History Main / OneSceneWonder

* [[spoiler:Noriko and Kazumi's]] appearance at the end of ''[[GunBuster Gunbuster]] 2'' stole the climax of the show. They were only in it for about 30 seconds had no lines and ''weren't even seen'' yet they managed to turn a BitterSweetEnding into a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

---> "Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven? Behold, now the terrible vengeance of the Forsaken! '''Death to the Scourge and DEATH TO THE LIVING'''

Also see KentBrockmanNews. Compare HamAndCheese and SpotlightStealingSquad. Fanfic authors are prone to make characters like this into {{OC Stand In}}s. If another scene comes, he's an AscendedExtra.

* ''NotesOnAScandal''. Bill Nighy. He is in two scenes. The first introduces his character, the second is an argument with his wife, (Cate Blanchett) when he discovers that she's been having an affair with one of her fifteen year-old students. The movie stars two excellent actors in Judi Dench and the aforementioned Blanchett, both at the top of their respective games. The subject matter is titillating, and the script is well written. It would take one heck of an actor to draw attention, even momentarily, away from all of that to show the real human cost of such a scandal. Bill Nighy is such an actor.

* Dame Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I needed only 9 minutes of screen time to run away with ''ShakespeareInLove'' and an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

* In ''{{Network}}'', NedBeatty as ominous CEO Arthur Jensen. The guy's onscreen probably five minutes, but [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVqIjKyJh0 his speech] is utterly fantastic. "You have ''meddled with the primal forces of nature'', Mr. Beale, and ''I WON'T HAVE IT! IS THAT CLEAR??''" And then there's Beatrice Straight in the same film, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for what was, at the time, the shortest amount of time an Oscar-winning role had been onscreen. Beatty was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

[[ChristopherWalken http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/walken_5532.jpg]]
[[caption-width:330:In the role of a [[TypeCasting lifetime]].]]

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* In ''{{Network}}'', Ned Beatty as ominous CEO Arthur Jensen. The guy's onscreen probably five, ten minutes, but his speech is utterly fantastic. "You have ''meddled with the primal forces of nature'', Mr. Beale, and ''I WON'T HAVE IT! IS THAT CLEAR??''" And then there's Beatrice Straight in the same film, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for what was, at the time, the shortest amount of time an Oscar-winning role had been onscreen. Beatty was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

** Will Ferrel's role in ''Film/WeddingCrashers'' counts despite being more of an extended cameo mostly due to how god damned unexpected he was.
* Alfred Molina as strung-out drug kingpin Rahad Jackson in ''BoogieNights''. You will never be able to listen to "Jesse's Girl" or "Sister Christian" the same way again.

* Ben Stein in, of course, ''FerrisBuellersDayOff''. "Bueller? Bueller?" Also, Charlie Sheen as the hoodlum in the scene in the police station with Jeannie near the end. "You wear too much makeup. My sister wears too much makeup. She looks like a whore."
* Marissa Jaret Winokur's sullen fast-food server, Janine ("You are ''so busted!''"), in ''AmericanBeauty''. At a screening of the film, the character's smug little smirk at Annette Bening not only elicited laughs from the audience, but actual ''applause''.
* Both the lemur king (Sasha Baron Cohen) and the penguins in ''{{Madagascar}}''. Both had extended roles in the sequel, and remain the funniest things in both movies, to the point where some reviews are lamenting the fact that the main cast has to appear ''at all''.

* Dame Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I needed only 9 minutes of screen time to run away with ''{{Shakespeare in Love}}'' and an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

* Barbara Billingsley in ''{{Airplane}}'', even though she's only in one scene, has one of the greatest comedic moments in movie history: "I speak jive!"

* Parodied in ''WaynesWorld 2''. When Wayne stops at a gas station to ask for directions to Gordon Street, the attendant starts to give a monologue about a "girl who lived on Gordon Street." A disgusted Wayne/Mike Myers asks "[[WhoWritesThisCrap Do we have to put up with this? I mean, I know it's a small part, but I think we can do better than this.]]" The gas station attendant is led away and replaced by CharltonHeston, whose monologue reduces Wayne/Myers to tears.

