May the Force be with...SPARTAAAAA!

May 28, 2009 8:21 PM

100 Best Movie Lines in 200 Seconds (SLYT)
posted by Cobalt (69 comments total)

They lost me on the first one. How is "Good morning, Vietnam!" one of the top 100 "best" movie lines? Sure, it's memorable, but the best? A better title might be "100 Movie Lines You'll Probably Recognize and Think, 'Hey, I Haven't Seen that Movie in a While' in 200 Seconds".
posted by starvingartist at 8:41 PM on May 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

"100 best lines" according to whom?

...Not to cast dispersion on some of those lines. But I do remember there being an AFI list of "the 100 best lines," and I don't think this was that list.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 PM on May 28, 2009

(best? nah...still, let me offer up ...)

101: Game over, man! GAME OVER! (Aliens)
posted by Auden at 8:48 PM on May 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

Wow, 200 seconds is a long time.
posted by bunglin jones at 8:51 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

> I bet you didn't think it was possible to fit the 100 greatest movie lines into 200 hundred seconds.

20000 seconds? Unless each line is actually a Marlowe soliloquy, I would have thought it was possible.
posted by decagon at 8:55 PM on May 28, 2009

Would this have been more fun without the backing music?
posted by HeroZero at 8:55 PM on May 28, 2009

I don't know why people are ragging on this. This is some fun shit right here. Sure, there are better lines. But I can think of worse ways to spend 200 seconds. Better ways too, but the point is, also worse.
posted by ORthey at 9:01 PM on May 28, 2009

We have a brand new winner - from this recent mefi post:

"Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing!"
posted by jettloe at 9:01 PM on May 28, 2009

Yeah, I'm not sure some of these qualify as the "best" line in even their own movie, let alone all movies. One of the first one's is John Candy saying "what did you do?" which surely counts as just standard dialouge no matter what movie its in (and I don't even know the movie it's from).

There's a couple of pearlers in there "Good morning Vietnam!", "I'll be Back" etc) but there's a lot of lines where you can't help but think that whoever was putting this together was clearly getting tired of the project and was just looking to put any old line from any halfway decent movie in, just to finish the damn thing.
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:08 PM on May 28, 2009

Arnold, Marlon, Jack. Arnold, Marlon, Jack. Arnold, Marlon, Tom Hanks, Jack.

All righty then!
posted by padraigin at 9:12 PM on May 28, 2009

The person compiling the list left this one out.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 9:12 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm sure that compilation was just as fun to make as it was to watch.

Which is to say not very.
posted by mazola at 9:35 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

The first reel of Miller's Crossing has more good lines than this did.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 9:40 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

If you're going to brag about how you can fit all the lines in, maybe you should fit the entire lines in.
posted by smackfu at 9:49 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised they deigned to toss in a few pre-1980 crumbs.

I mean, come on, who's that old drunken crazy dude screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore"?
posted by blucevalo at 10:07 PM on May 28, 2009

Normally I wouldn't spend time quibbling about best lines vs famous lines or what was picked or what wasn't, because who cares? But... ummm... I think I am ethically obligated to point out: how in the hell are you going to cherrypick a quote from Die Hard that ISN'T "yippe-ki-yay, motherfucker" - or from Terminator that isn't "I'll Be Back"? That's like picking a most popular Knack song OTHER than My Sharona.
posted by Kiablokirk at 10:17 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

"Best"

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
posted by zippy at 10:25 PM on May 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

Heres the American Film Institutes 100 lines from the past 100 years.
posted by lilkeith07 at 10:27 PM on May 28, 2009

Effigy2000: "One of the first one's is John Candy saying "what did you do?"

It's Chris Farley. Fattist.

The line comes from Tommy Boy, after a particular stupid thing he does and then proceeds to obliviously ask, "What did you do?"
posted by TypographicalError at 10:34 PM on May 28, 2009

Come on! Only one line from The Big Lebowski?
posted by bwg at 10:48 PM on May 28, 2009

Come on! Only one line from The Big Lebowski?

