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1492
  • Christopher Colombus is having a hissy fit and throwing around some monks working on writing Bibles. One of the monks stands up, cracks his knuckles, cross himself, taps Columbus on the shoulder and PUNCHES THAT SUCKER IN THE FACE.

Adulthood

  • This. To give context Sam, the man with the knife has been trying to escape his criminal side for a long time and his brother's gang has been contracted to kill him (unbeknownst to either sibling). When his brother finds his friend is about to stab his Sam, he gives Sam the chance to turn the knife on his friend. Sam goes through a moral dilemma, but eventually settles for discarding the knife and nailing a killer punch into his assailant, knocking him back several feet into a bin.

Animato

  • Mike Jittlov's stop-motion animation in both "Wizard of Speed and Time" and "Animato" is awesome, but there is one scene in "Animato" which absolutely reaches Moment of Awesome status. Petula Clark's "I Know A Place" overlays a series of stop-motion cutouts of people, furniture, scenery, etc which is itself amazing, but at the end she hits a crescendo of "I know a place where we can go", the trumpets hit their triumphal high behind her, and on the screen is a Gemini rocket taking off, fading to a picture of the Moon rushing toward the camera. When you play that at science fiction conventions to a group of people who watched every NASA mission and who dream of space travel, you end up with a room full of joyful tears.

Billy Jack

A Bittersweet Life

  • A Bittersweet Life does not require you to pick. The whole movie is a string of them. Highlights include the opening arse-kicking the main character lays down on three men who won't leave his restaurant, his escape from death using a cellphone battery, and his beating a man in reassembling a gun and shooting him in the head while one of his hands is broken.
    • Helped greatly by the amazing cinematography, but the real CMoA would have to be when Kim Sun-Woo finds the seemingly untouchable hat-wearing hitman. The latter, caught off guard, promptly brings his hammer to bear - but Sun-Woo's gun is already pointing him in the face.
      Kim Sun-Woo: Don't just sit there. Call Mr. Baek.

Blue Thunder

  • Blue Thunder, being about a Cool Black Helicopter, is already ripe for [=CMoAs=], but the crowner is set up by a scene where Murphy's girlfriend is fleeing from the police while carrying the evidence that will unmask the Government Conspiracy. The cops pull her over on a bridge and it looks like things are lost, when Blue Thunder suddenly rises up with its massive Gatling gun aimed straight at them. The stunned look on their faces is absolutely priceless, as is the ensuing action when a police cruiser is literally sawn in half by the gun.

Boys From Brazil

  • Boys From Brazil definitely has a Moment of Awesome at the end when Mengele who is about to kill Lieberman pauses when Bobby an, American boy who is really Adolf Hitler's clone, walks in to find them both battered from fighting. Mengele then tries to convince Bobby that his true self should make him despise Lieberman who is Jewish and that they should kill Lieberman together. Bobby then tells Mengele how much of a weirdo he is, and to add another blow to Mengele's crumbling self-esteem, Lieberman tells Bobby the truth that Mengele killed Bobby's father. Bobby, very upset in hearing this, ignores Mengele's cries that his "adoptive parents" are worthless compared to Bobby completely to search for his father. And when he discovers his dead father, he retaliates at the shocked Mengele by calling him a psycho, then resorts to ordering his dogs to kill Mengele to avenge his dead father while shedding a tear from his father's passing. He then strikes a deal with Lieberman to save him in exchange to keep quiet about his revenge against Mengele. And at the end Lieberman decides to protect the boys against Jewish radicals, coming to the conclusion that they are merely just children after all.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

  • Fronsac, who is righteously pissed off after his brother Mani is brutally tortured and murdered by the bad guys, sheds his civilized veneer, dons some warpaint, and proceeds to go on a one-man rampage through the bad guys' hideout.

