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These movie moments are rare, and something to treasure. I remember the first time that one of these movie moments hit me, the first time I really fell in love with the world of film. I’m reminded of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh’s showdown at the end of 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Leigh, who has been teetering between sanity and lunacy throughout the film, seems to have finally given over to her inner demons, and starts dialing the phone, asking for Western Union. The actress, one of cinema’s finest, starts madly rambling into the phone, as her nemesis looks on, realizing that his film-long adversary is really not as untouchable as she seems. The looks on both of their faces are so sincere, people forget they’re watching a film and can actually feel the stench of liquor on the screen, the shabby furniture, and the heightened tension as the showdown rears into ugly and tortured places.

It’s difficult to predict when these movie moments will occur. Recently, in a quest to catch a few classic films that have long been on my to-do list (something we should all do from time-to-time), I caught Robert Altman’s masterpiece, the country music saga Nashville. Toward the end of the movie, after being thoroughly impressed with the entire film, I caught the penultimate musical number, titled “My Idaho Home,” and suddenly could feel that I had been transposed from my messy Hamline dorm room to a dusty outdoor concert hall in Tennessee, longing along with the woman onscreen for my childhood home. I kept wanting to rewind the scene, reliving that magical click when the audience and the film itself intertwine, making for one universal experience.

The moments can even occur in poor or even bad films, making us believe that the film surrounding the moments is better than it actually is. The opening scene of recent Best Picture Chicago, for example, is a riot, with the diva Catherine Zeta-Jones strutting, shimmying and basically owning everything on the stage. If you’re not toe-tapping, high-kicking, or doing some other dance by the final cry for “all that jazz,” you’re probably watching the wrong film. The movie that follows is a generic, plodding musical, but that opening number gives such promise, you may just ignore the film that follows.

Explaining why these movie moments exist is difficult, but we all experience them. Maybe it’s because the things onscreen directly affect us, or perhaps it’s because of our familiarity with the directors or the stars, or maybe it’s just a complete mystery, something unexplainable that gives the cinema its lasting glow. Whatever the reason, we all feel that way at some time during our affair with the cinematic. I asked a friend recently, and she could instantly point out the opening scene to Aguirre: the Wrath of God and the series of family portraits in Secrets and Lies, as such instances of cinematic transcendence. We all find these moments, and when we do, we treasure them for years and decades to come.

So go out and continue this cinematic search for the moments that draw you in, that intertwine you and the cinema in front of you. Movies, though they serve many purposes, are ultimately about the adventure, mystery, and escape they provide to those so daring as to take the risk and indulge in them. So go out, sit back, grab the popcorn, and watch the previews. You never know what movie will next draw you in, letting you live its story.