Top ten movie quotes
Nothing can make a movie quite so enduring as a few memorable quotes - from witty one-liners to epic monologues. We've sifted through classics old and new to choose our top ten of all time...
"You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
Charlie Croker, The Italian Job
Classic crime caper The Italian Job has become a veritable British institution, not least for its eternal residency in the holiday TV schedules. From the squadron of Mini Coopers chasing through Turin's sewers to the final (literal) cliffhanger, nothing quite sticks in the mind so much as Michael Caine's loveable rogue Charlie Croker exclaiming "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!", as his explosives expert blows a van to smithereens.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning"
Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, Apocalpyse Now
Perhaps more than any other moment in Francis Ford Coppola's fascinating Vietnam epic, Robert Duvall's unsettling fondness for napalm captures the sheer madness of war, the savagery disguised behind a wall of uniforms, lieutenants and mission objectives. This little napalm nugget has wormed its way deep into the public consciousness, and was voted part of the best speech in cinema history in a 2004 survey.
"May the force be with you"
Various characters, Star Wars
Very possibly the world's most oft-repeated movie quote, and hence an enduring fragment of movie folklore which will probably still be repeated when we've colonised Mars and invented working lightsabers. It may just be a nerdy way of saying "break a leg", but the mythology surrounding "the force" is regarded by many as key to the series' success, bringing a spiritual dimension to George Lucas's fairytale story of good versus evil.
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here"
Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver
A defining role for a young Robert De Niro, who played obsessive loner Travis Bickle with an unnervingly convincing intensity. This is the moment, of course, when he rehearses his menacing bad boy patter in front of the mirror, psyched up and tooled up for the tragic rampage of violence which concludes the movie. Most remarkably, De Niro is said to have completely ad-libbed the scene, doubtless not anticipating that almost 30 years later it would still be one of the most quoted, spoofed and impersonated in cinematic history.
"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti"
Hannibal Lecter, The Silence Of The Lambs
From the sublime to the ridiculous, as Anthony Hopkins' chilling description of haute cuisine cannibalism somehow becomes a whole lot less menacing when your friends start repeating it down the pub through a mouthful of foaming lager. Nevertheless, such vividly blood-curdling lines - not to mention some Oscar-winning performances from the leads and eminently memorable imagery - have made Mr Lecter Hollywood's best-loved psychopath.
"Here's Johnny!"
Jack Torrance, The Shining
Frequently voted the scariest movie of all time, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining may not be full of snappy one-liners but it does boast Jack Nicholson's famous ad-libbed utterance "Here's Johnny!". Out of context it seems harmless, but when coupled with the iconic imagery of a deranged Nicholson axing his way through a wooden door en-route to his petrified wife, it's enough to make even the most unflinching movie fan cower into the couch.
"He's not the messiah - he's a very naughty boy"
Brian's mother, Monty Python's Life Of Brian
Not only does this classic quote summarise the plot of the entire film, it's also a snapshot of Monty Python's brilliantly absurd humour, distinguished by this acute sense of the ridiculous, satirical and camp, and at times as wilfully blasphemous as anything in the history of cinema. The film stirred its fair share of controversy at the time, initially banned in Ireland and Norway. Just as well they didn't stick with Eric Idle's original title - Jesus Christ: Lust For Glory.
"We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now"
Withnail, Withnail & I
A true cult classic (particularly for students who aspire to the record-breaking feats of liver abuse on display), Withnail & I is brimming with absurdly quotable passages - none more so than the scene in which our legless anti-heroes stumble into an old ladies' tearoom and pompously demand "the finest wines available to humanity". Despite his effortlessly convincing performance as a drunkard, actor Richard E Grant is in fact teetotal - although director Bruce Dickinson eventually persuaded him to down a tumbler of vodka in rehearsals to add authenticity to his rendition. Whether he was drunk when agreeing to do those Argos commercials, though, we'll never know...
"The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club"
Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Re-used by just about everybody in middle management during their staff training sessions eg. "the first rule of Croydon Office Supplies is...", this is the moment that Brad Pitt's fearsomely imposing Tyler Durden introduces the rules of Fight Club to his assembled rabble of white collar disciples. So replete with such streetwise, MTV-friendly sound bites was Chuck Palahniuk's original novel, in fact, that the leap onto celluloid transformed it instantly into a cultural phenomenon, still remembered for other gems such as "This is your life - and it's ending one minute at a time".
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?"
Jules, Pulp Fiction
Samuel L Jackson's smart-talking, bible-quoting Jules is the quintessential Tarantino gangster, firing out one-liners like a hail of bullets in his most memorable screen role to date. This razor-sharp way with words has seen Tarantino amass a library's worth of über-quotable dialogue, key to his rise from cult director to cultural icon. Most importantly, though, he was responsible for the introduction of the word "gimp" to thousands of sniggering students across the country.
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