Sometimes in a film, the perfect single moment, a combination of writing, filming, acting, and directing manages to convey more emotion and story information than all the dialogue ever.
Two come to mind
X-Men 2.
Pyro, the punk kid mutant is in Iceman's family's house. The shot starts on a smiling family picture of Iceman and family, then the focus shifts to show a surly Pyro's reflection, staring at the picture.
The one, three second shot tells more about Pyro's character than anything else in the movie. You FEEL for him in that moment, and it adds so much to the movie while in no way really being part of the plot.
Julie and Julia
Julia Child and her husband are walking along. A woman with a baby carriage walks by. Julia looks at it and becomes briefly sad. Her husband tightens his arm around her.
That shot, maybe eight seconds, totally defines that childlessness was one of the central tradgedies of Julia Child's life, despite that the entire movie doesn't have a single line of dialoge about it (although it's briefly touched on nearer the end of the film when Julia's sister is pregant).
What other movies have single moments that achieve this much? Any thoughts?