Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

In my case it was The Towering Inferno

For me, it was Scream. Its playing with tropes and metafilm aspects really took me by the ears and shook me into realizing there's a lot that goes into film - especially a tired old genre like horror.

Sunset Blvd. was the one that completely changed me and my thoughts on film.

Either The Wizard of Oz or The African Queen. I saw both when I around 8, can't remember which I saw first.

The Wizard of Oz was a source of wonder for me. It felt like I had entered into a different world when Dorothy opened the door and there was the land of Oz in all its Technicolor glory.

The African Queen was my introduction both to the Oscars and to questioning the winners. Told that Humphrey Bogart had won an Oscar for Best Actor, I couldn't understand why Katharine Hepburn hadn't won one as well since I found her acting to be clearly superior to his. I wasn't allowed to see A Streetcar Named Desire so I wouldn't know for years to come that Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando were the year's real best.

What is the first film you remember that had a profound impact on you? It does not matter whether you saw the film in a theater, on TV, on video, etc., or whether or not it is considered to be a great film. For me, it is Born Free, which I saw as a young child on TV years after its theatrical release. Up until then I had mostly just seen cartoons, etc., and this was the first time I saw something that really moved me. I have never seen it as an adult, so, I do not know if it would have the same impact on me now.