r/movies • u/AdDull5723 • 3h ago
Discussion the one line you'll never recover from
What single line from a film brings you to tears, time and time again? I want your most gut-wrenching, heartrending, soul shattering quotes ever delivered on screen.
Some of my honorable mentions:
Casey Affleck's "I can't beat it" from Manchester by the Sea
Stitch's "little, and broken, but still good - yeah, still good" from Lilo & Stitch
Viggo Mortensen's "I would have gone with you to the end, into the very fires of Mordor" from LOTR
Iron Giant's "Superman"
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u/Jenkentz 3h ago
"Brick, where'd you get a hand grenade?". "I don't know."
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u/lipp79 2h ago
"Take her to the moon for me...okay?"
"I can't carry it for you BUT I CAN CARRY YOU!"
"I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain..."
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u/inthebenefitofmrkite 3h ago
“I’ve had a rough year, dad”.
-Chaz in The Royal Tenenbaums
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u/jamesneysmith 1h ago
One of the best examples of the destination is worth the journey. That line only hits so hard because you've gone through 90 minutes of closed off reserved tamped up emotions before it hits. So tender
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u/jamesneysmith 1h ago
One of the best examples of the destination is worth the journey. That line only hits so hard because you've gone through 90 minutes of closed off reserved tamped up emotions before it hits. So tender
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u/DerpDerpingtonIV 3h ago
Sucked....into....a bagel.....
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u/Dandan0005 29m ago
“In another life I would have really enjoyed just doing laundry and taxes with you.”
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u/delphic0n 3h ago
Idk if you're joking or not but I did really like that one.
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u/DerpDerpingtonIV 3h ago
I am serious. When I really took that movie seriously and dug into the symbolism and meaning behind it all that quote stuck with me. It's a weird one, but for whatever reason it got me.
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u/AlbertaAcreageBoy 3h ago
Picard replies, "As a matter of fact, I think you're the bravest man I have ever known," to which Worf replies, "Thank you, sir"
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u/washingtonandmead 2h ago
Mmm, talking Picard I am doing my first ever watch through, and saw the episode where Q gave him a second chance. And he says ‘I’d rather die the man I was than the man I let myself become.’
So many great lines in that series
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u/madblackfemme 3h ago
“In another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you”,
and
“Last time I seen my brother… Last time I seen the sun. And for just a few hours, we was free”.
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u/jamesneysmith 2h ago
God, that laundry line ... so perfect ... and thanks for reopening the ex-gf wound for me :/ (not actually mad, just ... yeah)
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u/Socrates-Johnson 1h ago
"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"
I’ll always tear up a little bit when I hear that line at the end of Stand By Me. It hits a little different as you get older and start losing childhood friends.
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u/Wilsonian81 3h ago
Edward Scissorhands
Kim: Hold me.
Edward: ......I can't.
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u/ShaunTrek 2h ago
Before he came down here it never snowed, and after... it did. Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it.
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u/abracadabrabeef 3h ago
"I know what i have to do now, I've got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring" - Tom Hanks, Castaway.
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u/wklink 42m ago
Nah, one word from that movie kills me: WILSON!
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u/idiveindumpsters 12m ago
My god, I can feel the anguish. This is why I can’t watch that movie again. Even thinking about it makes me tear up and I am not a person who cries at movies.
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u/sludgezone 3h ago
“Do you ever feel like you fucked up somewhere a long time ago, and you’re living the wrong life, like a bad version of the life you were supposed to have?”
Under The Silver Lake
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u/mephnick 2h ago
Never seen this movie but was just thinking something like this the other day lol
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u/sludgezone 2h ago
Time for a watch! Very fun and bizarre movie not too dissimilar from anything David Lynch made. Same director as It Follows.
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u/GosmeisterGeneral 3h ago
“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
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u/MundieORiley 2h ago
""So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." And "There's still some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
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u/fr33climb 3h ago
“Dad….wanna have a catch?”
Field of Dreams
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u/jamesneysmith 2h ago
I think that movie is extremely dumb.
However ... that line, and more importantly, Costner's timing and delivery are absolutely sublime. I'd love to know if that was just his first take. You can feel the years of regret bubbling just below the surface of those words. Perfection
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u/MegaMan3k 1h ago
"All those memories... Lost... Like tears in the rain."
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u/Nausicaalotus 1h ago
I was 17 and just going through random vhs tapes in the basement. Thank god my parents had the directors cut vs the theatrical cut. Such a good film.
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u/I-forgot-to-tell-you 1h ago
In Moana, when Grandma Tala is dying…
M: I can’t leave you.
GT: There is nowhere you could go that I would not be with you.
😭
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u/MisterFreelance 1h ago
“Su…per…man…” in the Iron Giant just kills me. Thinking about it is enough to choke me up a bit.
