From spine-tingling revelations to tear-jerking farewells, cinema's golden age delivered unforgettable moments that still captivate us today. Join us as we explore the most iconic scenes from pre-1980 films that continue to give audiences goosebumps. These masterful sequences changed filmmaking forever and remain etched in our collective memory decades later.
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00:00Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most iconic scenes from
00:14the classic era. For this list, we're counting classic movies as ones that were released before
00:181980. When Dorothy Gale opens the door and her world is suddenly filled with glorious technicolor,
00:45movie audiences the world over were dazzled. But it's the ending of The Wizard of Oz,
00:50where Dorothy must leave Oz and finally return home, that sticks with audiences.
00:55After her tearful goodbye to her newfound friends, she wakes up in her old bedroom with a bump on her
00:59head. Oz was just a dream, but it taught her the most important lesson. Her realization that she
01:13always had what she needed hits hard, no matter how old you are.
01:17Because I love you all, and oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home.
01:25Number 9. I'm ready for my close-up, Sunset Boulevard.
01:28Gloria Swanson plays what could be considered a funhouse version of herself in Sunset Boulevard.
01:32Everything will be ready, madame.
01:34Thank you, Max. You'll pardon me, gentlemen, but I must get ready for my scene.
01:40She was a former silent actress whose career fell off after the advent of sound,
01:45although not to the extent of her character, Norma Desmond. At the end of the film,
01:48Norma has totally surrendered to her fantasies. She makes a grand ascent down her staircase
01:53to greet the police and reporters who have amassed at her home.
01:56This is the staircase of the palace.
01:58Oh, yes. Yes. Down below, they're waiting for the princess.
02:08Her immortal line, I'm ready for my close-up, is both creepy and heartbreaking.
02:13All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
02:17She is totally gone, thinking they're there to make a movie, not to arrest her. She creeps
02:23slowly towards the camera, making direct eye contact with us as the screen blurs and fades.
02:27It always will be. There's nothing else. Just us. And the cameras. And those wonderful people.
02:38Number 8. The Horse's Head, The Godfather.
02:40Johnny Fontaine never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him. It'll make him a big star.
02:48I'm gonna run him out of the business, and let me tell you why.
02:51Don Vito Corleone sends his conciliary, Tom Hagen, to deal with a greedy film mogul who is
02:57sabotaging his godson's career. When he won't listen to reason, the man wakes up with blankets
03:01full of blood. It's not his own. It belongs to his beloved horse, whose head has been placed at the
03:07foot of his bed.
03:08The masterful reveal, and the studio mogul's anguished screams are chilling, and the viewer
03:22sees evidence of just how far Don Vito Corleone is willing to go to get what he wants. It sends
03:28the message of how dangerous these seemingly polite guys are, without having to show them
03:32do the dirty work on camera.
03:34That I cannot do. I'll give you anything you ask. We've known each other many years,
03:44but this is the first time you ever came to me for counsel to hell.
03:48Number 7. Mad as Hell, Network.
03:50Two, queue, Howard.
03:53Ladies and gentlemen, I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from
03:57this program in two weeks' time.
03:59When news anchor Howard Beale begins to have a nervous breakdown on air, his producers do
04:04the only sane thing they can think of. They monetize it.
04:06I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
04:11Who are you talking to, Herb?
04:12CGT Atlanta.
04:13Are they yelling in Atlanta, Herb?
04:14Are they yelling in Atlanta, Ted?
04:16But first, you've got to get mad! You've got to say, I am as mad as hell, and I'm not going
04:21to take this anymore!
04:22Putting him on air every night, they allow Beale to rant and rave at the American public
04:27about his own disillusionment. The ratings explode. In the movie's most famous scene,
04:32Beale gives a directive to his viewing audience.
04:34This is going out live to 67 affiliates.
04:38Leave him on. And I was married for 33 years of shrill, shrieking fraud.
04:43People start to resonate with his anger so much that they follow his instruction to yell out
04:47their windows about how mad they are at the state of the world. His outrage becomes contagious,
04:52until all the country seems to be yelling with him.
04:55And I don't mean the communists are going to take over the world, because the communists
04:58are deader than we are. What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated
05:05to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it.
05:096. Bone to Satellite
05:112001, A Space Odyssey
05:13Stanley Kubrick's deeply cryptic and symbol-heavy science fiction epic is a true cinematic marvel.
05:25From the dawn of the primate age to the colourful and metaphysical themes of the climactic Stargate
05:30sequence, 2001, A Space Odyssey is a goose-bumpy experience. But early on, it makes one of the
05:35longest time jumps imaginable. It suddenly cuts from a group of apes using a bone to kill one of its own,
05:41to a man-made satellite floating through space, set against the music of Johann Strauss.
05:57The movie encapsulates all of human progress, from its first use of weapons to its exploration of space
06:03space, in that one split second of film.
06:155. The Richest Man in Town
06:17It's a Wonderful Life
06:18Despite its reputation as feel-good holiday fare, this Jimmy Stewart classic actually goes to some pretty dark places.
