The most talked about movie moments of the 2010s

Sam’s quixotic quest through the odd nooks and crannies of Hollywood leads him to the Homeless King, who in turn takes him to “The Songwriter," an old, obscenely wealthy man who claims to have written every memorable jingle, TV theme and, to Sam’s horror, “Smells Like Teen Spirit." There’s never been genuine feeling or rebellion in music: it’s all been manufactured by this one, spiteful man.

Kenneth Lonergan’s drama about a ne’er-do-well (Casey Affleck) who’s been asked by his recently deceased brother to care for his teenage son is holding back something for the first 40 minutes of the story. There’s a reason Affleck has no interest in raising a child or hanging around his hometown. Through a skillfully placed flashback, we finally learn the reason: He lost his three children and nearly his wife in a house fire. The entire sequence is scored to Albinoni and Giazotto’s “Adagio in G Minor” and depicts everything from the heartbreaking transporting of small body bags to Affleck’s attempted suicide in the police station. It’s brutal.

A strange interlude in a strangely moving film, the worn out employees of this turn-of-the-century brothel suddenly begin swaying trance-like in time to the Moody Blues’ dreamy classic “Nights in White Satin." It’s a hauntingly beautiful anachronism, and it drifts on through most of the song. What does it mean? Does it matter? It’s just a reverie you don’t want to end.

Jordan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Donnie (Jonah Hill) get a hold of some Quaaludes that are well past their expiration date. When they fail to kick in, they take more. And then some more. And then they kick in with a potency that absolutely rocks both men. They can barely function. Scorsese films this as an extended bit of broad physical comedy, and it’s taken its place in the filmmaker's classic scene pantheon alongside “You talkin’ to me” from “Taxi Driver” and Joe Pesci’s “funny guy” freakout in “Goodfellas."

This breathtaking final action beat in Christopher Nolan’s World War II masterpiece finds Farrier (Tom Hardy) being forced to glide his out-of-fuel Spitfire to a perfect beach landing across the German perimeter but not before he takes out a dive bomber like a total champ. As he’s done throughout the whole film, Nolan puts you in that cockpit and lets you feel it buffet as Farrier brings her in.

A group of teenage terrorists hole up in a department store after bombing several locations throughout the city. The plan is to spend the night there and keep a low profile, but they grow bored and, in the presence of luxury items and clothing, they decide to party. The highlight is an impromptu rock-out to Blondie’s “Call Me," which feels like the kids having one last moment of ecstasy before the authorities storm the store and kill them.

It took several decades, but we finally got our first great REO Speedwagon needle-drop, courtesy of director Drew Goddard in “Cabin in the Woods." It comes right as the last youngster is about to be dispatched. Goddard cuts from the beach to the control room, where the lab employees are popping champagne and rocking out to “Roll with the Changes."

Sometimes it’s essential to stop a movie cold and fire up a musical interlude featuring a badass group of accordionists, especially when they’re being led by Denis Lavant. Any movie, even “The Life of David Gale," would get a one-star bump from such a scene.

Once again, all hope appears to be lost for what’s left of The Avengers in the third act of Endgame. Then, shockingly, Captain America hoists mjölnir, and the crowd, as they say, goes absolutely wild as he whups up on Thanos. It’s a terrific payoff from the party scene in “Age of Ultron," which felt like a fun throwaway moment at the time. Well played, Russos. It’s too bad Whedon was denied his amazing Hulk bit in “Age of Ultron," which would’ve easily made this list had it ever been shot.

If you haven’t seen Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood," you’ll want to skip this entry. Some poor, misguided souls have suggested that this sequence gets off on gratuitous violence being inflicted on women. If they knew the first thing about history (which, not so shockingly, many of these people don’t), they’d know that these monsters were about to slaughter a whole host of innocent people including a pregnant woman. So, no, these folks get what they deserve. That they get it to Vanilla Fudge’s cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” is the aural cherry on top.

Mean ol’ Batman’s about to kill Superman with a kryptonite spear when the Man of Steel implores the Caped Crusader to “save Martha." This throws him because his mother’s name is Martha. He soon learns that Superman’s mother’s name is Martha too. Suddenly, mortal enemies are now besties, and, against their accountant’s advice, they open up a coffee shop together.

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.” This line from Shakespeare’s “King Lear” has a fairly fixed interpretation, but in the high school classroom presided over by Matthew Broderick, one student has a particularly different reading. And no matter how many times Broderick tries to persuade him (and the scene is hilariously protracted), the damn kid keeps arguing the point. Anyone who ever had an argumentative pseudointellectual in their English class knows Broderick’s pain. It’s the kind of scene that would be the first to hit the cutting room floor in any other movie, but it stays in Lonergan’s picture (and actually winds up being fairly significant).

