Are These The Most Quotable Movies Ever?

Are These The Most Quotable Movies Ever?

Posted on Wednesday April 8, 2009, 14:10 by Chris Hewitt in Empire States

During our enormously fun, completely spontaneous but ultimately follower-haemorrhaging Aliens quote-a-thon on Twitter today, one of our followers – Rikkiebags – asked a very simple question: ‘What are the Top 10 most eminently quotable films?’ And here are the very simple answers.

1.   Aliens
The Pringles of movie quotage – once you pop, you just can’t stop. As evidenced by today, when a single joint quote of a Newt line by James and myself led to that Twitter frenzy, with many of our followers dropping their favourite lines from a film that exposes the fallacy that James Cameron can’t write for toffee. Nonsense: Aliens is a raging quotefest from the off. What’s more, despite the dozens of quotes that came our way, from the iconic – “Get away from her, you BITCH!” - to the obscure-even-for-us "Micro changes in air density, my ass."*, there was very little overlap: the sure sign that you’re dealing with a film that has a quote for almost every situation.

2.   Anchorman
The truly great, iconic quote should seem effortless, as if it hasn’t been thinktanked into existence with the express purpose of becoming all the rage in playgrounds and offices across the country. For this reason, Paul Rudd’s I Love You, Man, with its relentless torrent of would-be catchphrases, from ‘Totes Magotes’ to ‘Slappin’ de bass, man!’, doesn’t make the list, because it’s trying too damned hard. Another Rudd comedy, though, does.

The beauty of Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s wonderful comedy is that virtually every scene throws up a doozy, and virtually every character – even Chris Parnell’s Garth (“You poopmouth, with poop out of your mouth!”) given something for us to remember them by. And it all seems like it was thrown together without a care in the world. In fact, a rogue Anchorman quote – “Son of a beesting!”, “I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party!” – can spark off a back-and-forth that rages for hours, and goes a long way to explaining the longevity and cult appeal of a film that didn’t do that well upon its initial release. See also: Austin Powers.

3.   This Is Spinal Tap
In terms of quotage, Rob Reiner’s documentary – or, if you will, rockumentary – turns it all the way up to eleven. Heck, that opening line alone crams in two belters. As with Anchorman, Spinal Tap is filled with lines that were largely improvised by Messrs. Reiner, Guest, Shearer and McKean; unlike Anchorman, though, many of them - “None more black”, “It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever”, to name but two - have entered the public consciousness and cultural lexicon. And we haven’t even mentioned the songs.

4.   Glengarry Glen Ross
Is there a writer in Hollywood better than David Mamet at coming up with zingers that lodge in your brain and refuse to leave? Arguably Tarantino (see below), but Mamet is a writing machine who, even in his lesser efforts like Heist, churns out movie earworms. And his masterpiece is Glengarry Glen Ross, with a group of fantastic actors – Lemmon, Pacino, Spacey, Baldwin, Pryce, Arkin, Harris – gleefully chewing on bile-filled, vituperative invective that would make In The Loop’s Malcolm Tucker blush. Most of the belters are clustered in the monologue given to Alec Baldwin’s corporate ball-buster, Blake, a scene added specifically for the movie (which is based, of course, on Mamet’s play). “ABC – Always Be Closing. ALWAYS Be Closing”, “Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired,” and “Fuck you – that’s my name!” are all prime examples of Mamet on blistering, blazing form and should have given Baldwin his first Oscar.

5.   Heat
Sometimes, just sometimes, a film is eminently quotable because of one character. Heat is such a film, and Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna is that character. OK, so Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley gets the film’s key phrase – "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." - but Hanna is the walking quote machine. When the movie first came out, Pacino copped some flak for his wired portrayal of the larger-than-life Hanna, but now that the dust has settled, we see that his deliberately OTT choices are the perfect counterpoint to the dialled-back, reserved De Niro. It’s the greatest Christopher Walken performance Walken never gave. And //everything// Hanna says is quotable. Everything, from “Don’t waste my motherfucking time!” to “She’s got a GREAT ASS! And you got your head ALL THE WAY UP IT!” to, “You can get killed walking your doggy!” to “Who? Who? What are you, a fucking owl?” to “It keeps me sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be,” to… well, you get the picture. Hell, even Pacino’s pointing and posturing is quotable. Of course, for full effect, you must say the lines in a vague approximation of his gruff, Marlboro Red rasp.