And not the good one.
posted by mazola at 11:00 PM on May 28, 2009

Also, many of them are not the full line, which strikes me as cheating. Sure, I'll take Luther clinking together the beer bottles and chanting "Warriors..." as one of the top 100 movie lines, but *not* if you exclude "Come out and plaaaaayaaaay!"
posted by rifflesby at 12:02 AM on May 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Only one line from The Big Lebowski?
And not the good one.

Don't be fatuous, Mazola.
posted by rokusan at 12:05 AM on May 29, 2009

To be fair, even that AFI list is guilty of some "that's not even the best line in that MOVIE"-ism. #74 and #78, for example.
posted by rokusan at 12:15 AM on May 29, 2009

No Glengarry Glen Ross=Fail! (PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN!)
posted by Crotalus at 12:26 AM on May 29, 2009

You know, I'd sit through a video of the 1000 best lines ever - with so many good movies, I'm sure it'd still be a blast.

This one was pretty good. I had the whole 'shivers running up my spine' at a few of these.
posted by WalterMitty at 12:28 AM on May 29, 2009

"Stick around" from Predator not #1.

List is gay.

You're gay.

I'm gay.
posted by hamida2242 at 12:34 AM on May 29, 2009

(best? nah...still, let me offer up ...)

101: Game over, man! GAME OVER! (Aliens)

posted by Auden at 8:48 PM on May 28 [2 favorites -]


This is the only acceptable alternative for #1.

List/you/me are still gay.
posted by hamida2242 at 12:37 AM on May 29, 2009

I think a lot of them were picked because they're short. 2 seconds per line doesn't leave room for much Shakespeare.
posted by doctor_negative at 12:44 AM on May 29, 2009

I mean, come on, who's that old drunken crazy dude screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore"?

That's the character Howard Beale in the film "Network". I am now officially old.
posted by telstar at 1:57 AM on May 29, 2009

TypographicalError: "The line comes from Tommy Boy, after a particular stupid thing he does and then proceeds to obliviously ask, "What did you do?""

Having not seen the movie, and based solely on what you've described, my original point stands. It dosen't sound like it was the signature line of the movie, or even the best.

TypographicalError: "It's Chris Farley. Fattist."

As a fat guy, I'm allowed to be!
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:05 AM on May 29, 2009

I came in here to say what rifflesby already did, but now I'll propose: "You know the difference between right and wrong; you just don't care, and that's the most natural thing in the world."
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:12 AM on May 29, 2009

See, the line from Network is one of the few that I would have in my list. Most of the rest appear to just be... short lines from some classic movies.

The fact that they went with so many that, certainly out of context are meaningless, and not remotely funny really doesn't help. About half of them I could pick a far more suitable line from the same film. There are about fifteen lines you could take from Big Lebowski that would rank way above "I'm the dude".

"This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass" for instance. And if you're after a top ten line, "don't worry, Donny, they're just nihilists".
posted by opsin at 5:28 AM on May 29, 2009

Yeah, you left one out.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:31 AM on May 29, 2009

I think a lot of them were picked because they're short.

Explains why they think [sucking sound] is the best "line" in Silence of the Lambs.
posted by lampoil at 5:36 AM on May 29, 2009

The first reel of Miller's Crossing has more good lines than this did.

Flagged for truth.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:38 AM on May 29, 2009

MaryDelamorte: Whenever I see that clipI feel compelled to point out that is was filmed right next to my office, not more than a few feet away from I am typing this now.
posted by pasici at 5:47 AM on May 29, 2009

Needs more "Oh man oh god oh man oh god oh man oh god"
posted by Dr-Baa at 6:35 AM on May 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

If you like lines from movies completely out of context, you'll love Peter Serofinowicz's 50 Impressions in 2 Minutes.
posted by Remy at 6:50 AM on May 29, 2009

Loses points for using the wrong Joker. "I'm going to make this pencil disappear" - that's the one they should have used.

But other than that it wasn't a bad compilation.
posted by Ber at 7:15 AM on May 29, 2009

Dear {x}

I disagree with your list of {y} best {z}'s. As a connoisseur of {z}'s, I am better than you at listing great {z}'s. In fact, I could probably think of ({y}*{m}) better {z}'s than the {z}'s you listed. For instance, you completely failed to list {a}. This is a single example of a {z} which is better than the {y} {z}'s you listed. I could list more {z}'s, but will not for fear of having my {w} {z}'s mocked by someone who incorrectly assumes they have a greater knowledge of {z} than me. Also, what about the {n}th {z}. How is that even in the list. Do you know nothing of {z}'s

In conclusion. You suck. I am great.
Lots of Love,

metafilter.
posted by seanyboy at 7:20 AM on May 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

That's the character Howard Beale in the film "Network". I am now officially old.

So am I. I was being sarcastic.
posted by blucevalo at 7:54 AM on May 29, 2009

That's like picking a most popular Knack song OTHER than My Sharona.

Wait -- there actually are popular Knack songs other than "My Sharona"?
posted by blucevalo at 7:57 AM on May 29, 2009

Spaceballs? Really?
posted by Legomancer at 8:16 AM on May 29, 2009

100 (mostly better) lines just using the Coen brother films. In chronological order.

#1. Visser: The world is full of complainers. And the fact is, nothin' comes with a guarantee. (first words, first film)

#2. Renaldo: I've never seen you here before. I like that in a woman.

#3. H.I.: Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.

#4. Parole Board chairman: You're not just telling us what we want to hear?
H.I.: No, sir, no way.
Parole Board member: 'Cause we just want to hear the truth.
H.I.: Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.
Parole Board chairman: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?

#5. Smalls: Name's Smalls. Leonard Smalls. My friends call me Lenny... only I ain't got no friends.

#6. H.I.: Sometimes it's a hard world for small things.

#7. Nathan Arizona Sr.: If a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its ass a- hoppin'.

#8. H.I.: This is Gale and Evelle Snoats. As fine a pair as ever broke and entered!

#9. Ed McDonnough: You mean you busted out of jail.
Evelle: No, ma'am. We released ourselves on our own recognizance.
Gale: What Evelle here is trying to say is that we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us.

#10. Payroll Cashier: Gubmint do take a bite, don't she?

#11. H.I.: It seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.

#12. Tom Reagan: All in all not a bad guy - if looks, brains and personality don't count.

#13. Tom Reagan: I didn't chase it. Nothing more foolish than a man chasin' his hat.

#14. Tom Reagan: If I'd known we were gonna cast our feelings into words, I'd've memorized the Song of Solomon.

#15. Eddie Dane: You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain't.

#16. Leo O'Bannion: You ain't got a license to kill bookies and today I ain't sellin'. So take your flunky and dangle.

#17. Johnny Caspar: I'm talkin' about friendship. I'm talkin' about character. I'm talkin' about - hell. Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word - I'm talkin' about ethics.

#18. Tom Reagan: Tell Leo he's not God on the throne, he's just a cheap political boss with more hair tonic than brains.

#19. Leo O'Bannion: So you wanna kill him...
Eddie Dane: For starters.

#20. Johnny Caspar: It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?

#21. Tom Reagan: Close your eyes ladies! I'm comin' in!

#22. Bernie: Don't smart me! See I wanna watch you squirm; I wanna see you sweat a little, and when you smart me... it ruins it.

#23. Jack Lipnick: Look Bart, barring a preference we're going to put you on a wrestling picture, Wallace Beery. I say this because they tell me you know the poetry of the streets, so that would rule out westerns, pirate pictures, screwball, bible, roman... look, I'm not one of those guys who thinks poetics has got to be fruity. We're together on that aren't we?

