Thursday, November 18, 2004

Best Movie Line Ever?

In their continuing quest to debase the art of cinema, the AFI is compiling a list of the top 100 movie lines of all time.

By quotes, the AFI explains, they mean the greatest "quips, comebacks, and catchphrases." Swell.Why pay homage to great writing when you have catchphrases to exhalt?

I'm going to assume that we won't be seeing a beautiful, heart-rending line like "She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage?" Nah, who needs that when you've got "I'll be back."

So, I hearby commission Galley Slave readers to submit their nominations for Best Movie Line Ever. I haven't thought about this for more than three minutes, but to get the ball started, I'll offer:

"There's always one more thing." --Bridge on the River Kwai

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father: prepare to die." --The Princess Bride

"Listen, I don't mean to be a sore loser, but when it's done, if I'm dead, kill him." --Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Update, 1:02 p.m.: SoxBlog emails in his nomination: "'Deserve''s got nothin to do with it." --Unforgiven

Other suggestions keep pouring in. This thread will be updated frequently throughout the day. But if you really want to waste time at work, check out the official AFI short-list of the 400 nominated lines, downloadable as a PDF here. **WARNING** The file is 103 pages long, so print at your own risk.

116 comments:

benjamin said...

This is obscure, but marvelous exchange between Jason Robards and Charles Bronson in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.

"Judas settled for 997 dollars less."
"There weren't no dollars in them days."
"But sons of bitches - yeah."

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." -- Forrest Gump.
"We have put all our rotten eggs in one basket and we intend to watch it very carefully." -- Colonel Von Luger, "The Great Escape"
- Enjoy, Klug

Anonymous said...

"Maybe there won't be marriage. Maybe there won't be sex. But by God, there'll be dancing."
-George Downes, played by Rupert Everett, My Best Friend's Wedding

Anonymous said...

Not to point out the obvious, but what about "Leave the gun! Take the cannoli!"

Anonymous said...

"The good news is, it works." --Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation," referring to the whiskey he is getting paid 2 million to endorse

Anonymous said...

"When in doubt, there is no doubt." Heat

Anonymous said...

Don: Talk to me, Gal. I'm here for you. I'm a good listener.
Gal: What can I say, Don? I've said it all. I'm retired.
Don: Shut up.
- Sexy Beast

Anonymous said...

"Marvin Dorfler - Hey douchebag.
Carmine - The name's Carmine, fucko.
Marvin Dorfler- Shut up!" - Midnight Run

Also fron Midnight Run:
"Jimmy Serrano: Don't say a word to me, Sidney, don't say a fucking word to me. I'll get up and I'll bury this telephone in your head."

The scripts from Spinal Tap, Life of Brian, and Holy Grail should provide endless wonderful lines. You've also started this with Princess Bride, which is another treasure trove of wit.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of the Princess Bride, other favorites:

"Am I going MAD, or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass." Vizzini to Andre the Giant

"Never go in against a Sicilian when Death is on the line." -- Vezzini, just before dying

"Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work. But I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped." -- Prince Humperdinck.

How great is it that the six-fingered man is named Tyrone?

Anonymous said...

From the opening song in South Park : Bigger, Longer, and Uncut ---

" So it's off to the movies we shall go, where we learn everything that we know. Cause the movies tell us what our parents don't have time to say! "

Also from South Park ---

Cartman : I'm sorry I called you a jew, Kyle. You're not a jew.

Kyle : but I am, Cartman. I am a jew.

Cartman : No, don't be so hard on yourself, Kyle.


From the movie The Usual Suspects (a movie I happen to think has a lot of great lines) ---

Keaton used to say , " I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him ". Well, I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.

Anonymous said...

My favorite quote is from Body Heat, when Kathleen Turner says to William Hurt: "You're not too smart---I like that in a man."

Anonymous said...

Saving Private Ryan, Capt. Miller to Private Ryan as he's dying: "Earn This... earn it".

Anonymous said...

Wait, Private Ryan dies? Thanks for ruining the ending, buddy.

Anonymous said...

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels has many.

Rory Breaker: If you hold back anything, I'll kill ya. If you bend the truth or I think you're bending the truth, I'll kill ya. If you forget anything I'll kill ya. In fact, you're gonna have to work very hard to stay alive, Nick. Now do you understand everything I've said? Because if you don't, I'll kill ya.

