This list comes to us from Sean O’Connell, a New York City-based writer who also contributed a Top 10 Movie Brothers list some time back. If you have a Top 10 you’d like to contribute, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com. Here’s Sean:

Since we are in the thick of the summer movie season you would think that gorgeous summer weather would follow. That is not the case here in New York City. Our summer has been held hostage by constant rain. It has rained 21 out of 25 days here in the month of June alone. The sun has been gone for so long now that the Cullen family from “Twilight” could have taken a summer vacation here with no worries. That is how bad it is. So while I have been trapped inside, it got me thinking of great rain scenes from movies. Here is my top ten rain scenes of all time. Hope you enjoy it and I hope it stops raining here.

10. The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

This may not be the greatest movie ever made, but the NYC rain scenes have been pretty dead-on as of late. I am constantly looking over my shoulder as I walk up 7th Avenue for a giant wall of water to come crashing down on me. As far as the movie goes, this was the one scene that was the most enjoyable. The rude New Yorkers meet their demise and the smart school kids live. The special effects were great and who doesn’t want to see an oil tanker float up 5th Avenue? Once the rain stops, so does the movie unfortunately. It gets caught up in some environmental message while the new Ice Age ascends rapidly (didn’t the first one take over a century to happen, not a day?), Jake Gyllenhaal tries to remind us why we need to pay attention in science class, and Dennis Quaid walks from Washington D.C. on snow shoes that look like tennis rackets to find his son he has lost touch with.

9. Return of the Living Dead (1985)

In this Dan O’Bannon classic, rain plays a prominent role not once but twice. After two bumbling warehouse workers (portrayed by James Karen and Thom Mathews) accidentally set free a poisonous gas from a secret lost army canister, all hell breaks loose. This gas, when released, causes the dead to rise. So when a dead medical cadaver and the half dogs for veterinary school come to life, they are forced to burn them in an incinerator. This just causes all the poisonous gas to be released into the atmosphere, which causes an awesome acid rain storm. The result is that all the bodies in the neighboring cemetery come to life and now need to eat brains to make the pain go away. In the end, our heroes contact the army only to get blown up by a nuclear missile. This again causes the gas to go into the atmosphere and now the rainstorms are happening all over the country. So any rain that can bring about zombies has to make the list.

8. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

This rain scene doesn’t happen until the end but has one of the greatest time travel twists ever. Marty and Doc (Michael J. Fox & Christopher Lloyd) have once again successfully completed their mission, avoided destroying the space-time continuum and were getting ready to leave 1955 for 1985. Just then, the famous Hill Valley rainstorm (the one that destroyed the clock tower) spreads to Hilldale. Doc is already in the Delorean and Marty is on the ground down below. Lightning strikes the Delorean and it seems that Doc has been incinerated. Then a torrential down pour happens, and a strange man in an overcoat appears. Turns out he is from Western Union and was told by Doc (who is now in the Old West) to be there at that precise moment to deliver a letter that tells Marty how to get home. I always wondered: If the letter is about 70 years old, why didn’t the rain destroy it right there? Anyway, watching Marty scream, “The Doc is Alive, he is in the Old West, but he’s alive!” in the pouring rain still makes me smile.

7. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

OK, any movie where the audience re-enacts the rain scene in the theater by shooting water guns in the air and holding newspapers over their heads to shield them from drops of water has to be on the list. The rainstorm in the movie causes couple Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) to get a flat tire. Their search for a phone and escape from the downpour leads them to the Frank-N-Furter Castle, home of transvestite Tim Curry. Since the rain got Brad and Janet’s clothes soaked they are forced to spend a bulk of the movie in their underwear.

6. Spider-Man (2002)

I really deliberated on this one for a long time, mainly because I always got mad that this was the one scene from this great movie that gets shown most of the time. I am, of course, talking about the famous upside-down kiss, but since it became an iconic part of the movie, I felt forced to put it on the list. We all know what happens: Thugs are attacking Mary Jane, Spidey saves the day, and gets a kiss for his reward. This all happens as Mother Nature is unleashing a heavy rainstorm. The one good thing that came from this scene was Kristen Dunst’s wet T-shirt look that kept every teenage boy happy that summer.

5. Unforgiven (1992)

Rain is prominent throughout Clint Eastwood’s Academy Award-winning Western. It is raining in the opening scene where Little Bill (Gene Hackman) tries to settle a dispute between the owner of the whorehouse saloon and the two cowboys responsible for the attack on a prostitute. It is raining while Little Bill is trying to build his house–he is not a very good carpenter because the roof is constantly leaking. The most important rain scene, however, is saved for last. The rain clouds come rolling in just as William Munny (Eastwood) finds out (SPOLIER ALERT!) his best friend Ned (Morgan Freeman) was killed by Little Bill. Munny, a recovering alcoholic, is now about to become the monster he once was–the man who killed women, children and everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. The transformation is complete as he rides into town in the rain and you see the empty bottle of whiskey thrown into a puddle. Munny enters the saloon and takes care of business in a great shoot-out, then rides out of town in the rain.

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The battle for Helm’s Deep during the second of Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy was the best combat scene from the entire thing. The whole amazing war happened while sheets of rain fell from the sky. You would think a fight scene would be hard to follow during a rain sequence, but not here. Everything is well choreographed and the action is top-notch.

3. Forrest Gump (1994)

Everyone always remembers that “life is like a box of chocolates,” but I bet you everyone also left the theater after seeing this remembering the different types of rainstorms there are. When Forrest (Tom Hanks) is fighting in Vietnam, he narrates, “One day it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain … and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. And then one day it just stopped.” That is what we are going through here in NYC. I hope it stops suddenly just like it did in the movie.

2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

This rain scene is one of my all time favorite movie scenes. Who can forget Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) raising his outstretched arms triumphantly in the air after escaping from Shawshank Prison through a sewage tunnel? The rain beats down on his face as he smiles for the first time in a long time as a free man. The image of a free Andy will always stay burned in my brain and every time I watch this scene it still sends chills up my spine. Nothing beats Red’s (Morgan Freeman) narration as the scene is unfolding: “Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. Five hundred yards … that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.” This arguably would be the greatest rain scene in movie history if it were not for number one.

1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Come on, you saw this coming. It even has the word rain in the title. Who can forget Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) incredible dance number in the rain? Don just says goodnight to Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds) after a great evening. He is so happy at the turn of events that he feels he must sing about it while it is raining. He swings on lampposts, jumps in puddles, and twirls an umbrella the whole time. He never seems to mind that he is soaking wet. Some trivia tidbits about the scene, Kelly had a 103-degree fever the day of filming the scene. Co-director Stanley Donen (Kelly was the other co-director) wanted to send him home, but Kelly refused. So massive preparations were taken so that it could be filmed in one take, and it was. The most famous rain scene in movie history was done in just one take and Kelly also improvised most of his dance moves. Also, the rain consisted of a mixture of milk and water so it would show up better on film. This mixture caused Gene Kelly’s wool suit to shrink. In 1971, Stanley Kubrick paid twisted homage to this musical rain sequence in the immortal “A Clockwork Orange.”

Tags: 10, baptism, best, film, list, moments, movie, rain, scenes, symbolism, ten, top, Top 10 Movie Rain Scenes

Top Ten Tuesday is here and so is the holiday season. But, as usual, we’ve got something a bit different for you. Christmas is such an emotional time of the year that it serves filmmakers well. Whether you’re celebrating the joy of Christmas or wallowing in self-pity at a holiday spent alone, there is so much already wrapped up (no pun intended) in this time of the year that it can echo the most excitement or the bluest melancholy in the wink of an eye. None of these films are considered Christmas movies, but each one of them features an important moment in the life of a character during that holiest of holidays. So grab some egg nog and enjoy this list of fantastic Christmas scenes! (Next week get ready for some more non-traditional Christmas fun.)

10. The Matador (2005)

Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan) is a hitman having a hilariously petty midlife crisis. When he shows up at the house of businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) during Christmas to beg for his help, it is obvious Danny will take some convincing, so the slimy smooth-operator charms Danny’s wife with his inappropriate wit, and dances with her by the Christmas tree. This dark comedy has a lot to explain about Mexico City and what went on earlier that summer between the two, but one unexpected theme does come to light—welcoming an unwanted and desperate visitor into your home, even a sad little person like Brosnan’s mustachioed has-been. Writer/director Richard Shepard finds humor and pathos in the most peculiar places, and this is one peculiar movie worth checking out. Christmas time is the perfect setting to garner a little sympathy, even for a bastard like Julian.

Danny Wright: [discussing possible escape routes] That door over there, if it weren’t locked.
Julian Noble: A Vietnamese girl I once knew had her legs so locked together I couldn’t get a whiff of her spring roll. Two drinks, half a Quaalude later, I was at an all you can eat buffet. Every lock can be broken. It’s just a matter of will and whether it’s worth it.

9. Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Two key moments in Steven Spielberg’s breezy movie about young con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is pursued by determined FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) take place on Christmas. The first happens when Frank calls Carl to apologize for fooling the lawman after a particularly close call. At first, Carl is annoyed. Realizing that its Christmas, however, the agent realizes Frank may be “living the life,” but a fugitive like him has no one to talk to on Christmas Day. The second Christmas moment comes late in the film, when the two meet again at a print shop in France, but this time Carl has the upper hand and fools Frank into coming outside by telling him that the police have the place surrounded when they haven’t even shown up yet. The film feels a little long, but the moments that work make for some spectacular entertainment.

