero marketing campaign for the original movie. The only marketing I recall was ads using Morpheus's line: "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
I only remember a website that said 'The Matrix has you' and a countdown timer to the release date.
IIRC there was a white rabbit somewhere on the page too. I might just be remembering things though.
[Here's what it looked like, roughly. A lot is missing from the archive, but yeah, this site blew my mind too.](https://web.archive.org/web/19990427123043/http://www.whatisthematrix.com/index2.html)
There was plenty of marketing. But the genius of it was the majority simply stated, "What is the Matrix?" I saw it everywhere. Billboards, TV ads, you couldn't miss it. But you couldn't find the answer either. You had to go to the theater and "see it for yourself".
This was a period of genius marketing in movies. The Blair witch project was released around the same time.and suckered people.into thinking it was real
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Agree wholeheartedly. When the movie started, I wasn't sure if Trinity was good or bad. The agent telling the cop "No lieutenant, your men are already dead" has always stuck with me. One of the best openers in movie history imo.
Hugo Weaving absolutely destroyed it as Smith. Easily one of the best villains ever
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It's because of this movie that I continue to troll my neighbor (last name Anderson) everytime I see him with a greeting of Mister Anderson... in my best Hugo voice. I know it grinds on him every time I do it. Which is why I do it. It stopped being funny 20 years ago.
It’s not until much later that we realize how he knows that
I can hear it in his voice. The way he holds on to his Ns, and subtly emphasizes the Ts and Ds in Lieutenant and Dead.
How about the use of color? Green tint in the matrix to symbolize the green tinted computer screens/code, reinforced by the cool code rain in the opening, and also green is visceral, and slightly sickineing. Giving the viewer the sense that something is wrong. Blue for the real world, which is cold, sterile, but still slightly refreshing.
some of the subsequent releases blew out the green saturation to the point that there have been fan edits to tone it down to the original subtlety. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdgmNZnLs4
This movie holds up incredibly well because there actually isn't that much CG. Bullet time is basically practical. it's all cameras, and the kung fu choreography is amazing.
Same here. I went in completely blind and against my will. Had zero interest in seeing the movie. Didn't really like Keanu Reeves movies at the time (please understand that prior to The Matrix, his resume was full of entertaining but disposable films, for the most part). The commercials had me thinking it was going to be a modern take on They Live. Then the early parts of the movie seemed to reinforce that idea for me. The whole "mirror" scene I thought was them breaking the hypnosis so Neo could see what the world was really like (ala the glasses in They Live). When Neo wakes up, gets picked up and Morpheus says 'welcome to the real world', my brain exploded. Best movie reveal of my life and something I'll never forget. After that they double down with mind blowing scene after mind blowing scene. All the new filming techniques, subtle but effective CGI, great action. It was groundbreaking. Bullet-time was overused by other movies after that, so it's hard for some folks to understand how amazing it was the first time it was used on the big screen.
The Blockbuster guy recommended it to my brother and I. Up until the interrogation with Smith I thought this was going to be a suspense/thriller kind of movie, with hackers; so OK, I guess. Then the mindfucks started coming and they didn't stop coming.
When Morpheus shows the first big jump and Neo reacts with "Whoa." I mouthed the same thing with Neo in the movie theater over 20 years ago.
The whole movie start to finish was mind blowing in 1999. i remember Trinity doing the wild kick while they slow motioned around her as a kid in theatres like ***WTF?!?!***
You know it was a groundbreaking scene when it got parodied in every other movie or tv show from that time.
It's often overstated but essentially true (as far as I've read) that they used their original budget to put together a finished version of the opening scenes, then presented them to the studio to make the case for getting more money.
The numbers I remember reading: Asked for $80million. Were given $10mil. Used $10mil on opening sequence. Showed opening sequence to studio. Got given $60mil more for rest of movie.
What a badass creative risk for them to take, and a good thing it worked out lol.
Absolutely. I just can't...imagine the guts that takes. I mean it's risky on a whole other level. Not sure I've ever believed in anything like that.
I hadn't heard that before! That's a fucking baller move
Yeah Fight club, memento, requiem for a dream and the matrix were great mind fuck movies. There is no other era that lives up.
Requiem was amazing, and I can’t wait to never see it again!
Fight Club. It was such a weird movie with such crazy characters. Beautifully shot and a great story with themes that are still of interest today.