Winston: We grow copious amounts of ganja here, and you're carrying a wasted girl and a bag of fertilizer. You don't look like your average horti-f---ing-culturalist.

Soap: You're not funny, Tom. You're fat, and look as though you should be, but you're not.

Anonymous said...

From "The Royal Tenenbaums"
Chas: We got locked out of our apartment.
Etheline Tenenbaum: Well, did you call a locksmith?
Chas: Uh huh.
Etheline Tenenbaum: Well, I don't understand. Did you pack your bags BEFORE you got locked out?

and even better,
Eli: I did find it odd when you said you were in love with her. She's married you know.
Richie: Yeah.
Eli: And she's your sister.
Richie: Adopted.

Anonymous said...

"She was giving me a look I could feel in my hip pocket"

Robert Mitchum, "Farewell, My Lovely"


"It ain't like the old days, but it'll do"

Edmund O'Brien, "The Wild Bunch"

Anonymous said...

From the greatest movie of all time, A Philadelphia Story -- George says, "You're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue...It's what everybody feels about you. It's what I first worshipped you for from afar."

Tracy says back, "I don't want to be worshipped. I want to be loved."

Anonymous said...

"Surely you can't be serious!"

"I am, and don't call me Shirley."

--Airplane

Anonymous said...

this may make you feel worse but on the afi top hundred movie songs, hakuna matata and i will always love you made the list. so no wonder their quotes bite

Anonymous said...

"All I want is to enter my house justified" - Joel McCrea to Randolph Scott(the latter having unsuccessfully tempted the former to steal the gold they had been hired to escort in Sam Peckinpah's great "Ride the High Country")

Anonymous said...

"I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being trodden on and crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object."

"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

"As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll."

"Here lies David St. Hubbins ... and why not?"

"They were still booing him when we came on stage."

"We traveled the world: The world and beyond"

"Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation."


And of course...

"These go to 11!"

Anonymous said...

"I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being trodden on and crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object."

"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

"As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll."

"Here lies David St. Hubbins ... and why not?"

"They were still booing him when we came on stage."

"We traveled the world: The world and beyond"

"Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation."


And of course...

"These go to 11!"

Anonymous said...

"the pity of bilbo may rule the fate of many"

" don't know half of you half as well as i should like, and i like less than half of you half as well as you deserve"

"bilbo baggins! do not take me for some conjuror of cheap tricks. i am not trying to rob you. i'm trying to help you."

-LOTR FOTR

Anonymous said...

A couple favorites:

"I do wish we could chat longer. But I'm having an old friend for dinner." - Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. Its been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But, baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again." - Terence Mann, Field of Dreams

Anonymous said...

also:

"There's no crying in baseball!" - A League of Their Own (Tom Hanks)

-d.l.

Anonymous said...

also:

"There's no crying in baseball!" - A League of Their Own (Tom Hanks)

-d.l.

Anonymous said...

"Yes, General, you have lied most bravely, but not convincingly."

Alec Guinness "Lawrence of Arabia"

Anonymous said...

"See, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of ... anything!"

John Huston "Chinatown"

Anonymous said...

"You have no idea!" (Jeremy Irons as Klaus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune, echoed by Irons as Scar in The Lion King.)

"It comes in pints?!?" (Billy Boyd as a Glaswegian Peregrin Took in The Fellowship of the Ring)

"When we're done with you, you'll be able to stand up and slaughter your enemies like civilized men." (Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot in The Man Who Would Be King)

"Keep looking at me. It helps to keep my soul from flying off." (Michael Caine as Peachy Carnahan in The Man Who Would Be King)

Anonymous said...

Ok, maybe not the best EVER, but funny nonetheless:

Sam: Hey, I recognize you.
Andrew Largeman: Oh, did you go to Columbia High?
Sam: No, not from high school, from TV. Didn't you play the retarded quarterback?
Andrew Largeman: Yeah.
Sam: Are you really retarded?
Andrew Largeman: No.
Sam: Ooh, great job man! I really thought you were retarded. I mean, you're better than that Corky kid and he's actually retarded. If there was a retarded Oscar you would win, hands down, kick his ass!

-from "Garden State"

Anonymous said...

From Reefer Madness: "I'm going to ask you a straightforward question: isn't it true that you have, perhaps unwillingly, acquired a certain habit through association with certain undesirable people?"

Anonymous said...

I think we need a bigger boat.

Roy Scheider in "Jaws".