Casshern

  • Tetsuya's stand against the robots roughly halfway though the movie definitely qualifies. Beginning with a scream of defiance, he quickly ramps up to carving the robots up with his bare hands and the smashed bits of other robots, mowing them down in droves to get to the leader of the Neo-Sapiens who kidnapped his mother.

The Children's Hour

  • Karen, Audrey Hepburn's character, walking off with head held high at the end .

Chop Kick Panda

  • Copied from a Netflix review "I work at DreamWorks. Didn't know whether to send an email to the legal department or Jen. In the end, I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Crossing Over

  • In the latter half of the film, Hamid is buying some beer at a Korean convenience store. A gang of five (which includes the socially confused good character, Yong) bursts in and begin causing trouble, and killing the owner. Hamid gets into action, kills every single one except Yong, without even reloading his pistol. Yong who is shaken by fear, takes a woman hostage. Hamid convinces him to drop the gun, and then lets him go, his reasoning "You made a mistake, don't make it again".

Demoni

  • Near the end, you have a guy, on a motorcycle, with a katana, killing demons. In a demolished movie theater.

Dinner at Eight

Dirty Pretty Things

  • The final fate of Sergio Lopez' villain. Chiwetel Ejiofor steals his kidneys. It makes more sense in context.

Domino

  • During a sorority hazing in which Domino is being body-shamed, Domino asks the sorority's resident Alpha Bitch if she's had a nose job, just before belting her right in the face.

Drillbit Taylor

Du er ikke alene.

  • The final scene, showing two boys hugging and kissing — a first in Danish cinema; this was 1978 — as an illustration of the commandment 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' and to the accompaniment of a pop song announcing 'You are not alone...you'll find your way free from their laws' and denouncing 'hate'.

Flame and Citron

  • Jorgen (Citron), who has been shot, manages to escape from the German soldiers and is resting at the safe house. He dozes off and when he wakes up, the house is surrounded on all sides and he has no way to escape. Instead of giving up, he gets out of bed, grabs his guns, and prepares for his last stand. Not only does it take 30 or 40 soldiers to finally kill him, but he goes down in a hail of bullets after limping around in his pajamas with a punctured lung blasting the shit out of every Nazi he can find.

Flight of the Phoenix

  • Both the original and the remake- the ending. They build a plane out of pieces of another plane! And it flies!

From The Hip

  • The otherwise Z-grade 80's Judd Nelson film From The Hip is loaded with awesome whenever Nelson's "Stormy" Weathers is in court, and pretty much ONLY when he's in court (especially when he calls the victim of the last case in the movie to the witness stand, proving that no one believes the defendant actually killed her), but the two big Mood Whiplash moments of the film definitely count as CMoAs: when John Hurt's character delivers his Hannibal Lecture, proving to Stormy, his assistant, and the entire audience that HE DID IT, and when, on the verge of winning the case and getting an insane murderer acquitted, Weathers delivers a closing argument with the express purpose of driving his client into a murderous rage, risking disbarment and, oh yeah, his OWN LIFE to make sure the killer is imprisoned.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

  • The Lazarus scene. Starts off expectedly tragic as Jesus comforts Lazarus's sisters as he himself becomes emotional. Then he has the tomb opened, and tells Lazarus to emerge. The music as he gives the command starts off this eerie continuous one-pitch note as everyone waits, which then slowly gets louder, then crescendos as Lazarus emerges, before fully breaking into Handel's Hallelujah Chorus as everyone witnessing goes crazy and starts running and proclaiming the miracle to anyone who will listen.

Harakiri

  • In the samurai movie Harakiri (1962), when Tsugumo Hanshiro tosses out the topknots of the retainers he has humiliated in battle.

He's Just Not That Into You

  • There is one for Jennifer Connelly's Character Janine:
    • She leaves a note on a carton of cigarettes to her wayward husband "Knock yourself out. PS I want a divorce".

Judgment In Nuremberg

  • When Spencer Tracy's Chief Justice gives his judgment address that takes into account the defense's insightful explanation of how prevailing attitudes shared by all helped contribute to the Holocaust while still giving a convincing guilty verdict to the defendants.

