15 Memorable Movies Quotes from Classic Cinema

One of the many signs of being a cinephile is if you can speak out the dialogue in your favorite movies ahead of the characters.Since the birth of sound movies,countless movie quotes became as classic as the movies themselves.Dialogues can be part of the auteur trademarks in some directors’ works,like the ones from the cinema of Quentin Tarantino,Wong Karwai and Woody Allen.Many movies live solely on its never-ending dialogues like Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre,Richard Linklate’s Before Sunrise & Before Sunset,and most of the films by Eric Rohmer and Woody Allen.Cinema is a form of visual art,but the literary side of it also plays a big part,Oscar has specially celebrated it on its 79th anniversary poster,”I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse”,”What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”,”You can’t handle the truth”,”Rosebud”,how can you forget these classic lines?

The 20 Memorable Movies Quotes below are selected from classic movies,they are just the beginning,I hope you can help me add some more.You can’t feel them unless you have seen the movies yourself,so this list is a recommendation of classic movie quotes as well as the movies themselves.

Movie Quote 1 from Make Way For Tomorrow, 1937 (dir. Leo McCarey)

Barkley Cooper: In case. . .I don’t see you again. . .
Lucy Cooper: What?
Barkley Cooper: Well, anything might happen. The train could jump off the tracks. If it should happen that I don’t see you again, it’s been very nice knowing you, Miss Breckenridge.
Lucy Cooper: Bark, that’s probably the prettiest speech you ever made. And in case I don’t see you ag. . .well, for a little while. I just want to tell you, it’s been lovely, every bit of it, the whole fifty years. I’d sooner have been your wife, Bark, than anyone else on Earth.
Barkley Cooper: Thank you, Lucy.

 

Movie Quote 2 from Kicking and Screaming, 1995 (dir. Noah Baumbach)

Max: I’m too nostalgic. I’ll admit it.
Skippy: We graduated four months ago. What can you possibly be nostalgic for?
Max: I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory. . .and I didn’t have a good time.

 

Movie Quote 3 from Boogie Nights, 1997(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

Dirk: Please, just don’t be mean to me!
Dirk’s Mother: I’m not being mean, you’re just too stupid to see it!
Dirk: You don’t know what I can do! You don’t know what I can do, what I’m gonna do, or what I’m gonna be! I’m good! I have good things and you don’t know about! I’m gonna be something! I am! And don’t fucking tell me I’m not!

 

Movie Quote 4 from Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Alice Harford: Millions of years of evolution, right? Right? Men have to stick it in every place they can, but for women. . .women it’s just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else!
Dr. Bill Harford: A little oversimplified, Alice, but yes, something like that.
Alice Harford: If you men only knew. . .

 

Movie Quote 5 from Written on the Wind, 1956 (dir. Douglas Sirk)

Kyle Hadley: You’re a filthy liar.
Marylee Hadley: I’m filthy – period!

 

Movie Quote 6 from The Last Picture Show, 1971 (dir. Peter Bogdanovich)

Sam the Lion: If she was here I’d probably be just as crazy now as I was then in about 5 minutes. Ain’t that ridiculous?… Naw, it ain’t really. ‘Cause being crazy about a woman like her is always the right thing to do. Being an old decrepit bag of bones, that’s what’s ridiculous. Gettin’ old.

 

Movie Quotes 7 from Anatomy of a Murder, 1959 (dir. Otto Preminger)

Judge Weaver: Mr. Biegler, you finally got your rape into the case, and I think all the details should now be made clear to the jury. Do you agree, Mr. Lodwick?
Mitch Lodwick: Absolutely.
Judge Weaver: What exactly was the undergarment just referred to?
Paul Biegler: Panties, Your Honor.
Judge Weaver: Do you expect this subject to come up again?
Paul Biegler: Yes, Sir.
Judge Weaver: There’s a certain light connotation attached to the word “panties.” Can we find another name for them?
Mitch Lodwick: I never heard my wife call ‘em anything else.
Judge Weaver: Mr. Biegler?
Paul Biegler: I’m a bachelor, Your Honor.
Judge Weaver: That’s a great help. Mr. Dancer?
Claude Dancer: When I was overseas during the war, Your Honor, I learned a French word. I’m afraid that might be slightly suggestive.
Judge Weaver: Most French words are.

