Of all of David Lynch’s work, the contrast between wholesome surface and depraved underbelly is most pronounced in , a movie that begins with a severed ear in a sunny field and ends with a mechanical robin eating a cockroach. The film charts the coming-of-age of Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a college student whose innocence is shattered when he meets nightclub singer Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini); although Jeffrey’s naive girlfriend Sandy (Laura Dern) is sheltered from much of what happens between Dorothy and Jeffrey, she, too, receives a lesson in the darker side of life. So while the facade of small-town Americana is restored at the end of the film, there’s a wistful tone in Dern’s voice when she turns to MacLachlan and says, “It’s a strange world, isn’t it?” The persistence of hope in the face of evil is a major theme in Lynch’s work, and with that one line, he encapsulates that philosophy with dreamy simplicity. [Katie Rife]
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Memento: “Now, where was I?”The Truman Show: “Yeah, let’s see what else is on. Where’s the TV Guide?”Also, even though it’s said well before the end of the movie I like the last line of dialogue from 2001: “It’s origin and purpose, still a total mystery.”
The Truman Show one was the first thing that leapt to mind.
Memento’s is really good on so many levels
Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.” I agree with the second part.
oof
Still one of my favorites.
This ending only exists, most likely, because the people running the test screenings ignored Fincher’s request. The original cut ended immediately when Pitt fires his first shot, straight to black. Fincher instructed that the lights in the theater needed to stay off for a couple of minutes to allow the people watching to process what they’d seen, but instead immediately the lights come on and studio employees are walking up and down the aisles handing out the comment cards or whatever. IIRC, at the time they recorded the DVD commentary, Fincher and Pitt were still mad about it.(I like this ending, too.)
It works for me because Freeman was the POV character, and we needed to find out how he processed the events. If Pitt had been the POV character, then yes, that gunshot would be the perfect place to end it.
I really enjoyed their rapport in that film. Makes me wish Pitt and Freeman were in more movies together.
Se7en is a difficult film but still remains one of my favorites. Pretty sure I’ve watched it once a year since it came out. Even had the soundtrack for a while, interestingly enough apparently Trent Reznor wouldn’t license the opening track by NIN for the OST so they had to go with some alternate group (long lost to memory). But that OST was always good rainy day background music.
Two immediately come to mind:Silence of the Lambs: “I wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.”The Shawshank Redemption: I find I’m so excited that I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at a start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.The second one’s technically not a last line, but a closing speech, but I figure it counts. It’s great writing.
Oooh Lecter, that’s a good one.
Like the “no more guns in the valley” bit at the end of Logan, I’ll allow it.
Another good example! The original scripted ending of Shawshank had Red’s monologue followed by this bit of conversation between Andy and Red:Andy: You look like a man who knows how to get things.Red: I’m known to locate certain things from time to time.–FIN–While that is a nice callback to their first conversation, I’m so glad the final cut omitted this. Ending on the monologue is a graceful exit. Ending on that dialogue would have been a falling gavel signalling the end of the film. Ending on the monologue is also a much stronger ending for the film’s main thematic meditations. It pulls in ideas of humanity, freedom, and the nature of hope that make the film truly special. To sacrifice that for a bit of scripted callback would have been a crime. Kudos to whichever editor recognized that and made the change.
Morgan Freeman, man. He’s a closer.“Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘the world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.”
– Be sensible, Martins.- l haven’t got a sensible name, Calloway.
And best final shot. (Also check off awesome death scene, final chase scene, badass bad-guy monologue…)
I was thinking this too, though the last shot eclipses that last line.
No Chinatown love at all? Really…?
Forget it, ArgentoKaos, it’s ForgetChinatownTown.
When you’re right, you’re right. And you’re right…
Forget it, LaRue. This is Polynesian Town.
This is what I was looking for.
👍
Forget it, commenter. It’s Kinjatown.
How much thought was put into this list?As little as possible?
I mean– enough for a slideshow.
You just listen to the old Pork Chop Express here now and take his advice on a dark and stormy night when the lightning’s crashin’ and the thunder’s rollin’ and the rain’s coming down in sheets thick as lead. Just remember what old Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right square in the eye and he says, “Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.”
“Well nobody’s perfect.” – Some Like It Hot. This screwball comedy ends on an unpredictable high note.
“I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife!” – Clue. Technically there are three closing lines but this one is the most memorable.
Both in my top 5.
To this day I can’t believe no censor caught the implications of the Nobody’s Perfect” in 1959.
