My inspiration-I just finished watching Shock Treatment(for the 173rd time), where the narrator finishes the movie with “The sun never sets on those who ride into it”.
So what are some of your favorite last lines and/or worst last lines?
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“You met me at a very strange time in my life.” (Fight Club)
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“It seemed reaI. It seemed Iike us. And it seemed Iike, 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.” (Raising Arizona)
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“Oh, no. It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the Beast.” (King Kong)
No thread on this would be complete without:
- “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” (Casablanca)
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Casablanca
Would Chance’s walking on water at the end of Being There count?
I’m going more for final lines rather than final scenes.
Fair enough. But the second thing I thought of.
The King Kong line is a great one.
Back to the Future: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”
Not sure what you mean. All of the above are final lines in those movies.
I was responding to this: “Would Chance’s walking on water at the end of Being There count?”
Cheesiest of the well remembered ones:
“You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” Planet of the Apes
Just had to look the one up from the Usual Suspects to get it right, but classic: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And like that… he is gone.”
Serenity: “What was that?”
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid: “For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.”
“And I realized, fuck man, maybe that’s what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in fuckin’ Bruges. And I really really hoped I wouldn’t die. I really really hoped I wouldn’t die.”
In Bruges
- “Rosebud.” (Citizen Kane)
“One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach: all the damn vampires.”
- The Lost Boys
Some Like It Hot
Daphne - You don’t understand, Osgood.
I’m a man.
Osgood - Well,…nobody’s perfect.
Gone With The Wind’s best last line, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” is ruined by the actual real last line- "After all, tomorrow’s another day.
"
Great movie. I need to re-watch it.
“The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.”
The (original) Magnificent Seven 
Haven’t seen The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in fifty-some-odd years, but as a high schooler (hitching to an art house to watch an old classic), I was really struck by the line (at the end? near the end? This is all from memory)…
Bogart’s bogarted his last bag of gold (he dead), and the Mexicans have dumped out the gold dust, thinking it’s sand.
A whole movie’s worth of suffering, all for nothing. As the young prospector watches the gold blow away in the wind, he says something like “Y’know, the worst ain’t so bad when it finally happens, not half as bad as you figured it’d be.”
That was fifty years ago, and it runs through my head every time things go wrong.
“And at that moment, as if by a miracle, the sick no longer died, and the stifling shadow of the vampire vanished with the morning sun.” – Nosferatu (1922 - last title card)
“Mother of Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?” – Little Caesar (1930)
“…But one thing I don’t have to wonder about, I know. Someday a car will stop to pick me up that I never thumbed. Yes, fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all." – Detour (1945)
“…All right, Mr. De Mille, I’m ready for my close-up." – Sunset Blvd. (1950)
“Gort! berengo." – The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
“YOU’RE NEXT!.." – Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 – original release)
“Nah, what’s the difference?” – The Killing (1956)
Perhaps my actual favorite is from a forgotten sequel to one of the Five Deadly Venom movies. One of the heroes must stay behind to fight overwhelming numbers of bad guys so the others can escape. To determine who, they play rock-paper-scissors. As the others leave, the loser says: “Shoulda picked scissors…”
That’s actually the first line of the film. The real last line (not including the end credits) is: “Throw that junk.”
Ah…right. That’s the mystery: We hear him say, “Rosebud” without knowing what it is. In the last scene we see the model sleigh with “Rosebud” on the side before they burn it.
I think…I haven’t watched that movie in over 30 years.