Throughout classic film, we always have moments, scenes, and images that cement themselves as the most iconic in cinema. We have King Kong climbing the Empire State Building, the infamous "Johnny" scene from The Shining, and Psycho's shower sequence, just to name a few that even decades after their release still send chills down the spines of moviegoers and brand themselves within pop culture.

But what about modern films? Obviously film back then was starting to understand its potential, but should cinema around 50 years from now resemble anything it is today, do you think anything in the past decade could go down in fame as the great icons of our era just like the ones past?

For me, one of those could be in The Dark Knight, specifically the face-off between the Joker and Batman below.

With the rediculous amount of hype and popularity the movie got through the years around its release, this scene easily represents the vital conflict tying the entire experience together, and really captures the sheer extremes each of them represent on the moral spectrum. Plus, taking place around the midpoint of the film, it holds this face off as the centerpiece to everything.

Another (perhaps less likely) example would be the folding city during Inception.

From another high-grossing movie, this image is what gripped me the most about the movie, and probably many others, too, considering it was pretty much the jackpot for advertising (I don't think there was a single trailer that didn't have this shot in it.) But even then, it summarizes the entire film's style pretty well: a cross between scientific architecture and a surreal, dream-like fantasy world.

Any thoughts?

4588547 Well, to be honest, I feel we're still too early to really judge what will be judged as 'iconic' in the future.

That being said, the shot in the Avengers where we see everybody gearing up to kick ass is probably one.