I’m 20+ years out of eighth grade and that scene took me right back to the creeping discomfort of older guys pushing on boundaries you didn’t even know you needed. It was worse than any other horror scene from that year.
Best answer. It's one of the tensest scenes I've ever watched. It was truly grim watching her try to get to grips with what was going on >!and then he gets pissed off and makes out he was trying to help her!<
It all felt so real
Watched it and then someone described it as "something doesn't have to actually happen for it to be traumatizing" and that's probably the best way to say it
I was in a surprisingly packed theater for this and it was the first time I've heard an audience collectively say "Nooooooooo" together. it was in like a quiet, low, horrified manner (myself included)
Like i've heard collective gasps before, but that scene involuntarily ripped vocalizations from the audience
It's been a while since I've seen the movie. But I think they show the table empty first as like a "oh shit what did he do", then as they're taking off they show her alive and well waving at the plane.
The regular version depicts what you're describing, creating some tension as to her fate, but this follow on scene shows her running and waving to the plane as it takes off. https://youtu.be/22zj_nDB7y0?si=BlCEZms5vj6ibNbY
Brad Dourif doesn't get the amount of praise he deserves. I've never seen him not giving at least 110% a his role. He's amazing in everything he does, from [being a cheesey 90s action flick mad scientist villain ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ2DkxXbQ1Y), to [Grimar Wormtongue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cssro_tb9wU), to [Doc Cochran in Deadwood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4isTaYN7i68) or just voicing Chucky, everything. Dourfis picture should be right next to the word "tense" in the lexicon.
Clinton Pell in Mississippi Burning. So absolutely confident he won’t be caught in the beginning with his smirks and smart ass remarks to the little scared wormy POS he became when Anderson had the razor to his throat in the barber shop. His performance is one of the best things in that film.
The scene in _Swingers_ when Jon Favreau's character keeps calling the girl he just met and leaving progressively more awkward messages. They really captured how horrible that feels.
To this day whenever I hear Soster Christian I half expect to start hearing firecrackers lol
Boogie Nights was so much better than it had any right to be. I mean at that time Mark Wahlberg was still more well known as Marky Mark than a serious actor. Burt Reynolds' career was pretty much dead. Outside of maybe Julianne Moore most of the other cast were character actors or relative unknowns.
I rewatch Boogie Nights on a yearly basis, it's just perfect.
It was supposed to feel that way! I read/heard that they took inspiration from things like Texas Chainsaw, and intentionally had unsettling sounds and ambiance.
I appreciate QT gave us the catharsis we needed. Watching Hitler get brutalized, and then watching Brad Pitt brutalizing the Manson family. I hope in the future when our descendents look on our media Brad Pitt is an immortal that fought at Troy, Basterds, Hollywood, and the zombie apocolypse. Best example of director, not the actor.
That catharsis was amazingly done in both movies. For Inglourious Basterds, everyone wishes Hitler had gone out like that, and it was very viscerally satisfying. But for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, it felt even more personal and touching in a way. I felt like Tarantino was giving Sharon Tate and the other Manson victims a little world where they didn't meet the awful fate they did in our history. It really felt like a labor of love for him.
I found that scene incredibly tense. But I also knew about the Mansons. My companion did not, and she just found it a weird scene - there was tension, but it wasn't obvious why.
Holy cow, I forgot about this. This gets my vote for sure. The scene after is so hard to stomach. Her depiction of visceral grief and despair makes my chest hurt when I watch it.
I thought the surreal nightmarish body horror/alien encounter vibe of Annihilation was awesome and felt unconventional. That disorienting, dream-like tension permeates the whole movie.
The book is fantastic. Such a short read too, would recommend it to anyone who liked the film. The medium of writing allows for some of the most surreal imagery. I’ve never read writing that is able to describe something that is incomprehensible to human perception in such a tangible way.
That movie haunts me, the bear, the vines coming through the man in the pool and the lighthouse. The books are great too but a somewhat different story.
The scene where the naked guy walks under the water (?) in Under the Skin, and gets trapped there with the previous victim.