Anonymous said...

Walter Pidgeon in "Advise and Consent"-- "Fortunately our country always manages to survive patriots like you."

Anonymous said...

Three from The Maltese Falcon...

Sam Spade: People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.

Kasper Gutman: I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.

Sam Spade: My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer.

Anonymous said...

44 comments,and nothing from Caddyshack?? Now I know why tigers eat their young...

Best exchange ever, Royal Tenenbaums: Richie Tenenbaum confronts a "high" Eli Cash:

R: Did you tell Margot about the letter I wrote you?

E: Why, did she mention it?

R: (sigh)

E: Yes, I did...why would she have repeated that, I wonder?

R: Well, I would ask you the same question.

E: Rightly so.

AP

Anonymous said...

I'd nominate the closing line from "Lone Star": "Forget the Alamo."

I'm also partial to the following exchange from "The Royal Tenenbaums", which is too long for these purposes, but what are you gonna do?

Chas: Why'd you try to kill yourself?
Richie: I wrote a suicide note.
Chas: You did?
Richie: Yeah, right after I regained consciousness.
Chas: Can we read it?
Richie: No.
Chas: Can you paraphrase it for us?
Richie: I don't think so.
Chas: Is it dark?
Richie: Of course it's dark, it's a suicide note.

Angus Dwyer said...

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

- President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove

Birkel said...

Nobody puts Baby in a corner. --Dirty Dancing

Anonymous said...

What could possibly top Kelly LeBrock's first line in Weird Science (1985) -- "So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?"

Anonymous said...

Two classics from Animal House: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son" and "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

Anonymous said...

"oh, snooty too. George will like that, he hasn't got any sense." John Wayne to Capucine in "North To Alaska."

"That Uncle of your's ain't much, but hog calling won't fetch him." Fur company man interrupting Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin's drunken singing in,"Big Sky."

benjamin said...

"That'll be the day."

"We'll find her, I promise you that. Just as sure as the turnin' of the earth."

-John Wayne in The Searchers


"I will not have violence against this house."

-Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs, right before all hell breaks loose.


"Let's go."
"Why not."

-William Holden and Warren Oates in The Wild Bunch, right before they go off to the final showdown.


"Thy mother mated with a scorpion."

-Anthony Quinn in Lawrence of Arabia


"There is no hope for man."

-Christopher Lee in Fellowship of the Ring


"The laws a funny thing, aint it?"

-Kris Kristofferson in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid


"Would it really bother you if one of those dots stopped moving? If I offered you five hundred pounds for each of those dots would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Free of income tax, old man, free of income tax."

"In Italy under the Borgias they had war, murder, famine and bloodshed but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissiance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, four hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

-Orson Welles in The Third Man

Anonymous said...

Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"


The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Anonymous said...

Nothing so far from Plan 9 From Outer Space? Amazing ...

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future."

Anonymous said...

First Casino:
Ace: No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he'll keep comin' back and back until one of you is dead.

And the king of quotable movies, Army of Darkness:
Ash: It's trick, get an axe.

Ash: First you want to kill me, now you want to kiss me. Blow.

Ash: Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.

Anonymous said...

" I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." Don Corleone. " The God Father

Anonymous said...

From Being There:

I like to watch

Anonymous said...

I love him like a brother. David Greenglass.
--Crimes and Misdemeanors

Anonymous said...

"Pink champagne -- that’s the kind of life we’ve both been used to. It might be a little difficult to -- do you like beer?"
-Deborah Kerr, in "An Affair To Remember"

"I always gagged on that silver spoon."
-Orson Wells, "Citizen Kane"

Anonymous said...

All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband. ------Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally

Anonymous said...

All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband. ------Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally

Anonymous said...

And one more classic from Peter Sellers:

Does your doog bite?

No

I thought you said your doog did not bite

That's not my dog.

Anonymous said...

"You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies."
~ Steve Martin

Anonymous said...

"That's the fact - Jack"

--Bill Murray to the General in Stripes

"Bang"

--Indiana Jones to the Arab swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark

Anonymous said...

"Finally, we come to my number two man. His name? Number Two"- Austin Powers

"There are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary. And there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance."-Bull Durham

Anonymous said...

"He that Troubeth his Own House shall Inherit the Wind."

