A good action hero kicks butt; however, a great action hero kicks butt and has quippy one-liners too. The most exciting movie genre also tends to have some of the most fun quotes, as action flicks are full of iconic sayings that have become part of our everyday lexicon. We might not be fighting bad guys or saving the world, but we still say them—and for a few words, at least, we get to feel like we're the cool, strong hero.
They say actions speak louder than words, but these are the 32 greatest movie quotes in the history of the genre, and they pack a whallop. For variety's sake, only one quote per movie or action franchise. (The same limitation does not apply to actors, which is good news for action legends like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves.) The following list of quotes includes wisecracks, threats, and mottos; there are lines that are screamed in the heat of battle and sentences uttered with deadly calm.
Most of these quotes were said by the hero of whatever action movie they came from. However, there are a few bad guys who have such a good way with words that they had to be included, too.
32. "Welcome to the Rock" (The Rock)
Never underestimate the power of a good title-drop. In Michael Bay's 1996 action classic, Sean Connery gets the honors of saying the film's name when his character, John Patrick Mason, breaks back into Alcatraz years after he escaped in order to help Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage) thwart terrorists who have taken over the island prison and who have chemical weapons. Mason's being a bit of a showoff when he tells Goodspeed, "Welcome to the Rock," but it's kind of comforting for the audience in a meta way. "Welcome to the Rock, you're in good hands, this movie is gonna whip from here on out."
31. "I live my life a quarter mile at a time." (The Fast and the Furious)
Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto explains his race-centric world view to Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner in the first (comparatively very grounded) Fast and Furious movie. It's a cool quote that shows just how in love with cars and racing Dom is, but as the franchise progressed, it would become a little less true. Dom still loves racing, only now something else comes up that's even more important than a quarter mile of speed: Family. (The word "family" is clearly the defining quote of the Fast and Furious series, but you need more than just a simple noun to be a truly great quote.)
30. "Put the bunny back in the box." (Con Air)
One of the more insane action movies of the '90s (which is saying something), the guilty pleasure classic Con Air stars Nicolas Cage as Cameron Poe, an Army Ranger who is put behind bars after he accidentally kills someone in self-defense. Clearly, Poe has lethal skills, but he's a stand-up guy who just wants to get out and meet his young daughter for the first time. To that end, he's gotten her a present—a little toy bunny. When convicts on the airplane he's riding en route to being released hijack it, one of the criminals, Billy Bedlam (Nick Chinlund), begins to suspect Poe isn't on their side. He also takes the toy bunny out of its box. Poe asks Billy to put it back nicely, but it soon becomes clear that he's going to have to resort to using his fists once more.
29. "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." (Inception)
Tom Hardy has made such a career for himself playing characters that are extremely taciturn (like his Mad Max: Fury Road or Dunkirk characters) or who have really weird, distinctive voices (like Bane and Venom/Eddie Brock). So it's always a bit of a surprise and a thrill to see him being charming in Christopher Nolan's Inception, where he plays Eames. Hardy is so charismatic when he encourages another member of the heist to dream bigger, pulling out a gigantic gun that he conjured as he does so, that you kinda wish Hardy would take more roles like this.
28. "Why'd it have to be snakes?" (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Indiana Jones, as played by Harrison Ford, might be one of the best heroes in all of cinema history. He's smart, quick on his feet, tenacious, charming, and he's good with a whip. But for all of Indy's many, many talents, it's perhaps his one weakness that's the source of his most iconic line. As he laments in Raiders of the Lost Ark, snakes are his slithery Kryptonite—but unlike Superman's weakness, Indy's fear is much more mundane and relatable. It's a phobia that only makes him a scrappier, better hero.
27. "Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last? … I lied." (Commando)
No action star was better at one-liners than Arnold Schwarzenegger in the '80s, and some of his best quips are so beloved because they're corny and kinda stupid, delivered in his cool, distinctive Austrian accent. Commando, a 1985 romp, features one of the best. While on a roarin' rampage trying to kill the mercenaries who are out to get him and who have taken his daughter hostage, Schwarzenegger's Matrix catches one of the henchmen, Sully, and holds him over the edge of the cliff. Earlier in the film, Matrix had joked that Sully was "a funny guy," that's why he was going to kill him last. Instead, Sully's one of the first to go. "I lied" is both a blunt, meat-headed bit of dialogue and a clever subversion of action tropes.