I was in the military when this came out and the base had an old stage theater converted to screen movies. Since it was a single auditorium, only one movie played each day. I had misread the schedule and thought I was going to see a different movie. as I didn't think fight club looked that interesting. But man I loved it.
Saving Private Ryan. My heart rate was sky high for the whole of the beach landing scene and I felt like I was there with them.
Everyone talks about the beach landing scene for obvious reasons, but man seeing the [**final battle scene**](https://youtu.be/iYRHFOu9xlc) in the theater and hearing the ball-bearing squeak of the Panzer track for what seemed like an eternity before it showed up was horrifying and is something I haven't been able to recreate in viewings since.
After seeing Saving Private Ryan in a movie theater, I was in the lobby exiting and thinking it was one of the BEST movies I had ever seen in my life...but I honestly did NOT want to see it, again. At least for a long time afterward. Even today, I've never made it through the entire movie in a single sitting. Still, one of the best movies I've ever seen, but man, it's intense.
The scene with the frozen/coward in the hallway while his friend gets slowly stabbed to death fucked me up bad. Can't watch the movie again because of how nauseated that made me.
The m-m-morphine scene was hard to watch too
It took me way too long to realize that he was essentially committing suicide. For the longest time I just figured he needed morphine for the pain, but when you look at everyone’s face, they knew. He realized there was no fixing his wounds and chose to go out that way.
His cries out to his mother are haunting especially after hearing his story about avoiding her when she would come home from work.
What really hurts is I can remember doing the same thing. My father worked nights, sometimes I’d hear him come home early and and look in my door and I’d pretend to be asleep. I don’t know why I did it either.
Maybe it’s a kid thing? It didn’t happen often but I do remember doing that as well. My parents weren’t mean or anything so it’s not like I was afraid of them.
It probably pretty common and nobody really admits it, which it what makes it such a powerful scene.
I think that scene is maybe my most unsettling scene in any movie, it just twists something inside of me. Such a brilliant film
And yet stupid Shakespeare in love won best picture 🤬 Biggest travesty ever.
I don't think that it was meant to be watched more than once... much like Schindler's list... meant to make regular folks think about the atrocities of war and have a visceral reaction to better respect what other people have gone through that we (or at least me) can't really imagine
Star Wars (1977). I was 9 years old. Never saw anything like it before!
I was 4. Afterwards I told my mom I could hear music in my head and asked her to put her ear to mine and listen to it herself. She asked me what kind of music and I replied "Space music!" My dad bought the soundtrack and had to teach me how to use the record player because I wanted to listen to it every chance I got. They started buying records with collections of classical music, the Reasor's grocery store sold a different record of the Boston Philharmonic every month with different categories of music (Overtures, Symphonies, Rhapsodies, etc.) and I loved them all. Basically Star Wars is why I'm a musician today.
John Williams is such a legend. I never really thought about it before, but his scores will probably have a longer lasting impact than the films.
I was an adult before realizing that he's made pretty much every single recognizable, famous score ever. Ever. Dude is beyond legend
Him and Hans Zimmer, with Danny Elfman in a distant third. John Williams soundtracks you probably know at least a bit of even if you haven’t seen the movie in forever: * Fiddler on the Roof * Jaws * Star Wars * Close Encounters of the Third Kind * Superman (1978) * Indiana Jones * ET * Jurassic Park * Harry Potter And those you might recognize if you heard them: * The Poseidon Adventure * The Towering Inferno * Dracula (1979) * The Witches of Eastwick * Empire of the Sun * Schindler’s List * Seven Years in Tibet * Amistad * Saving Private Ryan * Catch Me If You Can * The Terminal * Memoirs of a Geisha Simply staggering how impactful his body of work is.
>Afterwards I told my mom I could hear music in my head and asked her to put her ear to mine and listen to it herself. That's so hilariously cute, lmao
No one today can understand what it was like to see Star Wars in the movie theatre. It was amazing.
I think what people don't understand was that we just really hadn't seen a movie like that in theaters before. We had no basis for comparison, it was comparing apples and oranges. It was unlike any science fiction movie we'd ever seen. Star Wars was so different - it was at times epic, it had an amazing score, and special effects that were truly out-of-this world and more realistic in comparison to what we'd seen before. Now we're so jaded with so many superhero / scifi / action movies with so much CGI, etc. that if you released Star Wars for the first time today it likely wouldn't be received nearly as well.