I saw “Some Like It Hot” in the ‘60s and I don’t find it at all surprising that censors let “Nobody’d perfect!” through. They knew that there were implications of homosexuality, but it was ambiguous and damn funny. What censors in those days looked for was the overt; if Osgood (Joe E. Brown) had said “That’s even better!” that might have caused a problem. Anything more explicit would certainly have been killed. Remember that this final line also brings up the famous scene earlier in the movie, in which Jack Lemon’s character, “Daphne”, comes back to the hotel after a night out with Osgood and tells Joe (Tony Curtis) of his plan to get rich: marry Osgood and then reveal who he really is, at which point Osgood, to save himself from public embarrassment, would “divorce” Daphne, who could then live comfortably on the alimony. The final line then turns the tables on him, as he sees that Osgood doesn’t seem to care that he is a man. Or is Osgood just a joker who knew all along that Daphne was a man and was treating the whole thing as a lark, and would just take Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe to safety and then blithely go on with his life? Osgood has been presented in the movie as an aging mama’s boy who tries to be playboy, but was mostly just an unserious goof. The ending resolves the “serious” romance between Joe and Sugar, but just leaves the goofball subplot of Daphne and Osgood open-ended, and susceptible to any wild speculation that the viewer wanted to come up with. I once read an interview of Wilder, in which he said that he and Diamond saw that final line as a situation in which you toss the bomb and then run. What happens, happens.
My whole problem with that being:
“THE GREATEST COMEDY OF ALL TIME”
is that it’s not actually funny.
Honestly, I didn’t really catch on to it beyond the surface nonsensical funniness of it for YEARS. Then all of a sudden, I was like, oh my gosh, he knows he’s marrying a man!!! Then I thought of the elevator ride, with the phalllic floor indicator going up up UP, and that’s the elevator ride where he pinched him, and holy cow! He felt his DICK! And he had a BONER!! He’s known all along!!Years. That’s what so brilliant about it – it’s all there, clearly, if you want it.
Billy Wilder not only had “Nobody’s perfect,” but also “Shut up and deal.” and “Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” That man truly knew how to write an enduring last line.
For the first two, it may have been I.A. L. Diamond. On the last it may have been Charles Brackett.
Even “The son of a bitch stole my watch” is a great last line, and he was the first director to leave it intact.
I love “Shut up and deal.” Such a perfect, sweet, fitting end to The Apartment.
The line from Clue is often how I leave work on a Friday afternoon. Sometimes I change it to “your wife” if I feel like being a dick.
See, that Clue ending never made any sense to me. They had people in the government pretend to be gay on the off chance that someone would blackmail them? Nope, nope, nopey nope.
They had people in the government pretend to be gay on the off chance that someone would blackmail them?My understanding is that he wasn’t the true Mr. Green, and that Mr. Body had only blackmailed these people via correspondence and through his subordinates so he didn’t know that.
Yeah, or that in some other way he was set up as a person to be blackmailed by Mr. Body. It’s not like he spent the last 10 years pretending to be homosexual, on the off chance someone might blackmail him.
Nobody’s Perfect is also a great line because it completely changes Jack Lemon’s entire subplot. The man wooing him was the butt the joke, until he revealed he knew the truth the whole time.
Mine will be my epitaph – ” So what? Big deal”
It’s ‘80s Ellen Barkin, man. That IS a big deal.
Speaking of Mr. Green, Michael McKean tweeted his own answer to this question today:
Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes.It was beauty killed the beast.
I honestly thought they were going in the direction of using the flipside to that line for Peter Jackson’s version and it kills me that they didn’t. Jack Black’s character, speaking about himself, should have said “No, it was the beast that killed the beauty.”
Apparently the last line in the 2005 version was supposed to be spoken by Fay Wray but she died not long before production started.
I think the bullets from the planes may have helped a bit though.
Gravity, too.
Best last line in a movie at some point:“Hold my beer.”
Tell me. What is it?The uh… stuff that dreams are made of.
Nice.
Also from the opening text “a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels”, but apparently painted black at some point.
Gutman includes the fact that it had been covered in black lacquer at some point when he is telling Spade the history of the Falcon.
Like that Golden Buddha in Thailand.
“Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration I’ve decided *not* to endorse your park.”
“…So have I.”
Alan!
“I’m finished” – There Will Be Blood
Technically, this is not really the final line of the film, as it’s followed by Clarice repeating “Dr Lecter? Dr Lecter?” after he’s already hung up.
For comedy: Otto getting in one more exclamation of “ASSHOOOOLLLE!” as the plane takes off at the end of A Fish Called Wanda. Classic Otto. For drama: Salieri’s “Mediocrities everywhere! I absolve you! I absolve you all! I absolve you!”, combined with Mozart’s unforgettable laughter at the end of Amadeus.
Otto getting in one more exclamation of “ASSHOOOOLLLE!” as the plane takes off at the end of A Fish Called Wanda. Classic Otto. Been a long time since I saw that. I’m pretty sure that every time Otto is driving he says that, and being Otto.. it’s because everyone’s driving on the wrong side of the road…
Lol yep, even as he’s clipping cars and cutting people off. After dealing with Massachusetts driving for 15 years, whenever I see someone with a Mass plate driving like an idiot I alwa6s think “MASSHOOOLLE!” in his voice. Although maybe I should try some tantric meditation. After all, the monks used to do it before they went into battle.
“One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach: all the damn vampires.”
“It ain’t how it used to be. But it’ll do.”
