He convinces Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) to let him take responsibility for the murders to avoid the dispiriting consequences. All of them wrap their respective movies up beautifully. At the end, an attempt to kill the shark takes place. Were you paying attention before the curtain fell? The quoted lines occur in a voiceover as people enter and exit a hotel's revolving door. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below. The Silence Of The Lambs "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner." Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) 127 33 2. All was well. Best beautiful sum-up of the novel you just read, both in tone and in meaning, and possibly the most well-loved last line of all time: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back. Torn between two very different men, Madeleine endures real tragedy before finally correcting her course, which we, her desperate fans, cant know for sure until that very last word. Quiz: Is this acting advice from Laurence Olivier or @Tips4Actors? Isnt it pretty to think so?From The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Gillian Anderson quiz: A Streetcar Named Desire or The X Files? Rate this book. All kinds of spot-on criticisms have been leveled against the novel (and producer David Selznicks 1939 movie) for its romanticized racism. Roy Scheider's Brody spends the movie trying to get the citizens of Amity Islandespecially the town's mayorto take his shark warnings seriously. Elliott is visibly upset about having to part, so his intergalactic buddy lights up his finger, points it at the boy, and informs him "I'll be right here. If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow. The Top 10 Best Plays of All Time Hamlet 1 1600-1601 William Shakespeare The Crucible 2 1953 Arthur Miller Waiting for Godot 3 1948-1949 Samuel Beckett Antigone 4 441 BC Sophocles Long Day's Journey into Night 5 1941-1942 Eugene O'Neill The Cherry Orchard 6 1904 Anton Chekhov Importance of Being Earnest 7 1895 Oscar Wilde A Street Car Named Desire ", "His body stirs beneath the sheets. And us so happy. "Oh, Jake, Brett said, we could have had such a damned good time together. Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post. A sudden breeze over the Tigris forms a tiny whirlwind. But, eventually, he's caught in a pinch by the Feds. What was the last line? By stating this hard-earned insight, and . The tales of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. In the final pages, at the worst possible moment, he flees again, which Updike captures in that closing line swelling with deliverance and cowardice. South-south-west, south, south-east, east ", "I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. Eventually, all is revealed to be a dream, one from which she gladly awakens. "For both of us a new life is beginning" Constellations An Ideal Husband Chimerica 3. One of the most-quoted lines from Casablanca, "Here's looking at you, kid," is one that Humphrey Bogart ad-libbed during the flashback scenes of Rick and Ilsa falling in love in Paris. Please enable JavaScript for the best experience. We follow them across hundreds of thousands of words, but the final line can make or break a book. It's an action-filled finale that leads to Neo's poignant last words. That line has several layers, but, most prominently, it acknowledges that their relationship has changed. By the movie's end, he has a super-suit of his own, which he uses to battle Stark, but Iron Man wins. Its desultory plot and muffled despair still feel strikingly modern. In a phone call, he promises to essentially dismantle it all, creating a new world order, free of rules and controls. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them. After a near-catastrophic experience that nearly erases his own existence, Marty McFly (Michael J. ", A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, Gil Courtemanche, "'When the day shall come, that we do part,' he said softly, and turned to look at me, 'if my last words are not I love you yell ken it was because I didna have time.'". In Grand Hotel John Barrymore plays a baron and jewel thief, Wallace Beery plays a tycoon, Joan Crawford plays a stenographer, and Greta Garbo plays a ballerina who utters an even more famous line, "I want to be alone." 4. The father of the four March sisters is just a minor character in Louisa May Alcotts beloved Little Women (1868), but Geraldine Brooks put him at the center of her historical novel March, which won a Pulitzer Prize. 10. In voiceover, as Batman flees, viewers hear the cop state that "he's not our hero. ", "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. 