* Ryan Reynolds as [[{{Deadpool}} Wade Wilson/Deadpool]] in [[Film/{{Wolverine}} X Men Origins: Wolverine]]. Only on screen for about ten minutes ([[spoiler:unless you count his Reynolds free appearance as Weapon XI at the film's climax]]), most awesome thing in the film.

* Despite Mark Wahlberg's character having somewhere around maybe 10 minutes of screen time in ''TheDeparted'', (and sharing most of that time with either Martin Sheen, Leonardo Di Caprio or Alec Baldwin) he manages to steal every scene he's in. ''That'' is damned impressive. (and another Best Supporting Actor nomination in this page...)
* Cedric The Entertainer does an excellent job of this in the first ''{{Barbershop}}'' movie.

* ''InTheLoop'' is not short of great performances or funny material. Steve Coogan is in the movie for what must be a grand total of five minutes all up, and interacts with few of the main characters and none of the main plot. However, in those five minutes he easily manages to steal the movie as Paul, the easily frustrated constituent who just wants the U.K Minister for International Development to do something about the wall of his constituency office (which is collapsing into Paul's mum's back garden) whilst said Minister is self-importantly but foolishly involving himself in grand matters of geo-political diplomacy.

* ''YouOnlyLiveTwice'' features Donald Pleasence as Ernst Stavro Blofeld. He's got a white cat, a bald head, and a scar. He's also one of the most memorable JamesBond villains, parodied and referenced ad nausem. Total screen time: Approximately ten minutes.
* ''Wholly Moses'' has a few of these, but the one that really stands out is John Ritter's one and half minute appearance as Satan.
* Jack Palance had a film career of 50 years and over 70 movies, but when he died in 2006, one film role consistently stood out in all the obituaries and tributes dedicated to him: the role of the taunting, [[SlasherSmile smiling]] [[TheDragon hired gun]] Jack Wilson in ''{{Shane}}''. Palance's Wilson is widely regarded as '''the''' definitive [[TheWestern Western]] bad guy. Total screen time: eight minutes. Total words spoken by Wilson: less than fifty, but he makes the most out of two of them: "Prove it."

* ''Judgement At Nuremberg'' features Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, and William Shatner. Every single one of them is at the top of their game... and then Montgomery Clift blows them all out of the water with a seven and a half minute performance that got him a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

* MelBrooks' ''High Anxiety'' has future big time director Barry Levinson as a high-strung bellboy who gets progressively more irritated with Brooks' requests for a newspaper until...no, it's too good to spoil.

* A deleted scene in ''Fun With Dick and Jane'' features James Whitmore as an elderly ex-Marine, now employed as a security guard in a toy store in the profession of "kicking Jim Carrey's butt". It's quite possibly the funniest, most memorable scene not in the movie.

* Bronson Pinchot as Serge in the first ''BeverlyHillsCop'' movie.

* For once, it isn't ChristopherWalken in ''SuicideKings'', since he's the star, but Denis Leary has a brilliant stand-alone scene in the middle of the film.
** Denis Leary has another nice scene in ''DemolitionMan'' as Edgar Friendly, where he basically does his own act for 5 minutes.

* In RevolutionaryRoad, Michael Shannon has two scenes, in both of which he's able to out-act LeonardoDiCaprio, KateWinslet, ''and'' Kathy Bates completely by himself... earning a Best Supporting Actor nominations in the process.
* EddieIzzard as Mr. Kite in AcrossTheUniverse. His LargeHam performance is definitely memorable, and provides some of the funniest lines in the movie ("Have you seen it? It's great. They've got stuff.
* Bill Murray in ''{{Kingpin}}'' even though he was the villain, the man was just too fun to watch.

** "Its going to take more than a knitting needle to fuck me up boy!"
* Christopher Eccleston as a truth-spouting tramp in ''24 Hour Party People''.

