re: What was that one movie that just blew you away when you saw it?

Eraserhead
The Departed
No Country For Old Men
The Shining

All but Eraserhead took multiple viewings before I could truly appreciate what was going on beyond the obvious plot.

I define this as going to a movie where I didn't know much about it or wasn't expecting anything from it and really enjoying it. Sneakers and Frequency are the two movies that come to my mind in that regard.

70's: Close Encounters of the Third Kind because the aliens weren't trying to kill us and we weren't trying to kill them.

80's: Raiders of the Lost Ark was just so much fun.

90's: Terminator 2: Judgment Day is just a perfectly made action movie.

2000's: Gladiator was the best movie about the Roman Empire since epics like Ben Hur and Cleopatra.

2010-present: Haven't seen enough of these to weigh in.

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I really with I'd gotten to see The Matrix and The Prestige for the first time in the theater.

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Same here with The Matrix. My first viewing of it was on a 19" screen during an 11pm-3am ride on a chartered party bus. Still understood how great it was and bought the DVD when it came out.

I think this situation may be why I hate the sequels so much. I went to the 2nd one the night it opened thinking it would be a great experience.

the godfather. i couldn't stop thinking about it for like a week after my first viewing.

michael killing the cop and the drug dealer is my favorite scene ever.

Teenage mutant ninja turtles 3

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70's: Close Encounters of the Third Kind because the aliens weren't trying to kill us and we weren't trying to kill them.

80's: Raiders of the Lost Ark was just so much fun.

90's: Terminator 2: Judgment Day is just a perfectly made action movie.

2000's: Gladiator was the best movie about the Roman Empire since epics like Ben Hur and Cleopatra.

2010-present: Haven't seen enough of these to weigh in.

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I like this list. Pretty much in agreement with you.

I'll add Alien/Aliens, Jason and the Argonauts (when I was young)

Might sound weird, but Ex Machina.

Also, the new Mad Max in the theater. Incredible experience.

Easy answer would be Shawshank.

But there have been others that wowed me the first time I ever saw them, some decades after they were made.

Chronologically from their first release date:

It's A Wonderful Life
The Day The Earth Stood Still
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Tarantula
The Amazing Colossal Man
It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Cool Hand Luke
Slaughterhouse Five
Young Frankenstein
Jaws
Airplane
GoodFellas
Office Space
Sling Blade
The Revenant

Interstellar