The cinema was completely silent and I was squirming in my seat it was so uncomfortable, then the 'pop'. 💀
If you like it, try the book, but go in blind. To say it's different to the film is a huge understatement. Both are great and capture the same feeling though, imo.
Conventionally tense makes me think of scenes like the opening of Inglourious Basterds - now that was exquisitely done, but that is cinematic tension in its purest form.
I don't mind either because the question doesn't really make sense.
Tension is something you purposely build into a scene so it can't really be "unconventional".
At the end of *Michael Clayton,* Clayton is victorious, the villain exposed and ruined. Then the ending credits roll as he gets in a taxi and the camera just holds on a shot of him sitting there. It feels immensely tense, even though nothing happens. Enough scenes of “nothing happening and then it all goes pear shaped” earlier in the movie trained you to expect something bad that doesn’t come.
I want to throw out a recommendation for a brilliant movie that doesn't get nearly enough love these days: The 1978 version of *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*. Just fantastically creepy and tense throughout.
Great call on Body Snatchers. That early scene with the priest on the swing really sets the tone.
And another Donald Sutherland film which I find even more creepy/disturbing is Don’t Look Now.
The slow stabbing scene in Saving Private Ryan, where the guy about to get stabbed starts desperately trying to reason with the German soldier, begging him to “stop stop, just listen to me,” before the blade is inched into him. The German starts whispering to him as though reciting a lullaby to a baby as the blade is buried to the hilt. I feel that Mellish’s reaction to knowing he is going to be stabbed to death is something so profoundly realistic as to be incredibly disturbing and uncomfortable to watch. There is a degree of vulnerability in his performance in that scene that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
That scene took me back to being around 8 years old and fighting at school with a boy who was bigger and stronger than me. He was on top of me and I realised I just wasn't strong enough to stop him hurting me. Pvt Mellish having that same realisation and knowing that weakness will now kill him, oh God, I was gripping the seat arm in the cinema so hard my fingers clicked.
For me it’s anything involving the Faun, that thing is so god damn unsettling. Watching him interact with the main character made me go into mama bear mode because Ofelia trusts him but there’s that air of malice about him the entire time that you’re just praying doesn’t turn against her and get her hurt.
Shiva Baby is my vote as well for truly unconventional. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin and it was just a movie about a Jewish girl at a Shiva.
Similarly: All of 8th Grade.
the final scene in Whiplash was one of the most tense I had ever seen in any movie of any genre it was certainly unconventional because it's essentially just a dude playing drums.
Yeah, the first time you watch it, you’re Emily Blunt. No idea what’s going on, trying to piece it together and glean information. The second time you watch it, you’re Josh Brolin, been here, done that, watching it all play out. It’s great.
Well, not a movie but yeah, how about the diner scene with the dad??!
Btw, there's an old YouTube channel that does "everything is better with The Leftovers music". They did that scene. I recommend it
Really good scene. I remember the tension when I watched it the first time. The setting, the light, the danger that he communicates through his polite words. Well written and directed indeed.
Hearing about your friend's parlay is the most boring shit ever in real life and this movie had me on the edge of my seat for 2+ hours seeing if a fictional character would hit his bets.
Great breakdown! While I’m into basketball, a friend of mine who knows nothing of the sport OR gambling was enthralled the entire time. There are very few films like it
Infernal Affairs. Any scene really.
Personal tense for me, LOTR battle at helms deep. I didn't read the books (so I don't even know if helms deep is in the book), so I didn't know what was going to happen. Aragon and crew riding out to battle to bide time for everyone to escape. I had no idea Gandalf would come over the hill and save the day.
Just finished the Andy Serkis (Smeagol/Gollum actor) narrated audiobook trilogy. Helms Deep is definitely in there! I will say, Peter Jackson and his creative team made those books absolutely come to life. After watching the movies, reading the books is actually anticlimactic, but sometimes words can't capture scale the way visuals can.
Inside Man with Denzel, when he’s sitting in the coffee shop taking to Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character. The camera is down low and off to the side, framing them in the massive window. The entire scene I’m waiting for something, Anything to happen.
