 |
 Greatest
Opening Film Lines and Quotes  1980s |
(chronological, by film title) 1920s-1940s | 1950s-1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s Return to Entire Quotes Index |
1980s |
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(Male announcer): "The white zone is for immediate
loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in
the red zone." |
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"I remember those cheers |
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- "My God, it's hot. I stepped out of the shower
and started sweating again. Still burning? Jesus, it's bigger! What
is it?" |
|
(narration) "In 1988, the Crime Rate in the
United States Rises Four Hundred Percent. The once-great city of
New York becomes the one maximum-security prison for the entire country.
A fifty-foot containment wall is erected along the New Jersey shoreline,
across the Harlem River, and down along the Brooklyn shoreline. It
completely surrounds Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways
are mined. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped
around the island. There are no guards inside the prison. Only prisoners
and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple. Once you go
in, you don't come out." |
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(voice-over) "The life of a playwright is tough.
It's not easy as some people seem to think. You work hard writing
plays and nobody puts them on. You take up other lines of work to
try to make a living - I became an actor - and people don't hire
you. So, you just spend your days doing the errands of your trade.
Today, I had to be up by ten in the morning to make some important
phone calls. Then, I'd gone to the stationary store to buy envelopes,
then to the xerox shop. There were dozens of things to do. By five
o'clock, I'd finally made it to the post office and mailed off several
copies of my plays. Meanwhile, checking constantly with my answering
service to see if my agent had called with any acting work. In the
morning, the mailbox had just been stuffed with bills. What was I
supposed to do? How was I supposed to pay them? After all, I was
already doing my best. I've lived in
this city all my life. I grew up on the Upper East Side. And when
I was ten years old, I was rich, I was an aristocrat. Riding around
in taxis, surrounded by comfort, and all I thought about was art
and music. Now, I'm 36, and all I think about is money." |
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- "Norman. Come here. Come here, Norman. Hurry
up. The loons! The loons! They're welcoming us back." |
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"The Hovitos are near. The poison is still
fresh, three days. They're following us. If they knew we were here,
they would have killed us already." |
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| (voice-over narration) "My life fades, the vision dims.
All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams,
this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior, the man
we called Max. To understand who he was, you have to go back to another
time when the world was powered by the black fuel and the deserts sprouted
great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long
forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze
which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built
a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their
leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche.
Their world crumbled, the cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a
firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads, it was a white-line
nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage,
would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for
a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered
and smashed. Men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine,
he lost everything, and became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate
man, a man haunted by the demons of his past. A man who wandered
out into the wasteland. And it was here in this blighted place
that he learned to live again." Play clip (excerpt):  |
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(voice-over) "Between the time when the oceans
drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age
undreamed of. And unto this, Conan, destined to wear the jeweled
crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler,
who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days
of high adventure!" |
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(voice-over) "1954. You don't get years like
that anymore. It was my favorite year..." |
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[Stevie Wonder: Stay Gold - "Seize upon that moment
long ago One breath away and there you will be So young and carefree
Again you will see That place in time So gold Still away into that
way back when You thought that all would last for ever But like the
weather Nothing can ever and be in time Stay gold. But can it be when
we can see So vividly a memory And 'yes' you say So must the day too
fade away And leave a ray of sun So gold Life is but a twinkling of
an eye Yet filled with sorrow and compassion Though not imagined all
things that happen Will age too old Though gold Gold, though gold."] |
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| (voice-over) "There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier. Then they built a small plane, the X-1, to try and break the sound barrier. And men came to the high desert of California to ride it. They were called test pilots and no one knew their names." | |
(voice-over) "The dream is always the same.
Instead of going home, I go to the neighbors'. I ring, but nobody
answers. The door is open, so I go inside. I'm looking around for
the people, but nobody seems to be there. And then I hear the shower
running, so I go upstairs to see what's what. Then I see her. This
girl! This incredible girl! I mean, what she's doing there, I don't
know, because she doesn't live there. But it's a dream, so I go with
it. 'Who's there?' she says. 'Joel,' I say. 'What are you doing here?'
'I don't know what I'm doing here. What are you doing here?'
'I'm taking a shower,' she says. Then I give her: 'Do you want me
to go?' 'No,' she says. 'I want you to wash my back.' So now I'm
getting enthusiastic about this dream. So, I go to her, but she's
hard to find through all the steam and stuff. I keep losing her.
Finally, I get to the door and I find myself in a room full of kids
taking their College Boards. I'm over three hours late! I've got
two minutes to take the whole test. I've just made a terrible mistake.
I'll never get to college. My life is ruined." |
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(voice-over) "The world is full o' complainers.
