Greatest movie acting moments

[DannyODay]

http://www.rotreviews.com

A conversation with my brother recently led he and I to start putting together this list. We're calling them G.B.M. (Goose Bump Moments). It's fun. It's kind of like acting criticism/appreciation on a micro level. We're not talking about "Best Roles" or "Best Scenes" (although putting the moments in the context of scenes is usually necessary). We're looking for looks, gestures, line deliveries, that kind of thing. Some of them are just seconds long.

The hunt for the moments has turned out to be really fun too, as the list really only works with a slight description and the moment itself (youtube). We'd love to get some more suggestions.

[hugman]

i'm too lazy to dig up the clip or even write a synopsis. 
1)Bill Murray eats the carrot in Rushmore.
2) Billy Crudup eats the suicide note his girl left him in Jesus' Son.
3)You Can Count On Me - Mark Raffallo and Laura Linney are having a little heart to heart on the back porch and a moth lands on MR's hand, he looks at it, and it flies away. So natural. So in the moment.

[sushi cowboy]

Don't want to bloat this unique thread with Bill Murray moments, but this is the first scene that came to mind of giving me goosebumps in the theater. The part in Broken Flowers when Murray's character is sitting in the graveyard, in the rain, staring at the headstone of one of his old flames and he starts tearing up. THAT was a G.B.M.!

[masterofsparks]

The scene in Taxi Driver where Travis is watching American Bandstand. There's not much to the scene - he points his gun at the screen while the kids dance to Jackson Browne's "Late For the Sky" and then just sits there watching, but there's something indescribable in his eyes that I can't really forget. So lost. So powerful, in fact, that I actually found myself enjoying the music of Jackson Browne!

It's on YouTube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvApmCuZads[/youtube]

[Satchm0]

Liev Schrieber mispronouncing fast food chains in "The Ten"

[Martin]

For a perfect example of over the top hysteria, something I'm very fond of, check out the entire opening of John Waters' Desperate Living. Mink Stole, as Peggy Gravel, gives one of her best performances (in a long line of fantastic ones, IMO - in fact, her part as Divine's daughter in Female Trouble might be even better than this one). Keep in mind that this is how her character is introduced, and consider the implications of just throwing such a neurotic mess at our feet at the very start of a film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF7o7OawuXo

It's all gold - the comment about Vietnam; why is her leg broken? - but my favorite part is probably when she gets the phone call, at 2:15.

[jbissell]

I've always loved Robert Mitchum's story of love and hate from Night of the Hunter.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

im sure i stand alone in this and its a very misunderstood fascination but believe it or not, i think if given the chance, John Candy wouldve been the best of the crop of funny-turned-serious comedic actors.

sure, the movies are funny+cheesy (planes, trains..., uncle buck, etc.) but when you watch john candy, its touching.  even when he played the guard in national lampoon's vacation.  unfortunately, i cant research a particular moment when i get "goosebumps" but i wanted to at least bring it up.

[JonFromMaplewood]

3)You Can Count On Me - Mark Raffallo and Laura Linney are having a little heart to heart on the back porch and a moth lands on MR's hand, he looks at it, and it flies away. So natural. So in the moment.

That movie is one of my all-time favorites.  Another great acting job in that movie: Laura Linney sitting in her car, pondering what she just did with Matthew Broderick.  No dialogue. Just her facial expressions swinging between childish excitement and shock and regret.

[Regular Joe]

Here's a few off the top of my head:

The moment in Taxi after the Jimmy Fallon character has devised a crazy plan in Queen Latifah's taxi and she just gives him this look like "what the heck are you thinking?".

The scene in Bicentennial Man where Robin Williams interacts with the other female robot in the marketplace and he really has to confront the nexus of his journey.

When the Lil' Bow Wow character in Roll Bounce takes on the bigshot roller skaters, and proves he has the confidence to succeed in life.

[gravy boat]

I think this scene is a very good one between Paul Newman and Forest Whitaker in Color of Money.  Both those guys were/are so good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvyB2dTnlQ

Right at the end, I think Whitaker has a great acting "moment."  After he has hustled Newman and Newman, who had been thinking he refound his magic, is sitting there like it's the end of the world, Whitaker stops to ask him a question and I was thinking it might be a question intended to lift up Newman, who is so obviously devastated, or some sort of apology, but it's just a silly question, salt on the wound, and the look of malicious delight on Whitaker's face in the delivery and then when he looks down before he leaves is so good. 

And then Tom Cruise . . .

[gravy boat]

im sure i stand alone in this and its a very misunderstood fascination but believe it or not, i think if given the chance, John Candy wouldve been the best of the crop of funny-turned-serious comedic actors.

sure, the movies are funny+cheesy (planes, trains..., uncle buck, etc.) but when you watch john candy, its touching.  even when he played the guard in national lampoon's vacation.  unfortunately, i cant research a particular moment when i get "goosebumps" but i wanted to at least bring it up.

Can't agree more.  He seems like he brought it all to every role, even if the film was obviously a turkey.  Comparing a one-note ham like Chris Farley to him is ridiculous.

[dave from knoxville]

I always loved the expressions on Christopher Walken's face during the second Russian Roulette scene in The Deer Hunter; he runs through a chilling array of dead still, jittery nervousness, and scariest of all, a sort of detached bemusement like he's about to let loose a chuckle as the scene is unfolding all around him.

Perhaps my very favorite performance of all time is Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day, just from start to finish; he communicates a range of emotions through this veil of detached servitude. I saw it six times, and never got tired of it. I can't tell you how pissed off I was that Tom Hanks stole Sir Anthony's Oscar for his two-note gimmick role in Forrest Gump. And I am not a Hanks hater, but that really made me angry, and you don't want to see dfk angry.

Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice.

And I thought John C. Reilly was pretty phenomenal in every scene he had in Magnolia.

Way too many to mention, really, but that won't stop me trying.

[crumbum]

Everlasting Moments, the new Swedish film set around the time of WW1 about a working-class woman who finds she has a passion for photography, is jam-packed with amazing bits of acting, but one scene stood out for me. The protagonist asks her neighbor, who has spent the last few minutes complaining about her sad lot in life, if she may take a photo of the neighbor's developmentally disabled daughter (who appears to have Downs Syndrome or maybe something more severe). The woman's reaction lasts only a couple of seconds but contains an incredible wealth of emotions, more than you get in most whole movies.

[Fido]

For a perfect example of over the top hysteria, something I'm very fond of, check out the entire opening of John Waters' Desperate Living. Mink Stole, as Peggy Gravel, gives one of her best performances (in a long line of fantastic ones, IMO - in fact, her part as Divine's daughter in Female Trouble might be even better than this one). Keep in mind that this is how her character is introduced, and consider the implications of just throwing such a neurotic mess at our feet at the very start of a film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF7o7OawuXo

It's all gold - the comment about Vietnam; why is her leg broken? - but my favorite part is probably when she gets the phone call, at 2:15.

Now that's acting.