Spencer Tracy (the winning attorney) to Gene Kelly (the arrogant skeptical newsman)...after the Scopes trial...1960 film "Inherit the Wind"

Anonymous said...

three flicks that are loaded with great quotables: the godfather, fargo and (my favorite) cool hand luke. I'll pick "Now what we have heah, is a failure to communicate."

Anonymous said...

Posted by Beau Allen Pacheco
From 'Little Foss and Big Halsey'
Michael J. Pollard tells Robert Redford..."It ain't how you look, it's how you do."

Anonymous said...

From The Lion in Winter:

"Of course he has a knife. We all have knives. The year is 1262 and we are barbarians." - Eleanor of Acquitane

Anonymous said...

From Casablanca, perhaps the best last line on any movie, "Louie, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

Also from Casablanca, "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into mine."

Anonymous said...

"I tell you straightaway, sir: I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." --Sidney Greenstreet, The Maltese Falcon

Anonymous said...

You can't handle the truth.

Anonymous said...

Mathilda Crompton [Kristin Scott Thomas] in 'Angels and Insects' says. . .

"Up here, there is no MATTY."

Anonymous said...

"A man's gotta do what he thinks is best." John Wayne, in Hondo, to a guy who has just said of Wayne's dog, "If he barks again I'm gonna shoot him." P.S.--the dog barks; the man does nothing.

Anonymous said...

"If they move, kill 'em." William Holden, uttering the first words spoken in The Wild Bunch.

Anonymous said...

The entire script of "Casablanca". Too much good stuff to pick out one quote. Ditto on "The Maltese Falcon".

Village elder in "The Seven Samurai", when one of the villagers asks him how they will be able to convinve any samurai to help them when all they can offer them is three meals a day:

"Find hungry samurai".

Toshiro Mifune in "Yojimbo":

When the bad guys chalenge him to a duel:

Bad Guy: You think you can kill me? Go ahread and try!"
Mifune: "It'll hurt."

When he stats to go into town to save the old man armed only with a fish knife:

Coffin maker: You're going to fight with that?"
Mifune: "I'll make sashimi out of 'em!"

After he has kiled all the bad guys:

"Now this town will be quiet."

Anonymous said...

"Mr. Rat you are to cease and desist forthwith from eating Chin Lee's corn. I've got a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of same." John Wayne in "True Grit" to some vermin and Kim Darby.


Later: "I wouldn't be scared of no booger man neither, if I had a big ole horse pistol like that." A Drunken Rooster Cogburn to an ever annoying Matty Ross of Dardanelle in yell County, Arkansas

Anonymous said...

I'd love to kiss you, but I've just washed my hair.

~ Bette Davis (From 'Cabin in the Cotton' - screenplay by Paul Green)

Anonymous said...

John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit" as he begins his ride downhill into a passle of bad guys, his two guns at the ready: "Fill your hand, you sonofabitch!"

Anonymous said...

The worst ain't so bad, when it actually happens.

Curtin to Howard in
The Treasure of the Sierra Madres

Anonymous said...

The Princess Bride had some great lines -- I was reminded of this one:

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

Anonymous said...

"Mr. Rat you are to cease and desist forthwith from eating Chin Lee's corn. I've got a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of same." John Wayne in "True Grit" to some vermin and Kim Darby.


Later: "I wouldn't be scared of no booger man neither, if I had a big ole horse pistol like that." A Drunken Rooster Cogburn to an ever annoying Matty Ross of Dardanelle in yell County, Arkansas

Anonymous said...

Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) in "White Christmas":

My dear partner, when what's left of you gets around to what's left to be gotten, what's left to be gotten won't be worth getting whatever it is you've got left."

RWE said...

Slim Pickins to the Japanese sailors who are trying to get him to give back the compass they need and which he swallowed:
"I've been constipated all week and there ain't a thing you can do about it.
You ain't getting shit out of me."

From "1941"

Anonymous said...

I didn't surrender neither, but they took my horse and made him surrender. They have him pulling a wagon up in Kansas I bet.

~Lone Waite

Anonymous said...

From Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.
---
or
---

Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?

Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

Anonymous said...

I find it hard to believe that in neither the PDF list, nor in the comments here is there ONE quote from ANY Star Trek movie. I will now change that.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
Dr. McCoy: "Just a moment, Captain, sir. I'll explain what happened. Your revered Admiral Nogura invoked a little known, seldom used, reserve activation clause. In simpler language, Captain, they drafted me!"

. . .

Dr. McCoy: "Spock. This child is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do....spank it?"