An' the fact is, nothin' comes with a guarantee. Now I don't care if
you're the pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the
Year; somethin' can all go wrong. Now go on ahead, y'know, complain,
tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, 'n watch him fly.
Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone
else. That's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an'
down here, you're on your own." |
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| (voice-over) "Cambodia. To many Westerners, it seemed a paradise. Another world, a secret world. But the war in neighboring Vietnam burst its borders, and the fighting soon spread to neutral Cambodia. In 1973, I went to cover this side-show struggle as a foreign correspondent of The New York Times. It was there in the war-torn country side amidst the fighting between government troops and the Khymer Rouge guerrillas, that I met my guide and interpreter, Dith Pran, a man who was to change my life in a country that I grew to love and pity." | |
(title card) "...And these children that you
spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware of what they're going through..." DAVID BOWIE. |
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- "Is everything ready?" |
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(voice-over) "He-he even took the Gramophone
on safari. Three rifles, supplies for a month and Mozart. He began
our friendship with a gift. And later, not long before Tsavo, he
gave me another. An incredible gift. A glimpse of the world through
God's eye. And I thought: 'Yes, I see. This is the way it was intended.'
I've written about all the others, not because I loved them less,
but because they were clearer, easier. He was waiting for me there.
But I've gone ahead of my story. He'd have hated that. Denys loved
to hear a story told well. You see, I had a farm in Africa at the
foot of the Ngong Hills. But it began before that. It really began
in Denmark..." |
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About Last Night... (1986) |
- "So." |
(off-screen voice-over) - "Aw, you don't know
where it's gonna come from anymore. Total strangers are killin' each
other. Everybody's got a piece." |
|
(radio announcer) "WLS. It is a beautiful day
in Chicago today. Temperatures expected to reach the upper 70's.
Right now, 75 at the lakefront. 74 at Midway, 73 at O'Hare. And now,
up in the sky, Don Nelson with Skyview Traffic..." |
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- "What am I working on? Uh, I'm working on
something that'll change the world and human life as we
know it." |
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(voice-over) "God, she's beautiful. She's got
the prettiest eyes. She looks so sexy in that sweater. I just want
to be alone with her and hold her and kiss her, and tell her how
much I love her, take care of her. Stop it, you idiot. She's your
wife's sister. But I can't help it. I'm consumed by her. It's been
months now. I dream about her. I- I, I think about her at the office.
Oh, Lee. What am I gonna do? I hear myself mooning over you, and
it's disgusting. Before, when she squeezed past me in the doorway,
and I smelt that perfume on the back of her neck, Jesus, I, I thought
I was gonna swoon! Easy, you're a dignified financial advisor. It
doesn't look good for you to swoon." |
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(voice-over) (narrator reading scrolling text) "On
the twenty-third day of the month of September, in an early year
of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly
encountered a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying
enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent
and unlikely of places..." |
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(dictating): "Your Holiness, the little matter
that brought me here to the furthest edge of your light on Earth
is now settled. And the Indians are once more free to be enslaved
by the Spanish and Portuguese settlers. I don't think that's hitting
the right note. Begin again. Your Holiness, I write to you in this
year of Our Lord 1758 from the southern continent of the Americas,
from the town of Asunción, in the Province of La Plata, two
weeks march from the great mission of San Miguel. These missions
have provided a refuge for the Indians against the worst depredations
of the settlers and have earned much resentment because of it. The
noble souls of these Indians incline towards music. Indeed, many
a violin played in the academies of Rome itself has been made by
their nimble and gifted hands. It was from these missions the Jesuit
fathers carried the word of God to the high and undiscovered plateau
to those Indians still existing in their natural state and received
in return, martyrdom." |
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(voice-over) "I was 12 going on 13 the first
time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959
- a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was
living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only
twelve hundred and eighty-one people. But to me, it was the whole
world." |
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| "25 years ago, my parents were the most popular teenagers in America. It's true. My Dad was a teen idol. Girls threw themselves at him. Unfortunately, this was 1962, and he had to throw them back. When Dad wasn't singing, he spent his life on a surfboard. They called him the Big Kahuna. When I was born, Dad wanted to call me the little Kahuna - luckily, he settled for Bobby. As for Mom, she joined that strange cult called the Mouseketeers. She became the first pin-up queen for boys under twelve. Anyhow, they got married and moved to Ohio right after the accident. Don't get him started on the surf accident. Around our house, we have this nightly ritual - it's called dinner and the accident story. Let me spare you this - 20 years ago while surfing, this humongous wave knocked the Kahuna right on his head and he's never been the same since....This is my Dad now. The closest he gets to the ocean these days is when he plays the surf king in order to sell cars on TV. Yep, the Big Kahuna now owns Friendly Ford, the largest dealership in Ohio." | |
(radio) "Hi, everybody, this is your Cousin
Brucie. Whoa! Our summer romances are in full bloom, and everybody,
but everybody's in love. So cousins, here's a great song from the
Four Seasons." [Song: "Big Girls Don't Cry"] |
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- "I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior
drill instructor. From now on, you will speak only when spoken to,
and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be 'Sir!'