#24. Jack Lipnick: We're only interested in one thing, Bart. Can you tell a story? Can you make us laugh? Can you make us cry? Can you make us want to break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay!

#25. Charlie: I could tell you stories to curl your hair, but it looks like you've already heard em.

#26. Barton: I'm a writer, you monsters! I create! I create for a living! I'm a creator! I am a creator! (points to his head) This is my uniform!

#27. Ben Geisler: Think about it, Fink! Writers come and go; we always need Indians!

#28. Charlie: I pulled off early today. Took your advice, went to a doctor about this ear. He says 'You have an ear infection, ten dollars please'. So I says 'I told you I had an ear infection, you give me ten dollars!' Well that started an argument.

#29. Norville: You know, for kids.

#30. Amy Archer: I used to think you were a swell guy. Well, to be honest, I thought you were an imbecile. But then I figured out you WERE a swell guy... A little slow, maybe, but a swell guy. Well, maybe you're not so slow, But you're not so swell either. And it looks like you're an imbecile after all!

#31. Jerry Lundegaard: Well, we've never done this before. But seeing as it's special circumstances and all, he says I can knock a hundred dollars off that Trucoat.

#32. Marge Gunderson: You betcha!

#33. Carl Showalter: [banging on the TV] Come on, plug me into the ozone, baby, come on!

#34. Carl Showalter: "No." That's the first thing you've said in the last four hours. That's, a fountain of conversation there, buddy. That's a geyser.

#35. Gaear Grimsrud: I need unguent.

#36. Carl Showalter: You stay away from me, man! Hey, smoke a fuckin' peace pipe!

#37. Hooker No. 1: Well, the little guy was kinda funny-lookin'.

#38. Carl Showalter: Just keep it still back there, lady, or we're going to have to, you know, shoot you.

#39. Gaear Grimsrud: You're a smooth smoothie, you know?

#40. Marge Gunderson: Ah, hon, ya got Arby's all over me.

#41. Jerry Lundegaard: I'm workin' with ya on this thing.

#42. Marge Gunderson: And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it.

#43. The Dude: Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

#44. Maude Lebowski: What do you do for recreation?
The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.

#45. The Big Lebowski: Strong men also cry... strong men also cry.

#46. The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man?
The Dude: Hmm... Sure, that and a pair of testicles.

#47. The Big Lebowski: Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose.

#48. The Stranger: Say, friend - you got any more of that good sarsaparilla?

#49. Walter Sobchak: You know, Dude, I myself dabbled in pacifism once. Not in 'Nam of course.
The Dude: Then you know he's got emotional problems, man.
Walter Sobchak: You mean... beyond pacifism?

#50. Jackie Treehorn: Refill?
The Dude: Does the Pope shit in the woods?

#51. Da Fino, Private Snoop: I'm a brother shamus!
The Dude: Brother Seamus? Like an Irish monk?

#52. Walter Sobchak: You're entering a world of pain, son.

#53. Walter Sobchak: Goddammit! Look, just because we're bereaved, that doesn't make us saps!

#54. The Dude: Walter, I love you, but sooner or later, you're going to have to face the fact you're a goddamn moron.

#55. The Dude: I'm sorry your stepmother is a nympho.

#56. Bunny Lebowski: Uli doesn't care about anything. He's a Nihilist.
The Dude: Ah, that must be exhausting.

#57. The Dude: Hey, nice marmot!

#58. Walter Sobchak: Also, let's not forget - let's not forget, Dude - that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city - that aint legal either.

#59. Nihilist: We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson.

#60. Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?
The Dude: You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole.
Walter Sobchak: Okay then.

#61. Walter Sobchak: Fucking dipshit with a nine toed woman.

#62. The Dude: Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug, uh, regimen to keep my mind, you know, uh, limber.

#63. Walter Sobchak: Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling.

#64. George Nelson: Cows! I hate cows worse than coppers!


#65. Ulysses Everett McGill: You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers!

#66. Ulysses Everett McGill: Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wandering?

