Last time you had a sense of "Wonder and Awe"...

[Worf101]

If you love film as I do, there've been times you've left the theatre with a sense of awe and wonder. That feeling that you've just witnessed something "extraordinary". For some it was "Star Wars', for others "CE3K", for others still "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad". This doesn't have to be limited to "Sci Fi" or "Fantasy". For some "Titanic" filled the bill, for others "How the West was Won". What movie or movies left you dumbstruck upon leaving?

Worf

[Hyfi]

The Deer Hunter

Saw this film in the theater while I was dating my wife when we were about 17. We went with her parents but luckily did not sit together.

The conversation on the way home was quite interesting for sure....

I never saw this side of Nam, only what Life Magazine printed and the skewed info we get from our own government controlled media.

[Feanor]

The Deer Hunter

Saw this film in the theater while I was dating my wife when we were about 17. We went with her parents but luckily did not sit together.

The conversation on the way home was quite interesting for sure....

I never saw this side of Nam, only what Life Magazine printed and the skewed info we get from our own government controlled media.

The Deer Hunter: great example, Hyfi. One of my all-time favorite movies.

The same year (1978) saw the then much acclaimed Coming Home which impressed me very little. The next year saw Apocalypse Now, a great film but a ultimately too surreal; as a human story The Deer Hunter appeal to me much more.

Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, which came much later, were better, maybe more realistic, "soldiers" movies but for me they lacked the "wonder and awe" of Deer Hunter.

[Smokey]

For me it was Jurassic park. History suddenly came back to life, in vivid color.

Before that, Scarface.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

For me recently it was Avatar, then recently with Hugo in 3D.

When I saw Polar Express in 3D, I was also blown away.

[JoeE SP9]

The first movie that gave me that feeling was Forbidden Planet. It's very dated now with what seem like hokey effects. It was however the first movie that effected me that way.

[AltCode]

Children of Men.

I started that movie knowing nothing about it at all, and by the time it was over I was awestruck at the horribly frank (and possible) reality it posed. I would recommend it to anyone.

[Daybear]

For my part, definitely Avatar in 3D! Totaly blown away :-)

[Kam]

aside from the technical ones mentioned, (and i'd agree that seeing the polar express in imax 3d was really something else, and avatar too) but i've grown into being wondered and awed by very clever storytelling and most recently, Midnight in Paris was the latest one i've seen that really impressed me with some clever as hell writing.

[RGA]

The last film to do that for me was Pulp Fiction and Schindler's List in the early 90s.

There are great visual films but all the ones with heavy CGI always look like CGI and that makes them look fake unfortunately. LOTR and Avatar have great visual moments but they also have bash you over the head this looks completely fake and cartoonish moments. If they were better movies you could suspend disbelief but being mediocre means you get bored and you pick it like a scab.

Jaws and Raiders and E.T. The Spielberg era also provided the magic of the blockbuster. I will watch any of these with the fake looking shark and the now weaker visual effects over Avatar/LOTR any day of the week. Better story telling, acting, pacing, and some heart. It's a shame because Cameron made two of my favorite movies The Terminator (a great love story) and Aliens. Weaver as Ripley blowing up some Aliens - gotta love it. What a wasted performance in Avatar - geez. Talk about a ploy merely to get some star power. Funny that Cameron with less money was a much better director - he was forced to rely on a script and story telling and "heart." He also managed it in T2 - perhaps why it was so popular was that it had some heart and also had the effects.

Actually I could add T2 to the list. My expectations at the time were high - I was in my teens and I remember being excited to see it and walked out not disappointed. At the time the special effects were amazing - a liquid terminator - how cool was that?

[RoyY51]

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" from 1951 is the one that did it for me. It was the first sci-fi movie in my experience that didn't portray otherworldly visitors as strictly soulless, misshapen, evil world-conquerers. It opened my mind to the possibility that they could be just like us, with the same fears and flaws that we have. It became my benchmark for sci-fi watching from that point on.

[markw]

"Hugo" struck me emotionally in places I didn't even know I had, paticularly in 3D in the theatre. It isn't too bad in 2D Blu-ray at home, either.

[Jack in Wilmington]

"Hugo" struck me emotionally in places I didn't even know I had, paticularly in 3D in the theatre. It isn't too bad in 2D Blu-ray at home, either.

That's funny, my friend discribed it as "2 hours and 6 minutes of my life that I'll never get back" it's like you two saw different movies.