While you may not remember every plot from every 1980s film, there’s still a good chance some of the decade’s most iconic movie lines have never left your head.
One last trip in the DeLorean
One of the most famous lines from Back to the Future actually comes at the end. It’s during the scene when Marty McFly points out that the DeLorean won’t have enough road to reach 88 mph. But Doc Brown doesn’t care.Â
No, he says, ‘Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,’ and that line is followed by the car lifting off. It’s thanks to Christopher Lloyd’s fantastic line delivery that the line works so well. Michael J. Fox plays off him as Marty.
Maverick and Goose get excited
You don’t whisper a line as iconic as this one. It’s from Top Gun, where Tom Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell practically shouts, ‘I feel the need.’ Anthony Edwards’ Goose joins him as they say the line, ‘the need for speed,’ together.
They also give each other a high five, of course. The line became so well-known that it was actually ranked No. 94 on the American Film Institute’s list of famous movie quotes across all the decades. It’s pretty much the perfect line for the two of them.
Tony Montana makes an entrance
Subtlety isn’t really a thing in Scarface. There’s a scene in it when Al Pacino’s character, Tony Montana, is trapped in his mansion as armed men close in. But being a gangster, he isn’t going to go out easy.
He grabs a rifle fitted with a grenade launcher and yells, ‘Say hello to my little friend,’ before blasting through a door. There are plenty of big moments in the 1983 movie for Pacino. But really, this is the one everyone still quotes, and rightly so.
Carol Anne watches the television
Some of the most iconic lines are also some of the shortest. Take the line from Heather O’Rourke’s character, Carol Anne Freeling, in Poltergeist, for example. She’s sitting near the family television while strange activity starts around the house. Then she says, ‘They’re here.’
Those two words are all it takes for everyone watching to feel creeped out. Her mother later asks who ‘they’ are, and Carol Anne says it’s the ‘TV People.’ That only makes things even creepier.
Keating has a lesson outside class
1989’s Dead Poets Society features a scene where Robin Williams’s character, teacher John Keating, takes his students into a hallway. He points them toward photographs of former pupils and talks to them about how they had plans, too.
Then he says the iconic line, ‘Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys.’ What makes it work so well is that it feels less like a classroom lecture and more like Keating letting them in on something. It’s advice that any viewers watching could also benefit from hearing, honestly.
The question came with its own song
Not all famous lines have to be said. Some of them can be sung. Yes, we’re talking about that iconic line from 1984’s Ghostbusters, the one from the movie’s theme. It asks, ‘Who you gonna call?’ and the answer is, of course, ‘Ghostbusters!’
The song plays over the film and immediately became a key part of its legacy. We all think about Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore when we hear it again. Sony even used Who You Gonna Call? as the title of a documentary about Ray Parker Jr. It was just that famous.
Immortals have one rule
There’s quite a simple rule in Highlander. You know, the movie about immortal warriors chopping each other’s heads off. The rule is, ‘There can be only one,’ and one of the reasons that it’s so widely remembered is that it gets repeated by several characters.
Connor MacLeod says it. So does RamÃrez, and the Kurgan says it, too. It might not be tied to one speaker exactly, but it’s definitely tied quite strongly to the 1986 movie and has become an important pop culture line since then.
Ripley steps into the fight
Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley has had enough by this point in Aliens. Newt, a young girl, is in danger, and the alien queen is right there, about to kill her. Then Ripley comes in. She’s wearing the enormous powered loading suit from earlier in the movie and faces the creature.
That’s when she snaps and says, ‘Get away from her, you b—h!’ The fight begins shortly after. Weaver first played Ripley in 1979’s Alien, while Carrie Henn, who played Newt, never made another feature film after the 1986 sequel.
Veronica has had enough
Most high school insults barely survive the year, but some of them manage to last decades or even longer. Heathers has one of them. Winona Ryder’s Veronica Sawyer asks, ‘What’s your damage, Heather?’ while she’s dealing with a clique of high-school bullies.
Ryder plays the outsider-insider of the group, and all three of the other main girls are named Heather. One Heather isn’t enough, apparently. The film might’ve been released in 1989, but even now, that line is still well-remembered.Â
Vader corrects a famous misconception
One of the most famous lines of the decade is the one people get wrong. No, in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader doesn’t say, ‘Luke, I am your father.’ He actually says, ‘No. I am your father.’ The late James Earl Jones voiced Vader during the 1980 confrontation with Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker.Â
The secret of him being Luke’s father was guarded so closely that Vader’s physical actor, David Prowse, actually spoke a different line on set, just to avoid it leaking. They added the real dialogue during editing. It’s unclear why people started thinking he said Luke, but he doesn’t. You can check for yourself.
Dundee has something larger
Crocodile Dundee has a lot of famous lines, but the best one comes when Mick Dundee is walking through New York. A mugger pulls out a switchblade, and Sue Charlton warns him that the man has a knife. But Dundee doesn’t care.
No, Paul Hogan’s character pulls out a much larger Bowie knife and replies, ‘That’s not a knife. That’s a knife.’ This is one guy who’s seriously unfazed, even by all the things that New York has to throw at him.
McClane finally finds some company
You might be thinking of John McClane’s expletive filled catchphrase, usually edited for television to, “Yippee-ki-yay Cowboy.”Â
But there’s another. A lot of Die Hard involves the character of John McClane talking to himself and crawling through vents. He’s also trying not to get killed. That’s why he’s genuinely pleased when help finally shows up outside Nakatomi Plaza, in the form of LAPD officer Al Powell.
McClane shouts down from the building, ‘Welcome to the party, pal.’ It’s quite a friendly line, despite the fact that they’re both in serious danger from the armed men filling the building.
Audrey II starts asking for dinner
There are so many weird things going on in 1986’s Little Shop of Horrors that it’s hard to know where to start. You’ve got a talking plant, for one, named Audrey II. It doesn’t demand attention from Seymour. It wants something else.
It yells at him, ‘Feed me, Seymour!’ and Rick Moranis, who plays Seymour, gets increasingly nervous. Four Tops singer Levi Stubbs gives Audrey II that huge voice that works so well for what’s supposed to be a sentient plant.
RoboCop lets the suspect decide
RoboCop features a scene where Peter Weller’s armored officer interrupts an attack in progress. A woman is being held in front of an armed man. But RoboCop, being RoboCop, manages to defeat the guy and shoots him. It then says, ‘Your move, creep.’
That’s the most conversation you ever really get from him, really. It might not exactly be a polite line, but it sure is very efficient.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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