Movie director Tony Scott died yesterday of an apparent suicide at age 68. The acclaimed director and producer had made some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.

I think any collection of “Great Scott” moments has to begin and end with Top Gun. How to choose only one? Assuming that “I feel the need… the need for speed” counts as a line, not a moment, and admitting that other scenes might have more cinematic skill and pop cultural impact, I still have to go with one that can’t be topped for pure enthusiasm and memorability:

The film Crimson Tide eventually swells to a climactic ending that represented Scott at his biggest: flag-waving, impossibly tense, improbably convoluted, and dramatic. But the back-and-forth leading up to this showed the Scott adept at such smaller moments.

Finally, Movies.com points out that future (ex) spouses Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman met on the set of Scott’s Days of Thunder, providing an unusually passionate love scene for film posterity.

What are your favorite Tony Scott movie moments?

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