#67. Delmar O'Donnell: Them syreens did this to Pete. They loved him up and turned him into a horny toad.

#68. Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!

#69. Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, it didn't look like a two-horse town, but try finding a decent hair jelly.

#70. Ulysses Everett McGill: I like the smell of my hair treatment; the pleasing odor is half the point.

#71. Delmar O'Donnell: Friend? Some of your foldin' money is come unstowed.

#72. Pappy O'Daniel: Shake a leg Junior! Thank God your mammy died givin' birth. If she'd have seen you, she'd have died o' shame.

#73. Ulysses Everett McGill: A woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man.

#74. Pappy O'Daniel: Moral fibre? I invented moral fibre! Pappy O'Daniel was displaying rectitude and high-mindedness when that egghead you work for was still messing his drawers!

#75. Homer Stokes: This band of miscreants, this very evening, interfered with a lynch mob in the performance of its duty.

#76. Homer Stokes: Those boys desecrated a burning cross!

#77. Ulysses Everett McGill: Say, uh, Cousin Wash, I suppose it'd be the acme of foolishness to inquire if you had a hair net.

#78. Big Dan Teague: So long boys. See you in the funny papers.

#79. Freddy Bender: Objection, Your Honor: strangling the witness.
Judge Marva Munson: I'm going to allow it.

#80. Professor G.H. Dorr: Madam, we must have waffles! We must all have waffles forthwith!

#81. Professor G.H. Dorr: You, madam, are addressing a man, who is in fact quiet... and yet, not quiet, if I may offer to you a riddle.

#82. Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?
Ed Tom Bell: If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here.

#83. Llewelyn Moss: If I don't come back, tell mother I love her.
Carla Jean Moss: Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.
Llewelyn Moss: Well then I'll tell her myself.

#84. Ed Tom Bell: The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

#85. Wendell: That's very linear Sheriff.
Ed Tom Bell: Well, age will flatten a man.

#86. Boss: Did I say you could sit?
Carson Wells: No, but you strike me as a man who wouldn't want to waste his chair.

#87. Boss: Just how dangerous is he?
Carson Wells: Compared to what? The bubonic plague?

#88. Carson Wells: Do you have any idea how goddamn crazy you are?

#89. Anton Chigurh: What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?

#90. Carla Jean Moss: The coin don't have no say. It's just you.
Anton Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

#91. Anton Chigurh: Would you hold still, please, sir?

#92. Carla Jean Moss: Where'd you get the pistol?
Llewelyn Moss: At the gettin' place.

#93. Ed Tom Bell: Uh... a true story? I couldn't swear to every detail but it's certainly true that it is a story.

#94. Ed Tom Bell: I always figured when I got older, God would sorta come inta my life somehow. And he didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I would have the same opinion of me that he does.

#95. Ed Tom Bell: Here last week they found this couple out in California. They rent out rooms for old people, kill'em, bury'em in the yard, cash their social security checks. Well, they'd tortur'em first, I don't know why. Maybe the television set was broke.

#96. Ed Tom Bell: When he rode past I seen he was carrying fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was going' on ahead and he was fixing to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.

#97. Harry Pfarrer: I'm not set up to mold hard rubber.

#98. Osbourne Cox: I know you. You're the guy from the gym.
Ted Treffon: I'm not here representing HardBodies.
Osbourne Cox: Oh, yes. I know very well what you represent. You represent the idiocy of today.
Ted Treffon: No, I don't represent that either.

#99. Osbourne Cox: If you ever carried out your proposed threat you would experience such a shitstorm of consequences my friend your empty little head would be spinning faster than the wheels of your Schwinn bicycle back there.
Chad Feldheimer: Y-you think that's a Schwinn?

#100. CIA Superior: Report back to me when it makes sense.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:04 AM on May 29, 2009 [10 favorites]

You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

The guy who put this together? Definitely into the whole brevity thing.

