Random Famous Movie Lines That Were Unscripted (21 items)

• 

  (#18) American Beauty

  • Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Mena Suvari, Allison Janney, Chris Cooper, Thora Birch, Amber Smith, Wes Bentley, Scott Bakula, John Cho, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Peter Gallagher, Bruce Cohen, Sam Robards, Barry Del Sherman, Matthew Kimbrough, Nancy Anderson, Ara Celi, Joel McCrary, Sue Casey, David C. Fisher, Kent Faulcon, Alison Faulk, Chelsea Hertford, Reshma Gajjar, Tom Miller, Brenda Wehle, Dennis Anderson, Chekesha Van Putten, Elaine Corral Kendall, Carolina Lancaster, Heather Joy Sher, Lisa Cloud, Ramona Leah, Krista Goodsitt, Erin Cathryn Strubbe, Lily Houtkin, Stephanie Rizzo, Emily Zachary, Fort Atkinson

  Much of the dinner scene in American Beauty was unscripted. The actors were given a rough framework of notes and beats to hit and the rest they improvised, including letting a plate fly (the looks of surprise are genuine).
• 

  (#19) Being John Malkovich

  • Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, Winona Ryder, Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, John Cusack, Andy Dick, Gary Sinise, Octavia Spencer, Catherine Keener, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Mary Kay Place, Taylor Hanson, Zac Hanson, Isaac Hanson, Orson Bean, Willie Garson, Jester Hairston, Neil Ross, Richard Fancy, James Murray, W. Earl Brown, Ned Bellamy, Gregory Sporleder, Mariah O'Brien, Yetta Ginsburg, Lance Bangs, Byrne Piven, Kacee DeMasi, Carlos Jacott, Bill M. Ryusaki, Pamela Hayden, Reggie Hayes, K. K. Dodds, Kevin Carroll, Gerald Emerick, Eric Weinstein, Victor Isaac, Kristin D'Andrea, Bill Wittman, Michelle Madden, Daniel Hansen, Jayne Hess, Madison Lanc, Sylvester Jenkins, William Buck, Eddie L. Fauria, Christine Coleman, Patricia Tippo, Erica Long, Yvonne Montelius, Kevin Lee, Audrey Gelfund, Jeanne Diehl, Trevor Lawrence Young, Christine Krejer, Flori Wyler, Kelly Teacher, Jennifer Canzoneri, Jessica Neuberger, Elizabeth Rivera, Roy C. Johnson, Judith Wetzell, Charlene Grimsley, Greg O'Neill, David Wyler, Marlowe Bassett, Jacqueline Benoît, Denise Dabrowski, Eddie J. Low, Chelsa Sjostrom, Sara Rifkin, Ralph W. Spaulding, Kristie Cordle

  There's a scene in Being John Malkovich where John Malkovich is beyond the point of frustration, in this moment he's hit in the head with a can from a car driving by with it's passenger yelling "Hey, Malkovich! Think fast!" This great moment brought a genuine moment of surprise and was a perfect tipping point for the character, and it was all unscripted. The man in the car was an extra, and the car was merely supposed to drive by.
• 

  (#1) Jaws

  • Steven Spielberg, Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, John Searle, Murray Hamilton, Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb, Lorraine Gary, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Beverly Powers, Ayn Ruymen, Denise Cheshire, Ted Grossman, Rex Trailer, Craig Kingsbury, Allison Caine, Dorothy Fielding, Chris Rebello, David Engelbach, Belle McDonald, Christopher Sands, Fritzi Jane Courtney, Cyprian R. Dube, Duncan Inches, Jonathan Filley, Jay Mello, Robert Nevin, Robert Carroll, Alfred Wilde, Lee Fierro, Jeffrey Voorhees, Wally Hooper Jr., Jean Canha, Peggy Scott, Robert Chambers, Edward Chalmers Jr., Julie Taylor, Paul F. Tremblay, Gilbert Brand, Wayne Iacono, Janice T. Hull, Beardsley Graham, John Bahr, Jerome S. Tartar, Joy Stuart, Stephanie Hull, Alston Goff, William Lymon, Paul G. Thibodeau, Dick Young, Edwin C. Carlson, Carla Hogendyk, Henry Carreiro, Henry E. Scott III, Brendan Gallagher, Hershel West, Joseph G. Kraetzer, Gregory S. Dole, Steven Potter, Paul Goulart, Phil Murray, Philip Norton, Donald Poole, Richard P. Hewitt, Robert Whelden Jr., William O'Gorman, Francis A. Frank, Mike Haydn, William Pfluger, Elizabeth K. Gifford, Stephen Earle, Willis B. Gifford, Eleanor L. Harvey, Chris Anastasio, Joe La Creta

  While luring the great white shark within range, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) gets his first look at the shark and how impossibly large it is. Stunned, he stands and mutters the now famous line to Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) completely off-the-cuff, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.”
• 

  (#17) Reservoir Dogs

  • Quentin Tarantino, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steven Wright, Edward Bunker, Lawrence Tierney, Kirk Baltz, Randy Brooks, Michael Sottile

  The entire scene following the ear removal in Reservoir Dogs was improvised by Michael Madsen, playing Mr. Blonde. The dancing, the witty retorts, the talking into the ear — it was all Madsen, all in the moment.
• 

  (#20) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

  • James Earl Jones, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Sterling Hayden, Shane Rimmer, Peter Bull, Glenn Beck, Tracy Reed, Jack Creley, Gordon Tanner, Hal Galili, Laurence Herder, Roy Stephens, Paul Tamarin, Robert O'Neil, Frank Berry, John McCarthy

  Nuclear scientist Dr. Merkwürdigliebe or Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) was in a wheelchair for the entirety of the film. Sellers, of his own accord (not in the least bit scripted), then stood at the very end of the film, took a couple of steps and proclaimed, “Mein Führer! I can walk!” Kubrick then went back and changed much of the script ("retro-scripting") to incorporate a lot of Sellers’s improvised dialogue, including this now famously unscripted scene from the end.
• 

  (#11) Aliens

  • Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Daniel Kash, William Hope, Mark Rolston, Ricco Ross, Al Matthews, Carrie Henn, Colette Hiller, Tip Tipping, Cynthia Dale Scott

  You can probably still hear Bill Paxton as Private Hudson saying, "Game over, man, game over!" But when he said it in the film, it was off the cuff. One of the most iconic lines from one of the most iconic sci-fi films ever was improvised.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking