Water covers over 70 percent of our planet, so it’s no wonder that it flows through our storytelling.

Biblical rain offered divine judgement either in the form of a blessing and rewards, or retribution and vengeance. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Feste the fool issued the melancholic refrain: “For the rain it raineth every day.” It reminded the audience of the persistence of suffering in life.

Filmmakers worldwide have revered the visual beauty and the metaphorical value of rain on screen, letting it augment many a classic scene, sequence or speech. Technically, rain intensifies mise-en-scène (the overall visual presentation on screen, combining set design, lighting, props and more): it catches backlight and renders air itself visible, creating depth and shimmer.

And as our global weather patterns undergo changes, media researchers have suggested that engagement with cinematic weather conditions such as rain can allow for an “ecological meta-narrative” that connects humans (both on- and off-screen) with their environment.

Whether depicting solitude, decay, adversity or romantic destined love, rain in movies emotes as much as a character would. Here are 10 classic films that used rain to transform a scene

Whether depicting solitude, decay, adversity or romantic destined love, rain in movies emotes as much as a character would. Here are 10 key moments where rain took a starring role in film — just perfect for watching on a wet day.

1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Few scenes invert bad weather more joyfully than Gene Kelly’s iconic number. After a night of salvaging their disastrous film project, The Duelling Cavalier, actor Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) realises that he has fallen for the bubbly singer Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). On his ebullient walk home, a legendary song and dance number turns the perceived bad weather on its head with the cheerful refrain: “Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my face.”

Kelly reportedly performed the sequence while running a fever, and the scene’s exuberance reframes rain not as obstacle but as liberation. The uplifting choreography sees Kelly splashing through puddles that reflect streetlights, making the urban space of the set design feel elastic and alive.

2. Seven Samurai (1954)

Rain heightens the brutal physical clashes in filmmaker Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai. As the Samurai face their final battle, the rain (which has been used throughout to add mood and tone) is as cruel and violent as any of the antagonists, amplifying the pressure with its muddy, disorientating and visceral presence in the conflict.

Kurosawa was meticulous about weather effects, using wind, dust and rain to choreograph movement within the frame. The downpour turns the battlefield into sludge, erasing clear footing and underscoring the film’s meditation on chaos, class struggle and the cost of collective defence.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The final reunion scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s raises the emotional stakes with its unrelenting rain. In a taxi to the airport, Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, tries to run away and abandon her emotional commitments to struggling writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) and the stray cat she’s adopted.

After an incensed Paul watches her throw the cat out into the rain, he exits, determined to rescue the soggy feline. As she tearfully joins him, her character arc is complete. The storm forces Holly quite literally to stop running, confronting the emotional commitments she has tried to evade.

4. Network (1976)

In Network, a New York rainstorm provides the ultimate backdrop for anchorman Howard Beal’s (Peter Finch) unhinged and rain-drenched live rant. The drumming of rain against studio windows suggests a world outside the sealed, commodified space of television as, in a renowned monologue, he berates the news channel’s manipulation and society’s disintegration with the famous line: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

5. Point Break (1991)

In Point Blank, rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) confronts Bodhi, a bank-robbing surfer played by Patrick Swayze, in the rain. The weather ultimately enables him to evade capture by allowing him to ride one last big wave; something both know he will never survive.

Here, rain acts as a redemptive force. Bodhi seeks exoneration through the only thing he respects — nature.

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

In prison drama The Shawshank Redemption, Andy’s (Tim Robbins) Raquel-Welch cell poster hides a hidden escape shaft, years in the making while he endured time for a crime he didn’t commit.

Wading through a sewer tunnel he finally emerges to a torrential downpour, holding out his arms and facing the heavens in a symbolic act of cleansing, salvation and freedom. Rain here washes away not guilt, but injustice.

7. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Rain doesn’t always have to represent high drama. In the Richard Curtis-penned film Four Weddings and a Funeral, American Carrie’s (Andie MacDowall) famously cheesy line, “Is it still raining, I hadn’t noticed?” puts the seal on her romance with bumbling but charming British Charles (Hugh Grant) and secures the star-crossed lovers a future.

