Nate
The opening lines of a movie set the tone and establish the story that follows. These lines can come in the form of a quote or a clever remark that sums up the entire film. Finding the perfect way to open a movie is crucial.
However, it’s important to note that the best opening lines in movies are different from the best opening scenes. Iconic scenes such as the starship crawl in Star Wars or Indiana Jones’ battle with a rolling ball are memorable, but it’s not about what’s said, but what’s happening.
In this list, we focus on the movies where the first words spoken are memorable and iconic lines that will be remembered forever.
Here are 50 of the best opening lines in movies.
1. Trainspotting
“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, Choose a f*king big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchased in a range of f–king fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f*k you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sittin’ on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f*king junk food into your mouth. Choose rottin’ away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f*ked-up brats that you’ve spawned to replace yourself. Choose a future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”
2. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
“The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.”
3. Forrest Gump
“Hello. My name’s Forrest, Forrest Gump. You want a chocolate? I could eat about a million and a half of these. My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
4. High Fidelity
“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
5. The Seventh Seal
Anthonius Block: “Who are you?”
Death: “I am Death.”
Anthonius Block: “Have you come for me?”
Death: “I have long walked by your side.”
6. Tangled
“This is the story of how I died.”
7. Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron
“The story that I want to tell you cannot be found in a book. They say the history of the west was written from the saddle of a horse, but it’s never been told from the heart of one. Not until now.”
8. The Big Lebowski
“Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell you about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski.”
9. Stand By Me
“I was 12 going on 13 the first time I saw a dead human being.”
10. Gone Girl
“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull. Unspooling her brains. Trying to get answers. The primal questions of any marriage: ‘What are you thinking?’ ‘How are you feeling?’ ‘What have we done to each other?'”
11. American Beauty
“My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood; this is my street; this is my life. I am 42 years old; in less than a year I will be dead. Of course, I don’t know that yet, and in a way, I am dead already.”
12. Se7en
Detective Taylor: “Neighbours heard them screaming at each other, like for 2 hours, it was nothing new. Then they heard the gun go off, both barrels. Crime of passion.
William Somerset: “Yeah, just look at all the passion on that wall.”
13. Goodfellas
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.”
14. When Harry Met Sally
“I was sitting with my friend Arthur Kornblum in a restaurant. It was a cafeteria and this beautiful girl walked in and I turned to Arthur and I said, ‘Arthur, you see that girl? I’m going to marry her.’ And two weeks later we were married and it’s over fifty years later and we are still married.”
15. To Kill A Mockingbird
“Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men’s stiff collars wilted by 9 a.m in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o’clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was 24 hours long but it seemed longer.”
16. Avatar
“When I was lying there in the V.A. hospital, with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, I started having these dreams of flying. I was free. Sooner or later though, you always have to wake up.”
17. The Godfather
“I believe in America. America has made my fortune.”
18. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”
19. Flatliners
“Today is a good day to die.”
20. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
“The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It’s a good non-specific symptom; I’m a big believer in it.”
21. Do The Right Thing
“Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up, up ya wake, up ya wake, up ya wake, up ya wake!”
22. Megamind
“Here’s my day so far: went to jail, lost the girl of my dreams, and got my b*tt kicked pretty good. Still, things could be a lot worse. Oh, that’s right. I’m falling to my death.”
23. True Romance
“In Jailhouse Rock, Elvis was everything rockabilly’s about – living fast, dying young, and leaving a good-looking corpse.”
24. Bridget Jones’s Diary
“It all began on New Year’s Day, in my thirty-second year of being single. Once again, I found myself on my own… and going to my mother’s annual turkey curry buffet.”
25. The Beach
“My name is Richard. So what else do you need to know? Stuff about my family, or where I’m from? None of that matters. Not once you cross the ocean and cut yourself loose, looking for something more beautiful, something more exciting and yes, I admit, something more dangerous. So after eighteen hours in the back of an airplane, three dumb movies, two plastic meals, six beers and absolutely no sleep, I finally touch down; in Bangkok.”