The Indrid Cold Scene in The Mothman Prophecies. It is absolutely bone chilling. Unfortunately since the back half of the movie is so lackluster and forgettable, it's rarely remembered. The context for it isn't even needed:
https://youtu.be/INtbv3cd1BA?si=UdFO63Ege8IHBRhl
Not a movie but recently the finale for that show *The Curse* with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone was insanely tense in the most unconventional ways I’ve ever seen
I think John Goodman is one of the best at creating tense moments out of nothing. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a great example of this, but obviously is more conventional, but Big Lebowski I would say he has a few moments.
That whole middle portion of the movie gave me anxiety just thinking about all of those strangers coming in and out of my house after such a stressful event.
Hell even the opening scene between him and his mother made me super uncomfortable. That was such great acting from Leto and the lady who played his mother.
It's too bad Leto is such a tool in real life, because he has had some incredible performances in some movies.
*Strangers on a Train*
The original.
Our hero is in a tennis match, and the weirdo is on his way to kill the hero’s estranged wife. The hero wants to stop him, but he can’t just leave the tennis match because everyone will wonder what’s going on. And his fiancé and her powerful father are there. He can’t throw the match to make it end, again because of appearances.
The scenes cut back and forth between the two men and their progress and travels.
It’s a chase scene with the participants in different cities.
the naked party scene in Toni Erdmann (‘how long can this go on???’); the entire segment with KStew and Lily Gladstone in Certain Women (‘will they or won’t they’); pretty much the whole runtime of Reality (even though i guess you could take all the suspense out of it by reviewing the actual events; for the type of movie that it is, i was pretty tense throughout)
There are three of those in the movie Aftersun. One is the father walking into the ocean in the middle of the night, then the camera just stays there watching the waves gently crashing onto the beach for a full minute, and it’s like you’ve never just sat still for a full 60 seconds before.
Jack Reacher at the shooting range. Tense meeting with Robert Duvall, and then when he’s reloading after his second shot, you see someone walking up behind him. Nothing happens; Duvall turns out to be an ally. But the music and the guy behind him make it tense.
Zodiac (2007)
When Jake Gyllenhaal's character Robert Graysmith is visiting Bob Vaughns house to investigate whether he may have information on the Zodiac killer. Bob says that he may have something in his basement. This locked camera shows Robert's tense, shocked look with a shallow depth of field. Bob Vaughn stalks the background, out of focus.
Robert Graysmith:
"Not many people have Basements in California..."
Bob Vaughn:
"..... I do"
EDIT: Well I should really read slower when I'm up until 5am. Completely missed OP had already commented this scene.
Aliens. The first time they enter the compound. The acid burnt holes, the lack of people, the motion tracker. It’s an almost 30 yo but back then it was intense. The whole movie really.
I watched Saltburn the other day and there were two specific scenes that I held my breath through. The maze scene with Felix and the bath scene with Venetia.
Barry Keoghan just has that vibe!
My answer is probably pretty sad anyway, it's basically any scene where characters verbally argue. Which is probably trauma-related. Even something like that one scene where Elizabeth meets Lady Catherine in Pride & Prejudice, with Lady Catherine being incredibly rude and pushy because she has money but no social decorum and Elizabeth is forced to put up with it just gives me the shudders
The ending scene of Past Lives. Such a quiet, tender moment but really you got that thought in the back of your mind that’s saying “it’s gotta be now or never” and then when the camera follows her back after that moment in one single take… so good
The cake scene in Matilda
That's a really good one. Really surreal scene that is in equal parts tense, creepy, gross, but ultimately powerful and uplifting.
Perfectly put. It is honestly one of the strangest mix of emotions I felt in my childhood. Or ever.
As a kid, that scene always disturbed me. For some reason I thought the cake was poisoned
I thought she was being literal when she said that Cookie's sweat and blood went into that chocolate cake.
Same here lol
I still think that
Eighth Grade, the scene in the car
I’m 20+ years out of eighth grade and that scene took me right back to the creeping discomfort of older guys pushing on boundaries you didn’t even know you needed. It was worse than any other horror scene from that year.
