# What is the most commonly used phrase in English that came from a movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 2, 2024, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068 "2024-12-02T16:37:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2025, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/261 "2025-01-17T08:54:31Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Game over, man. _Game over!_ From Alien 2(?) This is what occurred to me. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2025, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/262 "2025-01-17T08:57:19Z")
I also thought of this, but I think I’m the only person that remembers it and uses it so it doesn’t qualify “I’ll buy that for a dollar!” (_RoboCop_) ---
**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:** [January 17, 2025, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/263 "2025-01-17T09:03:56Z")
“Dick, I am _very_ disappointed” should be more common. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2025, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/264 "2025-01-17T11:15:46Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This one is remarkable because when people quote it, they may be entirely unaware that they’re quoting anything. That movie isn’t so much _forgettable_ as _forgotten_. Not a phrase, just a word, so, not a contender, but I’m sure a lot of people who use the term “gaslight” as a verb to mean messing with someone’s mental stability have no idea they are referencing a movie from 1940. And yes, movie. It was a play first, but the play was called _Angel Street,_ and while the lights do dim periodically, I don’t recall the word “gaslight” appearing in the play (nor in the movie either, but it is the movie’s title)-- just the words gas, and lights so you know the lights are, in fact, gas lights. I vote for Bucket List, not just for the speed with which it entered the vernacular, but for the fact that people who have not seen the movie, and maybe do not even know about the movie (nor, for that matter, the parent phrase “Kicked the bucket”), use and understand the term. “Bucket List” is ingrained even to the point that a dog food commercial a few years ago featured a 14-yr-old dog and his owner fulfilling the dog’s Bucket List, and it did not even have to use the phrase Bucket List for audiences to know immediately what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2025, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/265 "2025-01-17T11:37:01Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I also thought of this, but I think I’m the only person that remembers it and uses it so it doesn’t qualify “I’ll buy that for a dollar!” (_RoboCop_) I’ll bust that one out every so often. But but I agree. I don’t think very many people use it in real life. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/266 "2025-01-17T21:14:14Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > Yeah, I remember the bargain basement “movie” Blythe Danner’s child attempted to perform. Never heard anyone say that seriously, though. I hated that movie, so this description really resonated with me! ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/267 "2025-01-17T23:59:45Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > If you’re at least 30-something years old you might remember in the olden days people used to communicate by making sounds with their mouths instead of texting. I’m curious how the term “gaslighting” took off maybe 10 or 15 years ago, when the movie _Gas Light_ originally came out in 1940, with the really famous one with Ingrid Bergman & Charles Boyer (_Gaslight_) coming out in 1944. I sometimes ask people I hear use the term if they’ve seen the movie, and most of them look blankly at me. I’m thinking the term must have been used somewhere else around 2010 the popularized it in the 21st century. Does anyone know where? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/268 "2025-01-18T00:34:49Z")
[From a book published in 2007.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gaslight_Effect) _ **The Gaslight Effect: How to spot and survive the hidden manipulation others use to control your life** , is a book by psychologist [Robin Stern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Stern) which has been credited with popularizing the term “[gaslighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting)”.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gaslight_Effect#cite_note-Fuchsman2019-1)[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gaslight_Effect#cite_note-Sweet2019-2)_ ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/269 "2025-01-18T00:39:17Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I’m thinking the term must have been used somewhere else around 2010 the popularized it in the 21st century. Does anyone know where? The 'gaslight treatment" dates back to court records in the 1940s, and was used as a plot devise in a Burns and Allen episode in the 1950s. It was first used as a verb on a 1960s episode of Gomer Pyle of all places. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/jGJOSaJNzmU/hqdefault.jpg "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.: Season 2, Episode 9: The Grudge Match") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJOSaJNzmU&t=765) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/270 "2025-01-18T00:48:36Z")
And the concept of gaslighting got a modest publicity boost several years earlier via the greengrocer subplot in _Amelie_. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/271 "2025-01-18T00:54:39Z")
Yes-- and don’t ask me how I know, but it’s used in an episode of _Charlie’s Angels_– I’m still thinking it got a big boost in usage around 2010. Just wondering why. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/272 "2025-01-18T01:09:45Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I’m still thinking it got a big boost in usage around 2010. Just wondering why. And I think I have explained why. The term was brought to widespread attention by a 2007 pop psychology book. See my earlier message for a link. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/273 "2025-01-18T01:11:34Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I’m still thinking it got a big boost in usage around 2010. Just wondering why. I would guess the 2007 book by Robin Stern that @Peter_Morris referenced. ETA- nm ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/274 "2025-01-18T21:06:46Z")
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”, from Gone With The Wind, and perfected in that movie. “Keep watching the Skies”, The Thing From Another World, often used with “everybody” or a couple of choice words (“whoever you, wherever you are…”, etc. From All About Eve: variations of “Put on your seatbelts, everybody, we’re in (heading for?) for a bumpy ride”, not too common, but paraphrased frequently. The Island Of Lost Souls: “The natives, (they) are restless tonight”. That was a commonly used turn of phrase, in movies, especially, and I’ve heard real life variations of it, yet the earliest film utterance I know of was in that 1932 sci-fi horror movie, uttered by Charles Laughton, which I saw in full for the first time a couple of years ago,–on YouTube, no less! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/275 "2025-01-18T22:20:06Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > My own contribution **?** “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” A whole lot older than you think. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/W-ZU0hPiYPs/hqdefault.jpg "A Boy's Best Friend Is His Mother - Vernon Dalhart (Columbia)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ZU0hPiYPs) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/276 "2025-02-07T15:51:28Z")
I just heard the “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” bit on TV this morning. That’s gotta be up there in usage. (Note some changes from the original. No “Mama” reference, “was” is “is”, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/277 "2025-02-07T16:02:44Z")
The first time I encountered “Kick the bucket” was in 1963 (I was eight years old), when Jimmy Durante does just that at the beginning of _ **It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World** _. I didn’t realize the significance of that action until I heard my dad mention it to someone else. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2025, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/278 "2025-02-07T16:06:49Z")
Does anyone other than me ever use the phrase “Klaatu barada nikto”? Does anyone other than me know what it means? 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2025, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/279 "2025-02-07T16:21:20Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Does anyone other than me know what it means? 🤨 Yeah, but it’s still a narrow band of the populace. Hard for it to be recognized since it’s not an Terran language. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2025, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068/280 "2025-02-07T16:22:14Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Does anyone other than me know what it means? 🤨 “Cool your jets, robot!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-commonly-used-phrase-in-english-that-came-from-a-movie/1011068.md?page=15)