Thanks for reminding my that I’m long overdue for watching The Wild Bunch again. That film is the whole reason I turned into a big William Holden fan back in the mid-’90s. Pretty sure I watched Stalag 17 and Network the week after I saw that.
“Now, you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.”
Out of context it’s pretty unremarkable, but “Don’t be silly” at the end of Barton Fink is a real kick to the gut every time for me.
Another superb closing line that means nothing out of context is Kidman’s perfectly delivered “Fuck” at the end of Eyes Wide Shut. It took me so off guard the first time seeing the movie and it’s genius.
In the context of the entire movie, I have always thought that the final line in “The Lives of Others” is perfect: “No thanks, it’s for me.”
It’s the perfect ending moment for that movie. Especially if you look at it as a nightmarish comedy about Tom Cruise getting continually cock-blocked despite finding himself involved in a series of increasingly absurd and baroque sexual situations.
The scene with the gull falling into the ocean is the real last line, I think. It just slays me every time I watch it.
“I’m Autumn” – 500 Days Of Summer
You beat me to it. Movies with punchlines that good are really rare.
“Then he’s still there” launched a decade of schlock slashers.
“You met me at a very strange time in my life”
“Ok.”“Ok.”
Dammit, you beat me to it! It’s perfect.
“Throw that junk in.” Citizen Kane.
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”That line from Stand By Me still guts me.
Was it 11?
I’m weird, I can’t relate so that line doesn’t do anything for my feels. I’ve had the same friends since 2nd grade.
That’s the thing about that line though. It doesn’t necessarily mean you lose the friends from when you were 12. It doesn’t mean the friends from when you were 12 were/will be the best friends you ever had. It’s just about the friends/ experiences from that formative time (imo obviously).
The friends I’ve had for that long are my best friends lol. But I get what you’re saying.
“As you wish.”
“I thought Christmas comes once a year.”
You sick bastard.
You incorrigible scamp.
“Keeping the British end up.”“I think he’s attempting re-enter.”“We have all the time in the world.”
That’s not the last in Moonraker. That’s—“One more time around the world?”
“Why not?”
I stand corrected 😀
Don’t get me wrong, Q has the better line.
It’s so transparent that her name only exists so the movie can make this one joke, but dammit, it works
Would it have worked if her name was Easter? Or Halloween?
Daniel Craig gets to weaponize the “end of the movie” quip in Casino Royale by actually saying “Bond. James Bond.”.
His final line in Skyfall is also great!
I’m late to the party, but YES! That is such a great moment. The shot is awesome, the line is awesome (of course), the delivery is awesome, and then it goes right into the bond theme. Just perfection!
It really is amazing how that incredibly simple line at the end of Iron Man elevates a nothing scene into a great one. If he had said anything else, the movie would have ended flat.
And it was an ad lib.
I’m surprised that part of the discussion about this line in the movie doesn’t include the fact that “I am Iron Man” is the first line of the Black Sabbath song “Iron Man.”I always thought that the song was the reason for the line in the movie. Maybe it’s so obvious it’s not worth mentioning?
Also a brilliant idea because the whole thing in the comics with Tony Stark telling everyone (including the Avengers for a while) that Iron Man is his bodyguard was ridiculous even in old comics.
Marvel leaning into it in the later films really shaped the MCU in a positive way. They seldom bother with detailed plotlines about preserving a secret identity anymore, and the movies are better for it.
Eh, I think the Spider-Man films have suffered for it (along with making the vast majority of Peter’s character stuff stem from Tony) but I agree that in general, it’s been a strength of the MCU.
I think it works for Spidey because it’s also dealing with a kid finding his place in the world as well.
I hate to be that guy, because Tony’s line and RDJ’s delivery are both great.But technically, the last line of the movie is Nick Fury’s “I’m here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative”.
It also removes the tiresome cliche of superhero movies of them having a secret identity, allowing them just to lean right into doing superhero shit instead of devoting half the moving to “Oh! Oh! Will they find out their secret identity?!” bullshit.
Sometimes the obvious answers are obvious for a good reason.
Seriously, it’s one of the most famous lines in movie history in one of the most famous movies in film history.
I really am scowling at myself for not remembering this gem.
All the movie quotes listed here and in the comments all seem quite clever and fun but how many of those quotes are ingrained into popular culture to the point people say it without realizing what it’s from? Same with “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” The other thing is it’s just a great line in a great scene that completely works on every level
If they cannot figure out where that one comes from, we cannot help them. Great choice, though. Chinatown = everything that you cannot control, in this context.
The question posed in the article is what is YOUR favorite ending line in a movie. Its more a personal choice than an attempt to find the objectively best, most popular line, though these lists do a little bit of both.Your standard for a last line is pretty high. “This looks like the start of a beautiful friendship” or “Tommorow is another day” had a lot cultural cache for generations but not, I would argue for people under 25 today, who are more attuned to memes than movies. And many of the lines that might, like “You can’t handle the truth” or “This escalated quickly” aren’t the final lines in their respective movies. Your question is an interesting one, I just don’t know if there are enough lines that fit the criterion.