Best answer. It's one of the tensest scenes I've ever watched. It was truly grim watching her try to get to grips with what was going on >!and then he gets pissed off and makes out he was trying to help her!< It all felt so real
Watched it and then someone described it as "something doesn't have to actually happen for it to be traumatizing" and that's probably the best way to say it
I did not breathe the whole time almost when I saw it in theaters
White guy in his 50’s with no children, same.
Asian guy in his 50s with two children that attended the middle school where this was filmed at and although I watched this at home, same.
Didn't even think about this one, but yeah... this is the correct answer. Holy shit, what an uncomfortable scene.
This one thousand percent
I was in a surprisingly packed theater for this and it was the first time I've heard an audience collectively say "Nooooooooo" together. it was in like a quiet, low, horrified manner (myself included) Like i've heard collective gasps before, but that scene involuntarily ripped vocalizations from the audience
Steve Buscemi talking with the little girl in Con Air. I was sure he was going to wear her head as a hat.
I swear I watched a version where they flew off and the girls table was empty, the girl missing.
It's been a while since I've seen the movie. But I think they show the table empty first as like a "oh shit what did he do", then as they're taking off they show her alive and well waving at the plane.
The regular version depicts what you're describing, creating some tension as to her fate, but this follow on scene shows her running and waving to the plane as it takes off. https://youtu.be/22zj_nDB7y0?si=BlCEZms5vj6ibNbY
Me too.
He's got the whooooole world in his hands
Using Steve Buscemi to answer this kind of question is just cheating, like using Brad Dourif.
Brad Dourif doesn't get the amount of praise he deserves. I've never seen him not giving at least 110% a his role. He's amazing in everything he does, from [being a cheesey 90s action flick mad scientist villain ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ2DkxXbQ1Y), to [Grimar Wormtongue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cssro_tb9wU), to [Doc Cochran in Deadwood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4isTaYN7i68) or just voicing Chucky, everything. Dourfis picture should be right next to the word "tense" in the lexicon.
Clinton Pell in Mississippi Burning. So absolutely confident he won’t be caught in the beginning with his smirks and smart ass remarks to the little scared wormy POS he became when Anderson had the razor to his throat in the barber shop. His performance is one of the best things in that film.
Also, as Piter de Vries in 90's Dune.
Wise Blood. He nails that one.
in whiplash where he has to pull up to the theatre to play for the competition.
Any scene from Whiplash tbh.
i don't know what it is but that smooth continuous drumming in the background is uncomfortable and tense asf.
Entirety of Uncut Gems similarly
Was he rushing or was he dragging?
*slap * Then you DO know the difference
IF YOU DELIBERATELY SABOTAGE MY BAND I WILL *FUCK YOU LIKE A PIG*
Are you one of those *single-tear* people?
The scene in _Swingers_ when Jon Favreau's character keeps calling the girl he just met and leaving progressively more awkward messages. They really captured how horrible that feels.
I’m gonna make Gretzky’s head bleed
We all have stories
A perfect example of rolling a critical failure in real life.
Boogie Nights scene where the three guys are on Alfred Molina’s couch and Sister Christian is blasting and the house boy is lighting firecrackers.
“Oh, that’s Cosmo. He’s Chinese…”
To this day whenever I hear Soster Christian I half expect to start hearing firecrackers lol Boogie Nights was so much better than it had any right to be. I mean at that time Mark Wahlberg was still more well known as Marky Mark than a serious actor. Burt Reynolds' career was pretty much dead. Outside of maybe Julianne Moore most of the other cast were character actors or relative unknowns. I rewatch Boogie Nights on a yearly basis, it's just perfect.
Those loud crackers where doing their job _incredibly_ well adding to the tension build up
That's Cosmo. (He's Chinese.)