26. "Warriors, come out and play." (The Warriors)
After the Warriors, a gang in a grim vision of New York City, have made their way home from way up in the Bronx with every other gang and cop in the city chasing them, Luther, the leader of the rival gang who framed them for murder is there waiting, trying to goad them into a final confrontation. Were it not for the empty bottles that actor David Patrick Kelly has on his fingers as he clinks them together, Luther's taunt wouldn't be nearly as iconic. As it is, though, it's extremely memorable, an outlandish line from an outlandish movie.
25. "This! Is! Sparta!" (300)
Truth be told, the best line in Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's comic doesn't originate from the screen or the page. According to ancient historians, the Spartan warrior Dienekes (played by Michael Fassbender in the film) actually quipped "then we will fight in the shade" when the attacking Persians threatened that their arrows would block out the sun. However, the most iconic—and most-memed—line in the film comes when King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) kicks a Persian envoy into a pit and screams "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" with an absurd amount of testosterone and masculine energy.
24. "Why so serious?" (The Dark Knight)
Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy has no shortage of great lines. ("You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain," "You merely adopted the darkness, I was born in it," and "I'm not wearing hockey pads" come to mind.) The greatest, though, has to come from one of the best supervillains in movie history. Heath Ledger's mocking question defines The Joker, tilting at the humor in his name and affect while making it extremely clear that he's a frightening, unpredictable individual.
23. "What a lovely day!" (Mad Max: Fury Road)
The wasteland of the Max Max films might be one of the most unenviable post-apocalypses, nothing but desert, squalor, and gas-guzzling vehicles with insane maniacs behind the wheel. That's why there's something so memorable about the war boy Nux's exclamation that it's "a lovely day" as he drives into a nightmarish sandstorm. Nicholas Hoult gives the line delivery some of his English charm, and the contrast between the delicate phrasing and the intensity of the circumstances adds to the unique feeling that makes Fury Road one of the best films ever made.
22. "What I do have are a very particular set of skills." (Taken)
Part of a longer monologue that Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) gives to the criminals on the other end of the phone who have kidnapped his daughter, "I have a very very particular set of skills" is such a good quote because of how controlled it is. Bryan's daughter has been taken, and he's understandably scared and furious. But that doesn't show when he's talking to the kidnappers. Instead, he's just making a cold promise: he has the skills that make him a nightmare for people like them. He promises to use those skills to find them and end them… and you better believe he makes good on that promise.
21. "If he dies, he dies." (Rocky IV)
"Yo, Adrian!" from the first Rocky movie might be the more famous movie quote, but Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago hulking Soviet boxer, coldly stating his indifference to the fate of Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) after knocking him out with a devastating blow, is the better action movie quote. An over-the-top bit of jingoistic patriotic propaganda disguised as a sports movie, Rocky IV nonetheless rules, and it's lines like that which make you so ready for Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) to get in the ring with Drago and give him what's coming.
20. "Game over, man. Game over!" (Aliens)
Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley has an iconic quote of her own during the big climactic fight with the Xenomorph queen at the end of James Cameron's sci-fi action masterpiece, but it's Bill Paxton's Hudson whose quote might best capture the ethos of the film. Hudson and the other space marines charged into battle with an alien menace they didn't understand (and didn't care to learn about) as cocky as they could possibly be, only to crumble when they actually were face-to-face with the acid-blooded killers. "Game over, man! Game over!" isn't just a funny line; it's a perfect encapsulation of surrender born of hubris.
19. "Avengers, assemble." (Avengers: Endgame)
It took four Avengers movies before Captain America (Chris Evans) actually said the iconic call-to-action for Marvel's premiere superhero team. In the first film, the group gathers wordlessly. Age of Ultron cuts to credits right before Cap finishes saying it, a nice little troll of the audience. The delayed satisfaction for fans only made it more rewarding in Avengers: Endgame when Cap, now joined by practically every hero from every corner of the MCU, summons Mjolnir to his hand and formally assembles the Avengers.
18. "Say hello to my little friend." (Scarface)
Brian De Palma's 1983 crime flick Scarface is, like most of De Palma's work, fairly lurid and not especially subtle. Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, a powerful Miami kingpin who meets an inevitable grizzly end when it all comes crashing down around him, and another dealer sends his goons to off Tony. However, Tony makes a heck of a last stand, unveiling a massive M16 rifle with a grenade launcher, obliterating some of his attackers as he introduces them to "his little friend."
