American Movie Quotes

#1. I'm a European, and I live there. I work in European films, and then once in a while, I make an American movie.

Monica Bellucci

#2. I always used to wonder why American actors were getting fat, then I made a U.S. movie. I'm seeing all the food every day, and there's lots of waiting around because making an American movie is very slow.

Donnie Yen

#3. For every big American movie I've done where I was the supporting guy, I've gone back home to Canada to do supporting movies where I was the lead.

Jay Baruchel

#4. It is a pro-U.N. movie. It's a pro-American movie. It's a pro-American movie. It's a movie people should be watching and not denigrating.

Scott Ritter

#5. For me, it was a lot of pressure to make another movie after 'Inglourious Basterds' because I didn't want to do something wrong. I wanted to have a beautiful project for another American movie.

Melanie Laurent

#6. One thing I don't understand is that average American movie-goers cannot watch a movie for three hours, yet they'll watch a stupid, boring, horrific football game for four hours. Now, that is boredom at its most colossal.

Quentin Tarantino

#7. How many senators have taken their conception of what America can do from what they've seen on the American movie screen?

Zia Haider Rahman

#8. I'm a singer and working on my second album. I write and produce. There is so much more that satisfies me. So there's not just this one ambition to become an American movie star. Because I will never become an American movie star.

Carice Van Houten

#9. When I make an American movie it's going to come out all over the world-it doesn't happen the same way for an Italian film or a French film.

Monica Bellucci

#10. 'Shall We Dance?' takes a small, exquisite Japanese movie and turns it into a big, stupid American movie. Still, it must be said that as glossy and overproduced as the thing is, it's a good big, stupid American movie.

Stephen Hunter

#11. American films are terribly popular all over the world and American movie stars are terribly important. I don't know why.

Vincente Minnelli

#12. Watching a movie a couple of weeks ago. An American movie. I can't remember the name, but it wasn't even a sad movie. It caught me off guard. I was on an airplane.

Roger Federer

#13. I would like to perform more in English. But there have to be many good things gathered for me to be willing to do a movie. I watch trailers of every new American movie and I'm, like, 'OK, I'm not missing anything!'

Ludivine Sagnier

#14. 'Diary of a Teenage Girl' was my first American movie. It was my first movie in an American accent. It's based on a graphic novel, which was written in 2002 by someone called Phoebe Gloeckner. It was turned into a play by Marielle Heller, who then wrote it as a screenplay for Sundance Labs.

Bel Powley

#15. I want to continue to make beautiful movies. The most important thing is to be a part of beautiful stories, that's all I want. So I don't care if it's a Hollywood movie or an independent movie or a Spanish or American movie. I care about telling stories.

Melanie Laurent

#16. Very often with an American movie, the end is very happy and you just feel good when you go out. When you go to a French movie, it's kind of like, oh!, and you can't go out; you're stuck in your chair. It goes so deeply inside of the heart.

Emmanuelle Beart

#17. For instance, I love the movie Casablanca. Who doesn't? No matter how many egghead critics declare Citizen Kane to be the greatest American movie, we all know it's Casablanca in fact.

Andrew Klavan

#18. After 10 years of French torture - psychological torture - it's great to do an American movie.

Emmanuelle Beart

#19. I think that if you do an American movie it's important to earn some money, but in a stupid way, to be respected.

Audrey Tautou

#20. The Deer Hunter is securely on my list of American movie events, by which I mean those films that aspired to the whole equation, to be show business and art at the same time.

Edward Jay Epstein

#21. Not disown my past or upbringing, but I'd admired American actors, really American movie star - particularly the rebel heroes of the '50s.

Maxwell Caulfield

#22. Maybe every other American movie shouldn't be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.

Bill Maher

#23. Big hooks have always been a part of American movie-making. So, to make a movie where you're just driving story through the characters without a high-concept is a challenge.

Steve Pink

#24. The contemporary notion that it's somehow inherently bad for a film to be 'talky' has done grave damage to the culture of American movie-making, enough so that a growing number of people, myself among them, have all but given up on Hollywood.

Terry Teachout

#25. South Sea natives who have been exposed to American movies classify them into two types, 'kiss-kiss' and 'bang-bang.

Hortense Powdermaker

#26. Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny - and judging from the record of this case not very violent compared to what is available to children on television and in movie theaters today.

