I mean, maybe (probably?) it’s a function of age (49), but for the life of me I can’t recall any recent movies which contained quotes which swept the country and became catchphrases even to those who haven’t seen the film.
Watching Jerry Maguire as I type this, a movie with no fewer than four quotes that were immediately recognizable in 1996/97, which most reading this still remember:
“Show me the money!”
“You… complete me.”
“You had me at ‘hello’.”
“Help me… help you.”
Star Wars (and sequels), films not known for their snappy dialogue, has
“May the Force be with you… Always.”
“No, I am your Father” (possibly messed that one up)
But lately it seems that the fashion of quoting movies (or writing good dialogue) is out.
So…
Is it just me, or have y’all noticed this too?
If it is just me, please remind me of some famous quotes of recent (say, post-2005) films that have swept the country like the Jerry Maguire quotes did.
If it isn’t me, and movies are not as quotable as they used to be… why do you think this is? Cultural fragmentation brought about by the internet? A dominance of action/super-hero movies where plot outweighs character? Something else?
Since 2005, the number of viable entertainment options has skyrocketed. The age of the ubiquitous pop song is gone. The age of the TV show that everyone watched is gone. The age of the movie that everyone saw over the summer is gone.
There are still plenty of quotable movies, hook-laden pop songs and beloved TV shows. But now, not everyone is limited to a handful of choices.
ETA: A quote that swept the country post-2005: “Winter is coming.” Not a movie, but still something that permeated the public consciousness.
We weren’t exactly lacking in entertainment in 1996 either, though. And even with the increase in entertainment channels, it seems a bit odd that there have been (in my experience, of course), no films with snappy “everybody knows it” catchphrases.
In 1996, there was no internet as we know it today. There was no YouTube, no Hulu, no HBO original series, no Netflix, no Pandora, no iTunes, no Amazon, etc. Movies were distributed to theaters and then released to the home VHS market. Music was played on the handful of radio stations in a local market. Cable TV had only just begun to produce their own shows (South Park debuted in late 1997, for instance). Compared to today, the entertainment market was vastly more homogenous in 1996.
The fact that you haven’t seen movies that you think were quotable is meaningless, statistically. I quote a movie from 1984 relentlessly, but no one ever knows it because the movie is an obscure cult favorite. If I were to go by that one metric, I’d be able to claim that I am the only one who quotes movies.
Also, keep in mind that as time goes by, more and more people have the opportunity to see a film. Monty Python & The Holy Grail is widely quoted both because it’s a fun movie and because over the past 40 years LOTS of people have had LOTS of opportunities to see it. Word of mouth is a slower drumbeat now than it was because there are so many more things to see and hear.
ETA: In other words, IMO your premise is faulty.
EATA: “I live. I die. I LIVE AGAIN!” Also, “Oh what a lovely day!”
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it; I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
From the 1920’s: 1
From the 1930’s: 16
From the 1940’s: 17
From the 1950’s: 9
From the 1960’s: 13
From the 1970’s: 16
From the 1980’s: 17
From the 1990’s: 10
From the 2000’s: 1
Here’s a website with links to various websites of quotes:
There are lots of websites collecting what various people think are the best quotes. I don’t know that there’s any tendency for those quotes to come from a given era. I think that it just depends when you personally spent a lot of time watching movies.
Not to mention how he prompts Alfred’s “some men just want to watch the world burn” quote. (Plus there’s Jim Gordon’s oft-altered “the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now” line.)
“I know who I am! I’m a dude playin’ a dude disguised as another dude!”
As others mentioned, The Dark Knight is a very quotable film. Anchorman is another one that is very quotable, though that misses OP’s cut by a year. And Lord of the Rings, which also misses by a few years.
Some quotes that do make the cut, off the top of my head:
I will also say that, “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me,” will be quoted by anyone about to do something cool or that makes them nervous. Rogue One was not a totally awesome movie, but that line was great.
There will probably always be dialogue that is quotable but you aren’t wrong that it is and will become rarer. Movies are being written with international audiences in mind more and more and jokes and sly word play are hard to translate so there is less of it and will be less still. Physical and visual jokes travel better so expect more of that.
ETA: Note a lot of the counter examples in this thread are movies that are over a dozen years old. That’s not recent.