Name your favorite spectacular "money shot" scenes from movies (examples provided)

The opening Star Destroyer shot in Star Wars
The brontosaurus reveal and the first t-Rex attack in JP
The wall of fire in ID4
The T-1000 walking out of the fire in T2
The car chase in Bad Boys
The first use of bullet time in The Matrix
The shoot out in Heat.
The single shot war scene from Children of Men
The beach in Saving Private Ryan
Napalm in Apocalypse Now

Plenty of others but those were the ones I remember off the top of my head as being 'wow' moments that reset the bar for me.

Say what you will about Bay or the movie in general, the 20+ minute attack sequence in Pearl Harbor is absolutely incredible.
Since mrproper already mentioned the best Children of Men sequence, I'll add the car ambush scene.
The Helm's Deep war in Two Towers.
The parking garage chase sequence in Death Sentence.
The single-shot, multi-level fight scene in The Protector.
The slow-motion Leonidas killing spree in 300.
The lobby shootout in The Matrix.
The highway chase sequence in The Matrix Reloaded.
The ending fight sequence in Chocolate.
The Normandy invasion of Saving Private Ryan.
The velociraptors in the kitchen from Jurassic Park.
The T-Rex attack from Jurassic Park.
The Dubai sequence from Mission Impossible 4.

The match-cut in 2001 A Space Odyssey.
The last scene of Cinema Paradiso
The arrival of Jack Sparrow in The Curse Of The Black Pearl
The Maelstrom in POTC At World's End + the death of Beckett in slow-motion.
Mozart seeing a masked Salieri at his door in Amadeus.
Meg Ryan's orgasm in When Harry Met Sally.
The final dance in Black Swan.
Gekko's 'greed is good' speech in Wall Street.
the um..masturbation scene in The Exorcist.
Titanic's "I'm the king of the world" Rose/Jack sequence (although one of the most haunting scenes in Titanic for me, is the mother reading a story to her children as they're about to die - this just breaks me everytime I see it)
the John Hurt 'diner' scene in Alien.
The end of Back To The Future when Doc comes back from the future for the first time, which makes us eagerly waiting for the next film.
The computer vault scene in Mission Impossible.
The "I'll be back" scene at the police station in the first Terminator.
Tron Legacy's light cycle scene.
oh and of course the beach scene in Planet Of The Apes!

...well, that's it for now - and happy new year everyone!!

A lot of mine have already been mentioned.

Omar Sharif's introduction in Lawrence of Arabia
The Odessa steps in Battleship Potemkin
The mutating dog scene in John Carpenter's The Thing
Willem Dafoe gunned down in Platoon

a few more?...

The library scene in Seven, with Bach's aria in background + the 'box delivery' at the end.
The plane chase in North By Northwest.
Rutger Hauer's speech in Blade Runner.
The Joker's first scene in The Dark Knight, with the pen trick.
The duel between Commodus and Maximus in Gladiator.
"you had me at hello" in Jerry Maguire
John Malkovich/Glenn Close's "War" scene in Dangerous Liaisons.

...More to come later! (nice thread btw!)

The king's speech in The King's Speech, with Beethoven playing in the background.

Depth Charge scenes in U-571

The opening explosion in The Hurt Locker
The Death Star explosion in Star Wars
The hospital explosion in The Dark Knight

Ditto. That scene (and with the old couple holding each other in bed) turns me into a big baby.

A few other moments that have sold me on a movie:

• Ed Norton walking around his apartment with the prices of everything popping up in Fight Club
• The worst toilet in Scotland (Trainspotting)
• The second go-round in Run Lola Run
• The first flashback in Memento (realizing what the movie's original concept was)
• The deck scene in Triangle (if you've seen it, you know what I mean)
• The "you talking to me?" scene in Taxi Driver
• The "say allo to my little friend" scene from Scarface
• It's cliche now, but both the bag-in-the-wind and the rose petal scenes in American Beauty
• The car crash in The Blues Brothers
• When the comet streaks overhead of the crammed interstate in Deep Impact, and everyone stops and looks at it trail off to the horizon...and likewise when the wave is about to crush Tea Leoni and her dad and she grabs him and just says "Daddy" right before it hits them (yes, I know it's cheesy but it admittedly chokes me up a bit).
• The original Poseidon Adventure: when the boat capsizes.

And I may catch some slack for this, but Mega Shark leaping 3 miles into the air to grab the jetliner out of the sky and later eating the Golden Gate Bridge is whole-heartedly gut-wrenchingly awesome

I don't think there's anything at all cheesy about the Deep Impact scene, and even more intense is when the girl's parents have sent Leo and her away on the bike and turn to look at each other. Rips me apart even time, that whole thing.

And I love that scene from American Beauty as well where he does his monologue about the bag, it's very powerful.

Obiwan vs Maul in TPM
Achilles vs Hector in Troy
+1 on the deck scene from Triangle
The end of The Prestige
The needle scene in Audition
Ip man vs 10 Japanese
The pedophile scene from Running Scared
Several others that I can't think of or have already been mentioned.

Magua's death.

Any interrogation by Creasy.


Whenever Tae-Sik Cha fights.

Man From Nowhere?

The whole rooftop sequence in Die Hard...from the gunshots to the explosion, Willis jumping off the building and blowing out the window to reach safety only to be almost dragged out again while the helicopters blow up...whew! Still my favorite action sequence ever.

I think the whole Morpheus rescue to the helicoptor crash from The Matrix is pretty spectacular, and has a great vibe to it.

Surprised no one has mentioned this. The Phoebe Cates scene from Fast Times at Ridgmont High.

One I saw night before last, an incredible swooping-in helicopter shot into a soccer stadium that zeroes in on individuals in the crowd in The Secret in Their Eyes.

And that other shot in Children of Men, with the crew in the auto that begins with swapping out the ping-pong balls and culminates in the death and the fleeing from the bad guys. The jump-start of the car going down the hill with the bad guys in pursuit is pretty good as well.

The walking tanks in The Empire Strikes Back.

The last scene in the belltower in Vertigo.

It also turns into a chase through the stadium.. one of the best scenes I've ever experienced.

Oh, and of course O-Ren's entrance into the restaurant with her crew, with the jump cuts and and that killer music pumping behind it.

Ah, nice one. The counter culture is still here BTW

Would the opening sequence of Transformers fit the criteria? That completely blew me away and I love to demo that one...

Andy escaping in The Shawshank Redemption.

Leon taking on the SWAT team in Leon: The Professional.

The end scene in Frailty.

Jim awakening to a deserted London in 28 Days Later.

Truman's escape in The Truman Show.

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0318034

I can't believe I'm the first to mention this executive's pep talk to a crew of struggling real estate salesmen:

So many of them . The dropship from the Sulaco flying into the reactor to save Newt in Aliens . The mayor telling the Ghostbusters " We've got work to do " . " What do you need from me " . Peter telling flyboy " Alright dammit now we've got a war ! " in Dawn of the Dead . More to follow .

Not my favourite mioney shot moment by a long shot, but it needs to be pointed out just how underrated this film is!

I also agree with the EMP moment at the beginning of transformers too. Great moment!