For a relatively new genre of film, computer animated comedies already have some pretty stiff competition. In a class headed by the likes of Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, Wall.E and Up, it’s always going to be tough to make your mark. Over The Hedge, released by DreamWorks in 2006, had all the right tools: cutesy characters for the kids, some light satire on American consumerism for the adults and some decent voice talent, including names such as Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Steve Carell, Omid Djalili, Eugene Levy, Avril Lavigne and even William Shatner. The overall result was a bit meh, save for one outstanding moment during the film’s climax.

Steve Carell’s Hammy the Squirrel is hyperactive, noisy and as annoying to his friends as he is to the audience. There’s hope for us yet though, as it looks like he is about to be killed along with the rest of the woodland critters after they get trapped in a hedge between a hungy bear, an angry exterminator and the psychotic strimmer-armed homeowner. The three hack away at the bush and all appears to be lost, until Bruce Willis’ RJ Racoon decides to give Hammy an energy drink. Collectively, the audience sighs: the loud, shrieking, obnoxious rodent is about to become louder, shriekier and more obnoxious for a chaotic finale.

But as he guzzles it down amid a Jim Carrey-style seizure and we await the blaring cresendo, the film jolts to an unexpected stop. The world stops turning, and the filmmakers instead treat us to events from Hammy’s POV, as he leisurely strolls through the frozen anarchy around him, calmly setting his enemies up for a fall. He even has time to stop for a snack…

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Kramer vs Kramer should be drippy, afternoon-movie-on-Five muck. That it isn’t is a testament to the terrific performances that are as natural as you will come across in a major Oscar-baiting flick. All great actors channel a bit of themselves into their roles and Dustin Hoffman is one of the greatest.

It’s the little touches that elevate this film - at the end of shooting the movie’s final sequence, his co-star Meryl Streep asks Hoffman if her crying has ruined her eye make-up, thinking their scene is finished. Director Robert Benton liked that bit so much he put it in the film. Streep was also caught unawares in a scene where Hoffman throws a glass of wine at a wall as they argue. The only other person than the actor who knew he was going to do it was the cameraman.

And then there is Kramer vs Kramer’s pièce de résistance – the ice-cream eating scene. Totally improvised by Hoffman and child actor Justin Henry, it is simply brilliant to watch. Not the only great food-related moment in the film (the cooking of French toast is also pretty damn good), but the most famous. And all because it feels so real.

The moment when this scene suddenly shifts from comedy to drama, as Henry bites into the forbidden ice-cream instead of his steak, is something we can all identify with, whether we were the petulant kid or have become the angry parent. It’s also a very brave scene – not too many A-list actors today would even consider calling a child a ’little shit’ on screen.

But then that’s why Hoffman’s great work stands out, because he’s not afraid to tread where others wouldn’t even contemplate going. And he thoroughly deserved his Oscar for Kramer vs Kramer.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM KRAMER VS KRAMER?

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Slumdog Millionaire was last year’s unstoppable awards locomotive – once it got up and running it just steamrolled over every other contender. So it’s perhaps fitting that arguably the movie’s stand-out piece is on a train. The mode of transport is a constant symbol in the film (click HERE for a interesting analysis of trains in Indian cinema) and here it is used to explore the bond between brothers Jamal and Salim, the heart and soul of Danny Boyle’s splendid film.

Montages are often just a lame way, in the words of Team America, to ‘remind everyone what’s going on’, but Boyle has other ideas in this sequence. Proving that style and storytelling can mix, he weaves some magic as his kids perfect the art of the hustle.

The choice of song (Paper Planes by MIA) is also perfect and Boyle obviously had it in mind for a long time, as his recorded annoyance at its use in the trailer for Pineapple Express, before Slumdog was released, illustrated. In years to come, however, people won’t be thinking of Seth Rogen when they hear this song. They will be thinking of the thrilling and dangerous journey they were taken through by the 2008 Best Picture.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE?

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In about 20 or 30 years or so, I think Mean Girls will be talked about in the same way many of us tend to gush over 80s teen movies like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller today. It’s an intelligent but fun film, exposing the trials and tribulations of school life in an original and entertaining way. Having a screenplay by Tina Fey obviously helped, but Mean Girls thrives on the performances of its two leads, Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams.

And here they are dancing to Jingle Bell Rock. In short skirts. Amazingly, this scene cleverly manages to steer clear of sleazy and becomes a fun, memorable dance number. Interestingly, the dance is performed by the school’s biggest bitches, but the film doesn’t dwell on that, instead letting its hair down and giving us something that unites all the pupils in the audience, even if they hate the guts of the girls on stage.

