1. The trip in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey

The magnificent power of cinema to make us experience the impossible: a travel through time and space. Kubrick uses experimental imagery, daring effects and syncopations – the still shots of the astronaut’s face is a pure moment of visionary poetry.

2. The final long shot of Sacrifice by Andrei Tarkovski.

A house is burning in the middle of nowhere, the owner who started the fire walks around it illuminated by the blaze. An ambulance arrives to carry him off; everybody is shocked. The movement of the camera makes us distant spectators of the end of the world as it happens in real time. A shot full of grace and intensity for a spiritual thriller.

3. The opening shot of Rosetta, from the Dardenne’s bothers

The hand-held camera follows Rosetta walking resolutely in the cold corridors of a factory. Footsteps, doors slamming, going down the stairs. The scene has no words but it is still able to communicate that the regular life and the everyday battles of a worker can be more intense than any normal action film.

4. The car chase in Bullitt from Peter Yates.

The groovy atmospheric music of Lalo Schifrin stops, but the soundtrack continues with the real world sounds of the motors, tires and breaks. A beautiful example of editing as a compositional and musical process.

5. The opening of Blue Velvet by David Lynch.

This famous shot is beautiful in the way it demonstrates the continuity between the outside and the inside, the macro and the micro, the different ways of looking at things beyond appearances. The sound also participates in this alchemy.

6. The ‘sex loop’ sequence with the prostitute in Sauve qui peut (la vie) by Jean-Luc Godard.

A boss organises a sexual mise-en-scène with escort girls and an employee in a looping chain of action and reaction. Beyond the provocation, one of the strongest statement on the link between capitalism and prostitution. I also like the fact that this very modern film has been shot in my city of Lausanne.

7. The unexpressed love sequence in The Remains of the Day by James Ivory

The characters played by Emma Thomson and Anthony Hopkins cannot put into words what they feel, prisoners of a world of conventions and rules. The actors put in a virtuoso performance of extraordinary dialogue beneath the scripted dialogue. Through it we feel every nuance of their feelings.

8. The dance of King Louie in Walt Disney’s Jungle Book

When Baloo dances dressed like a monkey. A great moment of joy and celebration that introduced jazz and its power to a generation.

9. The love scene with the egg in Tampopo, by Juzo Itami.

A gangster and a female cook make love in a kitchen and they exchange the yellow of an egg while kissing, in a very delicate way. When she reaches climax, the egg breaks. Sex and food, the pleasure of the senses, one of the most erotic scenes I’ve ever seen.

10. The empty screen after Goodbye, Dragon Inn, by Tsai Ming-Liang

After the credits of this film, after the end of the last roll, when the lights of the theatre are back on, it seems as if the film would continue. A magical effect in a film which evokes the end of the cinema, but without pessimism, because it still invokes the best possibilities of this art form.

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