06:32After a massive amount of money is misplaced, George Bailey contemplates taking his own life.
06:36Fortunately, his guardian angel's intervention convinces him otherwise. It's at this key point that George
06:41realizes his worth as a human being. He runs screaming with joy through the snow-covered streets of Bedford
06:47Falls before going home.
06:48Help me, Clarence! Get me back! Get me back! I don't care what happens to me! Get me back to my wife and kids!
06:59Once there, he finds his neighbours have taken up a collection to pay off his massive debts. And then,
07:03we all cry forever.
07:05My office instructed to advance you up to $25,000. Stop it.
07:10Hee-haw, and Merry Christmas, Sam Wainwright!
07:12Number 4. Quint's Indianapolis story, Jaws
07:15Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief.
07:20He was coming back from the island of Tinian to Lady and just delivered the bomb.
07:26The Hiroshima bomb.
07:28While Steven Spielberg's blockbuster about a killer great white shark has more than its fair share of spine-tingling scares,
07:33I can go slow ahead. Come on down and chump some of this shit.
07:36It's most chilling moment is also one of its quietest. Late one night in the bowels of his small ship,
07:45Quint shares that he was among the survivors of the real-life sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
07:50He watched and listened as his fellow soldiers were devoured by sharks.
07:54His knowledge of how vicious these creatures can be comes first-hand.
07:58Menacing English actor Robert Shaw delivers this whiskey-soaked monologue with all the gravitas of a man telling a campfire ghost story.
08:05Lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes.
08:10When he comes at you, he doesn't seem to be living.
08:13Number 3. Here's looking at you, kid. Casablanca.
08:16Playing with Victor where you belong.
08:17But Richard, no one.
08:18Now you've got to listen to me.
08:21Do you have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here?
08:24Melodrama mixes with patriotism and duty in this unforgettable wartime romance.
08:29Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman play two people torn apart by the breakout of World War II.
08:33Bogart plays Rick Blaine, a politically neutral American expat caught between war, and Ilsa, the love of his life.
08:41Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
08:48But the two realise there's a greater good to be served by Ilsa getting on a plane out of Casablanca with her freedom fighter husband instead of staying with him.
08:55It's a beautiful representation of the duty many Americans felt as the country's men went off to war.
09:02His iconic monologue to her before she goes is still among the best dialogue ever written.
09:07No, no.
09:10He's looking at you, kid.
09:15Number 2. The Statue of Liberty. Planet of the Apes.
09:18Even an audience who had experienced the twist endings of The Twilight Zone were probably left breathless by the shocker that awaits Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes.
09:37Heston is an astronaut who spends the movie thinking he's crash-landed on some distant planet where non-human primates reign supreme.
09:43At the end of the film, he and his companion come upon the ruins of the Statue of Liberty.
09:48Now you know better.
09:51Cornelius was right, Doctor.
09:52He proved it.
09:54Man was here first.
09:55You owe him your science, your culture, whatever civilisation you've got.
09:59To his horror, he realises that he crash-landed not on another planet, but on an Earth far in the future.
10:06Mankind has destroyed itself with nuclear weapons, and now apes are in charge.
10:10Oh my God.
10:12I'm back.
10:16I'm home.
10:18All the time.
10:22We finally really did it.
10:26You maniac!
10:28Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honourable mentions.
10:32Beach Kiss, from here to eternity.
10:34Lovers Burt Lancaster and Deborah Carr are swept up in the waves.
10:38The Head Turn, The Exorcist.
10:49Two priests battle for a little girl's soul and get more than they bargained for.
10:53With the Father and the Holy Spirit.
10:57Damien!
10:58Amen.
10:59Amen.
10:59Chariot Race, Ben-Hur.
11:02This sequence is one of the most famous action sequences in movies.
11:13The subway great, the seven-year itch.
11:16Easily Marilyn Monroe's most famous on-screen moment.
11:19Oh, here comes another one!
11:25Stella, a streetcar named Desire.
11:28Marlon Brando's magnetic performance made him a star in this moment.
11:35Hey, Stella!
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11:54Number 1.
11:55The Shower Scene, Psycho.
12:01In 1960, audiences were not accustomed to seeing violence and nudity on screen.
12:05Alfred Hitchcock gave them both at once.
12:08Midway through Psycho, Marion Crane is knifed to death in the Bates Motel Shower.
12:12Jagged cuts and shrill strings on the soundtrack accompany what may be the most famous murder
12:17scene in movie history.
12:18It's a shocking and vicious end for the character we thought was our protagonist.
12:22Hitchcock had to battle with censors to stay true to his vision for the sequence.
12:38We're fortunate he did.
12:40The final result is a prime example of why he was known as the master of suspense and
12:44is one of the most famous sequences in cinema history.
12:47What classic movie moments did we miss?
12:51Tell us in the comments.
13:17The Changes in the Forever
13:34The Luxury