Welcome to MovieJawn’s Split Decision! Each week, Ryan will pose a question to our staff of knowledgeable and passionate film lovers and share the responses. Chime in on Twitter, Facebook, our Instagram, or in the comments below.

This week’s question: What is your favorite scene from a 2021 movie? 

The Gom jabbar sequence from Dune: Part I — Dune was a frustrating experience for me because I didn’t know it was only half a movie until I saw the PART I fade in under the title in the opening credits. I feel like that disqualified it from my year end lists, with the exception of the Gom jabbar sequence. It’s rare you see a scene from a movie based on a book you’ve read that plays exactly like you imagined it in your head. That whole sequence is the sort of thing you show film students to show all the various crafts that go together to make cinema working in perfect harmony. Just thinking about the perfection of that sequence almost makes me forget about my saltiness over the fact that Warner didn’t shoot Part II in tandem and I gotta wait 2 years before I can officially worship my dream Dune adaptation. —Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

There were better movies, obviously, to come out this year, but none were better timed for me than Godzilla Vs Kong. I was about a month away from my first covid vaccine dose, and I was feeling crazed. I'd been inside for an entire year. No restaurants. No movies. Nothing. But then an anticipated blockbuster was being released on the small screen the same weekend recreational marijuana became legal in Arizona. Y'all... I'm not a big pot smoker but I got LIT. And there's this scene where Godzilla and Kong are beating the shit out of each other and they have this moment where Godzilla gets all up in Kong's face and screams and it's intense and beautiful and so much acting is being portrayed subtly by CGI creatures and... That's when I realized I was really, really high.–Billy Russell, Staff Writer

Titane is a trip. I was repulsed by the earlier scenes, and then I was unsure where it was going. Then the last scene, and the very last shot, made me rethink the preceding hour and I was genuinely touched. Such a heartwarming moment really surprised me in a gory film about a serial killer who has sex with cars. –Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

I loved Juliette Binoche’s scene in Who You Think I Am when her character Claire arranges to meet Alex (François Civil), a guy she had been chatting with online while posing as a younger woman. He arrives at the appointed place and time but does not see the woman he thinks he is meeting. This allows  Claire to scrutinize him without him knowing. Moreover, it shows how Alex sees right past Claire–a woman of a certain age–signifying how invisible she is. It’s a brilliant moment, and Binoches’ expressions convey so much in this wordless sequence. The entire film is fantastic, but this moment is key. –Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

This one goes out to the prison scene in Malignant. The movie suddenly gets way, way turned up and you can’t help but holler and hoot through the rest of it. Find me something more awesome, powerful, funny and random than when Gabriel throws the chair across the room. –A.Freedman, Staff Writer

The restaurant scene from Pig. My God, what a masterclass in acting and directing. The scene is very simple, Nic Cage’s character is a rage fueled ex-celebrity chef out on the hunt for his stolen truffle pig. Opposite to Cage is his ex-apprentice who has now started a restaurant of his own. The way that both David Knell (the actor who plays the apprentice), and Nicholas Cage act is incredible. Nicholas Cage delivers a crushing blow to Knell’s ego through a speech about the fake nature of modern art. Knell just keeps smiling as Cage unravels the fact that nothing that he does matters. It’s so unsetting and so real. Knell gives off the impression of a man who absolutely hates his life, someone who’s a slave to his own ego and insecurities. Cage delivers the speech so well that I wouldn’t be surprised if a few filmmakers assessed their careers afterwards. It’s so incredible. This film could have easily been a John Wick clone, but it goes headfirst into such poignant, mature moments. I love it. –Miguel Alejandro Marquez, Staff Writer

There’s an extended sequence in the documentary A Glitch In The Matrix where the digital camera glides through a 3D rendering of a man’s house as he narrates a frightening dissociative episode. It ties at least a half-dozen of the film’s themes together and I can’t explain anything else without severely diminishing the impact. But it’s very long and once you realize what’s going on and how long you’re going to be trapped in this uncut shot, you get a little sick. Nothing else came close for me. –Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

As far as I’m concerned I was picking from a list of one: the love scene in Annette. To me, this is where the film really let the viewer know it was doing something different. Not that it was doing anything too ordinary up until that point! But extended love scenes in mainstream English-language genre films are still pretty rare (Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now is the only thing coming to mind and that was 1973). And never have I seen a completely straight love scene include one of the actors rising up from between their partner’s legs and starting to sing. That was the point where I realized Annette was absolutely operating on its own level. –Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

Abeula Claudia (Olga Merediz) and her big showstopping number from In the Heights combined emotions, stagecraft and performance into a stunning sequence of remembrance. –Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor