# What is a movie that has good dialogue **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 6, 2013, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483 "2013-08-06T10:35:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/81 "2013-08-09T14:56:14Z")
Anything with Christopher Walken automatically qualifies as good dialogue. Well, cool sounding dialogue anyway. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/82 "2013-08-10T05:47:11Z")
Lots of these films are based on successful plays, so most of the dialogue is already written and proven on stage. Examples: _A Man For All Seasons_, _The Philadelphia Story_, _Arsenic and Old Lace_, _A Thousand Clowns_, _His Girl Friday_, _Becket_, _The Lion In Winter_. (I’m an outlier with respect to that last film. I watched it recently and I didn’t like it nearly as much as when I saw it when it was first released. At that time it was generally considered rather shocking. Now, not so much.) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/83 "2013-08-10T06:15:15Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > Man I don’t understand why people like Tarantino. I think there’s a good reason most movies don’t have the characters blather on about mcdonalds and irrelevant s— for 30 minutes I would say that the dialogue is about the one good thing in most of Tarantino. The rest is just too pretentious, and now even his dialogue is getting that way, too (CF Jango). > [@Svejk\_1](#): > > I don’t think a one-liner can ever qualify as dialogue. . . If all you remember is something that one person said, it can’t be great dialogue, it’s just a great line in what perhaps might be otherwise not very noteworthy dialogue. It’s not what she says, anyway. She just says, “My name is Pussy Galore.” (If she had said it as suggested above, it could have been great meta-dialog.) I think what most people actually remember is Bond’s response (“I must be dreaming.”) ---
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/84 "2013-08-10T08:41:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Jas09 > Glengarry Glen Ross has some great dialog, IMO. > [@pancakes3](#): > > I’d say more monologue than dialogue but that’s just getting into semantics. Or is it? The only monologue in the movie is Alec Baldwin’s “brass balls” speech, and while it’s a great scene it’s a very short part of the movie. The ongoing banter between the characters is really great dialogue. It didn’t hurt that they had a phenomenal cast to deliver the lines. [Tin Men](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094155/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) is another sales guy movie with great dialogue but nowhere near the talent of the [Glengarry Glen Ross](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/?ref_=sr_1) cast. Glengarry may have had a slightly better script, but the acting blew Tin Men out of the water, and I liked Tin Men. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/85 "2013-08-10T11:04:32Z")
I’ll nominate “No Country For Old Men” as a movie that has natural-sounding dialogue that, while not showy, illuminates the characters every time they speak. Great casting didn’t hurt, either. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/86 "2013-08-10T14:04:18Z")
Dark & surreal & even nonsensical, perhaps, but watch Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks-Fire Walk With Me, Dune, and even Eraserhead & tell me there’s not some damn fine dialogue in there. Yay, David Lynch. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/87 "2013-08-10T20:18:43Z")
Ron Shelton’s films: Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump, Tin Cup, etc. tend to have terrific—as well as intelligent—dialogue. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/88 "2013-08-10T21:41:49Z")
“Its gonna be hard to eat corn on the cob…with no fuckin teeth!!” "Your children. I want to buy your children. How much fir the little girl? “We have both kinds of music. Country AND Western.” “If the shit fits…wear it.” I cant believe no one has mentioned The Blues Brothers; dialog so good Shakespeare is envious of it. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/89 "2013-08-10T21:50:09Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I cant believe no one has mentioned The Blues Brothers; dialog so good Shakespeare is envious of it. I have to their acceleration added the hind’rance of glue. Strong stuffe. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/90 "2013-08-10T22:44:13Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > I have to their acceleration added the hind’rance of glue. Strong stuffe. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/91 "2013-08-11T02:25:44Z")
It hasn’t been mentioned yet, but I would include **Clue** in the list of movies with wonderful dialogue. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/92 "2013-08-11T20:41:13Z")
I don’t know if it’s the scripts or the way he delivers his lines, but Robert Duvall’s movies always sound very conversational to me, not contrived. ---
**Author:** ![tbook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df705f/32.png) [@tbook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tbook)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/93 "2013-08-12T01:53:12Z")
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson in The Sunset Limited. It is all dialogue. Two men locked in a room discussing life. it is based on a play by Cormac McCarthy. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/94 "2013-08-12T08:22:46Z")
In Bruges The Big Sleep\* Good Will Hunting Fletch When Harry Met Sally (\*already mentioned in this thread) These are mainly he “snappy, witt, funny dialogue” variety. For deeper stuff, I think of the Linklater/Delpy/Hawke films already mentioned. (It seems we’re sticking with spoken English for this thread, BTW). Woody Allen is good at both varieties, usually within the same film. A lesser-known example is “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” And Mamet dialogue is very peculiar – you either like it or you don’t. I love it. House of Games, Spanish Prisoner, Heist… ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/95 "2013-08-12T08:33:31Z")
Practically any adaptation of a play: Biloxi Blues That Championship Season Man for All Seasons Frost-Nixon Twelve Angry Men ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/96 "2013-08-12T16:24:25Z")
RoboCop has moments of greatness. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/97 "2013-08-14T04:51:41Z")
**Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead.** ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/98 "2013-08-14T19:24:04Z")
More of several monologues but _Good Morning Vietnam_. _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ has some silly, witty banter. _M_A_S_H\* had some great dialogue. And a +1 for Tarantino (it’s unlikely a film could ever reference McDonald’s or tipping waitresses without the viewer thinking of his stuff) and Coen Brother flicks. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/99 "2013-08-16T03:59:49Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > My Dinner with Andre. In case anyone takes this one seriously I must cast an alternative vote declaring this to be the most pretentious conglomeration of booshwa ever concocted. Now you can criticize my choices: Maltese Falcon Casablanca Chinatown The Last Seduction ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483/100 "2013-08-16T04:08:21Z")
Also a couple by Paddy Chayevsky: Hospital Marty The Americanization of Emily [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-movie-that-has-good-dialogue/665483.md?page=4)