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN

Sulu: "I'm delighted. Any chance to go aboard the Enterprise."
Kirk: "Well, I for one am glad to have you at the helm for three weeks. I don't think these kids can steer."

. . .

Kirk: KHAAAAAAAAANNNNN !!!!!

. . .

Spock: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...
Kirk: ...or the one.

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK

Kirk (holding his fingers in the Vulcan salute): "How many fingers am I holding up?"
McCoy: "That's not very damn funny!"
Kirk (smirking): "Your sense of humor's returned."
McCoy: "The hell it has!"

. . .

Kirk: "My God, what have I done?"
McCoy: "What you had to do. What you always do; Turn death into a fighting chance to live"

Maybe more later...

Anonymous said...

From Kate & Leopold

Charlie: We have a saying in the McKay house: "You shake and shake the ketchup bottle, none will come, and then a lot'll."

Anonymous said...

From Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County

Captain Spock: There is the old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China.

Anonymous said...

Arnold Schwarzenager in Conan the Barbarian:

OUT!

Anonymous said...

Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasions

"I've always known I was meant to dominate your sex and avenge my own."

Anonymous said...

Tramp: Be careful how you're driving.
Drunk rich guy (while driving): Am I driving?

-- "City Lights"

Anonymous said...

From Monsters Inc.

"I'm sorry, Wazowski, but Randall said I'm not allowed to fraternize with victims of his evil plot." - Fungus

Anonymous said...

Will: Do you like apples?
Other guy: Yeah.
Will: Well, I got her number. How do you like them apples?

--Good Will Hunting

Anonymous said...

Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" explaining how he knew the man he shot was an attempted rapist:

"When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher's knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross."

Anonymous said...

I find it hard to believe no one's quoted Gigli yet.

Anonymous said...

"The world needs ditch diggers too, Danny." Caddyshack.

Anonymous said...

Barbara Stanwyck in Lady Eve

"You see Hopsi, you don't know very much about girls. The best ones aren't as good as you think they are and the bad ones aren't as bad. Not nearly as bad."

Anonymous said...

"Papa, can you hear me?"
-Yentl

Just kidding. I swear. Just kidding.

Anonymous said...

"Some things in life you just can't ride around" - Randolph Scott in Budd Boetticher's "The Tall T"

"You know, I'd have to have to kill you" - Lee Marvin
"I'd hate to have you try" - Randolph Scott, from Budd Boetticher's "Seven Men From Now"


"I don't know my way home" - David Warner
"That's alright, neither do I" -Dustin Hoffman, in Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs"

"Which room is everyone in?" - Stanley Baker, in Joseph Losey's "Accident"

"Prew, I showed 'em" - A dying Frank Sinatra in "From Here To Eternity"

Anonymous said...

God, I know we are your chosen people, but once and a while couldn't you choose someone else! from Fiddler on the Roof.

Anonymous said...

From "Time Bandits"
"Oh ... so THATs what an invisible barrier looks like."

Anonymous said...

Monty Python's Life of Brian:

"I say you're the Messiah. I should know; I've followed a few."

Anonymous said...

The problem with best lines is that it dovetails right into one-liners. The true greats evoke something more than just an individual moment by encapsulating the film's larger theme.

"My child, you have come to me my son. For who now is your father if it is not me? I am the well spring from which you flow. When I am gone, you will have never been" - Conan The Barbarian

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man" - Taxi Driver

"Television is reality, and reality is less than television...After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?"- Videodrome

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal...No compassion, no compromise...We can't trust the insect...I'd like to become the first... insect politician" - The Fly (1986)

"I'm the bad guy? How'd that happen?" - Falling Down

...And about a dozen from Wall Street.

Anonymous said...

"The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive" - Full Metal Jacket

Anonymous said...

From As Good As it Gets:

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?

Melvin: I think of a man, then I take away reason and accountibility.

and the title line:

Melvin (exiting through psychiatrist's waiting room): What if this is as good as it gets?

Anonymous said...

From Caddyshack
Danny: "Where'd it go?"
Ty Webb: "Right in the lumberyard"


From You've Got Mail
"I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly". Meg Ryan to Tom Hanks

Anonymous said...

"Initiative comes to thems that wait," Alex, A Clockwork Orange

Anonymous said...

The Untouchables: "You wanna know how you do it? Here's how. They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send on of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way."

Anonymous said...

