Farms and fields are a popular setting in movies, from classic dramas in the Golden Age to modern hits spanning comedy to horror. We’ve seen all kinds of crops and orchards in stories but there’s something about a cornfield that seems to be most affecting, their tall swaying stalks having a strange eeriness about them that no other crops possess. Maybe that’s why filmmakers use them to help create tension and mystery with such great effect. While this isn’t a comprehensive list, here’s 8 classic moments in a cornfield (not including Children of the Corn).
Signs (2002)
M. Night Shyamalan was on an unprecedented streak of success at the turn of the millennium after his career-defining hits Sixth Sense (1999) and follow-up Unbreakable (2000) become box office phenomenons, so all eyes were on him with huge expectations when, after a two year-absence, he delivered this original story about a not-so-conventional alien invasion. While it had critics divided, it proved another smash and cemented the director’s position as legit.
The movie follows a family in rural Pennsylvania who experience some odd occurrences on their farm. Turns out only to be the start of something much bigger, and in a twist, the movie purposefully remains local despite the global story, centering on the deeper impact of what it all means to this widower father, his two young kids, and his young brother. Cornfields are featured fairly prominent in the film, but the best scene involving them comes when Graham (Gibson)–having already found crop circles on his land–hears his dog barking in the night at the stalks and so takes a flashlight to investigate (crazy!), coming upon a huge crop circle and hearing some strange clicking sounds. After he drops his flashlight and bends down to pick up, he trains the beam down a narrow opening and catches a little something unexpected sticking out of the corn: a thin grey alien leg withdrawing into the corn. Yeah. He runs. And you can bet most of the popcorn we had on our laps is all over the floor. And for a different kind of scary in the stalks, there’s this moment from …
Twister (1996)
A number of high-profile disaster and fast-paced action movies came about in the mid-90s with Jan de Bont‘s special effects-laden tornado movie being one of the more successful endeavors, despite some serious lapses in logic. At a time with big budget CGI films were still new and audiences were flocking to theaters to see what eye-popping things were coming next, the still fledging computer-generated effects were being used to bring to life things previously unattainable.
So it was with this sometimes silly, sometimes awe-inspiring spectacle that follows an estranged couple who end up chasing some monster twisters. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt), whose life was forever altered as child by a tornado, now is obsessed by them and has invented a unique measuring device that needs to be right in the path of one to work. When her husband Bill (Bill Paxton) shows up looking to have her sign divorce papers, circumstances change as storms arrive and tornadoes touch down. Giving chase, at one point, they end up on the tail of a beast that is nearly a mile wide, and so, decide to send their truck right into it, leaping from the cab at the last minute as it barrels through a cornfield right into the waiting maw of the storm. Problem is, the twister changes direction and now it’s looking to feed on them, running down the couple as the flee between the rows of corn. Speaking of running down corn …
Interstellar (2014)
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has continually challenged his audiences to think deeply about what they are seeing and about what their expectation are about the movie watching process while generating debates about interpretations years after a title’s release. From the chronological-reversed Memento to the rebooted Batman franchise and more, his movies have entertained and puzzled millions.
With Interstellar, he brought us to the depth of space and the very future of mankind, telling the story of a blight that threatens to end all life on Earth and a farmer and former NASA pilot named Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) who, with a few others, becomes our last hope in finding a new home. Before his journey though, we are introduced to him and the remainder of his family, including his son and daughter. They are driving to school but along the way, spot a rogue wayward drone and give chase with Cooper explains to his kids how the solar cells could power part of their farm. They start on the dirt roads but soon cut right into the corn to track it down, a move that is symbolic as the corn is precious in these times of limited food and yet necessary to capture the energy to grow it. But let’s take a break from the serious and instead get all actiony in this moment from …
Blind Fury (1989)
In the 70s and 80s, Hollywood took to the Vietnam War in number of acclaimed films, though it also served as fodder for a slew of low budget action movies where heroes fought the good fight in some decidedly over-the-top stories. Many of these movies dealt with soldiers returning from the war and facing the challenges of life changed by their experiences, with Sylvester Stallone‘s First Blood being perhaps the most well-known.
