Most Quotable Movie Quote Bracket - Champion

 

The moment you’ve all been waiting for is here.  It’s time to announce the champion of the Great Movie Quote Bracket! (Drumroll) And the winner is…..

“May the Force Be With You”

Congrats to Star Wars and all fans of the Force.  It was a very close vote of 26-23, and I have to admit, I was a little surprised by the outcome.  I thought “You’re killing me Smalls” was destined to win, especially after it jumped out to a big early lead.  But “May the Force” stayed the course and came out on top at the end.  As a huge Star Wars fan, I’m excited that this was voted the most quotable quote, but I actually think it was a bit of an upset despite the seed lines.  However, I think we can all agree that both quotes are timeless and it was a very fitting championship match.

And in the other big reveal of the vote, next year’s bracket will be One Hit Wonders!  I’m so excited for this one because I’ve never done a music bracket before.  Thank you all who voted, and I hope you come back next year to vote again for the Best One Hit Wonder of All Time.

Most Quotable Movie Quote Bracket - Championship

 

And here we are, the last two quotes standing.  The Sandlot vs Star Wars.  I’m honestly not too surprised to see these two in the championship, and I expect it to be a close vote to determine the winner.  The Final Four matchups were both close with the winners pulling away late to both win by 8 votes.  

And so ends the Cinderella run of “Houston, we have a problem” which was also the final Tom Hanks quote left in the bracket.  Hanks had the most quotes of anyone in the bracket with three.  Six other actors had two quotes in the bracket.  Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger saw both of their quotes go out in the Sweet Sixteen.  80s and 90s quotes performed the best in the bracket, but they also made up the majority of the quotes in the bracket with 35 out of 64.  That is likely reflective of yours truly, who was highly influenced by movies of that era.  But quotes from the 30s and 40s also held their own, starting with 7 quotes and taking two all the way to the Elite Eight.  But at the end of the day we are left with a quote from the 70s (“May the Force Be With You) and a quote from the 90s (You’re killing me, Smalls”).  

Enough with the quirky facts, though.  Let’s get to the voting.  This is it.  Only one quote will be left standing.  And as I’ve done the past few years, there is a bonus question for you to vote on your pick for next year’s bracket.  Thanks to all who voted this year!

Most Quotable Movie Quote Bracket - Final Four

 

We made it to the Final Four!  It’s been a crazy ride along the way, and after four rounds we are left with four very popular quotes.  But not necessarily the four highest seeded quotes.  The Elite Eight started with three 1-seeds, but only one remains headed into the Final Four.  That’s right, there actually three upsets in the last round as 2-seed “Yippee Ki Yay” took down 1-seed “Here’s looking at you, kid” 5-seed “You’re killing me smalls” took out 3-seed “No, I am father” and in the most surprising result, 10-seed “Houston, we have a problem” continued its Cinderella run by ousting 1-seed “There’s no place like home.”  So that leaves us with two intriguing matchups in the Final Four.

“You’re killing me, smalls” vs “Houston, we have a problem”

“Yippee ki yay, mother fucker” vs “May the Force be with you”

If I were to make a prediction, I would probably be wrong, so I won’t.  But at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these four quotes ended up winning.  They have each had close wins and blowouts, so it is hard to peg any of them as a certain favorite.  Enough analysis, though.  Let’s get to the voting!

Most Quotable Movie Quote Bracket - Elite Eight

 

Well, that was certainly an eventful round of voting as there were quite a few upsets, including our first 1-seed to lose.  That’s right, the #1 overall seed, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” went down to “You’re killing me, Smalls” and it wasn’t even all that close.  We also had two more 2-seeds go down and the 10-seed “Houston, we have a problem” continues to defy all odds and keeps advancing.  I thought “You can’t handle the truth” was a contender to win it all, but clearly fans of Apollo 13 had other ideas.  That’s not to say it wasn’t a close vote, but still surprising.  In fact, there were three matchups decided by fewer than 5 votes, so it is obvious that the choices are getting tougher.  As we head into the Elite Eight, there is only one region in which the two top seeds survived.  Will favorites from The Sandlot and The Princess Bride continue to move forward?  Or will remaining top seeds from Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz continue to dominate?  There’s only one way to find out!

It’s time to vote! 