Frank Abagnale, Jr.: Carl? Carl! Merry Christmas! How is it we’re always talking on Christmas, Carl? Every Christmas, I’m talking to you! [laughs]
Carl Hanratty: Put your shirt on, Frank. You’re under arrest.

8. Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)

When you die and go to Heaven, maybe it will be Christmas every day—where women wearing plastic breasts and dressed in sexy Santa outfits dance behind a gleaming-toothed lounge singer at an uber-cheesy Las Vegas-style show. The British comedy troupe’s last film together won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival, and the disturbingly funny song “Christmas in Heaven,” sung by Graham Chapman, is typical of the no-holds-barred kind of surrealist humor that the rest of the film exhibits. All the characters from earlier in the movie are seated in Heaven, watching in wonderment and awe at the monumental shininess of it all. Underscoring the uncomfortable feeling, Chapman’s lips and extravagantly white smile don’t quite seem to match up with the singing. If this is Heaven, I’d hate to see what Hell looks like. To hear the song, click here. 
To watch the scene, just click below and fast-forward to 1:50.

YouTube Direct Start video at 1:50 It’s Christmas in Heaven/ All the children sing/ It’s Christmas in Heaven/ Hark hark those church bells ring./ It’s Christmas in Heaven/ The snow falls from the sky/ But it’s nice and warm and everyone looks smart and wears a tie./ It’s Christmas in Heaven/ There’s great films on TV/ ‘The Sound of Music’ twice an hour/ And ‘Jaws’ I, II, and III.

7. Far From Heaven (2002)

Christmas parties have been known to bring out the best and worst in people. Giving a modern spin to the Douglas Sirk Technicolor weepies of the 1950s, this meticulous Todd Haynes film tackles homosexuality and racism more directly than the melodramas of that era were allowed. At a Christmas party, the first cracks in their flawless veneer start to show when Frank, the perfect husband (Dennis Quaid), is inebriated and belligerent while Cathy, the perfect housewife (Julianne Moore), is chastised by her neighbors for getting too friendly with her black gardener (Dennis Haysbert). On the outside, Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech (named after breadwinner Frank’s TV company) may be the model of affluent suburbia, but societal tragedy lurks just beneath the surface. Frank, it turns out, is a closeted homosexual, and after the party he drunkenly tries to make out with his wife. When he can’t do it, he repeatedly yells out in frustration, “Jesus!” Merry Christmas, indeed.

Stan Fine: [complimenting Cathy] Frank is the luckiest guy in town!
Frank Whitaker: It’s all smoke and mirrors, fellas. That’s all it is. You should see her without her face on.
Doreen: Frank!
Cathy Whitaker: No, he’s absolutely right. We ladies are never what we appear, and every girl has her secrets.

6. Goodfellas (1990) “Frosty the Snowman” by the Ronettes plays over a Christmas party celebrating the pre-dawn robbery at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport by Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) and his group of wiseguys. But when the gangsters’ wives start showing up in mink coats and driving hot pink convertibles, they become obvious targets for the police, and he flies off the handle. It’s supposed to be a celebration, but already the walls are crumbling in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster epic. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love plays at the house of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), where his wife gets a wad of bills for Christmas, and his family enjoys a huge white artificial tree. The good cheer is short-lived. By 1980, it would be replaced by backstabbing and paranoia, as all of the divergent paths of Hill’s complicated Mafia career collide. Scorsese uses the season as foreshadowing in this scene, one of about a hundred virtuoso moments in a film that has found a huge and appreciative audience on home video.

Jimmy: Don’t buy anything. Don’t get anything. Nothing big. Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re going to get us all f–kin’ pinched, that’s why. What are you, stupid?

5. Citizen Kane (1941)

It is a small scene to be sure, but perhaps the most important one in unlocking the famous “Rosebud” mystery of Orson Welles’ masterpiece and one of the greatest films ever made. Sitting in front of the Christmas tree, 8 year-old Charles Foster Kane is given a sled by his new legal guardian, a bank manager in Chicago named Walter Parks Thatcher. The new sled is meant to replace the one he had in Colorado, back with his family. He offers a curt “Merry Christmas” back to Thatcher, and it is clear that this shiny new sled will never take the place of his cherished old one. It may be emblazoned with a medieval knight’s helmet and called the Crusader, but the new gift represents a kind of innocence lost for a young boy whose childhood was robbed. Welles’ movie is overflowing with a complicated, time-shifting narrative and other pioneering techniques that are still used today. If you’ve never seen it or haven’t seen it in a while, Christmas break is a great time to catch up with a classic.