17. "I feel the need—the need for speed." (Top Gun)
Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is, as his call sign would suggest, a bit of a maverick inside the cockpit of his F-14 fighter jet. He lives for this, as he and his buddy Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) say when they're on the runway. "The need for speed" gets at Top Gun's whole vibe, in that it's an exhilarating expression of how these pilots love danger, and it's a somewhat corny expression of a bromance, since Maverick and Goose are very much on the same page about this need.
16. "That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die." (Kill Bill: Volume 2)
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill duology is a rip-roaring, action-packed tale of bloody revenge, but for as much as the elaborate kung fu-inspired fight scenes astound, it's the quieter moments of dialog that give the movies their emotional heft. The late Michael Madsen speaks to this when talking to his brother, David Carradine's Bill, as the former assassin almost wistfully admits that the Bride (Uma Thurman) has a point. Kill Bill isn't a story of revenge just for violence's sake; it's much more profound than that. (While, you know, also still being very violent.)
15. "You shall not pass!" (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings)
The three Lord of the Rings movies are full of incredible and profound quotes. (J. R. R. Tolkien? Pretty good at writing!) There's one epic line, delivered during one of the trilogy's most intense scenes, that's an all-time action movie quip: Gandalf (Ian McKellen) making his last stand against the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in the first movie. We're introduced to Gandalf as a very powerful but mostly good-natured and occasionally tottering old wizard, and having him single-handedly face off against a monster of flame and shadow to unequivocally state that it shall not pass shows the true strength of this Maia's magic and will.
14. "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!" (Braveheart)
One of the great historical action epics of the '90s, Braveheart follows William Wallace (Mel Gibson, who also directs) as he leads his people in the First War of Scottish Independence against King Edward I of England. His pre-battle speech is one of the best the movies have to offer, and his impassioned delivery gets his troops (and the audience) hyped at the prospect of fighting and dying for their freedom. (He will memorably shout "freedom!" again near the end of the movie in much less epic circumstances, though perhaps even more stirring.)
13. "Get off my plane." (Air Force One)
Is Harrison Ford's James Marshall a good president in Air Force One? Does he have good policies? What are his stances on the biggest issues, foreign and domestic, facing the nation? In this '90s action classic, none of that matters because Marshall is a great president when it comes to single-handedly fighting back against terrorists who have overtaken the titular plane. His final quip before he sends Gary Oldman's terrorist leader plummeting to his death is a better presidential quote than the Gettysburg Address if we're being honest with ourselves.
12. "Welcome to Earth." (Independence Day)
There are a lot of reasons why the sequel to Independence Day, released 20 years after the original with the subtitled Resurgence, is quite bad. A big reason is that Will Smith didn't return to reprise his role as Captain Steven Hiller, the cocky pilot who manages to take an invading alien craft out of the sky with his wits and then knock that extraterrestrial out with a punch and a pair of iconic action movie one-liners. (He follows "Welcome to Earth" with "Now that's what I call a close encounter.")
11. "Are you not entertained?" (Gladiator)
Ridley Scott's Best Picture-winning swords and sandals epic is extremely quotable. ("Strength and honor" and Maximus' "My name is Gladiator" speech are also all-time action movie quotes.) Russell Crowe really cuts to the heart of the movie, though, when he yells out, "Are you not entertained?" after methodically making his way through all of his opponents at a small arena in Northern Morocco. This bloodshed is what the audience wanted, right? And yet there's something crude about the killings. In a way, Maximus is speaking to the audience, too. We are entertained: should we be?
10. "Hasta la vista, baby" (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)
Considering how intimidating Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the first Terminator movie, it's kind of incredible that he returns for the sequel to play a new cyborg soldier, but this one is a good guy, and instantly the audience believes it and is totally on his side. Part of that can be attributed to just how cool and uniquely charming Schwarzenegger was at his peak as an action star. It also helps that he's echoing lines that young John Connor (Edward Furlong) gives him to say. "Hasta-la-vista, baby" is the kind of action kiss-off that a kid would think is cool, but in reality, it's kinda lame. When Schwarzenegger says it, though, it's endearing and cool.
9. "If it bleeds, we can kill it." (Predator)
Arnold Schwarzenegger, king of the action movie one-liners, has another great one in Predator as Dutch, the muscled-up leader of a paramilitary mercenary team. When a strange, invisible alien predator starts attacking his men in the jungle, Dutch is initially unbothered. "If it bleeds, we can kill it" is an incredible bit of machismo—an extremely gung-ho display of confidence. (Dutch proves himself right, eventually. He can and does kill the Predator, but it's nowhere near as easy as this quip made it out to be.)
