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The best movie taglines of all time

There's magic in those lines.

08 April 2022

If we had to sell ourselves in just one sentence, well, we'd probably struggle to come up with something snappy enough to make you remember us - unlike these best movie taglines.

That's the problem which faces movie marketers on a daily basis. Aside from creating a visually compelling poster, they also need to attach a tagline that'll stick in the memories of the notoriously forgetful general public.

So we're clapping our real (and digital) hands at these 40 movies which managed to spin some smart words out of thin air and impress us hard-to-impress film buffs.

The best movie taglines

1. Alien

"In space no one can hear you scream"

207
22
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2. The Shawshank Redemption

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free"

111
34
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3. Jaws 2

"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water"

102
35
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4. Platoon

"The first casualty of war is innocence"

66
18
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5. The Social Network

"You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies"

66
20
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6. Taxi Driver

"On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody"

63
18
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7. The 40-Year-Old Virgin

"The longer you wait, the harder it gets"

73
33
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8. The Truman Show

"On the air. Unaware"

49
15
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9. The Thing

"Man is the warmest place to hide"

45
19
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10. The Fly

"Be afraid. Be very afraid"

57
31
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11. A Nightmare On Elm Street

"If Nancy doesn't wake up screaming, she won't wake up at all"

42
18
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12. Chicken Run

"Escape or die frying"

40
17
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13. Tommy Boy

"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards"

48
25
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14. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

"One man's struggle to take it easy"

39
17
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15. Alien Vs Predator

"Whoever wins...we lose"

39
17
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16. 12 Monkeys

"The future is history"

37
16
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17. Napoleon Dynamite

"He's out to prove he's got nothing to prove"

34
16
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18. Psycho

"Check in. Unpack. Relax. Take A Shower"

37
20
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19. I Am Legend

"The last man on earth is not alone"

34
17
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20. Predator 2

"He's in town with a few days to kill"

40
25
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21. Superman

"You'll believe a man can fly"

38
24
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22. Quiz Show

"Fifty million people watching and no one saw a thing"

26
12
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23. Contagion

"Nothing spreads like fear"

25
13
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24. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

"An epic of epic epicness"

38
28
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25. The Royal Tenenbaums

"Family isn't a word. It's a sentence"

30
21
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26. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

"Who will survive and what will be left of them?"

27
18
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27. Bonnie & Clyde

"They're young...they're in love...and they kill people"

21
13
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28. Greedy

"Where there's a will, there's a relative"

25
18
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29. Lost In Translation

"Everyone wants to be found"

22
16
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30. True Lies

"When he said I do, he never said what he did"

26
22
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31. Deliverance

"This is the weekend they didn't play golf"

19
19
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32. The Graduate

"This is Benjamin. He's a little worried about his future"

13
15
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33. Gattaca

"There is no gene for the human spirit"

14
17
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34. Swingers

"Cocktails first. Questions later"

14
17
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35. High Noon

"The story of a man who was too proud to run"

12
16
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36. Brokeback Mountain

"Love is a force of nature"

14
18
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37. The Godfather Part III

"All the power on earth can't change destiny"

12
16
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38. American Beauty

"...look closer"

15
19
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39. Bram Stoker's Dracula

"Love never dies"

15
22
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40. Zodiac

"There's more than one way to lose your life to a killer"

81
147
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The best final lines in movies, ranked.

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