AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes
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Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes is a list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema. The American Film Institute revealed the list in June of 2005 in a three-hour television program on CBS. The program was hosted by actor Pierce Brosnan and had commentary from many Hollywood actors and filmmakers.
A jury consisting of 1,500 film artists, critics, and historians selected "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," spoken by Clark Gable in the Civil War epic Gone with the Wind as the most memorable American movie quotation of all time.
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Criteria
Jurors were asked to consider the following criteria in making their selections:
- Movie Quotation: A statement, phrase or brief exchange of dialogue spoken in an American film.<ref>AFI defines an American film as an English language motion picture with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the United States. Additionally, only quotations from feature-length American films released before January 1, 2004, were considered. AFI defines a feature-length film as a motion picture of narrative format that is typically over 60 minutes in length.</ref> Lyrics from songs are not eligible.
- Cultural Impact: Movie quotations that viewers use in their own lives and situations; circulating through popular culture, they become part of the national lexicon.
- Legacy: Movie quotations that viewers use to evoke the memory of a treasured film, thus ensuring and enlivening its historical legacy.
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The list
| Quotation number | Quotation | Character | Actor/Actress | Film | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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." | Don 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."<ref>Jake LaMotta’s character repeats Brando's speech in Raging Bull.</ref> | 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."<ref>Usually misquoted as "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."</ref> | Norma Desmond | Gloria Swanson | Sunset Boulevard | 1950 |
| 8 | "May the Force be with you." | Han Solo | Harrison Ford | Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | 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 (a) failure to communicate."<ref>Paul Newman repeats the line later in the film, mocking the prison warden, though he says "a failure", rather than simply "failure."</ref> | 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." | Jennifer Cavilleri Barrett | Ali MacGraw | Love Story | 1970 |
| 14 | "The stuff that dreams are made of."<ref>This paraphrases a line from The Tempest by William Shakespeare: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" (often misquoted as "..made of")</ref> | 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<ref name="JamesBond_SeanConnery">Also George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig.</ref> | Dr. No<ref name="Bond_JamesBond">Appears in some form in a total of 22 films; Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace.</ref> | 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. | Jerry Maguire | 1996 |
| 26 | "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?"<ref>Usually misquoted as "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?"</ref> | Lady Lou | Mae West | She Done Him Wrong | 1933 |
| 27 | "I'm walking here! I'm walking here!"<ref>Sometimes claimed to be an ad lib.</ref> | "Ratso" Rizzo | Dustin Hoffman | Midnight Cowboy | 1969 |
| 28 | "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'"<ref>Usually misquoted as "Play it again, Sam."</ref> | Ilsa Lund | Ingrid Bergman | Casablanca | 1942 |
| 29 | "You can't handle the truth!" | Col. Nathan Jessup | 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 | "You'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!"<ref>Popularly misquoted as "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!", most likely from Blazing Saddles in which the line was so worded.</ref> | "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."<ref>An actual quote from Lou Gehrig's retirement speech.</ref> | Lou Gehrig | Gary Cooper | The Pride of the Yankees | 1942 |
| 39 | "If you build it, he will come."<ref>Often misquoted as "If you build it, they will come."</ref> | Shoeless Joe Jackson | Ray Liotta (voice) | 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."<ref>The line is based on an actual message from Apollo 13. Astronaut Swigert said "Houston, we've had a problem here," then Lovell repeated "Houston, we've had a problem".</ref> | Jim Lovell | Tom Hanks | Apollo 13 | 1995 |
| 51 | "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"<ref>Often misquoted as "Do you feel lucky, punk?"</ref> | 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."<ref>Often misquoted as "... How he got in my pajamas I'll never know."</ref> | Capt. Geoffrey 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."<ref> The scene from the film in which this line appears is also excerpted in the movie's trailer, but in the trailer the sequence is edited so that Gekko's line occurs as simply "Greed is good." This shorter version of the line has become more popular – and more widely quoted – than the version in the film.</ref> | Gordon Gekko | Michael Douglas | Wall Street | 1987 |
| 58 | "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."<ref>This maxim is attributed to several military strategists, notably Sun-tzu, Chinese general.</ref> | 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!"<ref>Often misquoted as "Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into!"</ref> | 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." (Although occurring in the 1949 film, this line did not become a widespread catchphrase until after the 1961 premiere of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. In the opening scene of that play, Martha quotes this line and then (since she has apparently forgotten) she asks George which of Bette Davis's films it is from.) | Rosa Moline | Bette Davis | Beyond the Forest | 1949 |
| 63 | "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me... Aren't you?"<ref>Often misquoted as "Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs Robinson?"</ref> | 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."<ref>This line, which does not appear in any of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, was first said onscreen in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. The line's first occurrence is in the stage play Sherlock Holmes, written entirely by William Gillette with Doyle's approval, for which Gilette listed Doyle as co-author.</ref> | 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 | "Here's Johnny!"<ref>An ad-lib. The line is Ed McMahon's signature introduction of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.</ref> | 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!"<ref>Ad-libbed after a particularly good take</ref> | Jakie Rabinowitz/Jack Robin | Al Jolson | The Jazz Singer | 1927 |
| 72 | "No wire hangers, ever!"<ref>Usually misquoted as: "No more wire hangers, ever!"</ref> | 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." | Lawrence Walsh | Joe Mantell | 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 and Dr. Rumack | Robert Hays and Leslie Nielsen | Airplane! | 1980 |
| 80 | "Yo, Adrian!" | Rocky Balboa | Sylvester Stallone | Rocky | 1976 |
| 81 | "Hello gorgeous." | Fanny Brice | Barbra 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. It was Beauty killed the Beast."<ref>Frequently heard as "... Twas beauty killed the beast"</ref> | 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." | Knute Rockne<ref>This quote is sometimes attributed to Ronald Reagan portraying George Gipp. Reagan's line—from earlier in the film—is "Ask 'em to go in there with all they've got, win just one for the Gipper."</ref> | Pat O'Brien | Knute Rockne, All American | 1940 |
| 90 | "A martini. Shaken, not stirred."<ref>Later, "Vodka Martini, Shaken, not Stirred." In the film You Only Live Twice, accidentally "Stirred, not Shaken."</ref> | James Bond | Sean Connery<ref name="JamesBond_SeanConnery" /> | Goldfinger<ref>appeared in multiple other films.</ref> | 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 and Lt. Nick "Goose" Bradshaw | Tom Cruise and 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 king of the world!" | Jack Dawson | Leonardo DiCaprio | Titanic | 1997 |
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AFI misquotes
- Judy Garland said (quote 4), "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." AFI added the word "got".
- Charlton Heston actually said (quote 66), "Take your stinking paws off me...", not "Get..."
- The actual Titanic line is (quote 100) "I'm the king of the world."
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Distinctions
Casablanca has the most quotes of any movie on the list, with six (#5, 20, 28, 32, 43, 67). Gone with the Wind (#1, 31, 59) and The Wizard of Oz (#4, 23, 99) are next, with three each.
Ten men and four women have multiple quotations. Leading the way is Humphrey Bogart with five. (He also is the one to whom Lauren Bacall addresses quotation #34, and Alfonso Bedoya #36.) Bette Davis and Vivien Leigh are tied for the most by an actress, with three. Marlon Brando, Tom Hanks, and Al Pacino also have three apiece. James Cagney, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Charlton Heston, Judy Garland, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dustin Hoffman, and Gloria Swanson each have two.
Bogart has four quotes playing the same character in Casablanca (#5, 20, 43, and 67). Three actresses have two quotes for the same character: Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (#31 and 59), Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (#7 and 24) and Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (#4 and 23).
Three actors have quotes playing the same character in different movies: Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan in Sudden Impact (#6) and Dirty Harry (#51); Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr. No (#22) and Goldfinger (#90). Arnold Schwarzenegger is quoted as the Terminator (#37 and 76) in The Terminator and T2.
One of the quotations - #22, "Bond. James Bond." - was spoken by six different actors in 21 (the exception being Quantum of Solace) different movies.<ref name="Bond_JamesBond" />
Quotation #79 is an exchange between two characters, while all others are spoken by a single character.
Four of the quotations on the list consist of one word or a word repeated: "Rosebud", from Citizen Kane, "Plastics", from The Graduate, "Attica! Attica!" from Dog Day Afternoon, and "Toga! Toga!" from National Lampoon's Animal House. The longest is Katharine Hepburn's quotation from On Golden Pond ("Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor...") at 40 words.
Four of the quotations were taken from actual events:
- Lou Gehrig's farewell speech ("The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth") from The Pride of the Yankees (#38)
- Apollo 13's distress call ("Houston, we have a problem"; the official NASA transcript has "Houston, we've had a problem") (#50)
- George Cohan's signature line ("My mother thanks you,...") from Yankee Doodle Dandy (#97)
- Knute Rockne's "Win one for the Gipper" speech from before a game against Army
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