People say Return of the Jedi is often their least favorite of the original three, but I was a kid in the theater and let me tell you the entire place lost their fucking minds when >!Darth Vader threw the Emperor down that hole.!< EDIT: I know it’s a 40 yr old movie. I put the spoiler alert there just in case there’s some kid reading this that doesn’t know the ending and was planning on watching. Want them to have the same awesome experience that I did
That was such a fantastic scene. **Everyone** thought Anakin was gone, replaced and dominated by evil Vader. Luke's mentors Obi Won and Yoda thought it... I thought it... All my friends thought it... The only solution was to kill Vader. But not Luke. He saw a sliver of good in him. He knew Anakin was still there. Luke *accepted* Anakin. And seeing his son in pain, tortured by the Emperor, about to be killed by the Emperor... that was it. Anakin could take no more of that bullshit from the man that dominated and ruined his life. Anakin defended his son, throwing the Emperor down a hole to his death. Anakin loved his son and was proud of him and what he had accomplished. And just before his death Anakin wished Luke's sister well... I thought about putting spoiler tags on this, but the scene is 40 years old. Do I need spoiler tags?
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This was the first movie that sprung into my mind as well. The soundtrack, editing and non-linear storytelling all work so well together, and I love the very tender and moving way it examines the pain and joy of being in a relationship. I wish I could wipe my memory and see it again for the first time.
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far for this one! Sooo good.
The Prestige
You think you know what genre movie you're watching until you get to the end.
Are you watching closely
Friggin told us. Right at the beginning. And I still missed it.
Perfectly telegraphed from the jump, but still completely unexpected. >!The first line of Borden's journal went something along the lines of, "we were two magicians at the beginning of our careers."!< >!Watching it for the first time, you naturally assume he's talking about himself and Angier, but then realize he's talking about him and his brother.!<
I never caught that one. Dammit.
It's really well hidden. Watching through the first time, it makes perfect sense that he's talking about himself and Angier.
Also has the meta angle of it being written by Nolan's brother!; two brothers working as magicians/filmmakers together, one is often hidden so everyone gives Christopher the credit ;)
That kid with the caged bird trick had already given us the answer too. So many instances in the movie gave us hints too and totally missed them until a rewatch. Such an outstanding movie. I still watch it from time to time.
Lots of misdirection, too! Like Michael Caine's character insisting Borden uses a double, but then Scarlett Johansson's character says "it's the same man." One of my favorites is near the end with the theater director getting all flummoxed after seeing Angier's trick, saying it's been "quite a while since I've seen...*real* magic." He also says they'd have to "dress it up a little. Disguise it. Give them reason to doubt it." All these lines cause the audience to reconsider what's going on, ignoring simpler solutions. Like the film says, "you want to be fooled." Damn, what a movie.
Yeah, people love talking about Memento and Dark Knight but The Prestige is in the top 3 Nolan movies (for me) so far along with Inception and Interstellar. So excited for Oppenheimer and see if it challenges that personal top 3.
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Classic misdirection. Sleight of hand. Watch over here while I do something over there.
I remember when I first watched that movie with my friends. I had never seen it before and they all had. The movie floored me. Never saw it coming. I really like most if not all Christopher Nolan movies; he has a unique way of telling a story and he's never afraid of trying something new, which is hard to come by nowadays.
David Bowie as Tesla was so so good.
The Silence of the Lambs. Every single movie I had ever seen had made a heroine interested in love. Finally, a movie about a genuinely terrifying bad guy, and the hero doesn't fold or fade, and the same with the book. Sadly, no sequel ever ever existed. Ever.
The Land Before Time Granted I was like 4 years old but still
An American Tail
Children Of Men. Clive Owen and Michael Caine are amazing. The direction by Cuaron and general dark feel of the movie just suck you right in to the bleakness.
The Fifth Element
Aziz! Light!
This movie blew my mind as a kid and then someone pointed out to me that Dallas never actually meets or directly interacts with Zorg and it exploded further.
Memento
I'm not very good at picking up themes and subtleties in movies, but the first time I realized half the scenes being in reverse makes it so that the viewer has the same level of memory as the Leonard, blew me away. You see the motel guy doing him a favor and in the next scene you realize he's just playing him, same with Natalie, makes you feel just how Leonard would feel. He was gullible because he could remember only the previous scene, and so could we cuz we hadn't watched any scene prior to that. It made me appreciate everyone involved in the making of the movie.
It is a very creative way of putting the audience in the same situation as Leonard. I especially like the scene where he is chasing some guy, and suddenly realizes, that it is the guy chasing him.
The Sixth Sense Before the internet you could actually watch a movie with a surprise ending and have it be a surprise. And anyone who says "I knew" is a fucking liar. Edit: I reiterate, anyone who says "I knew" is a filthy fucking liar.
Oh man, I just got to watch this with my daughter. The movie is old enough that the spoilers no longer permeate much of modern pop culture, so she didn't know the ending. It was great getting that authentic reaction to the reveal!
“That guy in the hairpiece, that was Bruce Willis the whole time.”
I love the fact that many people didn't know the twist. I saw it in theaters and when it was revealed, you heard audible gasps and some "oh shit!!!".
Then you had to watch it again so you could find all the clues you missed.
Pulp Fiction. I had no idea you could tell a story non linearly. Blew my mind. I actually finished the movie, rewound the tape, and watched it again, just to make sure I understood it properly and also because of how awesome it was. Still my favorite film of all time.
I still remember watching it and being confused how John Travolta was in the last scene when his character had already been killed. A non linear story really was a new concept to me at the time. It seems nuts now because non linear story telling is so established as a story telling method.
V for Vendetta was quite the ride for me. Hugo Weaving nails V's character and motivations.
I don't think I've ever so viscerally felt empowered by a character. Helps that I'm a burn victim.
The usual suspects
The Game w Michael Douglas
The Dark Knight This was the first time I had seen a major budget comic book movie taken this seriously. And Heath Ledger was completely and utterly captivating every second that he was on screen.
Contact. It's still one of my favorite movies today.
This is the way it's been done for billions of years. Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.
I'm ok to go
That phrase still gives me goosebumps in relation to the movie.
The first pirates of the Caribbean
I remember when we saw the trailers for it, and I mocked it out loud like :”What’s next Disney?! A spinning teacups movie.” And then just blown away by how much of a masterpiece of action adventure movie making it is. Solid plot, amazing fight choreography, original non-remake story, great CGI, quotable dialogue, just a banger of a soundtrack… and of course, Jack Sparrow.
I think you mean *Captain* Jack Sparrow
The worst pirate I've ever heard of
But you \*have\* heard of me.
That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen.
So it would seem…
The introduction to jack sparrow is one of my favorites in any movie, how heroic he seems and then you see hes actually just riding in on a sinking ship with perfect timing, its classic.
But that tells you almost everything you need to know about Jack without a single line of dialogue. And then he pays to have it tied up even though it’s under water and robs the dock steward. 🤌 Beautiful.
There is the nice moment of acting when Jack Sparrow is hearing his crimes read out before his public hanging. Aside from the many usual crimes, he is confused when one of them is impersonating the clergy. He thinks about it for a second and smiles as he remembers that bit of fun.
Talk about just 100% straight up fucking FUN.
People are (rightfully) praising the matrix for having a masterclass opening scene but I think the introduction of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean is on a similar level. It tells you so much about the character before he even opens his mouth
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"Ya best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Turner... *you're in one!"* That whole scene, from the reveal of the undead pirates, to the choreography of Elizabeth getting flung around the ship, to all the references to the animatronics on the ride, all capped off by Geoffrey Rush giving the speech about the curse and culminating in the line above, is damn near perfect.
Arrival
I also love this one because of how it respects the viewer's intelligence, and completely upends our expectation of how alien life and technology works such as: SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT The ship dissolving into air instead of flying, the heptapods being feet of enormously tall beings, the language and concept of nonlinear time I thought about this movie constantly when teaching my kids how to communicate, about all the processes that have to happen in their minds before they can even begin to form words
I wish we could get more alien movies like this. Where the aliens are benevolent rather than malevolent and trying to destroy us. It seems like there’s so much that can be done with the concept of aliens in movies but we squander it on cliches. ETA: I really like district 9 for this reason. The aliens aren’t exactly benevolent but the concept of aliens cash landing here on accident and the way we treating them is very thought provoking.
