A great quote can live long in the memory, and some of the most iconic lines in the history of cinema have managed to outlive the relevance of the movies that they come from. Even people who are unfamiliar with certain movies will be able to recognize their most unforgettable quotes. They may not understand the context or the true meaning, but these quotes have become timeless.
The best quotes can capture the themes of a movie in a single moment, and many of them can be applied to a wide variety of situations. Quotes can take on a life of their own if enough people start using them in everyday life without explicitly referring to the movies that they originate from. This can lead to some quotes becoming more famous than their own movies, and quotes like this can still be popular after decades.
Clint Eastwood stars in Sudden Impact as Harry Callahan, a gruff cop who dispenses his own brand of justice. Sudden Impact wasn’t as well-received as some other movies in the Dirty Harry franchise, but it does have Eastwood’s most iconic quote, one which succinctly captures Harry’s character. The antihero cop created a new cinematic archetype, and lines like “Go ahead, make my day” are a huge reason why.
Harry first utters the line early on in the movie, as he stumbles upon an armed robbery in a diner. He pulls out his gun and quickly kills three of the robbers, but the last one grabs a waitress for a hostage. Harry practically dares him to pull the trigger on her. He calls the robber’s bluff, confident that the man doesn’t really want to hurt the waitress. Instead, he offers him a simple choice, death or prison.
Jack Nicholson’s best movies have a lot of iconic lines, but very few have had as big an impact on common parlance as his guttural yelling of “You can’t handle the truth” in A Few Good Men. Nicholson plays Col. Nathan Jessup, the base commander at Guantánamo Bay who becomes a target in a trial concerning the death of a United States Marine under his watch at the base.
Nicholson plays Jessup as a straight-laced military man with rigid posture, but his exterior starts to crack under pressure when he is caught in a lie in the witness box. His sudden angry outburst betrays his innate sense of superiority. He goes on to spell out his own view of the world and the military’s role within it. “You can’t handle the truth” has since been parodied countless times.
When Harry Met Sally is packed with great quotes. The movie works so well because the two romantic leads are polar opposites with completely different views on life and love, but they still manage to share a great friendship with a lot of respect for each other. Although most of the story focuses on their playful dynamic, When Harry Met Sally‘s most iconic line is spoken by a minor character with no other dialogue.
The diner scene delivers a perfect joke, with the punchline acting as a great topper to Sally’s overblown performance of an orgasm. The customer who breaks the silence with the punchline is played by director Rob Reiner’s mother, as if he knew that he had an iconic moment waiting to happen on his hands. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan share plenty of brilliant scenes together, but they can’t lay claim to the movie’s best quote.
Tony Montana’s final stand is an outpouring of rage. He hasn’t learned anything by destroying his business, alienating his wife and his friends, and turning his closest allies against him. The experience has only made him bitter and resentful. He likely knows that he has no chance of surviving when his house is raided by a small army, but he decides to go out with a gun in his hands.
Scarface‘s most memorable quote is the perfect encapsulation of Tony’s frantic and unstable mental state. It’s a humorous line in a situation which definitely doesn’t call for one, but this highlights how Tony has lost his grip on reality. As he guns down his attackers, his true rage is directed at the entire system which sold him a dream which corrupted his soul, but staying in the moment is much simpler for Tony.
Even for people who haven’t seen David Fincher’s Fight Club, the first rule is famous. Fight Club‘s rules are designed to make sure that the club can continue in relative secrecy, but they also help indoctrinate new members into Tyler Durden’s twisted philosophical worldview. This becomes more important as the club evolves from a simple cathartic outlet for misguided men into an anti-establishment cult.
The fact that the club keeps growing shows that the members are frequently violating the first rule. It’s repeated with added emphasis in the second rule, but this does nothing to help. Since Fight Club‘s big twist plays with the delineation between reality and myth, it’s fitting that the movie’s most famous quote has such incongruous associations. Brad Pitt’s delivery also contributes to the quote’s enduring popularity.
Ron Howard tried to base as much of the dialogue in Apollo 13 as possible on the real transcripts between the capsule and NASA. The famous line “Houston, we have a problem” was originally spoken by Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell in 1970, but it was made famous by Tom Hanks in Apollo 13. This is actually a slight misquote, as Swigert and Lovell actually said “we’ve had a problem.”
In the movie, just like in the recordings of the mission, the phrase is spoken very calmly. The astronauts are extremely cool under pressure, even when experiencing a potentially catastrophic issue which they don’t understand. “Houston, we have a problem” is the last line spoken before the scene devolves into a cacophony of overlapping voices from inside the capsule and back in Mission Control.
Sunset Boulevard is one of the best movies about the business of making movies. Even though it focuses on the transition from silent films to talking pictures, its compelling characters ensure that it has stood the test of time. Sunset Boulevard‘s ending is undoubtedly the movie’s most memorable moment, as Norma Desmond finally loses touch with all reality and believes that the newsreel cameras who have come to film her arrest are actually working on a movie with her.
Norma is a washed-up movie star who made it big during the silent era but was swiftly cast aside when sound became widespread in the industry. Despite her immense wealth, she yearns for the bright lights of stardom once more. In a way, she gets what she wants, but this is only because she exists within her own version of reality after murdering Joe, a writer who she believed could bring her back to the top.
Midnight Cowboy‘s influence has faded massively since 1969, but its most iconic quote has not. As two-bit con man Rico walks his new associate Joe through the streets of New York, his monologue is interrupted by a cab driver who nearly runs over the duo. Rico seems to change his character entirely for a moment, bursting into rage and yelling at the driver with previously unseen vigor.
“I’m walkin’ here” is a phrase that’s become synonymous with New York City. Dustin Hoffman is from Los Angeles, but he puts on an extremely pronounced New York accent for Midnight Cowboy. There are conflicting stories about the origin of the quote. Hoffman has claimed in interviews that it was improvised after a taxi driver actually disrupted their filming, but early drafts of the script do contain scenes which are at least similar.
Russell Crowe delivers one of his best performances in Gladiator. He plays Maximus Decimus Meridius, a Roman general who finds himself enslaved and engaging in Gladiator combat. After one bout, he turns his attention toward the crowd and yells “Are you not entertained?” Although this is meant to admonish the spectators for their dispassionate bloodlust, they roar their approval.
The phrase has been parodied countless times, and it has also been adopted by sports commentators all over the world. When it’s stripped of its original context, it can be used as an exclamation of any kind of spectacle. Ridley Scott’s upcoming Gladiator sequel will feature a mostly new cast, with Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal among the actors involved.