The single best line? "Our marriage is only superficially superficial," uttered by Charles Boyer's Monsieur de (in his first role in his native French since WWII) in Max Ophüls' 1953 masterpiece
Madame de... (
The Earrings of Madame de . . . ) - a romance par excellence despite its slight source material as well as one of
my all-time faves. No clip exists on YT but you can't appreciate how cutting that bon mot really is until you've seen
the skin-deep aristocratic world of the movie's eponymous heroine collapsing by one lovely frame after another, and
Danielle Darrieux and Vittorio De Sica as her paramour Baron Fabrizio Donati may well be the most bewitching couple in all of cinema. A treasure to be cherished time and again:
Almost as powerful is the now-classic "Baby, you are gonna miss that plane" followed by a wistful "I know" to cap off Linklater's
Before Sunset, as Céline (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) try to put on a happy face and drown their sense of loss in music and laughter:
One of the most exquisite endings ever, and while I still prefer
the ineffable dialogue-free magic of Before Sunrise's listening-booth scene I wouldn't wanna part with either.
All that said this thread seems to be devoted to quotable one-liners only, which I normally don't care much for but with a few exceptions. One of 'em is
Clueless, which fellow fans already know is
chock-full of classic quotes but nothing really beats Alicia Silverstone/Cher's succinct "As if!" which encapsulates the '90s MTV ethos better than any other example I can think of:
And one more:
-
The Princess Bride 'Hello My Name is Inigo Montoya, You killed my father and prepare to die!'
You missed the best one from the equally quotable
Princess Bride:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Just savage.
When I caught one of its Fathom Events/TCM screenings 3 years ago the crowd seemed to eat up every campy scene like they were seeing it for the 1st time (which I'm guessing they mostly were - lots of kids in attendance). Was on the fence about it but glad I went.