Do you maggots understand that?" |
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(voice-over) "Once upon a time, many years
ago, two burglars broke into our neighbor's house in Rockaway. Mr.
and Mrs. Needleman had gone to a movie, and the following events
occurred..." |
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| (voice-over) "A business traveler should bring only
what fits in a carry-on bag. Checking your luggage is asking for trouble. - Add several travel-size packets of detergent so you won't fall into the hands of unfamiliar laundries. There are very few necessities in this world which do not come from travel-size packets. - One suit is plenty, if you take along travel size packets of spot remover. The suit should be medium gray. Gray not only hides the dirt, but is handy for sudden funerals. - Always bring a book as protection against strangers. Magazines don't last and newspapers from elsewhere remind you, you don't belong. But don't take more than one book. It is a common mistake to overestimate one's potential free time and consequently overpack. In travel, as in most of life, less is invariably more. - And most importantly, never take along anything on your journey so valuable or dear, that its loss would devastate you" |
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(voice-over) "September 21, 1945... that was
the night I died." |
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(title card) In Prague, in 1968, there lived a young
doctor named Tomas... |
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(alarm clock sounds) "Wake up! Wake up, wake
up, wake up, up you wake, up you wake, up you wake, up you wake!
This is Mister Senor Love Daddy, your voice of choice, the world's
only twelve-hour strongman on the air, here on WE LOVE Radio, 108
FM, the last on your dial but first in your hearts and that's the
truth, Ruth. Here I am. Am I here? Ya know it. It ya know. This is
Mister Senor Love Daddy doin' the nasty to your ears, your ears to
the nasty. I'se only play da platters dat matter, da matters dey
platter, and that's the truth, Ruth. From the heart of Bed-Stuy,
you're listening to WE LOVE Radio. Doin' the ying and the yang, the
hip and the hop, the stupid, fresh thing, the flippity-flop. AWOOO!
I have today's forecast for you. Hot! The color for today is black.
That's right, black. So you can absorb some of these rays and save
that heat for winter. So you wanna get on out there and wear that
black and be involved! Also, today's temperature's gonna rise up
over 100 degrees. So that's a Jheri-curl alert. That's right, Jheri-curl
alert. If you have a Jheri curl, stay in the house, or you'll end
up with a permanent plastic helmet on your head forever. All right,
we're gonna say hello to Mister and Missus, that's Mister and Missus.
And happy birthday to Big Red, Little Red, and Miss Annie Mae, who's
100 today, and if you're careful and stay out of the heat..." |
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(voice-over) "My father's name was John Kinsella.
It's an Irish name. He was born in North Dakota in 1896, and never
saw a big city until he came back from France in 1918. He settled
in Chicago where he quickly learned to live and die with the White
Sox. Died a little when they lost the 1919 World Series. Died a lot
the following summer when eight members of the team were accused
of throwing that series. He played in the minors for a year too,
but nothing ever came of it. Moved to Brooklyn in '35, married Mom
in '38. He was already an old man working at the naval yards when
I was born in 1952. My name's Ray Kinsella. Mom died when I was three,
and I suppose Dad did the best he could. Instead of Mother Goose,
I was put to bed at night to stories of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and
the great Shoeless Joe Jackson. Dad was a Yankees fan then, so of
course I rooted for Brooklyn. But in '58, the Dodgers moved away,
so we had to find other things to fight about. We did. And when it
came time to go to college, I picked the farthest one from home I
could find. This, of course, drove him right up the wall, which I
suppose was the point. Officially, my major was English, but really
it was the '60s. I marched, I smoked some grass, I tried to like
sitar music, and I met Annie. The only thing we had in common was
that she came from Iowa, and I had once heard of Iowa. After graduation,
we moved to the Midwest and stayed with her family as long as we
could, almost a full afternoon. Annie and I got married in June of
'74. Dad died that fall. A few years later, Karin was born. She smelled
weird, but we loved her anyway. Then Annie got the crazy idea that
she could talk me into buying a farm. I'm thirty-six years old, I
love my family, I love baseball, and I'm about to become a farmer.
But until I heard the Voice, I'd never done a crazy thing in my whole
life." |
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- "Garbage. All I've been thinkin' about all
week is garbage. I mean, I just can't stop thinkin' about it." |
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| When Harry Met Sally... (1989) | "I was sitting with my friend Arthur
Kornblum, in a restaurant. It was a Horn & Hardart 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 50 years later and we are
still married." |