As she also showed in the Freaky Friday remake, Lindsay Lohan is a skilled actress, even if McAdams has the meatier role as the Queen of the Plastics. Throw in appearances from Fey, her Saturday Night Live partner Amy Poehler and everyone’s favourite Fugitive-chaser, Neil Flynn, and you have a cracking Christmas scene.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM MEAN GIRLS?

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Every year some ‘fun-packed’ Christmas movie is forced on us at the cinema. It usually has a lame premise involving what Santa Claus is really like. It’s usually filled with fake snow as it has been filmed in a blazing hot LA summer. It usually makes you want to just call off Christmas. Worst of all, it usually stars Vince Vaughn.

But sometimes, in an unlikely development as rare as three wise men turning up at a manger at just the right time, we get something that really is fun. Something that, goddamit, makes you believe in the magic of Christmas all over again. In 1988, that unlikely development was Scrooged. In 1993, it was The Nightmare Before Christmas. And in 2003, it was Elf.

While I am not for one second going to make a case that Elf is the equal of those other two movies, what I will say is this: it is unexpectedly brilliant fun. As the titular Elf, Will Ferrell brilliantly manages to tread the funny tightrope and not fall off into annoying.

Here he engages in some great banter with his new department store boss, played with straight-faced precision by the superbly-monikered Faizon Love. Somehow their childish argument over the whereabouts of the North Pole (‘No it isn’t.’ – ‘Yes it is.’) makes me smile, before a grinning Ferrell gets told to ‘make work his new favourite’. It’s all really simple stuff, but it’s also really sweet. No one does big kid better than Ferrell, and no one could have shouted ‘SANTA!’ louder.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM ELF?

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A while ago on RvR, Ross McD tried to argue that horror and comedy can’t mix, that the pair are reluctant bedfellows. He has obviously not watched Gremlins recently. Joe Dante’s terrific 1984 film is that rare beast – a movie that entertained you when you were a kid that still retains its brilliance when you watch it 25 years later. This scene, in which Lynn Peltzer (Frances Lee McCain) does battle with the nasty little creatures in her home, contains all the elements that make Gremlins a classic.

The sound of Johnny Mathis singing quite a creepy Christmas song soon gives way to Jerry Goldsmith’s spine-tingling score, as Mrs Peltzer realises that there is a really foul smell coming from her kitchen. The genius of Gremlins is that it scares you while making you chuckle. This is the first time in the movie we get a good view of what Mogwais look like after they’ve had late-night chicken, and they are pretty frightening. There is, however, great comedy to be had from mutilating them with various home appliances.

There are so many great touches here: the shadow of the Gremlin on the wall, the headless gingerbread man and the neat slasher movie reversal that has us fearing for Mrs Peltzer – even though she is the one stalking the house armed with a knife.

In the first draft of Chris Columbus’s script, this scene was much darker. Mrs Peltzer was decapitated by a Gremlin and her head rolls down the stairs to greet her son Billy when he arrives on the scene. But the filmmakers eventually decided not to turn Gremlins into an all-out horror fest. Despite the slight lightening in tone to make it a PG movie, the microwave shot in this scene proved crucial (along with the dark material in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom) in persuading US censors that a new certificate was needed, leading to the creation of the PG-13 rating.

McCain’s performance is just terrific, her sweaty brow and her steely glare conveying the perfect combination of fear and defiance. Her cry of ‘Get out of my kitchen!’ is up there with Harrison Ford’s ‘Get off my plane!’ You can’t help but cheer her on as she wipes out the green meanies. And who would have thought someone called McCain could be so handy with a microwave?

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM GREMLINS?

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Shane Black has a thing for Christmas. His often funny but slightly overrated directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is set during the holiday season, a trend he began in the script he penned for Lethal Weapon. Would Lethal Weapon have been a worse film had it had Easter or mid-term school break as its backdrop? Probably not, but the Christmas setting certainly adds fun, particularly as snow and goodwill to all men are such alien concepts to the sunny, spiteful LA we usually see depicted in the movies.

When you rewatch Lethal Weapon after a few years, it’s a joy to rediscover how ‘out there’ Mel Gibson’s performance is as psycho burnout law enforcer Martin Riggs. The lame later sequels effectively diluted all the menace out of Riggs, but in the original he is a brilliant creation of unhinged energy, as eager to blow his own head off as the bad guys’.

Here, Riggs crazily takes on a bunch of scumbags amid rows of Christmas trees, all the while not caring too much whether he lives or dies. It’s not a particularly well-acted scene, but it is powerful. There is the stock bad thesping from the guys playing the drug-dealing goons, some nice Three Stooges slapstick from Gibson and the obligatory loud swearing. I also like it when Gibson lapses into Australian when he spits: ‘ This is a real fackin’ gun!’