The actors were reportedly freezing during the rain rigged shoot. Rigs often rely on using cold water and multiple takes.

8. Magnolia (2000)

Magnolia’s frenzied collective experience of a thunderstorm of frogs will forever capture the imagination of the more surreally minded. In this scene, rain symbolises the universal chaos of life and binds disparate characters into a shared reckoning.

9. The Notebook (2004)

The physical brutality of heavy rain underscores heartbreak, loss and forgiveness in decades-spanning The Notebook as Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams’ separated lovers Noah and Allie reunite after family has dictated their separation.

A sweepingly romantic scene in a sleeper hit turned cult favourite, the downpour legitimises emotional excess — tears indistinguishable from rain.

10. Blade Runner (1982)

The demand of three of the most challenging filming elements — smoke, night shoots and rain — had the crew of Ridley Scott’s futuristic dystopian Blade Runner christen the film “Blood Runner” as 50 nights of filming in constant artificial rain took a physical, mental and logistical toll.

Whether depicting disorder or harmony, life-enhancing joy or unprecedented destruction, rain remains a valuable visual medium and narrative tool for filmmakers.

The writer is Course Leader, BA (Hons) Screenwriting and Deputy Course Leader & Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Film Production at the University of Portsmouth in the UK

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 22nd, 2026

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I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… victory. Someday this war’s gonna end.”

For many, that monologue from Apocalypse Now is the definitive Robert Duvall moment: a blend of bravado, absurdity and menace delivered with unnerving calm.

For those of us who grew up in Pakistan in the shadow of ideological debates about empire, non-alignment and resistance, the wars in Indochina had a special resonance. Left-wing activists in Pakistan — students, trade unionists, writers — saw Vietnam not merely as a distant battlefield, but as a moral drama about superpower intervention. In drawing rooms and campus canteens, names such as Hanoi and Saigon were invoked alongside discussions of Palestine and Latin America.

When Duvall’s Lt Col Bill Kilgore spoke of napalm as “victory”, the line reverberated far beyond Hollywood. It sounded like the distilled psychology of imperial hubris. Yet it was not the first time I had encountered Duvall.

Actor Robert Duvall, who passed away February 15, specialised across six decades in portraying authority figures. But his real power lay in his trust of understatement

Like many of my generation, I had met him earlier in The Godfather as Tom Hagen, the cool-headed consigliere of the Corleone family. Only later did I return to his film debut in To Kill A Mockingbird and discover the shy, almost spectral Boo Radley.

Watching those two performances within a short span, I admired how profoundly he had developed within a decade — from silent outsider to composed insider, from moral witness to institutional operator.

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Duvall speaks not a word. Boo Radley is more presence than personality, a figure shaped by prejudice and gossip in a racially divided Alabama town. The film’s courtroom drama — centred on an innocent black man condemned by a biased system — remains a searing indictment of how justice can falter under social pressure.

For audiences in Pakistan, the theme is painfully familiar. Accused persons belonging to minority communities often struggle to obtain fair hearings when public emotion runs high. Legal processes, though constitutionally grounded, can be distorted by prejudice or intimidation. Boo Radley, misjudged by rumour, symbolises how communities construct guilt before evidence is weighed.

By contrast, in The Godfather, Duvall’s Tom Hagen represents the law as instrument. Hagen is not a flamboyant gangster; he is the rationaliser of violence, the lawyer who gives crime administrative polish. He drafts contracts, negotiates settlements, speaks in measured tones. The performance is unsettling because it is so civilised.

In many societies — including Pakistan — public confidence in the legal profession has occasionally been shaken by instances where lawyers have been perceived as enabling powerful criminal networks rather than merely defending the accused’s rights. Duvall’s Hagen embodies the ethical tension at the heart of advocacy: where does representation end and complicity begin? His quiet authority shows how legality can cloak moral compromise.

A figure of institutional power

A fascination with institutional power runs throughout Duvall’s career. In The Conversation, he appears briefly, yet memorably, as “The Director”, the opaque authority behind a corporate surveillance operation.