The Man Who Would be King

  • Containing the greatest set of last words that have ever been sung, by Sean Connery's Danny Dravott. After attempting to take over Kafiristan and doing quite well at it, Danny and Peachey are found out. Danny, having posed as a god, is condemned to walk out to the middle of the bridge built in his own honor, and wait while it is cut, as his last friend watches. Danny goes out onto the bridge, stands there a moment looking out to the horizon, then yells to his captors, "Can't you n——-s cut?!" (That line wasn't in the movie, for obvious reasons) Then, to pass the time, he sings "The Minstrel Boy," paired with the words of a Protestant hymn. Peachey joins him from the cliff's side in song, their voices combining into a ballad of courage and faith. And then the bridge is cut, and "like a penny-whirligig... it took him half an hour to fall."

Mean Machine

  • It's second-half injury time of the big match, with the Cons and the Guards tied at 2-2. The Guards have just had a free kick from 35 yards. Monk saves it, and a Cons defender boots the ball up to the halfway line. Everyone starts running up the pitch as ex-England captain Danny Meehan (portrayed by Vinnie Jones) nutmegs it past the Guards sole defender. He controls it, runs on, takes it round the goalie, who manages to fumble the ball away from Meehan and make him trip. Meehan rolls, runs after the ball, and controls it on the edge of the six-yard box in front of an empty net. He holds it up as he checks to see where everybody else is, then makes a slow ground-level pass across the goal. Way out in front of everybody else is Cons substitute Billy the Limpet, who has been enthusiastic but useless so far, and earlier missed from a similar position. With a sound effect like a fighter jet making a supersonic flypast, Billy hammers the ball square into the back of the net. Cue the final whistle and the Cons celebrations.

Men of Honor

  • "Nine hours, thirty-one minutes. Perfect assembly." Not a CMoA for the speaker (his came later), but for who he was saying it to...
    • "Now dammit; cookie! Square the rig and approach the rail!!. Shockingly, Carl Brashear does it, with ONE freakin' leg!.

Mike Bassett: England Manager

  • The title character has spent most of the movie so far being beaten on the pitch and mocked off it, and it all comes to a head at the press conference before England's final, must-win group game against Argentina. In the face of more abuse, all he does is recite Rudyard Kipling's "If" and finish with the words "Ladies and gentlemen...England will be playing four-four-fucking-two"

Miracle

  • Al Michaels reprising his real-life call for the ages (and personal CMOA) as the clock runs out on the American hockey team's victory over the Russians: "Do you believe in miracles?! YES!!"

Mystery Team

  • Duncan launching the cherry bomb at Robert.

Mongol

  • Mongol ends with one: all Mongols fear thunder, except Genghis Khan, who calmly rides through the terrified ranks and pulls them all behind him. Khan's wife gets one too, when she gets herself to Khan's jail cell disguised as a rich local, bribes the guards to take her there at night, then when they try to force more money out of her, forces the key from them at knifepoint.

Nothing Sacred

  • This 1937 film stars a newspaper reporter and a woman who thinks she has a terminal illness. The woman's lying in bed, having more or less given up on life, and the reporter picks her up, professes his love to her, and hits the ice pack off her head. He then proceeds to fight with her (physically), throwing her back onto the bed a few times, while still telling her about his love.

Nothing to Lose

  • In this 1997 movie starring Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins, main character Nick Beam (played by Robbins) undergoes a breakdown and then goes on a driving rampage with an unwilling passenger, T-Paul (played by Lawrence) after T-Paul fails to carjack him; and all this happens after Nick sees his wife in bed with his boss (or so he thinks). Near the end of the film, after a phone call to confront his wife during which he discovers that the woman he saw was actually his sister-in-law with her fiancé, he and T-Paul are confronted by two crooks who've been dogging them throughout the entire film, with all of them having guns drawn on each other. One of the crooks loudly declares that he's a KILLER, and demands to know what Nick is. Nick's response? A cool and confident "I'm married," followed by blasting the crook's pistol out of his hand with a shotgun, followed by him and T-Paul subduing both crooks and leaving them tied up in the alley for the police to find.