Most Quotable Movie Quote Bracket - Sweet Sixteen

 

We are down to 16 now and there are mostly top seeds left.  Round 2 provided us with another almost upset free round.  Of the three double digit seeds that advanced out of the first round, only one won this week.  “Houston we have a problem” pulled the upset over “You talking to me?” in what was probably the most shocking result of the round.  The only other mild upset was 6 seed, “Hello my name is Inigo Montoya” taking out 3 seed “To infinity and beyond”.  I don’t consider 5 seeds beating 4 seeds much of an upset, but we had a couple of those too.  So we are left with a lot of high seeds battling it out to make it to the Elite Eight.  It should be interesting to see what happens because most of the winners from the last round won fairly convincingly.  There were only three matchups that we decided by 5 votes or fewer.  Now those dominant winners will have to go head to head and voters will have some tough choices to make.

And speaking of those tough choices, let’s get right to it.  Time to vote!

Most Quotable Movie Quote Bracket - Round 2

 

Round 1 is in the books and it is time to move on to Round 2 where the choices get even tougher.  But first, a few observations from Round 1.  In a bracket full of popular movie quotes, there were only 3 double digit seeds to advance.  So clearly I did an excellent job seeding the tournament.  Although one of those higher seeds took out one of my favorites from Field of Dreams.  This is the second time that Field of Dreams has made an early exit in one of my brackets.  I’m beginning to think other people don’t revere that movie like I do.  That’s not to say there weren’t some close matchups, as we had two matches decided by one vote.  There were also five matches decided by over 30 votes, so the pendulum swings both ways.  Another thing that stood out to me is that quotes from newer movies, those released in 2000 or later, did relatively poorly.  Out of 11 quotes from 2000s movies, only 2 advanced, from Finding Nemo and Anchorman.  I thought recency bias might play a role, but clearly I was wrong.  It will be interesting to see how things continue to play out as the field narrows.

With that said, let’s get to the voting!  

Most Quotable Movie Quote of All Time Bracket!

You’ve waited all year and the time is here! That’s right, it’s time for March Madness and lots of talk about brackets! But if you are here to read about college basketball brackets, you are in the wrong place (although I’m always happy to talk about college basketball as well). This year’s bracket, though, is focused on something I think we all can relate to, movie quotes. Movie quotes have made an indelible impact on our culture and I’m sure we’ve all had moments in which we’ve explained to someone what spirit fingers are or casually mentioned that you’ll be back in your best Austrian accent. And that’s the power of a good movie quote, that it can infiltrate our common vernacular and become part of our everyday lexicon. That’s really just a fancy way of saying that it has become quotable in everyday contexts and a majority of people understand what you are talking about.


As I was putting this bracket together I kept going back and forth about the direction I wanted to go. Should I focus on quotes that are most impactful in the movies in which they appear? Or quotes that historians have labeled as the best of all time? The more I poured through various lists of best quotes of all time, the more I realized many of these lists lacked a quintessential element of a good movie quote, how quotable it is in everyday life. So as much as I wanted to honor the history of film through quotes, I more so wanted to know what quotes are the most quotable. This year’s bracket attempts to determine what is the most quotable movie quote of all time.


As far as creating the bracket is concerned, there was no completely scientific way to do it. I couldn’t create a perfectly objective quotability score to assign each quote and the metrics I had to work with focused on the movies themselves, not the individual quotes. But I was determined, so I poured through lists of quotes online and used those rankings to start creating my own rankings. Then I started making some executive decisions, starting with only allowing one quote per movie. I figured that was fair to ensure more movies would be represented. And I made sure to separate quotes from the same actor or the same franchise into different regions. As my list and rankings started coming together more, I started moving quotes up and down on the list based on my own judgements and experiences with each quote. It was difficult to leave some quotes out and even more difficult to seed the remaining quotes. When narrowing down almost 100 years of movie quotes to 64, some very good ones are going to be left out, and some of those that get in are going to be seeded low. I fully expect people to be upset about the seeding and have some favorites that were omitted. I always like to hear where you think I went wrong and I welcome those friendly debates.


But enough of the boring stuff, let’s get to the voting! Here are the matchups in Round 1. The goal is to determine the most quotable quote of all time, but feel free to vote however you see fit. You can see the entire bracket below as well. And please feel free to share with friends and family.