Yeah, it’s Chinatown for me.
I love that I grew up in a city where over the summer they had a classic movie series at the historic downtown theatre. It was great growing up seeing those films on the big screen, and all my family (extended and otherwise) loved anything that Bogie was in. They always showed at least one of his movies every summer, but the big surprise was Key Largo. This was in the late-’80s/early-’90s, ya know, before the interwebs, and no one had ever heard of it. I still remember walking out with the family and my dad simply said “I had never heard of this film before, and it’s up there with Casablanca”.
It took me way too long to notice the queer subtext in Casablanca. But that look…
I read a review of Brazaville, the unofficial sequel novel to Casablanca that imagines Rick and Renault as lovers before I ever saw the film. My reaction was a cynical “yeah sure, everybody’s gay”. Then I saw the movie and it is RIGHT THERE, at least as far as Renault is concerned.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. I think I read that the last line and the ending with the two of them walking away wasn’t planned but was tagged on to make the ending less of a downer. It transforms the film once you pick up on the subtext because some comic relief queerness on Renault’s side becomes way more significant.
Y’all seem to have forgotten Renault’s line, “If I were a woman, I would be in love with Rick.”
“Rick is the kind of man that, well, if I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick.”
Hmmm…I have never really gotten much out of Casablanca, I don’t know why. But I’m definitely thinking about watching it again now.
I feel like Renault is probably pansexual, not just gay. He just seems to love beautiful people.
Right, the line that comes to mind is, “You shouldn’t throw away women like that. One day they might be scarce.”
Yeach that is what it is and not that they are conspiring to form an underground movement to kick out the Germans. This queer subtext thing is mostly nonsense.
The no-doubt greatest line ever came at the end of the no-doubt greatest film ever.
This genuinely popped into my mind, if nothing else, for its infamy
“…and I ended the Star Wars!”Now that would certainly be a line.
“And now is the time for the Star Peace!”
“Why don’t we just… wait here for a little while? See what happens.”
That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether- a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way their way into my slumber. I dreamed that Gale and Evelle had decided to return to prison. Probably that’s just as well. I don’t mean to sound superior, and they’re a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren’t ready yet to come out into the world. And then I dreamed on, into the future, to a Christmas morn in the Arizona home where Nathan Junior was opening a present from a kindly couple who preferred to remain unknown. I saw Glen a few years later, still having no luck getting the cops to listen to his wild tales about me and Ed. Maybe he threw in one Polack joke too many. I don’t know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I had ever dreamed before, watching Nathan Junior’s progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments as if he were our own. Wondering if he ever thought of us and hoping that maybe we’d broadened his horizons a little even if he couldn’t remember just how they got broadened. But still I hadn’t dreamt nothing about me and Ed until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren’t screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don’t know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I’m liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and 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.
I was just going to go with “Maybe it was Utah.”
It’s the brief interruption when the daughter says “Dad!” that shifts me from welling-up to sobbing.
Yup. I misted up just reading the lines. The end of that flick gets me every time.
Good one. Tommy Lee Jones’s monologue at the end of No Country for Old Men was awesome too.
I love that whole scene. The music, the speech, the imagery. So bittersweet and beautiful.
Wish I could Like this twice.
Cheating a little because it’s the whole exchange and not just the last line, but Touch of Evil has:SCHWARTZ: Well, Hank was a great detective alright.TANYA: …and a lousy cop.SCHWARTZ: Is that all you have to say for him?TANYA: He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?She starts to walk away from him down the beach.SCHWARTZ: Goodbye, Tanya.She stops and turns to look at him.TANYA: Adios.Tanya resumes walking as the music swells.
Oh, Jerry… has no one here seen Now, Voyager? Or is it just too obvious like Casablanca?
I’ve seen it many times. My mom loved it, even though she blamed it for starting her smoking. I’m trying to remember the last line, but it’s not as memorable to me as some of the visuals and other lines. Perhaps because I’ve never married, I lean toward, “It’s Aunt, every family has one.” But mostly if Claude Rains isn’t in the scene, I’m not that interested.
Don’t lets ask for the moon, we have the stars
“Hail to the king, baby.”
Surprised this hasn’t been mentioned more than once
“I slept too long!”
Honestly, I much prefer the studio-mandated ending.
Does it have to be spoken?
Not in my book.
No-talking food scenes in movies are the worst. I hate the sound of people smacking their lips and clinking their plates and biting their utensils. I get why its a great ending, and often why it’s happening. But my good, my personal hell would be listening to people eat.
Just hit the mute button, then. Or stuff your fingers in your ears and take in the emotion through your eyeballs!
It’s more the preparation rather than the eating that you hear in this scene. It’s the sound of work, and I think that’s what sells if for me.
My favorite too. They’re going to start over together.
I have a soft spot for Batman Begins.Gordon: “I never said thank you.”Batman: “And you’ll never have to”It perfectly captures the selflessness and the commitment of the character.
