Earlier this month I started a list of favorite “haunting” moments in film. Haunting moments aren’t necessarily inspiring in a feel-good, happy ending sense– though sometimes they can be. Instead they are those cinematic points in time that bring revelation to our souls in some big or small way. Here is my second round of choices –a list considerably darker than my first. As always, continue to share your suggestions in the comment box below!
Witness: Ring the bell
There are two moments in this film that are great visuals of innocence and corruption– not to mention two different cultures– colliding. This scene comes at the end of the film when the young boy Samuel saves police officer Book’s (Harrison Ford) life by ringing the farm bell and bringing the e other Amish farmers to stop the bad guys– not with violence– but by being witnesses to the impending crime.
“Fargo”: The Woodchipper
To some, this is going to seem a strange choice, I know. But this is one of the greatest movies about how crime doesn’t pay, but there is still no more disturbing, paradoxical scene than when pregnant police officer Marge finally catches one of the criminals as he is rather creatively disposing of his partner’s body.

“Shawshank Redemption”: Andy plays Mozart
The scene where Andy (Tim Robbins) brings hope to his fellow inmates by locking himself in a room and playing Mozart over the prison’s public adress system is one of the most beautiful moments in film that crystallizes the redemptive, transcendent power of art.
“The Passion of the Christ”: Mary’s montage
Whatever your general thoughts about the movie’s controversy are, there is one scene that expresses the incarnational nature of the gospel. As Mary watches her son, Jesus, carrying the cross down the Via Dolorosa, he falls, which triggers a flashback in her mind of when Jesus was a child. She remembers when she rushed to his side as a boy and picked him up after falling down. As she watches the grown man Jesus fall under the weight of the crossm, she rushes to his side again, but can do nothing to take the pain away.
“Dead Man Walking”: The execution
I cried during this movie more than any other film I have watched. I have actually only been able to sit through this movie twice. Even so I am forever haunted by Sister Prejean’s desire to be “the face of love” to someone who done something so despicable.