Richard Posner

#27. For some strange reason we don't go to charming, light movies anymore. People expect a movie to be heavy and turgid, like "American Beauty." We've become a heavy-handed society.

Pauline Kael

#28. Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

Michael Haneke

#29. In the U.S., some extraordinary movies have been made on politics and social issues. We learned lots of things from American cinema. But in the last ten or fifteen years, this has changed drastically. Today, that kind of movie is much easier to make in Europe.

Costa-Gavras

#30. I rather like the idea of having all my hours to myself: eating a Fudge Sundae, watching a movie, sleeping on my couch, singing in the bathroom, studying the woods, kidding around with a girl, playing cards lazily - all kinds of stuff that American brands 'shiftless.'

Jack Kerouac

#31. There are only seven movie stars in the world whose name alone will induce American bankers to lend money for movie productions, and the only woman on the list is Ingrid Bergman.

Cary Grant

#32. I'm used to American actors who have a movie career thinking television acting is beneath them.

Alan Ball

#33. I'm probably an actor that tends to, instead of putting things on, think about it more in terms of taking away what's not in the character, until I'm left with what is. If that makes sense. That's probably a particularly American way of working, but maybe not. The end of any movie is a readjustment.

Molly Parker

#34. I didn't watch a lot of American television growing up. I just liked to read a lot and watch movies - movies, movies, and more movies. My family used to make fun of me because I'd like every movie I saw.

Joss Whedon

#35. Every American has the right to feel safe in their schools, in their churches, in their movie theaters, and in their nightclubs.

Jackie Speier

#36. What I dislike about movie culture is that it often presents a parable of our problems - but the issues are all straightforward and the people are either nice or they're not. In real life, everyone falls between those perimeters, but not many American films operate in that grey area.

Julian Fellowes

#37. The movie industry would never purposely offend homosexuals, native Americans, environmentalists, animal rights activists, or women's groups, but they don't think twice about something that might offend Christians.

Tim LaHaye

#38. 'Night Watch' itself is a very Russian movie. It's impossible to imagine this kind of movie somewhere else: a movie with a depressing ending, a lot of inexplicable storylines, strange characters. It's a Russian reflection of American film culture.

Timur Bekmambetov

#39. I still remember 1997 when I made the movie 'Storm Riders;' that moment, a lot of American producers want to hire me to make movies in the States.

Andrew Lau

#40. When we were making the movie, winning awards for it wasn't the point at all. We didn't even have an American distributor.

Michel Hazanavicius

#41. I don't think Jennifer Lawrence deserves to be in this category [leading role]? Joy is a great movie, obviously. She's a great actress and I don't want to take anything from her, but it ain't American Hustle.

Bun B.

#42. George Clooney's 'Ides of March' could be the most under-appreciated movie of the year. In 20 years they're gonna go back and say, 'Oh, that was American politics in that time period.' I follow politics, I love it, and that movie is so authentic.

Harvey Weinstein

#43. There was a widespread indignation in the American media. They were saying, 'How can you make a movie during an election that's about politics? What are you doing? Are you trying to influence people's lives?' To which my response was, 'Well, I hope so.'

John Sayles

#44. When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable.

Michael Haneke

#45. Postal will be so politically incorrect and harsh, it's like a mirror to American society, and I don't think the movie will be well received by anybody. For example, Osama Bin Laden will be one of the lead characters-I think that shows the mood of the movie.

Uwe Boll

#46. Unfortunately, many talented people in Hollywood find their values and politics do not reflect the content they create, and many movie themes are in direct contrast with over half of today's American families.

Allen Covert

#47. I tried to find a character and how I would be an American actress in the 30s. But if this was a talking movie [The Artist], I'm sure she would be exactly the same for me.

Berenice Bejo

#48. In Divorce American style, there was the discomfort of seeing one of the beautiful wasted actresses of the screen, Jean Simmons. Her suggestions of sensibility - what she embodies - were too fine for the world of that movie. Her presence made the movie she was trapped in seem uglier.

Jean Simmons

#49. When we talk about Oscars, it's almost as a symbol of excellence, and the American public and the worldwide public accept that symbol. So, a movie like 'The Artist' that costs $14 million, has to go out and compete with movies that cost $140 million. How does David deal with Goliath?

Harvey Weinstein

#50. And you know, we were talking about American identity, and where we've come from and where we are and where we're headed. We knew that we wanted to have a hopeful ending and we wanted it to be pro-community, and a pro-democracy type of movie.