Its silly, but the first thing that springs to mind is the ending of The Guest and Maika Monroe’s “What the fuck?!”I don’t want to give away the context for anyone who hasn’t seen that delightful dark comedy/horror-tinged thriller, but it perfectly vocalizes the audience’s feelings at that moment.Killing Them Softly is a good one too.
I see Raising Arizona, Some Like it Hot, and The Lost Boys have been covered. I’ll add;“Then kiss me, before you wake up.” — Total RecallAnd I don’t remember if this was the last line or just near the end, but “come quickly. I’ve just killed an intruder” from Sleeping With the Enemy is fucking badass.
‘Oh Watson; the needle!’ from 1939’s ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. Given the hoops the producers of ‘Gone With the Wind’ (also 1939) had to jump through to retain Rhett Butler’s ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ in the face of the Hays Code, it constantly amazes me that ‘Hound’ was allowed to explicitly reference Holmes’s drug-taking in its final line.
I think it has much more to do with Chris Tucker’s delivery than the line itself, but I remember “(I was just bull****ing.) And you know this, maaaan!” being very popular around my high middle* school when Friday came out. “You just got knocked the **** out” was frequently quoted as well. I didn’t see the movie until well into adulthood, so the context was slightly lost on me at the time.*Wow, was that really 1995?
Not the last line in the film, but the last line in Spock’s arc up until then, from ST IV: The Voyage Home – ‘Tell her. . .I feel fine.’
Just so satisfying on so many levels.
I can’t believe the final lines of Eyes Wide Shut weren’t on this. They are my all time favorite ending lines and also the only possible way that movie could have ended.Int. OG FAO Schwartz in Manhattan.Kidman: “There is something we really need to do as soon as possible”Cruise: “Oh, what’s that?”Kidman: “…Fuck”Smash to black
“Tom Mix wept.”
“What’s in the bag?”Run Lola Run(In German)
LOL! You are my favorite person right now
A lot of great ones here, but the final line of Happiness is just the jaw-dropping capper to a film full of jaw-dropping moments.“I came.”
“Well, I’m home.”
“I’m Finished.”
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”BttF
“Go fuck yourselves!” – The Front
“A polar bear fell on me” -Road House
“If we’ve got any surprises for each other, I don’t think we’re in much same to do anything about it. Why don’t we just sit here a while, see what happens?”The Thing (1982)“That’s just what you need darling, it’ll help you get rid of those horrible nightmares.”Dead of Night (1945)
Much as I love the end of Robocop, I think the final line of Robocop 2 is stronger. Responding to his partner’s frustrations at how the OCP higher ups will get away with everything that they set into motion, Murphy responds with
“Patience Lewis. We’re only human”
as he starts unbolting the helmet from his head.
“You gonna be OK?”“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just…I had a date.”
So great.
“Avengers………“
As I suspect that many will: “Son of a bitch. He stole my line.”
Of course questions like this are hugely subjective but any other answer than this is objectively wrong.
“If this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year’s!”
Nice. Makes me realize Go pretty much ripped that off with, “So…what are we doing for New Years?”
Some Like it Hot: Nobody’s Perfect.
“So who’s next?”
That movie wasnt the best ever. BUT. That ending was top notch.
The melancholy, poignant last line from Terence Malice’s Days of Heaven has always stuck with me. Earlier in the film we’ve seen our narrator’s only friends, two lovers, dealt a horrible fate by poverty and the cruelty of rich men. In the coda that takes place some time later, we see the narrator with a new friend, a fellow orphaned girl who dreams of running away from the poor house for what she thinks is true love. The last line is heart breaking (this isn’t a world where happy endings are possible) and heart warming at the same time:“I was hoping things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.”
Tony Stark’s line is given unusual depth and resonance by having him say it again at the end of “Avengers:Endgame” (it’s not the last line of the film, but it is the last thing said by the character) as he both shows how Thanos’s ‘inevitability’ comes, in the end, to nothing, and does the thing Captain America was sure, in their first collaboration, that Tony could not do – sacrifice his own life (a happy one with wife and adoring/adorable daughter) to save everyone and everything else.It still chokes me up, those five simple words: “And I…am…Iron Man.” SNAP
Planet of the Apes (1968) comes to mind:
and John Carpenter’s The Thing:
“Kitty!”
You’re crying!
First thing that came to mind. Perfect ending.
Surprised no mention of The Lives of Others: “It’s for me.” :’-(
Also Easy Money: “My mother in law…”
The sound is a bit dodgy at the end unfortunately.
The whole final monologue in No Country for Old Men is great, including the last line: “And then I woke up.”
Jeopardy recently had a great category: the last word spoken in movies. The clues were:Gone With the Wind
King Kong
Casablanca
The Wizard of Oz
Apocalypse Now
Ronald Reagan in Spitting Image attempting multiple takes on THAT last line:“Frankly my dam I don’t give a deer.”
“Dearly my frank I dam don’t a give.