Lethal Weapon is raw, edgy, fun and sometimes silly blockbustering, and this scene pretty much sums up that mantra.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM LETHAL WEAPON?

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Hugh Grant is a good actor. Let me get that out of the way right at the start. The man can act. Unfortunately, he often chooses not to act, appearing in worse-than-derivative drivel like Music and Lyrics. Yet even when he’s slumming it, Grant can often elevate a lame movie out of the gutter. Thankfully, in the rather underrated About A Boy, he acts his socks off. But not in a showy way – Grant’s performance is admirably restrained as he brilliantly conveys what it’s like to be a directionless man-child.

Some of you may snidely say that portraying a rich Londoner with lots of time on his hands isn’t much of a stretch for Mr Grant, but I disagree. The role of Will in About A Boy is a tricky one – he is someone you should dislike yet warm to in equal measure. Grant is perfectly cast, making it hard to imagine anyone else carrying it off.

In this scene, Will initially tries to talk his unlikely protégé Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) out of ‘committing social suicide’ at the school talent show. This segment is a bit longer than those we usually focus on in Great Scenes, but it has to be viewed in its entirety for its car-crashness to be fully appreciated.

The argument the pair have before Marcus bravely takes the stage alone is heartfelt and genuine, as this unlikely couple banter over what actually makes people happy. From there on, we get excrutiating child singing and painful peer group laughter before Will comes to the rescue. With a guitar.

The rest of the scene is just beautiful – uplifting, comic and, thankfully, free from sugar-coating. Of course, after doing a good deed, Will can’t help behaving like a prat, making the finale not only funny, but real too.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM ABOUT A BOY?

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There is a really simple formula to filmmaking: great script + great actors = great movie. And yet why do so many get it wrong? Well, if every film had Bette Davis in it they would at least be halfway to greatness. But throw in a scintillatingly witty script from writer/director Joseph L Mankiewicz and you get one of the best films ever made. All About Eve is pretty much perfect in every way, from its scathing depiction of the corruption that can come with ambition, to its portrayal of what goes on behind the curtain in the world of theatre.

At the heart of the story is Margo Channing (Davis) an ageing actress whose sense of paranoia is heightened when a young protégé, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), walks quite literally off the street and into her life. To reveal much more is to spoil the film for those who haven’t yet seen it, but suffice to say it is a wonderful feast of a movie, filled with cracking performances and crackling dialogue.

In this sequence, Margo is playing hostess at a birthday party for the theatre director she is seeing. It gives Davis the chance to shine amid two different groups of guests. First, she delivers the memorable ‘bumpy night’ line before moving to the hallway, where Margo introduces Eve to brilliantly-monikered newspaper critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) and his date for the evening, Miss Caswell, who just happens to be played by Marilyn Monroe.

The ensuing verbal fireworks are fantastic from Davis (‘I distinctly remember Addison crossing you off my guest list’), Sanders (‘Dear Margo, you were an unforgettable Peter Pan, you must play it again soon’) and Monroe (‘You won’t bore him honey, you won’t even get a chance to talk’), who holds her own in more exalted company. It’s the quiet ones you want to watch though, as Eve’s entrance shakes up the dynamic and leads to the characters separating.

Tellingly, it is Margo who is left standing alone at the party she has thrown, and the long pause that closes this scene is just as effective as any of the sparkling banter that lit it up seconds before. Magnificent scene from a magnificent movie.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM ALL ABOUT EVE?

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Rushmore is one of those rare things: a beautiful, funny and engaging film. Director Wes Anderson has been accused of promoting style over substance throughout his career (and I think in the case of The Life Aquatic the criticism is justified) but in Rushmore he strikes just the right balance, making a sumptuous movie that has characters you care about. It’s a film about growing up, love, heartbreak and friendship. And it’s great.

It also has some great scenes, and this one is up there with the best. Fresh from the success of putting on a school production of Serpico, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) takes the teacher he loves, Miss Cross (Olivia Williams), and the teacher who is his friend, Mr Blume (Bill Murray), out for a celebratory dinner. Unfortunately for Max, Miss Cross has brought along a friend of her own, Dr Peter Flynn, played by Luke Wilson.

Fischer behaves like a complete brat here, yet Schwartzman’s performance is so humorously heartfelt he manages to keep the audience on the side of his character. Wilson is perfectly deadpan in a role that requires him to merely set up punchlines, Williams channels Miss Cross’s anger brilliantly and Murray is just funny because he’s Bill Murray.

The terrific dialogue is matched by the performances and let’s face it: if you or I had written and directed a hit play, we wouldn’t be sweating it either. This scene just might be Rushmore’s Rushmore.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SCENE FROM RUSHMORE?

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