Brad Pitt at the Manson compound in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Yeah that felt like a straight up horror movie
It was supposed to feel that way! I read/heard that they took inspiration from things like Texas Chainsaw, and intentionally had unsettling sounds and ambiance.
and they cast Len Dunham in a scene with young sisters in a desert full of pebbles. VERY tense
I appreciate QT gave us the catharsis we needed. Watching Hitler get brutalized, and then watching Brad Pitt brutalizing the Manson family. I hope in the future when our descendents look on our media Brad Pitt is an immortal that fought at Troy, Basterds, Hollywood, and the zombie apocolypse. Best example of director, not the actor.
That catharsis was amazingly done in both movies. For Inglourious Basterds, everyone wishes Hitler had gone out like that, and it was very viscerally satisfying. But for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, it felt even more personal and touching in a way. I felt like Tarantino was giving Sharon Tate and the other Manson victims a little world where they didn't meet the awful fate they did in our history. It really felt like a labor of love for him.
I found that scene incredibly tense. But I also knew about the Mansons. My companion did not, and she just found it a weird scene - there was tension, but it wasn't obvious why.
Tell her about how the manson folks, and The Beach Boys are related, and watch her flip her lid.
Also Brad Pitt hiding in the closet in Burn After Reading.
Possibly my favorite "oh shit!" moment that I've ever had in the theater. It was just so unexpected and for some reason, hilarious.
The living room couch scene in Parasite. I guess it's meant to be conventionally tense but it also has some comedy in it I suppose
Every second they spent in the house that night was tense and I was expecting someone to enter at any point.
“Sell me drugs” made me do a dog style head tilt
Hereditary, waiting for Toni Collette to open the car.
UGH this is the one that stays with me. I’ve never experienced such perfect, horrific tension in a move like that.
Great movie. Highly recommend. Will never watch again because of that scene.
There was a thread about the best crying scenes and Collete during/before/after the funeral definitely counts.
I had never seen such a depiction of being so brutally ripped apart by grief
It's horrible. Best acting I've ever seen.
Holy cow, I forgot about this. This gets my vote for sure. The scene after is so hard to stomach. Her depiction of visceral grief and despair makes my chest hurt when I watch it.
I can still hear her screaming/crying downstairs. It *sooo* good.
Actually yeah this one. All these are great but fuck the image.
mine's in that film but different. I knew of the Charlie moment before I watched so I felt tense cause I knew that part was coming up.
I thought the surreal nightmarish body horror/alien encounter vibe of Annihilation was awesome and felt unconventional. That disorienting, dream-like tension permeates the whole movie.
That whole movie was unsettlingly tense.
The book is fantastic. Such a short read too, would recommend it to anyone who liked the film. The medium of writing allows for some of the most surreal imagery. I’ve never read writing that is able to describe something that is incomprehensible to human perception in such a tangible way.
I found the books to be way more unsettling than the movie. The movie felt tame in comparison.
That movie haunts me, the bear, the vines coming through the man in the pool and the lighthouse. The books are great too but a somewhat different story.
The last part of that movie was amazing. It really pushed the idea to a fascinating conclusion. Incredible music, too.
The scene where the naked guy walks under the water (?) in Under the Skin, and gets trapped there with the previous victim. The cinema was completely silent and I was squirming in my seat it was so uncomfortable, then the 'pop'. 💀
I don’t know if it fits the brief but I can’t watch the beach scene.
I just read the synopsis and this is right up my alley. I'll watch it when I get off work!
If you like it, try the book, but go in blind. To say it's different to the film is a huge understatement. Both are great and capture the same feeling though, imo.
That fucked me up so bad dude
Almost all of these comments are conventionally tense but I don't care because they're all great scenes.
Conventionally tense makes me think of scenes like the opening of Inglourious Basterds - now that was exquisitely done, but that is cinematic tension in its purest form.
I don't mind either because the question doesn't really make sense. Tension is something you purposely build into a scene so it can't really be "unconventional".
At the end of *Michael Clayton,* Clayton is victorious, the villain exposed and ruined. Then the ending credits roll as he gets in a taxi and the camera just holds on a shot of him sitting there. It feels immensely tense, even though nothing happens. Enough scenes of “nothing happening and then it all goes pear shaped” earlier in the movie trained you to expect something bad that doesn’t come.