Released in the wake of Watergate, the film captured anxieties about wiretapping and the erosion of privacy. Its themes resonate strongly in contexts where intelligence agencies are widely believed to intrude into personal and political life. Pakistan’s own history is punctuated by allegations of surveillance, intercepted communications and the invisible reach of security institutions. Duvall’s character scarcely raises his voice; he does not need to. His calm signals the normalisation of intrusion.

In Network, Duvall shifted from covert authority to corporate evangelism. As Frank Hackett, the ratings-obsessed executive, he proclaims the primacy of the “American business system” with almost theological conviction.

The satire targeted the commodification of news, yet its critique of sensationalism feels universal. In Pakistan’s fiercely competitive television landscape — where talk shows amplify outrage and political polarisation — Network appears less an American curiosity than a cautionary tale. Duvall’s performance captures the zealotry of commerce: profit as creed.

Then came Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. The line about napalm is delivered not as parody but as genuine enthusiasm. Kilgore believes in the righteousness of his mission. That sincerity makes him terrifying.

For Pakistani leftists of the 1960s and 1970s — many of whom marched against American intervention in Vietnam — the character symbolised the psychology of superpower dominance. Yet Duvall did not play Kilgore as a cartoon villain. He infused him with charm and humour, exposing the seductive appeal of militarised masculinity.

Duvall’s later career softened in tone. In Sling Blade, he portrayed a compassionate small-town patriarch, offering steadiness in a fractured community. The performance suggested an actor comfortable with restraint. Where Kilgore strutted, this character listened.

Behind the camera, Duvall demonstrated similar instincts. As the producer of We’re Not the Jet Set, he championed modest, music-inflected storytelling, rooted in working-class life. The film’s beauty lay in its refusal of glamour. It celebrated unpolished voices and rural rhythms rather than celebrity sheen. Duvall’s sensibility gravitated towards authenticity over spectacle — a trait evident across his acting choices.

His poor films and conservative streak to defend the system

Not all projects succeeded. In The Scarlet Letter (1995), an adaptation that veered towards melodrama, even Duvall’s gravitas could not compensate for narrative confusion.

More controversial was Stalin, in which he portrayed the Soviet leader. The production offered a largely one-dimensional depiction, flattening historical complexity into a stark morality play. To this scribe, it resembled Cold War propaganda, maligning the USSR with little attempt at nuance. Whatever one’s judgement of Stalin’s record, the film’s weakness lay in its simplicity.

Duvall, an actor known for layering contradictions, appeared constrained by a script intent on caricature. Politically, Du­­v­all avoided strident activism. He occ­as­ionally expressed conservative sym­pa­t­­hies, yet refrained from Hollywood’s cul­­ture of megaphone politics. His cont­rib­utions were quieter: support for arts initiatives, encouragement of independent filmmakers and advocacy for veterans. In this, he resembled many of his characters — men who believed in systems yet understood their fragility.

Across six decades, Duvall specialised in authority figures — lawyers, generals, executives, patriarchs. Yet he rarely played them as caricatures. He illuminated belief as both strength and blindness. In To Kill A Mockingbird, justice falters under prejudice. In The Godfather, law is bent to shield crime. In The Conversation, surveillance corrodes privacy. In Network, commerce consumes journalism. In Apocalypse Now, militarised conviction veers into delusion.

For audiences in Pakistan, these themes are not abstract. Questions about minority rights, legal ethics, intelligence overreach and media sensationalism remain live debates.

Duvall’s filmography, though distinctly American, speaks to broader anxieties about power and conscience. Watching Boo Radley after Tom Hagen, I admired not merely Duvall’s growth, but his consistency. He trusted understatement. He understood that authority whispered can be more chilling than authority shouted. He refined rather than reinvented himself.

Cinema has lost one of its quiet craftsmen. But his performances endure — measured, intelligent, unsettling. And that monologue about napalm, resonant from Indochina to distant campuses in Pakistan, remains a reminder of how art can capture the psychology of power in a single, unforgettable breath.

The writer is a columnist, educator and film critic. He can be reached at Mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk. X:@NaazirMahmood

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 22nd, 2026

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The art and craft of stop-motion animation has been celebrated in several exhibitions recently, including a show at London’s South Bank Centre and last year’s Tim Burton retrospective at the Design Museum.