One less well-known though, but one with a loyal cult following, is this action movie starring Rutger Hauer as a soldier named Nick Parker, who loses his vision in a battle and is taken in by a local tribe and a master within who teaches him how to heighten his senses and become skilled with a samurai-like sword. He returns home in search of a old army buddy named Frank Deveraux (Terry O’Quinn), who’s gone missing. He ends up on the run with Frank’s young son with some gangsters on the chase, looking to kidnap the boy and use him to force Frank into some nefarious affairs. At one point, a gang of thugs seem to have Nick trapped in a cornfield, surrounding him with guns but you can be sure, that isn’t going to last as Parker makes quick work out the henchmen under cover of the corn. Crazy good times. And speaking of crazy, that’s what our hero thinks might be happening to him in this moment from …
Field of Dreams (1989)
Wouldn’t be much a list about cornfields in movies with no mention of this classic fantasy movie, one that made hearing voices kinda cool. Director Phil Alden Robinson‘s baseball movie is anything but, using the sport and an Iowa cornfield to tell a surprisingly touching story about a father/son relationship, sort of. While it earned high praise on release, it has since become iconic, the property the movie was shot on a tourist attraction and the film’s signature catch phrase, “If you build it, he will come” one of the most memorable quotes in cinema history.
The movie follows the story of Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), a former hippie who has moved to the country with his wife and daughter to become farmers. We learn about an estranged relationship with his father that was never healed, leaving a hole in the son’s past that he has yet to make peace with. That all changes one day while working in a cornfield near his farmhouse. Tending to the roots, he hears a ghostly voice wafting over the stalks and it starts for him an epic journey of discovery that sees him plowing under a great swath of his land to build a regulation baseball diamond, which draws, believe it or not, professional players long dead, who have come to the field to play again. If for some reason you haven’t seen this, go and do it now. And while this movie is about peace in a cornfield, it’s anything but in this frightening moment in …
Planet of the Apes (1968)
While the current reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise is coming up on its third title, the original series, which began back in 1968, is still a chilling experience, or at least the first two before falling into campy silliness. Director Franklin J. Schaffner‘s vision, loosely based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle is a dark and gritty film that was highly-acclaimed for its production and themes, earning its place as one of the best ever made in the genre.
It follows the story of a group of astronauts, including George Taylor (Charlton Heston), who, after traveling in deep hibernation, crash land on an unknown planet three thousand years in the future, despite barely aging themselves. Looking for food and water, they come upon a group of humans, though they seem primitive with no language. Following them as they raid a cornfield, the real horror of the planet reveals itself as armed, talking gorillas on horseback sweep in and attack with nets and snares. The corn is not quite full grown but the sight of the apes moving through the stalks, flushing out the cowering humans is still an unsettling moment. It’s like a nightmare. And speaking of dream sequences, that’s just what happens in this moment from …
The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
Few films have captured the imaginations of so many generations as this musical fantasy, one that has become in so many ways, part of the cultural landscape, even for people who have yet to see it. From the iconic songs, to the red slippers, to dozens of phrases and quotes that have reached well past their place in the story, The Wizard of Oz is a legendary film and one any movie fan must experience.
The story, like you don’t know, follows a girl named Dorothy who is transported to a magical land when a terrible tornado sweeps through her Kansas family farm, plopping her right at the center of a place called Oz where she is told by the Munchkins, a colorful community of friendly townsfolk, that to get home, she must follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City where a wizard can send her back. Along the way, she meets some companions, including the first, a scarecrow whom she finds sitting watch over a cornfield who longs to have a brain and joins her on her quest. The quaint fake corn and painted backgrounds are all part of the illusion and make this one of the more memorable moments in the movie. And now you’re singing the song. But you’ll be only holding your breath while watching this epic cornfield moment in …
North By Northwest (1959)
Some movies are more famous for moments within them than the story itself, some becoming so iconic that they are instantly identifiable even for those who have never even seen the film. With North By Northwest, a film that even decades old still grips, the movie is loaded with scenes that have fallen into cinema lore, but none have had the legacy that this one moment does, a scene that is often considered one of the greatest movie moments ever made.
The film is about a man named Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) who becomes caught up in a bit of intrigue when he is mistaken for someone else and ends up on a cross country run for the truth, meeting a beautiful woman named Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who has some secrets of her own. At one point, he has an arrangement for a meeting that could offer some answers and so takes a bus to an isolated location in the countryside. As he waits, he notices a crop duster over a field of corn but pays it no mind, though soon it pays mind to him, trying to crop dust him. Taking cover in the corn, this moment is an electrifying sequence filled with almost unbearable tension, and is the greatest cornfield movie moment ever.