And my favourite:
“Hi dear, I’m Frank, give madam a donut.”
Freddy Got Fingered, ‘’Daddy! I’m OK, daddy!’’ (injury-prone kid that walked right into a propeller)
Y Tu Mama Tambien, ‘’They will never meet again.’’ (voice-over)
Rules of Attraction, ‘’At first I thought there were things about her that I’d never forget, but in the end all I could think about was…’’ (cut)
Good Will Hunting, ‘’Son of a bitch, he stole my line!’’
Pulp Fiction, ‘’The truth is you’re the weak and I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd.’’
Dead Man, ‘’Nobody, I don’t smoke.’’ (reply to ‘’The tobacco is for your voyage [to the land of the spirits], William Blake)
Never Let Me Go, ‘’What I’m not sure about is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us understand what we’ve lived through or feel we’ve had enough time.’’
The last real line of “Dead Man” is Neil Young’s guitar.
That wasn’t the last line of Pulp Fiction.“I think we should leave.”“…yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
3-I’m a $1,000-a-day newspaperman. You can have me for nothin-Ace in the Hole (1951)
2-Maybe it was Utah-Raising Arizona (1987)
1-Gesundheit!-Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
“We’ll rent at first.” Groundhog Day.
Existenz – “Are we still in the game?”
The Green Knight is a solid contender but I don’t want to spoil it.
Good call! The delivery made me smile.
He’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A Green Knight
and then i woke up
Call me…David.
“You hear what I said, Miss Kubilek? I absolutely adore you.”“Shut up and deal…”
It’s “That’ll do pig” . It isn’t even close.
That is a damn good one.
I love this town!
A Clockwork Orange : “I was cured alright…” Alex Casablanca; “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Another commenter beat me to the much more succinct Eternal Sunshine ending, so I’ll see if I still remember this from No Country For Old Men:
“Alright, then. Two of’ em. Both of them had my father in ‘em. It’s peculiar: I’m older than he ever was by 20 years, so in a sense he’s the younger man. First one: I think we were in town somewhere, and he gave me some money. I think I lost it. Second one, it was like we was back in older times. And we were a’horseback, riding through the mountains in the night. And he rode past me – never said nothing, just rode on past. And he had his blanket wrapped around him, and his dead down. He was carrying fire in a horn, the way people used to do, and I could see the fire from the light inside of it, about the color of the moon. In the dream, I knew that he was going on ahead, and he was fixing to make a fire out there, in all that dark and all that cold. I knew whenever I got there, he’d be there. Then I woke up.”
I like the last line of the Sopranos. Remember that show?Dont stop –
If you’re doing Tv. Its gotta be a raspy “Yeah. We dug coal together.”
Perfection.
Wait, there was something memorable about BLADE RUNNER 2049?
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang: “How do you live?”“I steal!”The Candidate: “What do we do now?”Psycho: “I’m not even gonna swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.”Bridge on the River Kwai: “Madness! Madness!”Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: “Oh, good. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.” (Although I guess the actual final line would be several repetitions of “¡Fuego!”)Do the Right Thing: “The next record goes out to Radio Raheem. We love you brother.”
“Okay.” from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Just two people accepting that they just can’t quit their toxic relationship, and are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over again. At the end of a big, crazy, sci-fi romp, it was so low-key and all the more devastating for it.
“I was cured, alright.”
Love it.
I love all the classics of course, like Some Like it Hot, and Chinatown. Of modern movies, I can’t deny that my very favorite scene from Pirates of the Caribbean is actually the final one. After Captain Jack Sparrow escapes the law one last time, when he says “Now, bring me that horizon” and the low-key beauty of being reunited with his ship, it sends a jolt through me I anticipate on every rewatch. There was something (then) exciting about closing the adventure we just experienced, and the possibilities of the adventures to come. And the cheeky satisfaction that Hollywood pulled it off: a theme part attraction successfully translated into a cinematic thrill ride. Sing us out-
“…and really bad eggs. Drink up, me harties yo-ho!”*smash to credits(and yes, I sit through the credits. The music is brilliant)
i love that soundtrack! bought the cd twice!
I agree, that is a beautiful use of a theme to close a movie. It even begins building before he’s done talking. It feels more like a beginning than an ending.
Written by someone who doesn’t know a lot of movies
HEY BLONDIE! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE?! JUST A DIRTY SON-OF-A-{AH-ah-AH-ah-AHHHHHHHH!}
My choice as well. Good call
Lone Star “Forget the Alamo.”
“RRRWAAAAARRRRRRR” Star Wars
Translation: “Where’s my frickin medal”
Never mind, wasn’t paying attention to the topic. I’m a dumb ass.
It’s not the last line in the movie, but I still insist that Tony Stark’s last words in Endgame should have been “Hi inevitable, I’m dad.”
Also far from the last line in the movie, but it was a mistake giving Agent Coulson more to say after “Oh, so that’s what that does.”