Now it’s the turn of Aardman, as the studio celebrates almost half a century of silly characters, cracking jokes and comical villains in a new exhibition in London.

Since its founding in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, the Bristol-based Aardman has cultivated an identity as one of animation’s most trusted and commercially successful production houses. Animator Nick Park joined in 1985, bringing Aardman Oscar success in 1991 with Creature Comforts — the first of many.

Widespread critical acclaim led to high-profile partnerships with Hollywood companies DreamWorks and Sony Pictures in the early 2000s. But it’s the studio’s homegrown history of feature films, animated shorts, TV series and various other projects that take centre stage at the Young V&A for the new ‘Inside Aardman — Wallace and Gromit and Friends’ exhibition.

Aardman is the British studio behind beloved stop-motion animations such as the Wallace and Gromit films. Now its pioneering creative magic gets a tribute at an exhibition in London

Drawn from the studio’s 50-year legacy, the gallery’s impressive collection of sets, puppets and other behind-the-scenes material provides an affectionate look at the production stories behind some of Aardman’s most celebrated animated creations.

THE CRAFT BEHIND THE ART

The exhibition is a quickfire journey through the techniques and technologies of handmade claymation that have defined the company’s signature animation style.

We learn about the moveable metal armatures and sculpturing of Plasticine, silicone rubber and foam that build Aardman’s three-dimensional models. And we get to see the invisible labour of foley artists (sound creators) and sound designers involved in the realisation of Aardman’s animated screen worlds.

At the centre of the exhibition is the literal flagship piece — the huge galleon from The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists! (2012), which towers over the curated collection of miniatures. Other highlights include the prison cell set from Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024), home to the villainous penguin Feathers McGraw. Visitors can also create their own performances and stop-motion shorts in special interactive booths.

One of the most welcome curiosities is that the archival and audiovisual materials are organised to reflect the various stages of stop-motion animation as a creative process. An impressive collection of pre-production artefacts include never-before-seen storyboards, concept art and illustrations. All are testament to the meticulous craftsmanship of the animators and highlight the almost imperceptible details involved in building stop-motion animation from the ground up.

Lesser-known processes like needle-felting and “dope sheets” (drawings that break down dialogue into the appropriate mouth shapes frame-by-frame) accompany the more recognisable three-dimensional characters that celebrate the artisanal logic powering Aardman’s creativity.

What is clear from this peek inside the magical animated world of Aardman is that its animators are quintessential problem-solvers. The exhibition’s focus on the early Morph shorts reveals how clingfilm can function as an excellent substitute for water.

Similarly, the models and miniatures from A Grand Day Out (1989) show that lentils can have the appearance of well-worn rivets. Even icing sugar can give claymation models a duller, matte look. In the hands of Aardman’s skilled animators, everyday objects and materials can be transformed in all kinds of ways to sell the illusion.

Notable too among the wealth of handmade materials and processes is the spotlight on computer imaging and other forms of digital intervention — a surprise, perhaps, given Aardman’s renowned dedication to working with tangible, material objects. Yet the crude sketches doodled on scraps of paper from which the earliest story and character ideas were formed give way, in the exhibition’s closing stages, to a recognition of other kinds of animated techniques.

Computer-generated layering and 3D printing add in visual effects largely impossible to achieve in stop-motion. Green screens and even virtual reality visualisations help the animators “design and test ideas for sets before building them.” All show how digital technology has come to occupy a central place in the production pipeline of Aardman films.

Rather than obscure such processes behind the lucrative business of handcraft for which Aardman is internationally celebrated, the exhibition rightly makes a virtue of the virtual. The studio chooses not to obscure how and where digital processes have contributed to their big-screen blockbusters — even if their computer-animated films Flushed Away (2006) and Arthur Christmas (2011) are curiously sidelined.

Many visitors will be well-acquainted with the characters and objects brought together for Inside Aardman, yet there is enough devotion to animation as an industrial art form to satisfy creative practitioners and historians alike.

This excellent collection at the V&A show confirms Aardman as masters of their craft within the tradition of British animation, and a studio that can rightfully claim to be the true pioneers of Plasticine.

The writer is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King’s College, London in the UK

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 22nd, 2026

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