If watching movies is your favorite hobby, you would willingly drop other tasks on your to-do list for the “pause” button on your remote control.
We will be looking at 9 out of the 28 most paused movie moments in detail.
People pause movies for various reasons. Getting up to bring a snack they want to enjoy along with the film, to answer the door bell, because something that needed to be urgently looked into came up, or simply because you wanted to resume watching it later.
However two reasons for pausing that only an enthusiastic movie-lover would relate to are:
- Stopping to enjoy the minute details of a scene that would go unnoticed by a casual viewer
- Watching and re-watching a particular part of the movie that is the viewer`s favorite or pausing it to just “feel the moment”.
Amongst the most 28 most paused movie moments are the following nine that are our favorite:
The leg-cross moment from Basic Instinct (1992)
This scene from the movie ‘Basic Instinct’ is amongst the most paused ones because it was re-winded and re-watched hundreds of times, especially by the opposite gender to satisfy their lust.
Sharon Stone played the role of a murder-suspect, and in this particular scene involving her interrogation by detective Nick Curran (played by Michael Douglas), she is found to not only dominate the scene, but also uncrosses her legs to use sexual appeal to divert the detective`s attention. This scene is referred to as “the leg cross” and till date captures the attention of many teenagers and young males.
Whiteboard from Cabin in the Woods (2012)
A whiteboard present in one of the scenes from the movie ‘Cabin in the Woods’ caught extraordinary attention as there was a list of negative characters, like monsters, witches and zombies which needed to be dealt with in order to save the main characters. This scene was paused multiple times because viewers wanted to read the complete list.
Wardrobe malfunction in Teen Wolf (1985)
A wardrobe malfunction is visible in one of scenes from the movie ‘Teen Wolf’. It attracted a lot of attention and people paused the scene again and again to laugh over the mishap.
Head explosion from Scanners (1981)
A Canadian horror movie that can be classified as a science-fiction- contains a scene where one person`s head explodes as a result of special powers possessed by Michael Ironside. This explosion was so sudden that people stopped and re-watched this scene multiple times.
Brad Pitt in Fight Club (1999)
In one of the scenes of the movie ‘Fight Club’, Hollywood heart-throb Brad Pitt made a guest appearance, thus increasing the number of pauses, as the fans just wanted to catch a glimpse of their favorite actor.
Skull replacement scene from Psycho (1960)
In spur of a moment, Norman Bates has another skull placed on his face in this movie. The action was so fast that viewers paused the scene to be able to watch it properly, thus causing it to make it to the list of 28 most paused movie moments.
Lion King (1994)
For movie-lovers who look into minute details, it was essential to pause this scene from the movie ‘Lion King’ to be able to read what was written on the sky. Once someone figured it out and shared, pauses increased but the film-makers clarified that the letters were not what the majority guessed them to be, but actually SFX which were used to give credit to their special effects team.
Burn after reading (2008)
‘Burn After Reading’ is a story of crime under the guise of dark comedy. One of the scenes from this movie involved Brad Pitt getting shot. The fact that this was totally unexpected, as he was hiding inside a cupboard in that scene. The action was so fast that the viewers were unable to understand what happened and how. Therefore, this is also amongst the most paused scenes.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999)
This movie scene from ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’ was paused by mostly everyone to carefully view ET and his family from the movie ‘ET the Extra-Terrestrial’. The viewers were pleasantly surprised to catch a glimpse of these characters 17 years later because their original movie left the fans wondering which galaxy they belonged to.
Seeing them in this Star Wars movie answered their question, and created a subtle link between the two movies which is also an indication of the strong friendship between makers of both these movies – George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
These were nine of our favorite picks from the 28 most paused movie moments. Even though lists by different rating websites slightly differently, we made our choices after going through all of them and picked these scenes, based on our understanding of human psychology, knowledge about our readers’ interests, and our own love for movies.