From"The Maltese Falcon":
Spade(Bogart) to Wilmer(Elisha Cook) "The cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter"

Anonymous said...

"Conversation just kinda dried up" -- John Wayne in the Undefeated, explaining why a gunfight broke out

Anonymous said...

This is my favorite put-down line of all time. MUST be said with a honey sweet Southern accent and a smile. Originally said by Bette Davis in a movie from the early 1930's, "Cabin in the Cotton", I think.
"I'd love to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair"

Anonymous said...

"He's dead, Jim"

Anonymous said...

Joe Gideon, speaking to God, in ALL THAT JAZZ:
"What's the matter? Don't you like musical comedy?"

Anonymous said...

Albert Brooks, "Lost in America", when he realizes his wife just bet all their savings on a casino game:

"Not the nest egg!! Not the core of the nest egg!!"

Anonymous said...

From Dr. Strangelove:

"You try any preversions in there, I'll blow your head off." -- Okay, maybe you had to have been there for that one, so:

From The Big Sleep:

"She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up."

Or this exchange from Plan 9 From Outer Space:

"Modern women."
"Yeah, they've been like that all through history."

Anonymous said...

Two from The Wizard of Oz

From the song "In The Merry Old Land of Oz":
We get up at noon and go to work at one
Take an hour for lunch and then at two we're done

And from the Cowardly Lion's song "If I Were King of the Forest":
Who put the ape in apricot?
What makes the Hottentots so hot?
What do they got that I ain't got?
Courage..

Anonymous said...

From "Predator", one of the greatest "guy" flicks ever. After a brief firefight, one of the specfor fighters notices fellow warrior Jesse Ventura is bleeding from a cut on his face. Ventura, without averting his stare into the surrounding treeline replies:
"I ain't got time to bleed.."

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, i went a little overboard in terms of numbers . . . but I love this game.

"On bass, Derrick Smalls!! He wrote this!!"
-Spinal Tap, David St. Hubbins

"What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?"
"Keep it to yourself."
-Broadcast News, exchange between Bill Hurt and Al Brooks

"People don't say that about you. As far as you know."
-Caddyshack, Ty Webb to Spangler

"Grover: Ok, the way I see it, if we were an old couple, dated for years, graduated, away from all these scholastic complications, and I reached over and kissed you, you wouldn't say a word, you'd be delighted, probably, but if I was to do that now it'd be quite forward, and if I did it the first time we ever met you probably would hit me.
Jane: What do you mean?
Grover: I just wish we were an old couple so I could do that."
-Kicking and screaming


"Sully: I can't believe it's gonna take you that long to get me out of jail.
Wirf: Don't blame me, I'm a Jew. They're not my holidays.
Sully: A Jew? Really? I didn't know that. How come you ain't smart?"
-Nobody's Fool

"Fred: You are far weirder than someone merely into S&M. At least they have a tradition. We have some idea what S&M is about. There's movies and books about it. But so far as I know, there is nothing to explain the way you are. "
-Barcelona

The entire screenplays for Bottlerocket and Rushmore are (like Animal House and caddyshack) endlessly quotable, but I'll just give one from each:

"Anthony: One morning, over at Elizabeth's beach house, she asked me if I'd rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer THAT question, but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life."
-Bottlerocket

"Max Fischer: So tell me Curly, how do you know Miss Cross?
Dr. Peter Flynn: We went to Harvard together.
Max Fischer: Oh that's great. I wrote a hit play and directed it, so I'm not sweating it either."
-Rushmore

Anonymous said...

"Just like a wop to bring a knife to a gun fight."
-Connery, Untouchables

"Shee-it, you shoot me in a dream you better wake up and apologize."
-Keitel, Reservoir Dogs

Anonymous said...

"Charlie Don't Surf!"
Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now"

Anonymous said...

"Bond, James Bond"
From any Bond movie, by any Bond Character.

Anonymous said...

My favorite of all time...

Our love is God... let's go grab a slushie

JD (Christian Slater) from heathers

Anonymous said...

My favourite movie quote is from "The Witches of Eastwick". Jack Nicholson is lying on the bed looking rather smug and Cher is standing at the foot of the bed, telling him off:

"You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor and you smell."

Anonymous said...

"Thats what you call ironic"- Pirate, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl

Anonymous said...

This line from Matrix pops into my head when something disastrous happens...you know, like a computer crash, dropped cell phone call...

"Not like this...not like this."