I'm surprised he didn't just use a ffffpt from Arthur Digby Sellers' respirator.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:47 AM on May 29, 2009

I've always been partial to "They're all gonna laugh at you!"
My brother and I always used to say that one and also the "Rocky, I love you!" response to Rocky's "Adrian!". Both in that kind of creepy slow-motion voice.
posted by chococat at 10:20 AM on May 29, 2009

No list of this kind is complete without "If you refuse, you die, the girl dies....everybody dies".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:42 AM on May 29, 2009

Those aren't pillows!
posted by miss lynnster at 10:45 AM on May 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

And no Sunset Boulevard? Really?
posted by miss lynnster at 10:46 AM on May 29, 2009

Heres teh AFI's 100 movie quotes on youtub. Part 1. Part 2.
posted by lilkeith07 at 12:15 PM on May 29, 2009

Awesome, sneetches. But how could you leave out:

''You want a toe? I can get you a toe. Believe me, there are ways, Dude. You don't want to know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon, with nail polish.''
posted by CunningLinguist at 12:25 PM on May 29, 2009

Explains why they think [sucking sound] is the best "line" in Silence of the Lambs.

I would have gone with "doctorlecter.....doctorlecter..doctorlecter.....doctorlecterdoctorlecter....doctorlecter" from the end, personally.
posted by odinsdream at 12:54 PM on May 29, 2009

Spaceballs? Really?

And the line they used wasn't even "I knew it, I'm surrounded by assholes!"


Oh, and by the way, video makers.... There really are more comedies that aren't related to Saturday Night Live people! Good ones, even!
posted by Dr-Baa at 1:13 PM on May 29, 2009

Having not seen the movie, and based solely on what you've described, my original point stands. It dosen't sound like it was the signature line of the movie, or even the best.

"Fat guy in a little coat!"
posted by stargell at 2:06 PM on May 29, 2009

I would have gone with "doctorlecter.....doctorlecter..doctorlecter.....doctorlecterdoctorlecter....doctorlecter" from the end, personally.

"Love the suit."
posted by kirkaracha at 4:21 PM on May 29, 2009

"Love the suit."

I'm having an old friend for dinner.
posted by bwg at 4:30 PM on May 29, 2009

I wanted to add about my Coen list above, it was a labor of love. There are a few gratuitous additions and a couple of ones left out, but poring over their material, the beauty of the writing is intense. These weren't great because they were catchphrases that were well-placed in memorable moments. They often drew from all parts of the language, words that hadn't been resurrected for decades. They not only spoke from the character, they evoked and summarized the character and crisis in every phrase, transport us to the frame of film and resonate in the voice of the actor.

For the life of me, I can't think of more delicious writing in any media.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:56 PM on May 29, 2009

a couple of ones left out...

One of my all-time faves here:

Tom Reagan: Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.

More from Miller's crossing here.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:49 AM on May 30, 2009

Put the lotion in the basket.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:29 AM on May 30, 2009

Match me, Sidney.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:01 AM on May 31, 2009

They often drew from all parts of the language, words that hadn't been resurrected for decades. They not only spoke from the character, they evoked and summarized the character and crisis in every phrase, transport us to the frame of film and resonate in the voice of the actor.

That ain't friendly, kid. I make you a nice offer, I get the high hat.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:37 AM on June 1, 2009

As a sick twist, I must advise you, Durn Bronzefist, to take your flunky and dangle.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:49 AM on June 1, 2009

I knew you and me would go busto.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:46 PM on June 1, 2009

Maybe you got a wart on your fanny, Bronzefist. A wart. On your fanny.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:17 PM on June 1, 2009

We're a couple of heels, flapjax. Yes we are.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 7:23 PM on June 1, 2009

Everybody wants money. That's why it's called money.


There, I said it.
posted by From Bklyn at 7:50 PM on June 1, 2009

So where are we gonna go, Durn? Niagra Falls?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:39 AM on June 2, 2009

But you are, Blanche. You ARE in that chair.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:52 AM on June 2, 2009