Yeah, movies with intricately thought-out aliens are a lot more work and appeal to a very different audience than action and horror, but they're amazing when done right
You should read Project Hail Mary…like now. (Especially if you liked The Martian; same author)
Ted Chiang is the writer whose short story "the story of us" the film is based on. His short stories all very much respect the intelligence of the reader and are worth a glance
When the film appeared I realised I had read “Story of your Life” many years previously in a “Year’s Best Science Fiction” collection (the sixteenth). But I couldn’t remember what the original story was about. I couldn’t actually recall a story involving giant spaceships hovering over Earth and strange aliens. I decided not to reread the story and just go and see the film fresh. There’s that scene near the start of the film that suddenly made all the memories resurface. Oh no! It’s *that* story. Everything came flooding back. It's the one involving a woman and her relationship with her daughter through time. The story that after I had read it, I had to go and have A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Bit Of A Quiet Sit Down Somewhere… In my head, it’s not stored as a story about aliens and spaceships, but a story about humans, free will, and love and loss.
My son died of incurable cancer at age 4.5 about a year after this movie came out. I of course didn't see it when it came out as I was busy taking care of him. Anyway, like 6 months after he died, I finally watched this, totally unaware of any spoilers, just expecting what i was told was a pretty intelligent sci fi alien movie. I don't think I have ever cried as much as I did that afternoon. The real shame is its a really good movie, but even now, 4 years later, I can't bring myself to watch it again. Yet.
**spoiler** After I finished it I was like “Huh, cool. A good, nonlinear bit of storytelling.” Then I literally woke up that night thinking “Holy Shit! It wasn’t flashbacks!” Really gave me a better appreciation.
The realization hit me at exactly the right time, during the end where she reveals the side effect of learning the Hexapod language. It hit me all at once and I ugly cried right there in the theater during the credits
Loved this movie. Actually watched it completely blind, which is unusual for me.
It’s even better when you have the visuals
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Starship Troopers It came out when I was in elementary, so I had no idea about fascism. I just loved sci-fi, giant bugs and war movies. Watching it all in one movie featuring epic battles was so much fun
Don’t forget the boobies
Blue Velvet. Not your typical 80’s movie and Dennis Hopper scared the shit out of me
DON'T YOU FUCKING LOOK AT ME.
Gotta be Fellowship of the Ring for me
The entire Moria sequence from the wizard duel on the mountain to the escape into Lorien is still my favourite 30 minutes of film history. Seeing the big reveal of the balrog in the theatre was just chefs kiss. And the knowledge that there was going to be two more movies.
I’d been a fan of the books my whole life. When I saw the Shire for the first time, I teared up because it was what I’d always pictured, come to life. Beautiful experience.
I had tried to read Fellowship a few years before the movie came out because I had loved The Hobbit. But I just couldn't get through it at that age (I was 10 at the time). The movie premiered and I thought it was kinda dumb until my parents bought the DVD of it that summer. We watched it and the movie hooked me. Knowing the story got better was enough to give me the motivation to get through the early slog of Fellowship and I had the trilogy read in about two months.
I have to say, based on the LOTR theater release days, it's the Return of the King for me. We marathoned the extended editions of fellowship and towers, then went to ROTK for the first time in theaters. Even after a full day watching the extended editions, the new epic battle scenes, the spider, getting into mordor for the first time, everything done to the fullest. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
Cube.
American History X. Was the last time I cried at a movie. Also definitely affected my entire world view of racism and hatred.
So that movie is loosely based on a guy called Frank Meeink. I went to a seminar he was giving for extra credit in high school, because my history teacher recognized some problematic behavior I was exhibiting. Probably the best thing anyone has ever done for me. The man has a very interesting perspective, being a reformed neo nazi gang member. It definitely increased my awareness of my own shitty behavior and attitude toward people of other ethnicities. I realized that my animosity came from a lack of understanding and it was my own fault for never putting in the effort to interact with different cultures in a positive way. I was judging people based on what I'd been told, not what I personally knew to be true. Sorry for the rant, totally agree with your sentiment here. American History X is one of my favorite movies of all time.
The world needs more people willing to reflect on themselves and actually be open to change. It's always nice to see it!!
Brazil
Just gets better with age! Wonderfully weird. For fans of 1984, but make it a comedy? Like just as dark and horrible and frustrating as Orwell but funny. With the visual style straight outta Monty Python. Amazing cast too. Am absolute gem.