6.   The Star Wars Trilogy
Because, c’mon… it’s Star Wars. You can type this shit and, as it turns out, you can say it too. Repeatedly. (The second trilogy has some gems – all hail, “This party’s over!” – but we’re all about the OT here)

7.   Die Hard
An office fave, a la Aliens. Bruce Willis’ John McClane and Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber spend most of the film trading one-liners like a modern-day Abbot and Costello, but this is another movie where almost every character, even Rick Ducommun’s hapless city worker, Walt (“Shut it down, shut it down now!”) could get their lines immortalised on a T-shirt or mug. Hats off to screenwriters Jeb Stuart and Steven E. DeSouza, although legend has it that Shane Black may have run his eye over the dialogue at some point. If so, it certainly shows. And it’s about more – much more – than the signature, ‘yippee-kai-yay, motherfucker’. For extra fun, do travel to LA before embarking upon a Die Hard quoteathon. There’s nothing quite like whispering, ‘Fuckin’ California’ when you’re standing outside Nakatomi Plaza, shaking at your head at some outrageous, only-in-LA nonsense.

8.   Shaun Of The Dead
Simon Pegg (with Jessica Hynes, let’s not forget) and Edgar Wright had already had plenty of practice in crafting one-liners with their seminal TV show, Spaced. And when they turned their hand to the big screen, they came up with fried gold. Literally. Shaun is bursting with great, inspired verbiage and inventive swearing (“Fuck-a-doodle-doo!) that instantly sounds a) very, very British (“Can I get any of you cunts a drink?”), b) gloriously idiosynratic (“I don’t see the point of running a car in London,”) and c) like no other movie out there. Shaun is a brilliantly layered script, with dialogue exchanges repeated and played upon throughout (Notice how “you’ve got red on you,” evolves in meaning throughout) and, in often inventing their own phrases – the aforementioned fried gold, to name but one – Pegg and Wright showed impressive dedication to the quotey cause. Now, do you want anything from the shop?

9.   Reservoir Dogs
Quite frankly, if I didn’t have a Tarantino on this list, I’d write a hate-filled response to myself in the comments section. One of the best writers around, his intensely hip dialogue is memorable and, for a while during the mid-90s especially, essential as it permeated pop culture. Pulp Fiction may have the more memorable, multi-purpose dialogue, but Reservoir Dogs was the first movie that clued us all in to the arrival of this startling, singular new voice in American cinema. And I still quote it all the time – the other day elicited a ‘job-type job’, while “all right, ramblers, let’s get rambling” is an all-time favourite. Never did pluck up the courage for “are you going to bark all day, little doggy, or are you going to bite?” in case I get my head kicked in.

10.   Ghostbusters
Confession time: I’m incapable of climbing a staircase (and the way my fitness is going, soon that sentence will stop right there) without uttering the following immortal exchange from Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis’ brilliant script for Ghostbusters. “Where do these stairs go?” [beat] “They go up.” It’s a small moment, but that’s indicative of how quotable Ghostbusters is, with Aykroyd and Ramis’ script brilliantly enhanced by the offbeat cadences of the likes of Bill Murray, Rick Moranis and, of course, the writers themselves. Like 30 Rock now, it’s a treasure trove of wonderful throwaway lines, which can operate as life lessons for us all. To wit: if someone asks you if you want coffee, reply, “’Do I?’ ‘Yes, have some,’ ‘Yes, have some”. Got a restaurant bill you don’t like? Deploy, “that’s outrageous, I won’t pay it!”, a line uttered by Michael Ensign’s snippy Hotel Manager. And we haven’t even mentioned anything by the Ghostbusters themselves. Perfection.

11.   Jaws
Because this list, as Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnell would say, goes all the way up to eleven. Spielberg’s second movie is an unstoppable quote machine that does nothing but eat, sleep and provide the name for Bryan Singer’s production company (Bad Hat Harry). Robert Shaw’s Quint gets most of the best lines, but again, it’s all about the details for Roy Scheider’s Brody (“Smile, you sonuvabitch!”) and Richard Dreyfuss’ Hooper (“This was no boating accident,” a line later referenced in Dreyfuss’ own comedy, Stakeout). We could go on, but if we do, we’re gonna need a bigger quote… blog.

And that’s it, ladies and germs. And I know what you’re saying. No Fight Club? No Coens? No Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with all-time great, “I was tired, I was pissed, I was wetter than Drew Barrymore in a grunge bar!”? No Kevin Smith (“37!”)? No Superman II? No Predator? No Godfather? No Monty frickin’ Python? No In The Loop (trust me, when you see it, you’ll know what I mean…)?

Well, no. But it was a close-run thing. And let me remind you that these are my choices, my own personal opinions. Please, by all means, get stuck in with your own thoughts below. And, when you’ve done that, why not check out James Dyer’s long-standing blog on movie quotes and have a go at him too?

* Turns out this is from Alien, not Aliens. Sneaky.