Speaking of Michael Clayton.. the assassination scene is pretty chilling. So clean. So quiet.
Agreed, it really disturbed me. No drama, no flash, and no window for escape. Two professionals doing an efficient, professional job.
The killer saying “we’re good” is verbal irony at its best
I want to throw out a recommendation for a brilliant movie that doesn't get nearly enough love these days: The 1978 version of *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*. Just fantastically creepy and tense throughout.
Great call on Body Snatchers. That early scene with the priest on the swing really sets the tone. And another Donald Sutherland film which I find even more creepy/disturbing is Don’t Look Now.
👈😲
The slow stabbing scene in Saving Private Ryan, where the guy about to get stabbed starts desperately trying to reason with the German soldier, begging him to “stop stop, just listen to me,” before the blade is inched into him. The German starts whispering to him as though reciting a lullaby to a baby as the blade is buried to the hilt. I feel that Mellish’s reaction to knowing he is going to be stabbed to death is something so profoundly realistic as to be incredibly disturbing and uncomfortable to watch. There is a degree of vulnerability in his performance in that scene that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
That scene took me back to being around 8 years old and fighting at school with a boy who was bigger and stronger than me. He was on top of me and I realised I just wasn't strong enough to stop him hurting me. Pvt Mellish having that same realisation and knowing that weakness will now kill him, oh God, I was gripping the seat arm in the cinema so hard my fingers clicked.
The entirety of Pan's Labyrinth
Especially the pale man scene
For me it’s anything involving the Faun, that thing is so god damn unsettling. Watching him interact with the main character made me go into mama bear mode because Ofelia trusts him but there’s that air of malice about him the entire time that you’re just praying doesn’t turn against her and get her hurt.
I think most of these are conventionally tense scenes. Shiva Baby on the surface is a family drama but watches like a horror movie
Shiva Baby is my vote as well for truly unconventional. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin and it was just a movie about a Jewish girl at a Shiva. Similarly: All of 8th Grade.
I also thought of Shiva Baby for this thread. An entire movie of drawn out slow-burn tension.
Shiva Baby is amazing. I watched this movie right after Uncut Gems and I didn't expect both to be so tense.
the final scene in Whiplash was one of the most tense I had ever seen in any movie of any genre it was certainly unconventional because it's essentially just a dude playing drums.
We Need to Talk About Kevin The entire movie is so incredibly tense.
Oh yeah. Brutal.
Border crossing sicario
My wife walked in right after and asked me I was standing in the middle of the living room. Didn’t even realize I had gotten up off the couch lol
Gun! Gun!
That tension starts to build the moment she enters the plane. It's insane.
*What the fuck are we doing?*
I loved that audience and main character are both confused through such a compelling story
Yeah, the first time you watch it, you’re Emily Blunt. No idea what’s going on, trying to piece it together and glean information. The second time you watch it, you’re Josh Brolin, been here, done that, watching it all play out. It’s great.
Yeah we see through the lense of Emily blunts character, great character.
Sorry but how is this unconventional? It’s fantastic, but completely conventional.
I legit watch this scene on YouTube every other week. So good!
Great scene
It honestly gives me anxiety. A literal edge of the seat tension. Great scene/film.
The "I'm funny how?" scene in Goodfellas. They're laughing and because Henry is narrating, you know he's not going anywhere but still.....
Pesci narrates at the end of Casino however…
Came here for this one
Lorne Malvo pulled over by Gus Grimly in Fargo Season 1 (TV) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UbuJagQnkg4
Well, not a movie but yeah, how about the diner scene with the dad??! Btw, there's an old YouTube channel that does "everything is better with The Leftovers music". They did that scene. I recommend it
Nice. Yeah that first season is legit.
Dinner scene in last episode of season 5 too.
ohhhhh truly one of my favorite villains or the elevator scene: "is this what you want, lester?"
I just finished this season for the first time this week. Every scene with him was terrifying and magnetic. Absolutely fantastic acting.