Mr. Thatcher: Why, we’re going to have some fine times together, really we are, Charles. Now, shall we shake hands? [Charles pulls back] Oh, come, come, come, I’m not as frightening as all that, am I? Now, what do you say? Let’s shake.

4. American Psycho (2000)

If Mary Harron’s gruesomely funny movie is a searing indictment of 1980s greed and materialism, then guess what holiday is best suited to one of the funniest scenes in the film? If you said Christmas, then you’ve seen this classic moment (or perhaps the rest of this list.). Wearing furry antlers and sporting a Grinch-like frown, murderous yuppie Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is bored by all the festivities. He is all business as he scurries away from his cheery girlfriend Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) and her Vietnamese pot-bellied pig to talk turkey with a rival. He is the anti-Christ(mas). The scene opens with Bale uttering the hollowest and flat holiday greeting ever: “Hey Hamilton, have a holly jolly Christmas. Is Allen still handling the Fisher account?” Actually, reading it really doesn’t do the scene justice. Why not watch it now?

Evelyn: Stop scowling Patrick, you’re such a Grinch. What does Mr. Grinch want for Christmas? And don’t say breast implants again.

YouTube Direct Patrick Bateman loves Christmas

3. The Apartment (1960)

In writer/director/producer Billy Wilder’s sophisticated and nuanced romantic comedy/drama, lonely salaryman Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and cute elevator girl Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) share some time at an office party on Christmas Eve. Each of them thinks they are getting what they want for Christmas—him, a nice raise and some new respect; and her, a husband. But when Bud’s co-workers complain about how he got the promotion (letting his boss use his apartment for secret trysts with Miss Kubelik) and Fran finds out she is but one of many of the philandering Mr. Mandrake’s affairs, it turns into a bittersweet night. Bud ends up drinking alone at a bar, and Fran does something quite drastic. Wilder’s coup d’état came when he captured Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay wins for “The Apartment” at the Oscars in 1961, and deservedly so. It looks today as it did then—like a modern classic. Just look at this sparkling dialogue:

Bud: Well, as a matter of fact, I was rather hurt that night you stood me up.
Fran: I don’t blame you, it was unforgivable.
Bud: I forgive you.
Fran: Well, you shouldn’t.
Bud: You couldn’t help yourself. I mean, when you’re having a drink with one man, you can’t suddenly walk out on him because you’re having another date with another man. You did the only decent thing.
Fran: I wouldn’t be too sure. Just because I wear a uniform, that doesn’t make me a Girl Scout.
Bud: Miss Kubelik, one doesn’t get to be a second administrative assistant around here unless he’s a pretty good judge of character, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re tops, I mean, decency-wise, and otherwise-wise.

2. L.A. Confidential (1997)

Curtis Hanson’s masterful (and Oscar-winning) adaptation of a gripping, hard-boiled crime novel by James Ellroy opens with a fictionalized version of a true-life incident, one of the many blights on the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1950s. Up to fifty members of the force severely beat seven Latino men while they were in custody on Christmas Day 1951. “Bloody Christmas” was what the papers called the controversy, and in the movie, Guy Pearce’s by-the-rules detective Ed Exley is hated immediately by every cop in the building for testifying against the officers involved. It is a brutal opening to one of the best films of the last 25 years; a film that gets it all right—the decay and rot that ran rampant beneath the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Hanson also deserves credit for breaking Pearce and Russell Crowe through to American audiences, and for using Dean Martin’s saucy rendition of “The Christmas Blues.”

Capt. Dudley Smith: I wouldn’t trade places with Edmund Exley right now for all the whisky in Ireland.

1. Smoke (1995)

Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story, a short story by Paul Auster that appeared in the New York Times on Christmas Day in 1990, led to this film collaboration with director Wayne Wang. Several stories are linked together by the colorful characters who shop at a Brooklyn cigar shop run by the ever-optimistic Auggie (Harvey Keitel). A frustrated writer (William Hurt), a doppelganger for Auster himself, learns to take the time to look at life differently after coincidences open him up to life-changing events. At one point in the film, Keitel sits Hurt down to tell him Auster’s Christmas story that appeared in the Times. It is the centerpiece of the movie and is a simple tale full of stealing, loneliness, and unexpected warmth. To read Keitel’s monologue from the film, click here. To hear Auster himself read the story and the circumstances surrounding it, click here. Listen now. Trust me, it’s worth it.…and have a Merry Christmas!

Auggie Wren: If you can’t share your secrets with your friends then what kind of friend are you?
Paul Benjamin: Exactly… life just wouldn’t be worth living.

Tags: 10, characters, christmas, films, moments, movie, movies, non-christmas, scenes, ten, top, Top 10 Defining Christmas Moments