Matt Damon

#51. I made 'Siam Sunset.' In Australia, it was pretty much universally hated, but I did notice that almost any American who saw it loved that film, so in 2001 I made a film in America called 'Swimfan,' and they released like a big studio movie, and it made money.

John Polson

#52. American Pie' was a big movie for me. No one knew it at the time, but it allowed me to be offered such movies as 'Like Mike' and 'New York Minute' with the Olsen twins

Eugene Levy

#53. Yes, and it's my third movie with Richard. American Gigolo was my first.

Hector Elizondo

#54. I've made it my mission to make movies starring African American actors and about the African American experience and put them in the mainstream. They're very universal stories I've told - every movie I've done.

Malcolm D. Lee

#55. I feel like the American years were my apprenticeship for doing a Bond movie.

Sam Mendes

#56. Very difficult to understand American audience, what they like, what they don't like. Some movie I like very much, it doesn't work. Some movie I don't like, it gets big box office. Very difficult.

Jackie Chan

#57. I'm in kind of a strange position - I have a strong Australian career and a strong British career. Then there's the American career. For every movie I do here, I do two somewhere else. I bounce back and forth between the three places.

Caroline Goodall

#58. I'm sure I can make a movie that doesn't feel like a seventies movie! But the truth is, that's my favorite era in American filmmaking. To me, those were the great years.

Ben Affleck

#59. Hey, I saw this old British movie, all the people spoke so different, you could hardly understand them. But everyone here speaks American as good as you and me. What's with that?

Max Barry

#60. When you watch the first 'American Pie' movie, you're like ... 'I know that jock who's kind of sweet and has a girlfriend, and I know that weird off-beat kid.'

Hayden Schlossberg

#61. Even in the realest American cinema that I see, there's still not that sense that this is reality. There's still that sense that you are watching a movie. And hopefully, if we did get our jobs right, that sense disappears when you watch this movie.

Joshua Leonard

#62. You might like that one. But I'll tell you the same thing I tell my students when they complain about the depressing nature of American literature: life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly ( ... )

Matthew Quick

#63. When I was doing the first 'American Pie' movie, I was just happy to have a job. We had a good time, and it was a great group of people, but like any project that I've worked on in my career, you just put your best foot forward, and you're all working together to make the best movie possible.

Thomas Ian Nicholas

#64. For every person who died in the westward migration prior to the Civil War from Native Americans attacking, the stuff of American legends, thousands, maybe tens of thousands died from water holes polluted by cholera and typhoid . . . but that doesn't make for a good movie.

William R. Forstchen

#65. I love films from all these different points of views that used the idea of the school as a way to talk about the American experience. It took me a while to figure how to write a movie like that, because that's not something you learn at film school

Justin Simien

#66. As slavery died for the greater good of America, and the movement for equality sputtered to life, the white woman was on the cover of every American magazine. She was the dazzling jewel on every movie screen, the glory of every commercial and television show.

Jill Scott

#67. We're a nation of celebrity and hero worshipers, so much so that we make heroes out of those who aren't, such as John Wayne: a patriotic, red-blooded, two-fisted American who spent the Second World War in the trenches on the movie lots of Hollywood.

Vincent Bugliosi

#68. Apollo 11 was the movie premiere of moon landings, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Neil was a bit of a mystic, but also a taciturn guy from what I can tell. He really saw the moon as looking like the American high desert. He wasn't someone who dealt in metaphors.

Lily Koppel

#69. I think American Werewolf in London is the greatest werewolf movie of all time.

David Hayter

#70. I'm not an American actor. I'm a French actor. I'll continue in France. If I could make another silent movie in America, I'd like to!

Jean Dujardin

#71. We have to make movies where we do not think this is for the American market or this is for the Chinese market. We have to make a good movie that anyone would just want to sit down and watch because love, language, culture transcend everything.

Michelle Yeoh

#72. Mitt Romney looks like an American President in a Canadian movie.

David Letterman

#73. I guess, on my list, going back to some old American stuff and British stuff that I used to love in the '80s, would be a British show called Dad's Army, which recently just turned into a movie.

Rhys Darby

#74. There are so few guys who do action and do it well. Even fewer who are African-American. Even fewer who have classical-theater training. So a cat like me coming in, I'm bringing all of that to an action movie.

