Keeping the romantic leads apart until the end is an aged-best structural choice.
Reiner's dopey, sarcastic supporting presence makes a strong impact in only two scenes.
Becky's repeated silent reactions to Walter are an aged-best comic detail.
Jonah's backhanded thanks for unusually cooked potatoes is praised as a perfectly childish insult.
A YouTube horror recut treating Annie as a murderous stalker is enthusiastically recommended.
Victoria's excessive laugh is admired as a comic conception, although the performance and character provoke disagreement.
The number-one soundtrack is praised, naming Jimmy Durante, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Carly Simon, Gene Autry, Joe Cocker, Harry Connick Jr., Tammy Wynette and Celine Dion.
Ryan's dresses and trench coat preserve a very 1993 look that can count as both best and worst; Annie Hall influence and a speculative AIDS-era aversion to revealing clothing are discussed.
Seattle's water, Pike Place and houseboat are aged-best choices; the airy light wood, round stair window and bathroom are especially admired, while the houseboat's mobility is questioned.
Annie's investigation anticipates modern internet stalking; her extensive results with limited 1993 resources are admired while hiring a private investigator goes too far.
Radio intimacy and parasocial attachment have aged well as evidence that people talking remains compelling content.
Drinks rather than dinner remains an effective first-date strategy because it allows a quick exit.
Movie references to Fatal Attraction, Pride of the Yankees and An Affair to Remember remain legible rather than dating the comedy.
Annie briefing Walter on sensitive family topics, including financial losses and the IRS, remains a convincing social detail.
Will Smith: no, it is Men in Black, three for three, though this or Bad Boys is also floated.
His peak was not longer because he kept chasing the biggest box office instead of weaving in something different, not only because of Wild Wild West.
He passed on Denzel-type roles such as Man on Fire and Django.
Will Smith in Man on Fire would be welcome but could not be better than Denzel. — Shea Serrano
Harry Connick Jr.: with Goodacre, his music, the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack and a 1993 Christmas album, by Independence Day it is really happening.
Long dumbfounded action-movie stares peak with Jurassic Park rather than this, with Close Encounters also mentioned.
Vivica A. Fox gets a yes, countered by Set It Off where she is the star.
Alien-invasion movies: this over War of the Worlds, whose ship sound is better but whose baseball throw ruined it.
Concussed aliens: definitely, though CTE knowledge would put the aliens in protocol now.
The film is argued to be the apex of the presidency, before Lewinsky, with Dave in 1993 and The West Wing coming; Whitmore is put up with Obama, Kennedy and Lincoln, with nuking his own city a con and speaking and flying the pros.
Computer viruses are a last apex: early in the computer-virus era, the plot point worked.
Rebhorn and Judd Hirsch are creative options, but it is Connick: he pretends to kiss Will Smith's ass, does a Reverend Jesse Jackson impression and dies, a loud nine minutes.
One other person offered: the alien handling ship intake on the mothership like a regular workday at a cubicle, a favorite character.
There was only one rewatchable scene in the first 45 minutes because of character development; the reply jokes that the movie was 30 minutes too short and Will's morning routine should have run 40 minutes.
The spaceship arriving is listed first, with a complaint that people are never scared enough of a giant ship over their city.
Goldblum explaining to the president that the aliens are using the satellites to coordinate is listed next.
The welcome wagon being demolished follows; a question is raised about how few Black characters are in the movie, and nobody questions the orders they are given.
"Times up": everything starts blowing up, yet Vivica Fox's dog Boomer is sure to survive.
The aborted Air Force attack: Will Smith is on fire, Harry Connick Jr. dies, the parachute move, and the "Welcome to Earth" punch; whether aliens can be concussed gets the ruling yes, if Will Smith punches you.
Every best scene leans toward Will Smith; seen at 15 or 16 it was the coolest thing ever, a fighter pilot talking trash to the aliens with two one-liners.
Dragging the alien across the desert is where Will Smith becomes Will Smith, capped by the "what the hell is that smell" rant.
Trae Young is the current NBA star who could pull off the sequence; definitely not Ben Simmons.
The Area 51 descent into a secret facility, Adam Baldwin, and opening the alien's head with a slightly Total Recall second alien that is not friendly and the bulletproof-glass moment are listed.
The speech is a vote for most rewatchable, quoted through "We will not go quietly into the night" and "Today, we celebrate our Independence Day."
The speech had not received final edits and ran longer when filmed, per the account from Pullman; much of the first take is in the movie, and the onlookers' reactions were genuine awe.
The only change from the rough draft, per Devlin, was adding "today we celebrate our Independence Day" because the studio was starting to change the title to Doomsday; title plus release date in the movie is called a trifecta.
Three more: Will taking off backward with Goldblum and the "oops" exchange, the comeback landing, and the walk back with cigars as the women run to them, with Goldblum tall enough to match Smith; Top Gun did that return best.
A side Mount Rushmore of good guys returning to be greeted lands on Armageddon, Independence Day and Top Gun; Captain Phillips is floated for a fourth and rejected.
The pick is the Will Smith sequence, the air fight and desert drag, best watched as a stitched-together YouTube clip; the speech needs its lead-up like the Knives Out reveal, and the first destruction of the White House, Capitol, Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty felt real at 15 or 16. — Shea Serrano
Recognizing the L.A. tunnel where Vivica, Boomer and Dylan hide, the rewatchable scene is still the speech, set up by the president deciding he will fly too; it makes one want to go pick up litter.
Emmerich's signature is showing a thing and then exploding it, as in Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012; a joke imagines him wanting to blow up the Phoenix arena during the Clipper-Sun series.
The screenplay and Ephron’s voice remain clean, influential, and highly readable.
The 96-minute runtime wastes no scene and avoids modern padding, contrived villains, and overloaded will-they/won’t-they plotting.
Friends realizing mutual love remains a powerful movie and real-life template.
Harry Connick Jr.’s classic-song soundtrack avoids the dating effect of period pop choices.
New York restaurants, Sally’s changing hair before the perm, her intricate ordering, and the Knicks drought jokes remain vivid.
Carrie Fisher’s “Joe’s available,” Jimmy Breslin, and the warning about sleeping with a friend remain sharply observed.
The movie’s frank treatment of sex, different expectations, and Harry’s absolutist friendship theory remains productive and mostly nonoffensive.
Nora Ephron is treated as irreplaceable and New York in autumn as permanently beautiful.
References to Casablanca and older romantic comedies teach viewers to rewatch and argue about movies.
The fake-orgasm scene helped make discussion of women’s sexual experience more open, and “he’s never going to leave her” remains practical relationship advice.
The Pictionary arrows and phrases such as “baby fish mouth” show how small jokes became durable shared language.