Look I know this is an opinion question but the correct answer is “Nobody’s Perfect” from Some Like it Hot. Also surprised by the lack of “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.” “Dad, wanna have a catch?” from Field of Dreams is right up there for me.
It’s not the last line in the movie, in fact there’s a lot left after it but I’ll never get over“This is from Matilda”
“There’s something very important we need to do as soon as possible.”“What’s that?”“Fuck.”—-Eyes Wide ShutI’m not sure if I’ve seen a non-porn film end on an F-bomb. Extra points because it’s an accurate assessment of where the characters stand at the end of the film.“We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you! God damn you all to Hell!”—-Planet of the Apes (1968)What can I say, I like profanity at the end of a movie.And if we’re including not just dialogue but end narration, I’d nominate the following, from Tombstone, describing the real-life Wyatt Earp’s funeral.“Among the pallbearers at his funeral were early western movie stars William S. Hart and Tom Mix.“Tom Mix wept.”I’m not familiar with the work of Tom Mix, but the way Robert Mitchum delivers that line, it’s clear that the idea of him crying is utterly unthinkable.
I’ve also got a Brad Pitt one, his line at the end of “Inglorious Basterds” about the Swastika he carved into Christoph Waltz’s head being his masterpiece.
Missing 3 great ones! “Let the sunshine in…” – Hair“You Met Me at a Very Strange Time in My Life…” – Fight club“Say, friend, you got any more of that good Sarsaparill…” – The Big Lebowski
“I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife.”
-Clue
Chubby Rain, the movie within Bowfinger:“Gotcha, Suckers!”
“and that’s how Biden, AOC and Bill Gates faked the election!”-Mike LindellAbsolute Proof (2021)
Unforgiven: “You better bury Ned right. You better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores, or I’ll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.”
The Dark Knight gets a nod here for being a real moment (the visual of the bike speeding away, Gary Oldman delivery, half-a-beat pause before end credits and Zimmer score) and for having the last line also be the title of the film, immediately displayed in a cut to the title card. It’s a great button. Are there any other movies that have the title as the last line spoken?
“I think we’ll be OK here, Léon.”
Chinatown was brought up above, for movies that end on a title drop (depending on how your comments are sorted.) The Breakfast Club as well.
You Are Going to miss that plane – Before Sunset
really surprised no one mentioned the last line from “the army of the 12 monkees” … makes it clear that the plan was a success. (the astrophysist from the future) “Jones is my name. I’m in insurance.”
“I am Iron Man” was one of the great ad-libs and shaped the trajectory of the early MCU. Here are some suggestions from me…TLJ: “We have everything we need.”BTTF: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”Logan: “A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can’t break the mold. There’s no living with the killing. There’s no going back. Right or wrong, it’s a brand. A brand that sticks. Now you run on home to your mother… you tell her everything’s alright. There are no more guns in the valley.”
I don’t consider The Man Who Wasn’t There to be even close to one of the Coen brothers’ best movies, but I’ve always loved the final line, coming from such great writers, acknowledging the inadequacy of language:
“I don’t know where I’m being taken. I don’t know what I’ll find, beyond the earth and sky. But I’m not afraid to go. Maybe the things I don’t understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away. Maybe Doris will be there. And maybe there I can tell her all those things they don’t have words for here.”
“Hail to the king, baby.” – Army of Darkness
Dr. Strangelove:“Mein führer, I can walk!”The Professionals:Ralph Bellamy: “You bastard!”Lee Marvin: “Well, in my case, an accident of birth, but you, sir, are a self-made man.”
The Color of Money: “Hey, I’m back.” That ending scene with Newman has always stuck with me. Kind of a “you are never too old to be the best at what you do” line and I’ve always loved it.
I’ll think I’ll have a drink.
I don’t know… maybe it was Utah. – Raising Arizona
The last line of “Iron Man” is “I’m here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative”.
First two that came to mind:The Good, The Bad and The UglyIn Bruges
In Bruges is definitely one of my favorites. The way Farrell delivers the line is great. “I really really hoped I wouldn’t die”
I am in disbelief no one has mentioned this one. I saw this movie 7 times in the theater back in ‘85, and EVERY TIME people went nuts at the end. The sound effects. Lloyd’s delivery of that last line, and the DeLorean screaming toward the screen culminating in Huey Lewis and the News “Back in Time” is one of the most perfect endings ever.
Fuck it, Dude. Let’s go bowling.
C’mon: “Soylent Green is made of people!” (we gotta stop ‘em, somehow)And that’s it.
Oh! You forgot something, didn’t you? Back at the start, I said I was going to tell you about the time I *almost* died. *chuckles* Be seeing you.
That was a better movie than it gets credit for
And oh, Danny fell! Round and round and round and round, like a penny
whirlygig! Twenty thousand miles, for it took him half an hour to fall,
before he struck the rocks. And do you know what they did to Peachy?
They crucified him, sir— between two pine trees— as Peachy’s hands
will show. Poor, poor Peachy, who’d never done them any harm! He just
hung there, and he screamed, but he didn’t die. And the next day they
come, and they took him down, and they said it was… a miracle he
wasn’t dead, and they let him go. And Peachy come home, in about a year.