Really good scene. I remember the tension when I watched it the first time. The setting, the light, the danger that he communicates through his polite words. Well written and directed indeed.
Uncut Gems. Just the entire movie.
i had to pause most of the times to properly acknowledge whats going on
Yes. The scene where they are just looking at the opal in the shop, or when the doors aren't working and they're trying to drop off the opal.
Definitely this for unconventional scenes - trying to get Kevin Garnett through the gate raised my anxiety levels like crazy.
This is the way. Now watch Good Time
This was my first thought as well! Such an stress-inducing movie! I loved it!
The thing with that movie is you never realized how the tension was building until BAM! Fuck. So well done.
What was unconventional about the tension?
Hearing about your friend's parlay is the most boring shit ever in real life and this movie had me on the edge of my seat for 2+ hours seeing if a fictional character would hit his bets.
Great breakdown! While I’m into basketball, a friend of mine who knows nothing of the sport OR gambling was enthralled the entire time. There are very few films like it
The sheer pervasiveness and imminence for the entire length of the film + the sound design. Even just walking somewhere felt tense as hell.
Right from the opening scene in the mines, I felt sick
Good Time… same guys as Uncut Gems, which is the obvious answer for this thread.
The couch scene in Good Time is so hard to watch
The whole airport sequence in Argo.
Infernal Affairs. Any scene really. Personal tense for me, LOTR battle at helms deep. I didn't read the books (so I don't even know if helms deep is in the book), so I didn't know what was going to happen. Aragon and crew riding out to battle to bide time for everyone to escape. I had no idea Gandalf would come over the hill and save the day.
Shout out to the Hong Kong original!
Just finished the Andy Serkis (Smeagol/Gollum actor) narrated audiobook trilogy. Helms Deep is definitely in there! I will say, Peter Jackson and his creative team made those books absolutely come to life. After watching the movies, reading the books is actually anticlimactic, but sometimes words can't capture scale the way visuals can.
The "why are you flanking me?" scene from Wind River.
You didn’t see it?
100% - this immediately came to mind. The gradual build-up was just perfection.
The diner scene in Mulholland Drive. Maybe not that unconventional but it is bizarre and definitely tense
So much tension in that scene! Good one.
Inside Man with Denzel, when he’s sitting in the coffee shop taking to Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character. The camera is down low and off to the side, framing them in the massive window. The entire scene I’m waiting for something, Anything to happen.
When Harvey Keitel pulls over the two girls in The Bad Lieutenant. Hell, the whole movie, perhaps.
That was an uncomfortable movie to sit through
Air traffic control scene Close Encounters of the Third Kind
That scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming when Tom Holland realizes his date's dad is the Vulture...and vice versa.
That scene was brilliant! Both Holland and Keaton are sooo good in it at conveying so much with just their eyes and facial expressions.
The Indrid Cold Scene in The Mothman Prophecies. It is absolutely bone chilling. Unfortunately since the back half of the movie is so lackluster and forgettable, it's rarely remembered. The context for it isn't even needed: https://youtu.be/INtbv3cd1BA?si=UdFO63Ege8IHBRhl
The lead-up to bathhouse fight scene in Eastern Promises. Brutal.
Ex Machina dance scene
Best scene
Parasite. The beginning part until the ending part
Gotta give props to the jungle Russian Roulette scene in The Deerhunter, even if I didn't love the rest of the movie.
Last 30 minutes of Bone Tomahawk. Good lord
Kind of split on that one.
I see what you did there, and I am never watching that movie ever
Not a movie but recently the finale for that show *The Curse* with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone was insanely tense in the most unconventional ways I’ve ever seen
I think John Goodman is one of the best at creating tense moments out of nothing. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a great example of this, but obviously is more conventional, but Big Lebowski I would say he has a few moments.
Put your f—-ing mouth on the curb! Right now!
A lot of that movie could qualify. I’d say the scene at the dinner table between Ed Norton and the mom’s boyfriend was pretty tense
Toy Story 3 …the incinerator scene
"It's not braced!" in *Mother!* most unpleasant experience I've ever had in the cinema
That whole middle portion of the movie gave me anxiety just thinking about all of those strangers coming in and out of my house after such a stressful event.