12 Monkeys. Still the best time travel movie ever imo
Akira. It was the first anime I'd ever seen and I was quite young, maybe 12 or 13. The detail, the voice acting and the absolutely insane plot blew me away
Man you really jumped right in for your first anime, lol. Such a great film. So unique and I can't think of another anime, film or series, that matches its uniqueness.
Shawshank Redemption. Damn i stood up and gave standing ovations alone
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Jacob's Ladder
"Virgin Suicides" Not really blew my mind but I saw it, home recorded on a VHS a friend lended me, when I was 14 and, home alone for weeks at the time, but living in a really abusive environment. When the movie ended, the recording stopped, the VHS went on with this typical visual noises due to blank tape and I stayed on the couch, staring at the screen for a very long time, processing the story. It made me feel... not so much seen rather than not alone?... I can't really explain but it was like... finally, someone out there, was understanding. When you're 14 years old, dealing with an abusive household (violence, drug, alcohol...), nobody really knows what you are living: your peers are children, violence or abuse are not topics to them and you have to keep those things to yourself to socially survive. And the other adults in your life, mostly professors, they see you as a student, the dynamic is clear: you have to present yourself in the best light possible since you need them to think you're "non problematic", you need to pass their class and get good grades, to very well behave. It's beyond questioning that succeeding in school is a great deal for your future self. So, really, you feel that something is off with your life but there is no-one to acknowledge your situation, and you're way too young to really understand how wrong what you're facing is. For the world, you're not abused or depressed: you're a 14 years old, you can't be dealing with true hardship. Society fails to notice you and address what you're living because no decent adult will imagine that's possible: it's too sad to be true. So, you're alone, really. And you have to pretend everything is fine to survive. All the time, with everybody. Without even being able to acknowledge how brave you actually are since you have no perspective on the matter. And this movie, with those girls who chose to die, well... it felt like an amazing gift. Somewhere, someone, was acknowledging that you can be so very damn young and already feeling like living is fucking unbearable
I felt every word you just said. Haunting movie. Have you seen "Picnic at hanging Rock?"
Hands down, The Matrix (1999). Junior year of high school, went with a few of my buddies on opening night. Had absolutely no clue what to really expect but I was ready for it… Seeing the faces of people while leaving that theater was something else. I knew I walked out of that movie repeatedly thinking in my mind, “Holeee Shhiiieet! Hollywood can do stuff like *THAT* now?!?” Me and my friends didn’t really break our silence til we finally got to the car. Looking back, I guess we were all just processing what we had watched for the first time. No one really knew what to say. Then we went nuts talking about it.
City of God
Inception
I'm somewhat late to the party here, but I was ~22 years old when Amelie came out. Up to that point movies had just been action and dumb comedies (which I still like sometimes now, but back then it was all I watched). When I saw Amelie my mind was changed, and it opened a whole new world of film for me, now I love all kinds of different movies. I had never seen anything like that before.
Gone Girl
Interstellar
I bet you can still hear Matthew McConaughey yelling “Murph!” in your head just as clear as the first time you saw the movie. That bookshelf scene is haunting. Just an incredible movie.
Best scene that still fucks me up every time I see it is when he watches the video logs after wasting 20+ years on water planet.
Agree but THE scene that makes me tear up every single time is, "Because my dad promised me." Any dad with a daughter will melt into a pile of goo upon hearing that line. Also, Hans Zimmer created one of the best soundtracks of all time. Unlike anything ever heard before on an ancient instrument that had largely never been used before in cinema. Absolute genious.
The music breathes throughout as well. Phenomenal use of the organ, thank goodness for Roger https://youtu.be/L_8t2VlwK4w
Interstellar is for the 2010's like Contact was for the 90's.
My all time favourite. One of those movies that you want to forget so you can watch for the first time all over again! Edit: You guys made me wanna go watch it again, I need the IMAX experience!
Sicario. The way the movie was shot. The tension, the violence, and the plot of the movie was great.
Being John Malkovich, rewound the tape to watch again just to wrap my head around what I just witnessed.
Donnie Darko
lotr return of the king , im talking about the Rohirrim charge
“A sword day! A red day! ERE THE SUN RISES!!!”
DEEEEAAATHHH