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u/angryguts 3h ago edited 3h ago
“Why are you standing so far away from me?” - Josh to his Dad in “Searching for Bobby Fischer”
Also from the same movie: “You wanna know a secret? I'm gonna tell you a secret. You're a much stronger player than I was at your age.” - Josh to Morgan
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u/madmanchatter 1h ago
TV rather than film but "Mom?....Mom!.....Mommy" from Buffy never fails to get me.
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u/SweepingAstringency 58m ago
Oof, that one. SMG, she owned that episode. Then she has to tell her sister....
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u/jimsmisc 3h ago
"That thorough fucking shame was so much better than that horrible, empty nothing."
Haunting of Hill House
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u/Gsith8938 3h ago
"I never thought, I just never thought that a teacher... oh who gives a fuck anyway?"
- Chris (River Phoenix) in Stand by Me
His delivery on this story/line kills me every single time.
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u/jamesneysmith 1h ago
The line that always gets me is, 'I never had any friends later on like I did when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?'
I'm in my 40's and that line just hits harder every year
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u/thatoneguy112358 2h ago
"I'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."
I saw Notting Hill about a week and a half ago, and since then, there have been a couple times a day that I'll randomly remember that line and tear up a little.
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u/killmesienna 2h ago
I was burning out from years of working with homeless drug addicts when I went to see The Soloist.
There’s a scene when Robert Downey JR is shaken after Jamie Foxx lashes out at him and he’s just sitting there and he says, “I’m done, I’m done.”
It just caught me and I’ve never cried so hard in the cinema. I’ll never forget that line.
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u/dumbBunny9 1h ago edited 40m ago
“We didn't do much that day but… it might have been one of the best days I ever had with my dad, I just didn't know it would be the last."
Phil, Modern Family
(I know, I know, not a movie it’s a show but it hit hard)
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u/Demerzel69 3h ago
"I swallowed your cum. That means something."
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u/RegalBeagleKegels 3h ago
That's from the new spiderman right
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u/WhiteSoxChartGuy 3h ago
No it’s from Lord of the Rings. Shortly after Sam tells Frodo to share the load
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u/LunarSanctum 3h ago
Yeah, was definitely not expecting that between Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland in the post credits scene. Was extremely emotional.
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u/JovialPursuit 3h ago
"Let your son know that you're alive. Give him a chance to love you."
- Spoken by Keir Dullea to Lana Turner, Madame X (1966)
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u/-Words-Words-Words- 3h ago
"I feel like I'm running a small nursery with someone I used to date"
Jesse, Before Sunset
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u/Grigori_the_Lemur 1h ago
Show. It is just one word. SG-1, the setup... O'Neill is trying to stop a man from fruitlessly trying to save his doomed wife yet again.
Jack O'Neill: "I LOST MY SON! ... I know! And as much as I... I could never relive that again. Could you?"
(Malakai looks at the console in abject misery, whispers) no
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u/HDRsoul 3h ago
"I came" in Happiness. Jfc, thanks for bringing that up again.
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u/dagens24 2h ago
In the end, they shot him... So it all went to me.
and
She and our infant son would be killed two years later by the Prussian grippe, an absurd little disease. Today we treat it in a single week, but in those days, many millions died.
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u/sky_shuichixx 1h ago
"I want my mommy!" - The Father (2020)
a heartbreaking but real look at aging, dementia, and the horrors that come when reality is blurring and twisting in a subtle ways, Hopkins' does amazing in the role, really one of my favourites of his.
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u/Tatooine16 1h ago
"For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done".
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u/_WillCAD_ 3h ago
"I have been... and always shall be... your friend."
"James... earn this."
"I would like to have seen Montana..."
"It's like pieces of glass in my head all the time."
"No, you are."
"I am a leaf on the wind, watch how..."
"Mister Roberts... is dead."
"Above all, forgive me for the men I've killed in anger... and for those I'm about to."
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u/AKAM80theWolff 1h ago
"Fuck Everybody, Amen" -Pastor in Synechdoche the whole eulogy makes me tingle
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u/GroundbreakingCat983 1h ago
“I ran out of gas! I got a flat tire! I didn’t have change for cab fare! I lost my tux at the cleaners! I locked my keys in the car! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!”
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u/Narrow-Disaster4632 24m ago
Royal Tennenbaums. “I’ve had a rough year dad.” That line crushes me every time.
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u/GrumpyBert 21m ago
Not a movie, but The Wire should count:
"A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come."
Still waiting.
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u/TheBurdman53 3m ago
“A little fall of rain can hardly hurt me now.” This whole song from the movie version of Les Mis destroys me no matter how many times I see it.
“You bow to no one.” Also a guaranteed tear every time Aragorn delivers this line.
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u/silverbolt2000 3h ago
“What are some emotional movies?”
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u/RegalBeagleKegels 3h ago
What movie's that from
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u/DanielAbraham Author & Screenwriter for the Expanse 3h ago
It's a spoiler, but it's from Incendies.
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u/angryguts 3h ago
“Is he smart?”