26. Fight Club
“People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.”
27. Casino
“When you love someone, you’ve gotta trust them. There’s no other way. You’ve got to give them the key to everything that’s yours. Otherwise, what’s the point? And for a while, I believed, that’s the kind of love I had.”
28. The Prestige
“Are you watching closely?”
29. Amelie
“On September 3, 1973, 6:28 p.m and 32 seconds, a blue fly of the Calliphorides species, whose wings can flutter 14,670 times per minute landed in Saint-Vincent Street, Montmartre.”
30. Big Fish
“There are some fish that cannot be caught. It’s not that they are faster or stronger than any other fish, they’re just touched by something extra.”
31. The Departed
“I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.”
32. A Clockwork Orange
“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.”
33. The Social Network
“Did you know there are more people with genius IQs living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?”
34. Spider-Man (2001)
“Who am I? You sure you want to know? The story of my life is not for the paint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little tail…if somebody told you I was just your average ordinary guy, not a care in the world… somebody lied.”
35. Black Swan
“I had the craziest dream last night. I was dancing the White Swan.”
36. Lord Of War
“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That’s one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?”
37. Annie Hall
“There’s an old joke: Two elderly women are at a Catskill Mountain resort. And one of them says: ‘Boy, the food in this place is really terrible.’ The other one says: ‘Yeah, I know. And such small portions.’ Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”
38. Pretty Woman
“No matter what they say, it’s all about money.”
39. Dances With Wolves
Surgeon one: “Is this the last one?”
Surgeon two: “God, what a mess… at least there’s no gangrene.”
Surgeon one: ‘There will be if it doesn’t come off.”
Surgeon two: Well I can’t saw if I can’t keep my eyes open. Let’s coffee up… He can wait a few more minutes.”
40. Little Miss Sunshine
“There’s two kinds of people in the world – winners… and losers.”
41. He’s Just Not That Into You
Little girl: “Why did you do that?”
Little boy: “Because you smell like dog poo. You’re so stupid just like dog poo! You’re made of poo!”
Little girl to mum: “Made. (SOB) Of. (SOB) Dog. (SOB) Poo.”
Mum: “Honey, do you know why that little boy did those things? Because he LIKES YOU.”
42. Raging Bull
“I remember those cheers. They still ring in my ears.”
43. Princess Mononoke
“In ancient times, the land lay covered in forest, where, from ages long past, dwelt the spirit of the gods.”
44. Four Weddings And A Funeral
Charles: “Oh, f**k. F**k!
Scarlett: “F**k!”
Charles: “F**k. F**k. Right, we take yours.”
Scarlett: “But It only goes 40 miles an hour.”
Charles: “What turn-off? Better not be the B359”
Scarlett: “It’s the B359.”
Charles: “F**k it!”
Scarlett: “F**k.”
Charles: “F**k. F**k. F**k. F**k. F**kity F**k. Bugger.”
45. Out Of Africa
“He even took the gramophone on safari.”
46. Love Actually
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport.”
47. Braveheart
“I will tell you of William Wallace. Historians from England will say I am a liar. But history is written by those who have hung heroes.”
48. Good Will Hunting
Chuckie: “Oh my God, I got the most f**ked up thing I been meaning to tell you.”
Friends: ‘Oh Jesus. Here we go.”
49. Pulp Fiction
Pumpkin: “Forget it. It’s too risky. I’m through doing that s*it.”
Honey Bunny: “You always say that. The same thing every time, ‘I’m through, never again, too dangerous.'”
Pumpkin: “I know that’s what I always say. I’m always right, too.”
Honey Bunny: “But you forget about it in a day or two.”
Pumpkin: “Yeah, well the days of me forgetting are over, and the days of me remembering have just begun.”
50. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Daisy: “What are you looking at, Caroline?”
Caroline: “The wind, mom. They say the hurricane is coming.”
h/t: BoredPanda