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Have we done top suspense scenes from movies? (2 Viewers)

T

The Dude

Footballguy
Watched the hew Jurassic movie and reminded of the great suspense scene of the T-Rex and the cars scene from the original Jurassic Park. Quite possibly in a top 10 list.
 
I saw the previous and it looked like mostly a rehash of JP greatest hits. Is it out yet?

I had also wanted to say but I didn't know where to put it but here is as good as any place...I don't have high hopes for Spaceballs 2 or Happy Gilmore 2.
 
The end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As you know what night it is and what happens in reality that night and wonder just what exactly you are about see in the movie, I felt so much dread and worry about what was coming.
 
Some documentaries come to mind, like Free Solo and Man on Wire. I suppose know what is going to happen, but still felt suspenseful anyway. Hard to pick one specific scene from either though.
 
BeTheMatch said:
The opening of Saving Private Ryan was suspenseful even though you knew what was coming. Maybe because you did. To me, that's an all-time sequence in any movie.

Jaws attacking the boat is right up there too.
Click to expand...
Yep, was very very intense. My only slight ding to it's suspense was it being the opening of the movie, we knew Tom Hanks was going to make it out unharmed.
 
The most scared I've ever been watching a movie was in "Manhunter" when Joan Allen puts her whole hand in the mouth of a living, breathing, tiger. No CGI, no special effects, no trick photography or cheated angles or false perspective. She did it for real. Got right in there, feeling its teeth and everything. Terrifying.

The second-most intense scene for me is in the film "Permanent Midnight" when Ben Stiller decides to test how strong the windows in a skyscraper are by throwing his whole body against them to see if they break. Repeatedly. For real. No effects or CGI or tricks. Just leaping into the glass over and over to see if they keep him from falling to his death.
 
Don Quixote said:
Some documentaries come to mind, like Free Solo and Man on Wire. I suppose know what is going to happen, but still felt suspenseful anyway. Hard to pick one specific scene from either though.
Click to expand...
The crux where Honnold sticks the “karate kick” is really intense. As a climber myself, I know exactly how tenuous moves like that can be. It’s inconceivable thinking about committing to it 2000 feet up.
 
Ilov80s said:
BeTheMatch said:
The opening of Saving Private Ryan was suspenseful even though you knew what was coming. Maybe because you did. To me, that's an all-time sequence in any movie.

Jaws attacking the boat is right up there too.
Click to expand...
Yep, was very very intense. My only slight ding to it's suspense was it being the opening of the movie, we knew Tom Hanks was going to make it out unharmed.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I think "impactful" might be a better word for that scene than "suspenseful." I remember vividly watching that scene in the theatre. I had a bucket of popcorn, and my buddy was about to dive into some nachos. For a good 10 minutes or so, neither of us touched the food in our laps. Probably the most impactful scene of any movie I've seen in the theatre, in terms of getting the attention of everyone in the room. Nobody spoke, nobody ate. So intense, and the filming was done in a way that you really felt like you were there. You could have heard a pin drop when it stopped. Something I'll never forget.
 
Golden Gopher said:
Ilov80s said:
BeTheMatch said:
The opening of Saving Private Ryan was suspenseful even though you knew what was coming. Maybe because you did. To me, that's an all-time sequence in any movie.

Jaws attacking the boat is right up there too.
Click to expand...
Yep, was very very intense. My only slight ding to it's suspense was it being the opening of the movie, we knew Tom Hanks was going to make it out unharmed.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I think "impactful" might be a better word for that scene than "suspenseful." I remember vividly watching that scene in the theatre. I had a bucket of popcorn, and my buddy was about to dive into some nachos. For a good 10 minutes or so, neither of us touched the food in our laps. Probably the most impactful scene of any movie I've seen in the theatre, in terms of getting the attention of everyone in the room. Nobody spoke, nobody ate. So intense, and the filming was done in a way that you really felt like you were there. You could have heard a pin drop when it stopped. Something I'll never forget.
Click to expand...
This is very similar to A Quiet Place in that regard. The theater was packed but you could tell everyone was trying to stay silent based on what was happening onscreen. No audible chewing, no loud breaths, nothing. Tensest crowd I was ever a part of.
 
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Terminalxylem said:
Don Quixote said:
Some documentaries come to mind, like Free Solo and Man on Wire. I suppose know what is going to happen, but still felt suspenseful anyway. Hard to pick one specific scene from either though.
Click to expand...
The crux where Honnold sticks the “karate kick” is really intense. As a climber myself, I know exactly how tenuous moves like that can be. It’s inconceivable thinking about committing to it 2000 feet up.
Click to expand...
I honestly can't even watch these scenes in a documentary. I have a moderate fear of heights and genuinely do not enjoy humans doing overly risky to stupid things so these sorts of docs easily would be tops for me personally. Heck, I don't even really enjoy Jackass because I don't like witnessing the chance of somebody getting hurt.

From a fictional perspective, the most suspenseful movie scene I can recall was from the 2008 movie The Strangers. Here's what happened:
I had just moved to a new state after law school. A girl I had dated casually in law school agreed to fly out for the weekend. While it was pretty apparent that the whole point of her coming out was to accomplish as much of teh secks as possible in this 72-hour window, she was still the type of girl who wanted (and presumably enjoyed) the façade and foreplay of spending time doing traditional dating things leading up to sex even though our situation was that she was in her mid-30s to my early to mid-20s and she clearly was using me for my body and I was using her for the nice things she did to my body.* Hers wasn't too shabby, either.

So, basically, I picked her up her from the Vegas airport and drove the hour+ drive to my house breaking speed limits. As we get into the town I was living in, she says she'd like to do dinner and pick up a movie to watch together. So, I stop by the nearest decent restaurant to get her fed and happy, and then find a Redbox to get a movie. She asked to pick it out and since my mind was singularly focused I say sure as I couldn't care less what the movie was. Her pick? The Strangers. I hadn't even heard of it.

We get to my place and she unpacks while fending off my gentlemanly efforts to forego said movie. Since I am a gentleman, I relent and hide all my frustrations as she puts the movie in and I probably went and got some drinks and snacks for us or whatever. I ask her what the movie is about as I sit down and it is just starting. She tells me it's a horror. I joke that it doesn't sound romantic but she makes the smart point (she is/was light years more intelligent than me) that she'll need to cuddle me if it's scary. It dawns then on stupid me that this isn't a bad plan. Get scared and cuddle away, my lady!

Here's the rub: I have never enjoyed scary to suspenseful movies. Just not my thing. Apparently, though, she digs them. So we get to the scene where the invaders are slowly breaking into the house. The movie brilliantly keeps the scenes as subtle as possible to build the suspense. For example, some dude in a mask just appears in the background while the couple is on the couch. A few minutes later, another invader appears faintly in the window. The scene builds up the suspense this way and it goes on for several minutes. Unbeknownst to me, my palms apparently started to sweat and I was nervously twitching. My date asks if I'm okay and I lie and say yes. She expresses how much she is loving the suspense. However, a couple of minutes later, I think after the attack started, it becomes apparent that I am not enjoying this and she insists on turning it off and proceeds to call me a big wimp and that first night effectively fizzled out. I think she put her pajamas on and asked to watch Friends or some ****. I probably fell asleep on the couch next to her.

Plenty of positive activity occurred in the couple of days thereafter, but I'll forever remember the movie The Strangers and how it was so suspenseful that it ruined what should have been a great night because it scared the bejesus out of me. So, this is my nomination for damn good reason.




*This was during the time period post-breakup with The Ex where I was not at the top of my game nor looking for anything serious.

Tl;dr The suspenseful scene in The Strangers cost me sex.
 
Last edited:
Other nominations:

Coin flip scene in No Country for Old Men
Hans Lands and Shoshanna in Inglorious Basterds (a nod to the opening scene as well)
Border crossing in Sicario
Blood test scene in The Thing
The text message scene in The Departed
Hopper and Walken in True Romance
The standoff in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Scene in Nightcrawler where main character is in the house before police get there
Basement scene in Zodiac
Drug deal scene with Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights
Russian Roulette scene in Deer Hunter
Clarice in Gumb's home in Silence of the Lambs

I didn't love the movie, but the ending of The Blair Witch Project was certainly suspenseful.
 
Zow said:
Terminalxylem said:
Don Quixote said:
Some documentaries come to mind, like Free Solo and Man on Wire. I suppose know what is going to happen, but still felt suspenseful anyway. Hard to pick one specific scene from either though.
Click to expand...
The crux where Honnold sticks the “karate kick” is really intense. As a climber myself, I know exactly how tenuous moves like that can be. It’s inconceivable thinking about committing to it 2000 feet up.
Click to expand...
I honestly can't even watch these scenes in a documentary. I have a moderate fear of heights and genuinely do not enjoy humans doing overly risky to stupid things so these sorts of docs easily would be tops for me personally. Heck, I don't even really enjoy Jackass because I don't like witnessing the chance of somebody getting hurt.

From a fictional perspective, the most suspenseful movie scene I can recall was from the 2008 movie The Strangers. Here's what happened:
I had just moved to a new state after law school. A girl I had dated casually in law school agreed to fly out for the weekend. While it was pretty apparent that the whole point of her coming out was to accomplish as much of teh secks as possible in this 72-hour window, she was still the type of girl who wanted (and presumably enjoyed) the façade and foreplay of spending time doing traditional dating things leading up to sex even though our situation was that she was in her mid-30s to my early to mid-20s and she clearly was using me for my body and I was using her for the nice things she did to my body.* Hers wasn't too shabby, either.