* {{Eminem}} and Ray Romano (how about that for unlikely team-ups) completely steal the one scene of ''FunnyPeople'' that they're in together.
* Not sure if you can count ''PulpFiction'' as it is nearly all about guest stars... But ''HarveyKeitel'' has a particularly memorable speech (the "Please would be nice" rant) considering his small screen time.
* ''ToKillAMockingbird'' has a young Robert Duvall as the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley, his first movie role. He doesn't even so much as speak, but his appearance stays with you.

* Mathieu Amalric appears in the first and last scenes of ''Les Aventures Extraordinaires D'Adèle Blanc-Sec'' as the titular heroine's revolting arch-nemesis Dieuleveult, dressed entirely in a black trenchcoat, hat and sunglasses like a Gestapo officer, completely unrecognizable under a thick layer of makeup with rotten-looking false teeth and speaking with a wheezy voice, all in all resembling Toht from ''Raiders Of The Lost Ark''. After stealing the scene with a wonderfully [[LargeHam over-the-top]] creepy performance, his character is mummified alive and only seen at the end of the movie, observing Adèle embarking on the [[spoiler:Titanic]] and ominously wishing her "bon voyage". This is made even more infuriating due to the fact that Dieuleveult is, as previously indicated, her arch-nemesis in the comics and yet has no other role in the plot other than failing to prevent her from stealing a mummy she hopes will bring her sister back to life. Needless to stay, the fans of the original comic were [[WallBanger not pleased]].
* ''American Gangster'' has Ruby Dee in an Academy Award nominated role as Frank Lucas' mother. She had less than 10 minutes of screen time.
* Jackie Earle Haley in ''ShutterIsland''. His one scene lasts maybe five minutes and he owns every second of it.

* Marlon Brando as Jor-El in ''Film/{{Superman}}'' .

* In ''{{Toy Story 3}}'', Mr.Pricklepants fits this trope perfectly. He doesn't really have much bearing on the plot and has very limited screen time,but regardless he sticks out for this troper as one of the best characters in the film.

* Klaus Kinski as the shackled forced labor prisoner in the train car in ''DoctorZhivago''.

* Jon Lovitz has exactly one scene in ''TheWeddingSinger'' as a rival wedding singer to the main character, but thanks to a single line of dialogue and a facial expression, it's a scene you'll remember:

* Gary Busey tends to do this in any film he isn't headlining. See also: Christopher Walken. The two most memorable examples are his appearance as a crazy psycho vietnam vet in Tommy Boy opposite Chris Farley and David Spade(although it's two and not just one), and his 'stint' as a Heavy-like demon hunter in Succubus: Hell Bent, in which he gives quite possibly the least rousing morale boosting speech ever submitted to celluloid (he basically tells the kid he has no hope of winning and he should just let the succubus do what she wants because he'll only manage to piss her off worse), dumps a load of weird junk that actually seems to work on the hero, and then drives off to leave him to his fate. He 'wins,' only to be arrested as a dangerous crazy as the police didn't know the stalker chick was a succubus and thought he just went mad and killed her. Then she wakes up in the ambulance and takes a liking to the paramedics instead.

*** Tom Baker as Captain Rum. ''Arr...''

* Comedy actor Guillermo Francella -sans his trademark moustache- played the until then unseen BigBad of Argentine [[SoapOpera telenovela]] ''Vidas Robadas'': he appeared in three scenes in the last two episodes, and completely owned the show. To picture the impact of TheReveal, imagine: the MagnificentBastard head of a human trafficking net is finally seen on camera - and it´s a completely serious and creepy-looking ''Mike Myers''.

* In the season one finale of ''{{Fringe}}'' the fact that Olivia was in a parallel universe where the Twin Towers are still standing was heavily overshadowed by the fact that she'd just met the mysterious William Bell, played by Leonard Nimoy.