Wesley Snipes

#75. In film, I was surprised when I first saw the movie 'Drive.' I said, 'Oh, God. It sounds great - I love it. Wow, this could be the soundtrack from 'American Gigolo' or 'Cat People.' But I'm surprised that the director would agree with a composer to write that kind of sound.

Giorgio Moroder

#76. I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films.

Kevin Kline

#77. 'American Sniper' is a movie. War is a grim reality and with us still.

Mike Barnicle

#78. It's easier for Europeans to give money to a movie that says a blow job is what brought down American democracy.

Julie Delpy

#79. Bemoan being lower-middle-class and colored in a police state that protects only rich white people and movie stars of all races, though I can't think of any Asian-American ones.

Paul Beatty

#80. One of my favourite kinds of movie is the American picaresque, in which the characters make their way across the country, learning about life against the gorgeous backdrops of that vast land.

Steven Pinker

#81. He looked up grinning. This one is Bluebelle and that one, he gestured at the one that smelled my leg, is Flower.
I made a face. What is with you and the movie Bambi? He stood up fluidly. It's an American classic.

Jennifer L. Armentrout

#82. I have a totally unhealthy and unrealistic fear of being eaten by a great white shark. This is because I belong to a very specific demographic called American Child Whose Parents Made the Ill-Advised Decision To Allow Her To Watch the Movie Jaws At a Sleepover During Her Formative Years.

Elle Lothlorien

#83. They could play married, both happy and unhappy, like no other acting couple have ever played married. They're the Lunts of the American marriage movie.

Jeanine Basinger

#84. It was a distortion, a mercenary decision to create this parallel history in order to drive the movie for an American audience, Both my grandparents were officers in World War Two, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achieve.

David Ayer

#85. I didn't go to Paris until I was a grown-up in 1965. And when I went to Paris, it was the Paris I knew only from American movies.

Woody Allen

#86. I think The Exorcist is the best American horror movie ever made. Friedkin was at the top of his game.

Jason Patric

#87. [On the movie American Hot Wax:] A plot so thin you could thread a needle with it.

Janet Maslin

#88. Bonnie and Clyde became not just a big hit, but a movie that went through young audiences like a first slug of Scotch. It affected clothes, talk, manners. Though set in the thirties it had the feeling of 1966, the most dangerous moment in American young people remembered.

Edward Jay Epstein

#89. I was a child of American popular culture. All I did as a kid was what I could get at the local supermarket or the dime store. Nothing else was seen. Plus what was on television, or the movie theatre. That was it.

Robert Crumb

#90. The American independent cinema is as formulaic as Hollywood and one genre is what you might call the 'inaction movie'. The setting is invariably a decaying town in a regional backwater where a catalytic stranger or returning native meets up with a group of sad, eccentric outsiders.

Philip French

#91. In the early '90s when the American independent movie started, it held personal vision as a premium. That was brilliant timing.

Allison Anders

#92. A movie like 'Selma' should be a relic in a time capsule from 1965, a clue to how well we heeded King's words and how far we have advanced. Instead, it is a reminder that the 'American problem' has yet to be solved.

Richard Corliss

#93. 'Boomerang!' I love that movie just because of Halle Berry, Robin Givens, Eddie Murphy, Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt. There were so many characters. As an actress, to see African-American actors be so diverse was different from what I was used to seeing.

Drew Sidora

#94. I'd like to make really important movies, like American Beauty. I was really proud to be a part of that movie.

Allison Janney

#95. All those involved in the firebombing of Tokyo .. were war criminals interviews recorded in the movie The Fog of War.. the firebombing of Tokyo occurred before the atom bombs.. 100,000 civilians died in one night from American bombs.. 500,000 altogether over several days say some.

Robert McNamara

#96. If the history of the American sentence were a John Ford movie, its second act would conclude with the young Ernest Hemingway walking into a saloon, finding an etiolated Henry James slumped at the bar in a haze of indecision, and shooting him dead.

Adam Haslett

#97. I think American audiences like gangster movies. It's part of the culture.

Vincent Cassel

#98. Modern American war is as easy to script as a B movie.

David Hackworth

#99. I think a lot of American comedies tend to apologize for their bad behavior in the last 10 minutes of the movie.

Todd Phillips

#100. It's easy to see why 'American Horror' is freaking people out. The ultraviolent hallucinations never pause long enough to make sense. In terms of coherence, it makes your average David Lynch movie look like 'Burn Notice.'

Rob Sheffield