We’ve all had moments where we are watching a movie and we hit a specific moment where we simply have to pause, think, rewind and watch again. It is the proverbial “WTF” moment if we can call it that. We decided to list our top 10 most paused movie moments. From the sexy, to the horror, to the plain weird. These are the scenes that absolutely require a pause, rewind and watch again.
Feel free to comment below and let us know if we missed anything. Here’s our top 10 most paused movie scenes:
1. Stormtrooper hits head – Star Wars Episode IV (1977)
A scene most of us will know. George Lucas famously left in this gaffe of a Stormtrooper hitting his head on the Death Star and while you don’t notice it the first see the movie, once you do notice it, it’s all you ever see. Not sure why this is paused – it works better as a clip – but its a hilarious moment.
2. Sharon Stone – Basic Instinct (1992)
Definitely the most well known moment, so no surprise here. Paul Verhoeven’s erotic thriller helped make Sharon Stone a super star as her character, the murderous Catherine Tramell, tries to seduce Michael Douglas’ character by briefly flashing her most intimate of areas. The scene has inspired numerous spoofs, references and young male libidos.
The video below is of course edited to some extend.
3. The Cabin in the Woods Whiteboard – Cabin in the Woods
If there’s even an inch of geek in you, there’s absolutely no way that you got to this point in Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s spectacular meta-horror movie Cabin in the Woods without grabbing for your remote control. It’s ingenuity like this that we absolutely love. Thumbs up for distinguishing between witches, and sexy witches.
4. Jessica Rabbit – Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Kathleen Turner’s sultry turn as one of, if not the, most sexualized animated characters of all time had plenty of suggestive dialogue, visuals, but none more than this scene. She is without a doubt one of the sexiest animated female characters ever. The paused moment however is one we could not get our hands on, which is the scene where she and the detective crashes the car by driving into a street lamp and when pausing at the precise moment…you can see that Jessica Rabbit is going commando.
5. Fight Club Subliminal Images – Fight Club
It’s to be expected in a movie where the lead character (Tyler Durden played by Brad Pitt) is shown working at a movie house where he inserts subliminal images into the movie reels. But did you catch the subliminal images in the actual movie?
The below video takes you through it:
6. The 3 boobs in Total Recall – Total Recall
As the old saying goes: “three boobs are better than one.” Or, at least, that’s how it would had we not just made it up. There’s no doubting that the part most people remember about Total Recall involves a mutant prostitute from Mars approaching Arnold Schwarzenegger and exposing her triple assets. Teenagers the world over ignored the fact that such a trait was caused by a terrible genetic mutation, and utilised their pause button to, uh, get a load of all that wonderful make-up work. Yeah, that’s it.
The scene was even recreated with the new reboot of Total Recall.
7. Captain America’s Shield – Iron Man 2 (2010)
Before there was even a rumour of a Captain America movie, there was this one scene which started to link all the Marvel characters together. It can be seen as the first. The beginning of the massive on-screen Marvel universe. Jon Favreau’s inclusion of Captain America’s shield in Iron Man 2 was super subtle, but very exciting. And it makes sense as we later found out Tony’s father Howard helped create Cap.
8. Wild Things
We don’t really have to explain this one right? The 1998 movie had two of the hottest woman in the world (Neve Campbell and Denise Richards) at that stage ‘getting it on’ in a pool. Can it get any better? This is one of the hottest scenes I can remember watching over and over again, pausing at multiple places, over and over again.
The closest safe for work clip we could find was this one, but we’re sure you all know what scene we’re talking about.
9. Phoebe Cates – Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Fast Times At Ridgemont High has a lot going for it, but there are two things in-particular that most people recall when somebody mentions the name of this movie. That’s to say, many an adolescent boy spent the sum of those long, summer evenings pausing it at the exact moment when Phoebe Cates climbs out of the pool, walks towards the camera, and unhooks her bikini top from the middle.
This is just a fantasy scene in the film, of course, which begs the question: was it necessary? Well, presumably they cast Cates, saw her in a bikini, and felt that it was their God-given responsibility to show the word her assets.
Let the pausing commence!
10. Han Shot First – Star Wars
Never has there been a more paused scene among us geeks. The questions that still plagues and keeps us all awake at night. Who shot first? Han or Greedo? In controversy surrounding this scene is of such a massive state that websites, T-shirts and even ‘motivational posters have been created claiming that Han shot first. It has become a Star Wars must-know, and one that every fan will have a very strong opinion about.
In the 1977 version of the film, then in the 1997 special edition re-release it looked as if Greedo shot first in the scene in the Cantina. George Lucas has commented on this claiming that he cleared up the confusion in the special edition, meaning that Greedo did in fact shot first. Blashphemy!
Here’s a great comparison video of the two editions:
