I’ve always had a fascination with words. Whether they’re on the back of a box of Apple Jacks, in a comic book, a History book, on a shampoo bottle, the Sunday comics, a Dean Koontz novel, or spoken by a character in a movie – my heart skips a couple of beats when the English language is taken for a joy ride. I literally have notebooks FULL of quotes that I’ve snatched from movies, tv shows (I Love Lucy has it’s own notebook, actually. I can practically relive entire episodes simply by leafing through the worn pages.), favorite novels, interviews, Reader’s Digest, etc. I’ve even begun creating a Quote Database on one of my other blogs. And, of course, Lucy makes her presence felt – as do many of the gems below.
Read through the list and relive some of the greatest moments in movie history!
The American Film Institute’s top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.
1. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” — Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), Gone with the Wind (1939)
2. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” — Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), The Godfather (1972)
3. “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” — Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), On the Waterfront (1954)
4. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” — Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), The Wizard of Oz (1939)
5. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
6. “Go ahead, make my day.” — Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), Sudden Impact (1983)
7. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” — Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), Sunset Boulevard (1950)
8. “May the Force be with you.” — Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Star Wars (1977)
9. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” — Margo Channing (Bette Davis), All About Eve (1950)
10. “You talkin’ to me?” — Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), Taxi Driver (1976)
11. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” — Captain (Strother Martin), Cool Hand Luke (1967)
12. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” — Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), Apocalypse Now (1979)
13. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” — Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal), Love Story (1970)
14. “The stuff that dreams are made of.” — Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), The Maltese Falcon (1941)
15. “E.T. phone home.” — E.T. (Pat Welsh), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
16. “They call me Mister Tibbs!” — Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), In the Heat of the Night (1967)
17. “Rosebud.” — Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), Citizen Kane (1941)
18. “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” — Arthur “Cody” Jarrett (James Cagney), White Heat (1949)
19. “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” — Howard Beale (Peter Finch), Network (1976)
20. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
21. “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” — Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
22. “Bond. James Bond.” — James Bond (Sean Connery), Dr. No (1962)
23. “There’s no place like home.” — Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) The Wizard of Oz (1939)
24. “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small.” — Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), Sunset Boulevard (1950)
25. “Show me the money!” — Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise), Jerry Maguire (1996)
26. “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” — Lady Lou (Mae West), She Done Him Wrong (1933)
27. “I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” — “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), Midnight Cowboy (1969)
28. “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’” — Ilsa Laszlo (Ingrid Bergman), Casablanca (1942)
29. “You can’t handle the truth!” — Col. Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson), A Few Good Men (1992)
30. “I want to be alone.” — Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), Grand Hotel (1932)
31. “After all, tomorrow is another day!” — Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), Gone with the Wind (1939)
32. “Round up the usual suspects.” — Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca (1942)
33. “I’ll have what she’s having.” — Customer (Estelle Reiner), When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
34. “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” — Marie “Slim” Browning (Lauren Bacall), To Have and Have Not (1944)
35. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” — Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Jaws (1975)
36. “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” — “Gold Hat” (Alfonso Bedoya), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
37. “I’ll be back.” — The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), The Terminator (1984)
38. “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” — Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper), The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
39. “If you build it, he will come.” — Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta), Field of Dreams (1989)
40. “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” — Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), Forrest Gump (1994)
41. “We rob banks.” — Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
42. “Plastics.” — Mr. Maguire (Walter Brooke), The Graduate (1967)
43. “We’ll always have Paris.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
44. “I see dead people.” — Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), The Sixth Sense (1999)
45. “Stella! Hey, Stella!” — Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
46. “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.” — Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis), Now, Voyager (1942)
47. “Shane. Shane. Come back!” — Joey Starrett (Brandon De Wilde), Shane (1953)
48. “Well, nobody’s perfect.” — Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), Some Like It Hot (1959)
49. “It’s alive! It’s alive!” — Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), Frankenstein (1931)
50. “Houston, we have a problem.” — Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Apollo 13 (1995)
51. “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” — Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), Dirty Harry (1971)
52. “You had me at ‘hello.’” — Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), Jerry Maguire (1996)
53. “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.” — Capt. Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx), Animal Crackers (1930)
54. “There’s no crying in baseball!” — Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), A League of Their Own (1992)
55. “La-dee-da, la-dee-da.” — Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), Annie Hall (1977)
56. “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” — Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Psycho (1960)
57. “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” — Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), Wall Street (1987)
58. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” — Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather: Part II (1974)
59. “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” — Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), Gone with the Wind (1939)
60. “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!” — Oliver (Oliver Hardy), Sons of the Desert (1933)
61. “Say ‘hello’ to my little friend!” — Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface (1983)
62. “What a dump.” — Rosa Moline (Bette Davis), Beyond the Forest (1949)
63. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?” — Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), The Graduate (1967)
64. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” — President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), Dr. Strangelove (1964)
65. “Elementary, my dear Watson.” — Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
66. “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.” — George Taylor (Charlton Heston), Planet of the Apes (1968)
67. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
68. “Heeere’s Johnny!” — Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), The Shining (1980)
69. “They’re here!” — Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke), Poltergeist (1982)
70. “Is it safe?” — Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), Marathon Man (1976)
71. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” — Jakie Rabinowitz/Jack Robin (Al Jolson), The Jazz Singer (1927)
72. “No wire hangers, ever!” — Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway), Mommie Dearest (1981)
73. “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?” — Cesare Enrico “Rico” Bandello (Edward G. Robinson), Little Caesar (1930)
74. “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” — Duffy (Bruce Glover), Chinatown (1974)
75. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” — Blanche Dubois (Vivien Leigh), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
76. “Hasta la vista, baby.” — The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
77. “Soylent Green is people!” — Det. Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston), Soylent Green (1973)
78. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” — Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
79. Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious!” Rumack: “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.” — Ted Striker (Robert Hays) and Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen), Airplane! (1980)
80. “Yo, Adrian!” — Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), Rocky (1976)
81. “Hello, gorgeous.” — Fanny Brice (Barbara Streisand), Funny Girl (1968)
82. “Toga! Toga!” — John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi), National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
83. “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” — Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), Dracula (1931
84. “Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes. ‘Twas Beauty killed the Beast.” — Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), King Kong (1933)
85. “My precious.” — Gollum (Andy Serkis), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
86. “Attica! Attica!” — Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
87. “Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!” — Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), 42nd Street (1933)
88. “Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it. You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go!” — Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn), On Golden Pond (1981)
89. “Tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.” — George Gipp (Ronald Reagan), Knute Rockne, All American (1940)
90. “A martini. Shaken, not stirred.” — James Bond (Sean Connery), Goldfinger (1964)
91. “Who’s on First?” — Dexter (Bud Abbott), The Naughty Nineties (1945)
92. “Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac…It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!” — Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), Caddyshack (1980)
93. “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” — Mame Dennis (Rosalind Russell), Auntie Mame (1958)
94. “I feel the need — the need for speed!” — Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), Top Gun (1986)
95. “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” — John Keating (Robin Williams), Dead Poets Society (1989)
96. “Snap out of it!” — Loretta Castorini (Cher), Moonstruck (1987)
97. “My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.” — George M. Cohan (James Cagney), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
98. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” — Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), Dirty Dancing (1987)
99. “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!” — Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), The Wizard of Oz (1939)
100. “I’m the king of the world!” — Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), Titanic (1997)
There are so many classic lines that you could come up with hundreds that could be…should be… would be on the list, of course, but I can’t believe some of my all-time favorites aren’t listed:
John Wayne, as Brannigan: “Knock, Knock.”
Joker (Jack Nicholson, of course!): “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” – Batman (1989)
Joker: “Jack? Jack is dead, my friend.”
(steps into the light)
Joker: “You can call me… Joker. And as you can see, I’m a lot happier.”
(kills the turncoat)
The Joker: (to Vicki) “It’s as though we were made for each other. Beauty and the Beast. Of course, if anyone else calls you ‘beast’ I’ll rip their lungs out.”
The Joker: “I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.”
(Batman dangles a mugger over the side of a building)
Nic: “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me, man! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me, man!”
Batman: “I’m not going to kill you. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell all your friends about me.”
Nic: “What are you?”
Batman: “I’m Batman.”
The Joker: “Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?”
Batman: (Before punching the Joker) “Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moon light?”
The Joker: “Gotham City. Always brings a smile to my face.”
Vicky Vale: “I’ve just got to know. Are we gonna try and love each other?”
(Jack’s in front of a mirror.)
Alicia: “You look fine.”
Jack Napier: “I didn’t ask.”
The Joker: (Furious) “Batman… Batman… Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a *bat* gets all of my press? This town needs an enema!”
The Joker: (Reading the paper.) “Winged freak terrorizes”? Wait’ll they get a load of ME!”
Batman: “I’m going to kill you!”
The Joker: “You IDIOT! You made me. Remember, you dropped me into that vat of chemicals.”
Batman: “You killed my parents.”
The Joker: “What? What? What are you talking about?”
Batman: “I made you, you made me first.”
Okay, okay, so I’m pretty much obsessed with the best Batman movie ever! But you can’t deny that these quotes are all brillaint.
This is one of my favorite movies ever made. The dialogue was about as good as it gets, and the casting was definitely as good as it gets….as in perfect. Jack Nichlolson, Kim Bassinger, and the best Batman ever, Michael Keaton. Keaton took my own personal favorite Super hero and gave him life – unlike (in my opinion) anyone else has ever done. And as for Nicholson’s Joker, has there ever been a more deliciously entertaining villain in the movies??
Kim Bassinger was also perfect in her role. She made the perfect leading lady – gorgeous to a fault, believable, strong yet vulnerable, and she did an outstanding job of letting whichever larger than life character she was in scenes with at the time take center stage. Her facial expressions and gestures never tried to compete with Batman or The Joker. She added to the scenes rather than tried to steal them. Actors and actresses have larger than normal egos, so this has to take a great deal of control!
I’m looking forward to the next Batman movie – which will be out sometime next year. But it’d take a miracle to top the 1989 version. Make that three miracles.
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