Awesome / Dances with Wolves

• John Dunbar's failed suicide attempt. Just the glorious way he spread his arms out free while riding in front of the Confederates who, miraculously, just keep missing him. Rifled muskets of that era being far more accurate than the smoothbores of only a few decades earlier, Dunbar's survival of that ride is a real eyebrow raiser. Not only that, but it created a distraction for the Dunbar's army to win the battle.
• The spectacular Buffalo Hunt, made all the more epic by John Barry’s majestic musical score.
  • And the panoramic view of 3500 live buffalo used for the scene.
• John Dunbar is captured in full Sioux dress by a squad of Union soldiers. They aren't being very polite with their interrogation, so Dunbar gives up trying to tell them about his orders, and decides to tell them in the Lakota language who he has become:
  My name is Dances with Wolves. I will not talk to you anymore. You are not worth talking to.
• There is the moment when John is charged with helping protect the camp's women, children and seniors while the men are on campaign. Suddenly, it is discovered that a Pawnee war party is coming to attack and they will not leave survivors. At that, John tells the camp that he has a cache of rifles buried and he and a boy frantically search for and dig it up. As a result, the Pawnee get a big surprise when they expect to do an easy massacre, only to find their would-be victims are equipped with state of the art personal firepower and mowing them down.
• After Wes Studi's Pawnee kills Stone Calf, he is shot with an arrow by Smiles a Lot, Otter, and Worm. He then charges them on horseback and Smiles a Lot is the only one to stand his ground.
• Lieutenant Elgin and one of his men stop their Hate Sink companions from beating Dunbar and shooting at Two Socks (although sadly, he's already been hit), with Elgin threatening to put Dunbar's shackles on Spivey if he hits their prisoner again.
• The rescue scene when the Sioux party ambushes the transporting convoy and proceeds to wipe out the whole platoon of soldiers. During Dunbar's rescue, the soldier who helped Elgin rein in the others takes an arrow to the chest but shrugs it off and rides forward, shooting before eventually dying.
  • Special mentions to John Dunbar killing Spivey in a slow painful death via drowning as payback for abusing him, lying and stealing his journal, and trying to kill Two Socks in front of him while he was captured, interrogated, and being transported.
  • Another mention is Smiles A Lot killing Bauer after the latter pistol-whipped him and attempted to escape.