 

Movie Quotes 8 from Design For Living, 1933 (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)

Tom Chambers: That’s one way of meeting the situation. Shipping clerk comes home, finds missus with boarder. He breaks dishes. It’s pure burlesque. Then there’s another way. Intelligent artist returns unexpectedly, finds treacherous friends, both discuss the pros and cons of the situation in grownup dialogue. High-class comedy, enjoyed by everybody.
George Curtis: There’s a third way. I’ll kick your teeth out and tear your head off and beat some decency into you!
Tom Chambers: Cheap melodrama. Very dull.

 

Movie Quote 9 from The Conversation, 1974 (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

Stan: It wouldn’t hurt if you filled me in a little bit every once in awhile. Did you ever think of that?
Harry Caul: It has nothing to do with me! And even less to do with you!
Stan: It’s curiosity! Did you ever hear of that? It’s just goddamn human nature!
Harry Caul: Listen, if there’s one sure fire rule that I have learned in this business is I don’t know anything about human nature. I don’t know anything about curiosity. That’s not part of what I do.

 

Movie Quote 10 from The Dreamers, 2003 (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci)

Matthew: I read it in Cahiers du Cinéma. “A filmmaker is like a Peeping Tom.” A voyeur. It’s as if the camera is a the keyhole to your parents’ bedroom. And you spy on them, and you’re disgusted. You feel guilty but you can’t. . .you can’t look away. It makes films like crimes and directors like criminals. It should be illegal.
Theo: There goes my chance to be a filmmaker.
Matthew: Why?
Theo: My parents always left the bedroom door open.

 

Movie Quote 11 from The Player, 1992 (dir. Robert Altman)

June: Tell me about the movies you make.
Griffin Mill: Why?
June: Because I want to know what you do.
Griffin Mill: I listen to stories and decide if they’ll make good movies or not. I get 125 phone calls a day and if I let that slip to 100 I know I’m not doing my job. Everyone who calls, they  want to know one thing. They want me to say yes to them and make their movie. If I say yes, they think that come New Year’s it will be just them and Jack Nicholson on the slopes of Aspen. That’s what they think. The problem is I can only say yes, my studio can only say yes 12 times a year. And collectively we hear about 50,000 stories a year. So it’s hard. And I guess sometimes I’m not nice and make enemies. That’s what I was to David. An enemy.
June: Was his story one of the 12?
Griffin Mill: No, it wasn’t.
June: Why?
Griffin Mill: It lacked certain elements that we need to market a film successfully.
June: What elements?
Griffin Mill: Suspense, laughter, violence. Hope, heart, nudity, sex. Happy endings. Mainly happy endings.
June: What about reality?

 

Movie Quote 12 from Lost In Translation, 2003 (dir. Sofia Coppola)

Bob: The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

 

Movie Quote 13 from Brief Encounter, 1945 (dir. David Lean)

Laura Jesson: This can’t last. This misery can’t last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There’ll come a time in the future when I shan’t mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was. No, no, I don’t want that time to come ever. I want to remember every minute, always, always to the end of my days.

 

Movie Quote 14 from Do The Right Thing, 1989 (dir. Spike Lee)

Buggin’ Out: You the man.
Mookie: No, you the man.
Buggin’ Out: No, You the man.
Mookie: No, you the man.
Buggin’ Out: No. I’m just a struggling Black man trying to keep my dick hard in a cruel and harsh world.

 

Movie Quote 15 from Nightmare Alley, 1947 (dir. Edmund Goulding)

Carny #1: How can a guy sink so low?
Carny #2: He reached too high.

Are these quotes familiar to you? If you are asked to share a quote you love the most,what would it be? Let me know in the comments.

 

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