So, basically, I picked her up her from the Vegas airport and drove the hour+ drive to my house breaking speed limits. As we get into the town I was living in, she says she'd like to do dinner and pick up a movie to watch together. So, I stop by the nearest decent restaurant to get her fed and happy, and then find a Redbox to get a movie. She asked to pick it out and since my mind was singularly focused I say sure as I couldn't care less what the movie was. Her pick? The Strangers. I hadn't even heard of it.

We get to my place and she unpacks while fending off my gentlemanly efforts to forego said movie. Since I am a gentleman, I relent and hide all my frustrations as she puts the movie in and I probably went and got some drinks and snacks for us or whatever. I ask her what the movie is about as I sit down and it is just starting. She tells me it's a horror. I joke that it doesn't sound romantic but she makes the smart point (she is/was light years more intelligent than me) that she'll need to cuddle me if it's scary. It dawns then on stupid me that this isn't a bad plan. Get scared and cuddle away, my lady!

Here's the rub: I have never enjoyed scary to suspenseful movies. Just not my thing. Apparently, though, she digs them. So we gets to the scene where the invaders are slowly breaking into the house. The movie brilliantly keeps the scenes as subtle as possible to build the suspense. For example, some dude in a mask just appears in the background while the couple is on the couch. A few minutes later, another invader appears faintly in the window. The scene builds up the suspense this way and it goes on for several minutes. Unbeknownst to me, my palms apparently started to sweat and I was nervously twitching. My date asks if I'm okay and I lie and say yes. She expresses how much she is loving the suspense. However, a couple of minutes later, I think after the attack started, it becomes apparent that I am not enjoying this and she insists on turning it off and proceeds to call me a big wimp and that first night effectively fizzled out. I think she put her pajamas on and asked to watch Friends or some ****. I probably fell asleep on the couch next to her.

Plenty of positive activity occurred in the couple of days thereafter, but I'll forever remember the movie The Strangers and how it was so suspenseful that it ruined what should have been a great night because it scared the bejesus out of me. So, this is my nomination for damn good reason.




*This was during the time period post-breakup with The Ex where I was not at the top of my game nor looking for anything serious.

Tl;dr The suspenseful scene in The Strangers cost me sex.
Click to expand...
Agree it’s nerve wracking. But to Honnold, after rehearsing that climb a gajillion times, the objective risk probably wasn’t much different than what you accepted speeding for sex.
 
Inglorious had the potential to be one of the greatest movies ever (there are three all-time suspense scenes as has been noted) but the rock 'em sock 'em ending left even me sitting there thinking, "Oh, c'mon, man," and I'm willing to forgive pulp and all sorts of gratuitous stuff.

But man we got a glimpse of just how good Tarantino could have been if his disposition had been a bit different. I heard a great point by a critic in a conservative magazine a long, long time ago saying that there was little doubt that Tarantino was the best director going (that's some heady praise), but when you consider and potentially begin to complain about what kind of stories (with their stylized violence accompanying them) he chooses to make films about, maybe instead of complaining about his choices we should look at ourselves, our entertainment, and also the (our) society that he was clearly immersed in.
 
Runkle said:
matttyl said:
fruity pebbles said:
Opening scene of Inglorious Bastards
Click to expand...

Amazing scene, no doubt and one that I can rewatch over and over. But there is another scene in that same movie just as good - when Hans Landa is with Shoshanna alone in the cafe and orders the strudel.
Click to expand...

The scene in the bar... "three beers"... was the most intense in that movie for me.
Click to expand...
These 3 posts aptly describe why this was one of the greatest films ever made, regardless of what you think about the ending.

My being a sucker for the rare bad guy wins narrative, and this was the first one I saw, I nominate the final sequence of Arlington Rd. First movie I recall in which my jaw dropped, and remained there.
 
MAC_32 said:
Runkle said:
matttyl said:
fruity pebbles said:
Opening scene of Inglorious Bastards
Click to expand...

Amazing scene, no doubt and one that I can rewatch over and over. But there is another scene in that same movie just as good - when Hans Landa is with Shoshanna alone in the cafe and orders the strudel.
Click to expand...

The scene in the bar... "three beers"... was the most intense in that movie for me.
Click to expand...
These 3 posts aptly describe why this was one of the greatest films ever made, regardless of what you think about the ending.

My being a sucker for the rare bad guy wins narrative, and this was the first one I saw, I nominate the final sequence of Arlington Rd. First movie I recall in which my jaw dropped, and remained there.
Click to expand...

Me too. Didn’t see it coming and I was stunned.
 
Ilov80s said:
The end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As you know what night it is and what happens in reality that night and wonder just what exactly you are about see in the movie, I felt so much dread and worry about what was coming.
Click to expand...
I felt the same way and had even read Helter Skelter years ago.
It made what happened in the film laugh out loud hilarious. :lmao:
 
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