Ray Harryhausen

Rocket Science

  • Rocket Science is a film about a teenager with a terrible stuttering problem joining a debate team, which you might not think would lend itself to much awesomeness, but trust me, it does:
    • He throws a massive cello through someone's window.
    • In attempt to overcame his problem, he sings ones of his speeches. The song actually rhymes and forms a coherent argument.
    • His big 'screw you' speech just before the end, somehow made more awesome by how hesitant he sounds and how much he stammers.

Royal Wedding

Soul Surfer

  • The now one-armed Bethany stands on her Surf board for the first time.
    • Also, surfing the final wave in the film's climax (particularly, the funnel scene).

Ten Inch Hero

The Titfield Thunderbolt

  • Rev. Sam Weech shifting the brick-loaded lorry Pierce and Crump used to block the crossing... with his train's engine. And then the subsequent joust with Harry's steamroller.
  • The critical run on inspection day: Pierce and Crump trashed the railway's engine and coach the night before, so Weech borrows the titular Victorian-era locomotive from the railway museum and has the villagers help him put the decommissioned body of one of her old carriages (which had been serving as Dan's house) onto a flatbed. The villagers push the train along stealthily from behind after the emergency brake test snaps the improvised rope coupling, and (with the aid of a marriage promise) secure Harry's roller's chain. To top it all off, the Titfield Thunderbolt performs beautifully, steaming along merrily like she did in days of yore to bring the train triumphantly in to Mallingford Station, where the main line drivers give them an ovation using the whistles of their engines.

War Room

  • Whether you agree with Sherwood Pictures' religious views or not, the speech Elizabeth Jordan makes when she decides to kick the devil/darkness out of her house is pure awesome.
    I don't know where you are, Devil but I know you can hear me. You have played with my mind. And had your way long enough. No more! You are done! Jesus is Lord of this house, and that means there's no place for you here anymore! So take your lies, your schemes and accusations, and get out! In Jesus' name! You can't have my marriage, you can't have my daughter, and you sure can't have my man! This house is under new management, and that means you are out! And another thing! I am so sick of you stealing my joy. But that's changing too. My joy doesn't come from my friends, it doesn't come from my job, it doesn't even come from my husband. My joy is found in Jesus, and just in case you forgot, He has already defeated you. So go back to Hell where you belong and leave my family alone!

Whatever It Takes

  • The "Titanic Dreams" prom is a huge one. Accordion music. The dance floor tears open and people falls to the pool. Ryan dives (a bit after a "no diving" sign can be read :D) and doesn't save Ashley, but goes after Maggie instead. Floyd gets the credit, meets Virgil Doolittle and digs up the neck. Maggie ties Chris to a bed.

Yor: The Hunter from the Future

  • Yor's attack on the cavemen is what made Spoony come up with the warning that is the image in the Moment of Awesome page.
    Spoony: "Yor shots a giant bat out of the sky with a bow, which kills it in one hit and freezing its corpse in instant rigor mortis. He then picks up the stiffened carcass, heaves it over his head and then uses it to hang glide into the cave, to deliver a flying missile drop kick to a purple cavemen. And all the while this sight is so glorious, so metal, so packed full of sheer manly balls, that his theme music kicks in and starts trumpeting again, that Yor is the Man!"


Other

  • Perhaps this belongs in Real Life or Live Action TV, but it occurred at the Oscars, so it's movie-related. During one ceremony, Will Smith presented an award for effects. Before doing so, he noted that though summer blockbusters rarely receive any prominent awards, he loves them anyway, saying that they have "explosions, special effects, and, oh yeah, fans."

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