Classic Movie Quotes Quiz
Four decades in which Hollywood was rebuilt twice. This set runs from the studio system through the collapse of the Production Code to the invention of the summer blockbuster.
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Three different film industries in one set
The forty two quotations here look like a single category called old films, and they are nothing of the sort. They come from three distinct and largely incompatible ways of making movies, and knowing which is which is the fastest way to date a line you do not recognise.
The first is the studio era, roughly to the late 1950s, when a handful of companies owned the production, the distribution and the cinemas, and the Production Code governed what could be said on screen. The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind both arrived in 1939, Citizen Kane in 1941, Casablanca in 1942, All About Eve in 1950 and A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951. Dialogue from this period is theatrical and declarative. Characters say what they mean, at volume, in complete sentences.
The second is New Hollywood, from the late 1960s, after the Code gave way to the ratings system and a generation of film school directors took over. The Graduate and Cool Hand Luke in 1967, Midnight Cowboy in 1969, The Godfather in 1972, Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver in the mid seventies, Network in 1976, Apocalypse Now in 1979. The dialogue turns colloquial, improvised and often ugly, because that was the point.
The third is the blockbuster, which begins in this set with Jaws in 1975 and hardens into a system with Star Wars in 1977 and Alien in 1979. Lines from these films are built to be repeated.
Nobody says “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca. Ilsa says “Play it, Sam,” and Rick later says “You played it for her, you can play it for me.” The famous version was never in the film. It became attached to it partly through the Marx Brothers picture A Night in Casablanca and Woody Allen’s 1972 Play It Again, Sam. It is the most quoted line from one of the most quoted films in history, and it does not exist.
What the era tells you before the words do
| Period | Films in this set | How the dialogue reads |
|---|---|---|
| Studio era, to 1959 | The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, All About Eve, On the Waterfront, Some Like It Hot | Formal, theatrical, written to be heard over an orchestra |
| Transition, 1960 to 1968 | Psycho, Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate | Still polished, but the subject matter is no longer safe |
| New Hollywood, 1969 to 1979 | Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, Network, Apocalypse Now | Colloquial, often improvised, morally unresolved |
| Early blockbuster | Jaws, Star Wars, Alien | Short, repeatable, designed to survive being quoted badly |
Two records held by films in this deck
Midnight Cowboy is the only film rated X on its original release to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, which it did for 1969. The rating was later revised to R. It is a useful marker for how quickly the American film industry changed: a picture the ratings board considered unsuitable for anyone under seventeen took the industry's highest honour within two years of the Code being abandoned.
Jaws is generally credited with inventing the summer blockbuster, not because of the film itself but because of how it was sold. Universal opened it in hundreds of cinemas at once, backed by national television advertising, at a time when the convention was to open in a few cities and let word of mouth spread a picture outwards over months. The wide release plus saturation advertising model is now simply how films are distributed, and it started here.
How to play the era you were not alive for
Most people playing this set have seen fewer than half the films in it, which matters much less than you would think. Four option questions reward elimination, and era is the easiest thing to eliminate on. If a line involves a technology, an institution or a piece of slang, it brackets the film in time before you have thought about the plot. If the register is formal and the sentence is complete, you are probably before 1960. If someone is swearing, you are after 1968.
Our guide to the stories behind famous movie quotes works through several of the lines in this set, including which ones were improvised on the day and which have drifted from what was actually said. The improvisation point is worth holding on to: a surprising share of the most quoted lines in New Hollywood were not in the script.
Frequently asked questions
Is the line "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca?
No. Ilsa says "Play it, Sam" and Rick says "You played it for her, you can play it for me". The famous version never appears in the film and appears to have spread through later comedies that referenced it.
What counts as a classic in this set?
Everything released before 1980, which spans the studio era, the collapse of the Production Code, New Hollywood and the first blockbusters. The earliest film here is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from 1937.
Which film in this set won Best Picture with an X rating?
Midnight Cowboy, for 1969. It remains the only X-rated film to win the award; the rating was later revised to R.
Do I need to have seen the films to score well?
Less than you would expect. Register and vocabulary date a line to within about a decade, and eliminating two of four options on era alone turns a question you cannot answer into one you can often solve.
More Guess the Movie sets
- The 1980s53 quotes from Die Hard to Ferris Bueller, and the Star Wars line everyone gets wrong.
- The 1990s60 quotes, the largest set here, from Pulp Fiction and Fight Club to Toy Story and The Lion King.
- The 2000s50 quotes from the decade the franchise took over, from Gladiator to Avatar.
- 2010 onwards45 quotes from Inception and the Marvel run through to Parasite and Everything Everywhere.
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