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** ''And'' she got a [[TheSimpsons Simpsons]] episode named after her.
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* [[Spoiler:John Hamm's]] appearance in ''Film/TheATeam'' is technically TheCameo, but may also fall under this because he comes out of nowhere (he wasn't mentioned in any of the promotional material) and is pretty darn awesome, despite being onscreen for only about two or three minutes. And, dude, it's [[spoiler:John Hamm]].
* [[Meat Loaf]] turns up for a single song, arguably one of the best, in [[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]], sings it, and then [[spoiler:gets brutally hacked to death by Tim bloody Curry]].

* Brian "Le Petit" Dewhurst, of Cirque Du Soleil's ''Mystere'', has only two setpieces in the show, plus a short blackout skit in between. As one of those is the preshow/opening announcements, this NonIronicClown has only one setpiece within the show itself, near the end. (Usually in Cirque a clown gets at least two in-show setpieces ''and'', often, the preshow as well.) His character is a ScrewySquirrel who isn't "actually" part of the story and rarely appears in advertisements for it. He is also a CoolOldGuy (78 years old as of 2010) who just about steals the show with his many [[Main/CrowningMomentOfFunny moments of funny]].

* Lisa the Babysitter only appeared in a single episode of ''[[DextersLab Dexter's Laboratory]]'', but [[http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=dexter+lisa+the+babysitter look how much fanart she has]].

--> '''Vegan Police:''' "MILK AND EGGS, BITCH!"

* Peter Cook as Richard III in the first ever episode of ''{{Blackadder}}''.
* StephenFry too, in ''Blackadder the Third'' as Wellington.
-->"The men had a whip-round and got you this... well, what I mean is that I had the men roundly whipped until they got you this. It's a cigarillo case engraved with the regimental crest of two crossed dead Frenchmen, emblazoned on a mound-of-dead-Frenchmen motif."
** Tom Baker as Captain Rum. ''Arr...''
*** Although in these cases it's more of a One Episode Wonder.

* JohnnyDepp has two very brief scenes in the French film ''Ils se marient et eurent beaucoup des enfants'' (also known as ''Happily Ever After''), one of which contains no dialogue (only some cute eye-flirting to the sounds of "Creep"), and then another scene at the end in which he--get this, ladies--speaks French, and then [[spoiler:kisses the female lead in a dreamy, [[StairwayToHeaven magical elevator ride]], implying that her romantic life will turn all right after all.]]

* Miss Kitty from Disney's ''TheGreatMouseDetective''. She's in the show for only one song, but... well, it's [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=e2IctxaCPqw a very memorable]] one, and judging by the amount of [[http://blackrozepetal.deviantart.com/art/Let-me-be-good-to-you-91337723 fan]] [[http://tabbykat.deviantart.com/art/Let-me-Be-Good-To-You-80676729 material]] about her, quite a few people remembered as the most exciting part of the movie. Also, she has the ever-sexy voice of Melissa Manchester.

* In ''{{Chicken Little}}'' one of the most popular characters is Morkupine Porcupine he only has five minutes of screen time and he only says three words

* The old TickTheAnimatedSeries featured, in its run, precisely one episode with a would-be villain calling himself 'The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight.' This character was so blisteringly off-the-wall - even by The Tick's standards - that he is easily one of the most memorable characters in the entire series.

* Oberyn Martell in ''{{A Song of Ice and Fire}}'' is a popular character with all too brief page time (or whatever the book equivalent of screen time is), having established him as a sharpwitted cool character with a cool nickname "The Red Viper" with a definite right to vengeance, the author George R R Martin [[spoiler:has him killed off by the {{complete monster}} who raped and murdered his sister, but at least not before delivering a crucial blow]].
** Ditto on [[spoiler:Syrio Forel]].
*** [[spoiler:[[EpilepticTrees Maybe]]]].

* Irene Adler only appears in ''one'' of ArthurConanDoyle's ''SherlockHolmes'' stories, but is considered almost as essential a character to include in adaptations as Holmes and Watson.
** Moriarty was only in ''two'', and he's appeared in every adaptation since time began.