“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” “Here’s looking at you, kid.” “May the Force be with you.” Movie quotes have a way of slipping into everyday conversation. Sometimes, the movies we quote are actually remakes of older movies. Remakes get a bad rap, but some are so good that people don’t even realize they’re remakes.
Scarface
“Say hello to my little friend!”
Scarface (1983) is the story of Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a Cuban-born refugee who becomes the most powerful drug lord in Miami. He uses his wealth in indulge in ridiculous acts of excess, buying a tiger as a pet and shoving his face into a mountain of coaine.
This movie has a lot of quotable moments. “Say hello to my little friend!” Tony yells as he unloads with an assault rifle. Another famous quote has Montana outlining what he sees as the path to the American dream: “In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.”
Scarface shares its name with an entirely different gangster film directed by Howard Hawks in 1932. It’s set in Chicago, not Miami, and the main character is an Italian immigrant named Tony Camonte (Paul Muni), not a Cuban immigrant named Tony Montana. But the 1983 film is directly based on the 1932 movie, even if it’s become far more famous.
- Release Date
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December 9, 1983
- Runtime
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170 minutes
- Director
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Brian De Palma
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-
-
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Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Gina
The Fly
“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
The Fly is a 1958 horror movie about a scientist (David Hedison) who has created a teleportation device. Unbeknowst to him, there’s a fly in the chamber when he tests it, which results in their DNA being merged.
In 1986, David Cronenberg directed a remake of this movie that pretty much kept the same plot, although his version leans much harder into the grotesque body horror of the premise. This time, it’s Jeff Goldblum who slowly turns into a horrifying half-fly/half-human creature, with Geena Davis as a journalist with whom he starts a romance. At one point, Goldblum tells Davis not to be afraid of the changes his body going through after the teleportation accident, but she isn’t convinced. “Be afraid,” she says. “Be very afraid.”
That line was used on a lot of the marketing for the film, and has since become an all-purpose shorthand to warn of any coming calamity. If you’ve heard that phrase, you may not have even realized it came from this movie. And if you did, you may not have known the movie was a remake.
- Release Date
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August 15, 1986
- Runtime
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96 minutes
- Director
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David Cronenberg
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Jeff Goldblum
Seth Brundle
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Geena Davis
Veronica Quaife
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Ocean’s Eleven
“The house always wins.”
Ocean’s Eleven (2001) is a star-studded heist movie where the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Carl Reiner team up to rob a bunch of casinos. Clooney plays ringleader Danny Ocean, who sets the scene. “Cause the house always wins,” he says. “Play long enough, you never change the stakes, the house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big, and then you take the house.”
It would be an exaggeration to say that this movie came up with the phrase, “the house always wins,” but this quote still gets thrown a lot. And it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the original Ocean’s 11 movie from 1960. This time Frank Sinatra plays Danny Ocean, and recruits his Rat Pack buddies Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop to help him out. Angie Dickenson plays Danny’s estranged wife Beatrice, a role taken over by Julia Roberts in the movie, so both versions are packed with movie stars.
- Release Date
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August 15, 1986
- Runtime
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96 minutes
- Director
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David Cronenberg
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Jeff Goldblum
Seth Brundle
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Geena Davis
Veronica Quaife
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-
The Departed
“You must be the other guy.”
The Departed is a crime drama directed by Martin Scorsese starring Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as respectively a criminal and a cop who go undercover in each other’s camps. It won Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture, and it’s actually a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Internal Affairs.
The most famous quote from The Departed is said by Mark Wahlberg, who plays hard-headed Staff Sergeant Sean Dignam. When someone improperly places security cameras, Dignam doesn’t wince words: “I’m the guy who does his job,” he tells the lax employee. “You must be the other guy.”
Jack Nicholson also drops some bon mots as crimelord Frank Costello. “I don’t want to be a product of my environment,” he says at one point. “I want my environment to be a product of me.” Also look out for some choice quotes from Alec Baldwin’s irascible Captain George Ellerby. It’s a quotable movie all around.
- Release Date
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December 7, 2001
- Runtime
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116 minutes
- Director
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Steven Soderbergh
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George Clooney
Danny Ocean
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Andy García
Terry Benedict
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Matt Damon
Linus Caldwell
The Thing
“Oh you’ve got to be f***ing kidding!”
The Thing From Another World is a 1951 movie about scientists dealing with a hostile alien creature. John Carpenter’s 1982 remake sticks closer to the original short story, “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr. It moves the story to Antarctica, and this time, the alien can shape-shift. That means it could be anyone or anything, leading to a sense of mistrust and paranoia.
That leads to some of the movie’s best lines. “Nobody trusts anybody now, and we’re all very tired,” says heliocopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) at one point, cutting to the heart of things. Then there’s the ambigous final line of the film, when MacReady sizes up the mechanic Childs (Keith David), neither of them sure if the other is the alien. “Why don’t we just… wait here for a little while?” MacReady asks. “See what happens.”
Although the most usable quote may come from assistant mechanic Palmer (David Clennon), who witnesses the creature transform from a human into a terrifying spider-like beast and skitter away: “Oh you’ve got to be f***ing kidding!” Says it all. That quote may not originate with The Thing, but it’s very relatable.
- Release Date
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June 25, 1982
- Runtime
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109 minutes
- Director
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John Carpenter
The Wizard of Oz
Pick your favorite.
The Wizard of Oz (1939) is stacked front to back with famous quotes. “There’s no place like home.” “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” “Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my!” The Wicked Witch of the West alone drops them like candy. “I’m melting! Melting! Oh, what a world, what a world!” “Fly, my pretties, fly!” “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
The Wizard of Oz everyone knows is actually the third attempt to translate L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel to the screen. There was a short one-reel version released in 1910, when movies were still in their infancy; and then a feature length silent version in 1925, when they were finding their feet. It might be an exaggeration to call the 1939 version a “remake” — it’s more of a new adaptation — but it was not the first movie, or even the second, to tackle this story. It’s just the best remembered.
- Release Date
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August 25, 1939
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Judy Garland
Dorothy Gale
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Ray Bolger
“Hunk” / Scarecrow
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Jack Haley
“Hickory” / Tin Man
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Bert Lahr
“Zeke” / Cowardly Lion
Just because you repeat doesn’t mean someone said it
There’s no rhyme or reason when it comes to which movie quotes become iconic and which get forgotten, but you know them when you see them. That said, sometimes things gets lost in the translation, and the quote that becomes famous is different from the one actually used in the film.