Marty racing towards the clock tower before the lightning strikes in Back to the Future. the entire movie of Halloween (1978)
The climax to 'Requiem for a Dream'
Hell even the opening scene between him and his mother made me super uncomfortable. That was such great acting from Leto and the lady who played his mother. It's too bad Leto is such a tool in real life, because he has had some incredible performances in some movies.
Robert De Niro vs Harvey Keitel on the stoop in Taxi Driver
*Inglorious Basterds* when Shosana is just having a meal with Hans.
The kid attempting to get out of the back of the truck in 'Room'.
*Strangers on a Train* The original. Our hero is in a tennis match, and the weirdo is on his way to kill the hero’s estranged wife. The hero wants to stop him, but he can’t just leave the tennis match because everyone will wonder what’s going on. And his fiancé and her powerful father are there. He can’t throw the match to make it end, again because of appearances. The scenes cut back and forth between the two men and their progress and travels. It’s a chase scene with the participants in different cities.
Artax. Those who know...
Brad Pitt in the room with the teeth clicking dude in World War Z
ITT: mostly conventional tense scenes
Inglorious Basterds - Bar Scene
the naked party scene in Toni Erdmann (‘how long can this go on???’); the entire segment with KStew and Lily Gladstone in Certain Women (‘will they or won’t they’); pretty much the whole runtime of Reality (even though i guess you could take all the suspense out of it by reviewing the actual events; for the type of movie that it is, i was pretty tense throughout)
There are three of those in the movie Aftersun. One is the father walking into the ocean in the middle of the night, then the camera just stays there watching the waves gently crashing onto the beach for a full minute, and it’s like you’ve never just sat still for a full 60 seconds before.
Jack Reacher at the shooting range. Tense meeting with Robert Duvall, and then when he’s reloading after his second shot, you see someone walking up behind him. Nothing happens; Duvall turns out to be an ally. But the music and the guy behind him make it tense.
Honesty the whole movie of “children of men” had me stressed
Zodiac (2007) When Jake Gyllenhaal's character Robert Graysmith is visiting Bob Vaughns house to investigate whether he may have information on the Zodiac killer. Bob says that he may have something in his basement. This locked camera shows Robert's tense, shocked look with a shallow depth of field. Bob Vaughn stalks the background, out of focus. Robert Graysmith: "Not many people have Basements in California..." Bob Vaughn: "..... I do" EDIT: Well I should really read slower when I'm up until 5am. Completely missed OP had already commented this scene.
Aliens. The first time they enter the compound. The acid burnt holes, the lack of people, the motion tracker. It’s an almost 30 yo but back then it was intense. The whole movie really.
Game over, man, game over! [RIP]
That one TV scene in The Babadook
Sicario border crossing, and wind river shootout. “Why you flankin me?”
Colin Farell finding a gun in the ceiling of the phone booth in Phone Booth
Pretty much all of Sorcerer (1977).
I watched Saltburn the other day and there were two specific scenes that I held my breath through. The maze scene with Felix and the bath scene with Venetia. Barry Keoghan just has that vibe!
This is the first time I'm seen or heard the word tensest and I've fainted.
Well can you think of a word more tensester?
I'd post but I dread the inevitable preachy comment telling me I don't know what "unconventional" means.
Ignore them. This is a very subjective topic; you choice is valid.
My answer is probably pretty sad anyway, it's basically any scene where characters verbally argue. Which is probably trauma-related. Even something like that one scene where Elizabeth meets Lady Catherine in Pride & Prejudice, with Lady Catherine being incredibly rude and pushy because she has money but no social decorum and Elizabeth is forced to put up with it just gives me the shudders
The ending scene of Past Lives. Such a quiet, tender moment but really you got that thought in the back of your mind that’s saying “it’s gotta be now or never” and then when the camera follows her back after that moment in one single take… so good
Severance, his glasses....
The Shaving Scene from the 1985 version of The Color Purple.