8. "Go ahead, make my day." (Sudden Impact)
If you're only going to allow for one quote per action movie franchise, it's perhaps the Dirty Harry series that suffers the most. The Clint Eastwood-led crime series has two of the greatest action movie quotes: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" from the first film and "Go ahead, make my day" from the fourth, Sudden Impact. Both are incredibly cool and intimidating lines, though the latter might be slightly better because of how much it reveals about the person saying it, Harry Callahan. He honestly would love to shoot the criminal he has pinned down and only needs an excuse to do so.
7. "Yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back!" (John Wick)
When the John Wick franchise starts, the titular legendary hitman (Keanu Reeves) is mourning his wife and is retired. That all changes when some punks steal his car and kill his dog, setting Wick out on a path of gun fu-filled revenge. By the time he says, "Yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back," he's already gone back to his old ways, and he's acknowledging how obvious the question is. John Wick is back in the professional killer game—and he'd return for several sequels after this 2014 original.
6. "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." (The Princess Bride)
As played by Mandy Patinkin, the Spanish swordsman Inigo Montoya is one of the greatest supporting movie characters of all time, a charismatic fighter motivated by revenge against the six-fingered nobleman who killed his dad. What makes his iconic quote so perfect is how it manages to be both flamboyant—a boast that displays Montoya's flair for showmanship—while also cutting straight to the point. There's not a wasted word. He's a master swordsman and a master orator as well.
5. "I'll be back." (The Terminator)
Especially in his earlier acting days, when his Austrian accent was even more pronounced, Arnold Schwarzenegger could say a lot with a little by necessity. In 1984's The Terminator, he plays the titular cybernetic assassin, sent back from the future to kill the mother of the leader of the human resistance against the machines. It's during his hunt for Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) that he enters a police station looking for her, only to be told to get out. "I'll be back," Schwarzenegger coldly replies, and indeed he is, thanks to the car he drives through the wall before he gets rid of all the cops inside. "I'll be back" is a promise that's both cool and ominous, and it's no wonder it became a hallmark of the franchise.
4. "May the Force be with you." (Star Wars)
A repeated mantra throughout the entire Star Wars franchise, "May the Force be with you," might be best uttered by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) near the end of A New Hope. Throughout the whole movie up to this point, Han had been dismissive of the Force, which gives it extra meaning when he evokes it to wish Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) good luck in the upcoming attack on the Death Star before he leaves. (Han and Chewie return right in the nick of time, of course.) Whether or not Han truly believes in the Force at this moment is immaterial—what matters is that he means it when he sends his newfound friend off to battle. It's a big, exciting, optimistic catchphrase for the whole action-packed franchise.
3. "I know kung fu." (The Matrix)
There's kind of a bemused, bewildered simplicity to Neo's utterance of "I know kung fu" that nevertheless takes on a more profound meaning thanks to Keanu Reeves' line delivery. Upon getting freed from the Matrix, Neo starts learning how everything in the real and digital worlds worksand that includes getting martial arts downloaded straight into his brain. It's an incredible line because of the promise inherent in it. At this point in the film, viewers have only gotten a taste of some of the mind-blowing action The Matrix has to offer. So, when Neo says he knows kung fu, we simply can't wait to see this newfound knowledge in action.
2. "Yippee ki yay" (Die Hard)
John McClane (Bruce Willis) is one of the all-time great action movie heroes because he's relatively close to just being a normal guy. He's not an ultra-strong, supremely trained slab of muscle. He's just a resourceful, tenacious cop, one who gets exasperated and overwhelmed but who gets the job done. It's part of why it's exciting to see him embrace the "cowboy" label that Alan Rickman's terrorist leader, Hans Gruber, gives him. By replying with "yippee ki ya" (and an expletive for good measure), McClane is antagonizing the antagonist and keeping himself amused.
1. "The name's Bond, James Bond." (Doctor No)
Famous quotes are often quoted out of context, but the best ones only become famous because of the full context in which they were first uttered. Were it not for the way Sean Connery and the many other actors after him delivered the line, or for the reputation the long-running action spy series has established for itself, a guy introducing himself would not be especially exciting. But, because we know who James Bond is, hearing "The name's Bond" is one of the sweetest phrases in all of cinema.
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