'Im a man of my'"From The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace. Together, they attempt to assemble a "phone" that E.T. For a movie as fantastical as Back to the Future, there could be no more perfect final words, and it's not because they set up a sequel. And they can kiss my sharries. "She closes her eyes again and I begin to sing softly: Hoping that this time it will remain a lullaby. ", RELATED: 10 Most Iconic Shots In Goodfellas. Its also worth noting that Mitchell didnt coin the phrase; it appeared as a well-known maxim in the first volume of Harpers Weekly in 1857. The Grapes of Wrath, The first readers were shocked by But no one can forget Vivien Leigh I mean Scarlett OHara uttering that blithely optimistic line, which has since slid away from its source and entered our vernacular as an expression of gallows humor. In the end, though, he puts her on a plane to safety. He wants Mills (Brad Pitt) to kill him so that he can finish his series of murders based on the seven deadly sins. The definitiveness of this brusque sentence has a blunting effect, highlighting the bleakness of Orwell's predictions. Holden Caulfield would scoff at the idea, but hes served ably as the patron saint of disaffected teens for almost 70 years. We don't think so. ", The Hand That First Held Mine, Maggie O'Farrell, ''I never saw any of them again except the cops. Inglourious Basterds remains one of Quentin Tarantino's most celebrated films, and that is undoubtedly due to its satisfying third act. ", "At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel. Dont judge a book by its cover - instead, try and wait for the last line. (Caliban, Act 3 Scene 2) Our revels now are ended. He may have been a beast, but he was a beast with heart. The point, driven home so forcefully in those five words, is that corruption is so deeply ingrained in the situation Jake is investigating that he's wasting his time trying to expose or change it. From old-school classics like Casablanca to modern masterpieces like Inglorious Basterds, these are the most remarkable final movie lines of all time. ", Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Sskind, "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. Kong takes one of the planes down, but he ultimately loses his balance after being shot, leading him to fall to his death. ", The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "My personal rollercoaster. Best closing lines in movies 1. During its initial release in 1999, Fight Club was widely misunderstood. 3.66 avg rating 137,082 ratings. The cults of the famous and the dead. ", "Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. It was a bestseller when it was published during the Great Depression, and just last year, it ranked No. We can stop at Mancini's and have a little dinner on the way. Americans have consistently called Mitchells Pulitzer Prize-winning novel one of their very favorites. This Civil War story cleverly blends biographical details about the real Bronson Alcott, Louisa Mays father, with elements of the fictional Mr. March, who has gone south to serve as a chaplain to Union soldiers. ", The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, "As I left China farther and farther behind, I looked out of the window and saw a great universe beyond the plane's silver wing. I am invisible, the unnamed narrator says at the start, simply because people refuse to see me, but by the end, no one could ever ignore him. Although it inspired considerable condemnation at the time, its now recognized as one of the earliest modernist novels and a foundational feminist text. We arrive at the final page in a state of utter desolation. Most delicate ending to a delicate, harrowing story about the different kinds of humanity and grace: Shut up, Bobby Lee, The Misfit said. ", "Yukiko's diarrhoea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo. Portrait by Sophie Herxheimer. ", "Her lips move and a moment before the door splinters off its hinges she says, her voice strong and quiet, 'My name is Alisa. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Our annual survey of the best books includes 10 we think are exceptionally rewarding and 100 more notable titles you shouldnt miss. Most dearly held last line for moody and secretive teenagers everywhere: Dont ever tell anybody anything. Here are 21 of our favorite last lines in literature: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. The Usual Suspects isn't just a movie; it's a magic trick. Upon being arrested, Norma, who is convinced that the newsreel cameras filming her capture are part of her movie production, exclaims, "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.". Like Fitzgerald's final lines, Cather's provide a poignant thesis statement. It's the next breath we all take. Only six of our top 10 plays won Pulitzers. Best wonderfully mangled last line from a wonderfully mangled novel: Prettiest description of oblivion and both the interconnectedness and meaninglessness of worldly phenomena that also sounds something like a dehumanized version of the last line of The Great Gatsby: The wake itself remains, etched out across the waters surface; then it fades as well, although no one is there to see it go. Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. 21 Amazing Last Lines From Literature That Will Make You Want To Read The Whole Book. Its final scene, the culmination of a relentless series of hardships, losses and deaths, offers a moment of startling compassion and intimacy the very milk of human kindness made flesh. 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