And the mountains, they tried to fall on old Peachy, but he was quite
safe because Daniel walked before him. And Daniel never let go of
Peachy’s hand… and Peachy never let go of Daniel’s head. You knew Danny,
sir? You knew that most worshipful brother, Daniel Dravot, Esquire?
Well, he became a king of Kafiristan, with a crown on his head, and
that’s all there is to tell. I’ll be on my way now, sir— I’ve got
urgent business in the South. I have to meet a man at Marwar Junction…
“I used preservatives” – Farmer Vincent, Motel Hell
Last line of Swiss Army Man: “What the fuck?”
“Forget the Alamo.” — Lone Star.
I’m partial to The Untouchables, “I think I’ll have a drink.”
Narration feels like a cheat, but there’s some good as hell narration-based endings to movies. Case in point:“There would be no eulogies for Bob. No photographs of his body would be sold in sundry stores. No people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortege. No biographies would be written about him, no children named after him. No one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in. The shotgun would ignite, and Ella Mae would scream, but Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes before he could find the right words.”
Forget The Alamo.Lone Star.
“I learned the greatest gift of all…the saddest thing in life is wasted talent; and the choices that you make will shape your life forever. But you can ask anyone from my neighborhood, and they’ll just tell you, this is just another Bronx tale.”
disgusting
“We can adopt.” Some Like It Hot
J.K. Simmons’ “Jesus Fucking Christ” at the end of Burn After Reading, and the exchange that immediately precedes it. (“I guess we learned not to do it again. I’m fucked if I know what we did.” “Yes, sir, it’s uh… hard to say.”)
“Long ride to Florida.”
Hannah and Her Sisters: “Mickey I’m pregnant.” Gets me every time.
Don’t think I’ve seen it from anyone here, but “I’m in insurance” from the end of 12 Monkeys elevated it to the best Twilight Zone movie without actually calling itself that.
“Yeah. Yeah, I just…I had a date.”
“Jesus fucking Christ …”
/closes fileThe way J.K. Simmons trails off at the end of Burn After Reading is so perfect. It’s how I imagine an actual CIA deputy director would respond to the sequence of events from that movie.
Raising Arizona:‘I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.’
I know there are vastly better final lines, but I’ve always liked “Son of a bitch, he stole my line” at the end of Good Will Hunting.
“I think this just might be my masterpiece.”
Forget it Two Jake’s, it’s two chinatowns.
“Ok….” – Detroit Rock City
The Lives of Others: “It’s for me.” (you need the full context to understand why, but it’s one of the best endings and final lines ever)
“This film is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan.”
if only
Storms line in the first XMen movie“Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else” Yuck.
Hard to get much more iconic than:
“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
and
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Not sure if people don’t count it because technically you can hear the Bolivian general shouting “Fire!” as the film fades out, but my favorite was Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, “For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.”
A great one! The general was an extra. You’re safe.
White Heat: “Made it ma! Top of the World!”
“Fuck.”-Eyes Wide Shut
“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?”
“Looks like I’m walking”Not my all-time favorite final line, but it’s a good final line to an all-time great movie.“Okay… who’s next?” is another really good one that someone mentioned.
That was Midnight Run? Good one.
I like Killing Them Softly, but always thought the last line was too on the nose.It’s a really good movie overall, but I can see why it’s divisive. It’s nihilistic almost to a fault, and the movie goes out of its way to make post-Katrina New Orleans look as scuzzy as possible. I don’t think they got any awards from the Louisiana Board of Tourism.
Star Wars – Wrrrraaggggggggghhhhhhh – Chewbacca!!
“where’s my medal, bitch?!”
How did we all forget The Terminator?“What did he just say?”“He said there’s a storm coming.”“…I know.”
That was just such an onthenose line. Still, a good one.
“Fuck.”
“Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”
— Porky Pig
Sincerely,The Breakfast Club
He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
“I love you guys.”Hoosiers
My fave is “Blondie!! You know what you are?!!! Just a lousy.. Wah OoOoo Ooh AAAAAAHHH!!!!”Followed by “BIRDY!” “what?”
“Lets go home.” – about 5% of all movies ever made.
“Heather, my love, there’s a new sheriff in town”. I thought that line was *so* *cool* when I first saw it (in high school)
I’m not sure if its the best , or the worst , but “They Live”s; ‘Hey whats wrong baby?!’always cracks me up.
She’s just having a rest. There’s no hurry, you see. we have all the time in the world…..
Not a movie, but I just (super belatedly, via Amazon) finished the second season:
“Bartender, may I have a vo-”
I don’t want to spoil the ending of Blood Simple, but the last line was the first one that ever made me laugh out loud — a couple of years before The Lost Boys did it again. Well ma’am…If I see him, I’ll sure give him the message.
“lt seemed like us.
“And 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 the children are happy and beloved.
“l don’t know.
“Maybe it was Utah.”