Top 10 Cameron Crowe Moments

As Crowe's directorial debut, Say Anything, gets a well-earned 20th anniversary re-release, TIME turns back the clock and assesses the finest moments from his back catalog

"In Your Eyes" (Say Anything)

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"The first thing to remember about any top 10 list is that it is not to be trusted." —Cameron Crowe, writing in Empire magazine

Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack), a middling student and aspiring professional kickboxer, has set his sights on the luminous Diane Court (Ione Skye) — a valedictorian "dropped in the body of a game-show hostess," as one of his friends puts it. With Diane on the verge of breaking his heart and leaving to study in London, Lloyd's defiant act of love — showing up outside her house, boom box held aloft — became the defining image of teenage romance for a generation. It may not have turned out that way if the director's original song choice for the scene, Billy Idol's "To Be a Lover," were used instead of the Peter Gabriel anthem "In Your Eyes."

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