The contentious mother-daughter relationship between Laurie Metcalf and Saoirse Ronan is laid bruisingly bare in the film’s opening scene, where an argument over the latter’s future is concluded by Lady Bird exiting a moving car. From that point on we’re hooked, and the film continues to surprise and delight us all the way to the finish.

Spike Lee cuts between a speech about lynching being given by Harry Belafonte to a group of young black activists and a Ku Klux Klan screening of D.W. Griffith’s racist motion picture “Birth of a Nation." Subtle? Nope. But as the scene progresses, the knot in your stomach keeps getting bigger. That the kind of cartoon racism represented by these dopey Klan members has made a big comeback over the last few years only makes this scene harder to take.  

If you didn’t know much about the plot before seeing “The Last Jedi," you might’ve thought Leia was a goner when she gets blown into outer space early in the film. If she were to die in this moment, this would’ve been our onscreen farewell not only to the character but also to Carrie Fisher, who’d passed away the previous year. But Leia’s a Jedi and a damn powerful one at that. We finally see her put these powers to use as she propels herself through the icy expanse of space back to the ship. If you didn’t burst out into happy tears in this moment (goosed by John Williams’ orchestration of “Leia’s Theme”), you were never a “Star Wars” fan.

“Kiss me, my girl, before I’m sick.” Love means getting it on before you have a prolonged bout of explosive diarrhea. All joking aside, this is one of the most magnificently romantic gestures I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Darren Aronofsky’s misunderstood masterpiece has spun out of control into a riotous orgy to the point where your senses have gone numb. Nothing is going to shock you by this point. That’s when Jennifer Lawrence’s newborn baby gets its neck snapped while crowd surfing and is subsequently feasted upon. That’s either your cue to leave or reason to thank the movie gods that an actual movie studio has financed this gonzo experience.

It’s tempting to cite the whole movie as a favorite moment, but if one scene stands out over the others it’s got to be the polecats attempting to board the war rig on flexible sticks. These folks were trained for eight weeks by a former member of Cirque du Soleil and actually performed the stunts (though the war rig was CG). It’s a breathtaking sequence that only a madman like George Miller could conceive of or attempt.

It’s a basic bit of business: A group of people are throwing a house party while the homeowners are away, only to be forced into a full-scale cleanup when they learn the owners are unexpectedly returning. But Bong Joon-ho gets a few more plates spinning than usual, and considering that most people have yet to see this remarkable movie, let’s avoid going into detail for the time being. 

There are several standout sequences in Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s aggressively nihilistic screenplay (e.g. the motorcycle, Rubén Blades’ phone call to a destroyed Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz having sex with a car), but the brutal  pièce de résistance has to be the payoff of what we’ll call “Chekhov’s bolito." Without giving anything away, this does not go well for Brad Pitt.

Jennifer Lopez. Fiona Apple’s “Criminal." Whaddya need, a road map?

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has spent years Michael Myers-proofing her house, but it appears she’s fallen short of her design goal. Or has she? Turns out the basement safe room that her daughter (Judy Greer) despised as a child wasn’t a cage. It was a trap. And Michael’s going to burn to death in it. Or not. “Halloween Kills” is coming your way in October 2020!

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) has been strapped to a chair in the basement of the Armitage house, where his body is about to be given over to a blind man (Stephen Root). He is powerless to move because Missy (Catherine Keener) has paralyzed him with an audible trigger — the stirring clink of a spoon on a teacup. How does he escape? By scraping stuffing out of the leather chair he’s trapped in. In other words, picking cotton. It’s just one of the brilliant little flourishes Jordan Peele has strewn throughout his movie. 

Ant-Man and Yellowjacket are in a pitched, miniaturized battle in a container with Lifesavers, keys and an iPhone. When Yellowjacket bellows “I’m gonna disintegrate you,” Siri pipes up with, “Playing ‘Disintegration’ by The Cure." Next thing you know, you’re watching a fight scene scored to “Plainsong." Hopefully in a future Ant-Man adventure, Peyton Reed will have our hero brawl to the dulcet sounds of “Metal Machine Music, Part 1."

You can’t have a classic martial arts film if you don’t have a classic final fight. Clearly well aware of this, Gareth Evans closes out his thrilling “The Raid” with a two-on-one brawl that pits good guys Rama (Iko Uwais) and Jaka (Joe Taslim) against the seemingly indestructible Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian). These guys must’ve felt like they fought a 12-round prize fight after shooting this sensational sequence.