“We’re gonna need a bigger boat”
A better candidate from Star Wars would be “May the Force be with you” (or “Use the Force” or “the dark side of the Force” or just The Force in general).
Plus using a Jedi Mind Trick when you talk someone into letting you get away with something when there’s no way it should have worked.
There are a few quotes people always get wrong, like, “Do you feel lucky, punk?” from Dirty Harry and, “We don’t need no steenkin’ badges!” from Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
The correct quotes are:
From Dirty Harry:
“You’ve gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?”
From Treasure of the Sierra Madre:
“I don’t have to show you any steenkin’ badges!”
It’s my opinion that The Wizard of Oz (film, 1939) is the most quoted and referenced work of American fiction of all time and I don’t even think the competition is close.
Good call. Also - toys. Toys toys toys toys.
There may be individual quotations from other sources that “beat” the most-used of the Wizard of Oz quotations, but as far as aggregate from one work, I think you’re probably right.
Nyeh… What’s up, doc?
ETA: Be vewwy, vewwy quiet - I missed one -
Kiww de wabbit, kiww de wabbit…
You mention those, but NOT “Use the Force” or “I am your father”?
I was surprised to learn that “Meh” as an expression of disinterest was broadly popularized with The Simpsons but multiple dictionaries back it up. I mean, I knew about the episode but not that it was the primary reason I heard anyone else using the word.
The OP mentions “the usual suspects,” but Casablanca is so heavily quoted that an old joke asks “What’s so great about that movie? All they did was run a bunch of cliches together.”
Of all the gin joints in all the world…
You played it for her, you can play it for me.
Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship
I’ve got a baad feeling about this.
I’d offer another one that a lot of people know without knowing how it came to popular culture - at least in the USA.
Guy Fawkes masks (I have one over my front door like a mezuzah) have come to public attention as the face of anonymous. They’ve been seen on all the major news networks and various other media over the last ten years.
But how many of the passers-by know it came to popularity through an obscure comic book from the late 70s, was interrupted, finished publication in the late 80s, and was later made into a movie that pretty much flopped?
Sure, our UK brethren will get it. But I’d bet not one person in 10,000 in the states could identify the history of the mask. And I’d raise that to 1 in 1,000,000 not being able to identify its cultural journey into wider identification.
“This one goes to 11”
A truly successful phrase is one that enters the cultural lexicon with most people not knowing where it’s originally from. For example, “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.” Most people know the phrase but couldn’t tell you which movie it’s from, and even those trivia buffs who know the movie probably haven’t actually watched it.
Depends which culture you’re talking about and what sort of exposure different people within it have had to different sources, but as a start, in English, you could quote hundreds, maybe thousands, of phrases from the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens and assorted poets, that people don’t know the origins of, but find themselves using.
“I tawt I taw a puddy tat!”
“It’s rabbit season!” “Duck season.”
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol had a big influence in how Christmas is celebrated, at least in the UK and the US. Are there movies that had similar cultural impact, aside from quotable lines and phrases? Is there a particular food, dish or cuisine that was unfamiliar to many until it was featured in a particular movie? Or a dance or style of music?
As I understand it, the phrase ‘Catch-22’ began with the Joseph Heller book. I think most people are somewhat aware of what a catch-22 situation is.
There is no Keyser Söze!