Remember when Humphrey Bogart said “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca? Or when Gordon Gecko said “Greed is good” in Wall Street? Or when Roy Scheider said, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” in Jaws? Some of the greatest movie lines in film history, right?
Trick question. None of those lines were actually spoken in their films. All of them (and many more) have been misremembered and mutated in our collective consciousness – or maybe they’re Mandela Effects. The infamous Mandela Effect theory claims that the events we “misremember” are actually memories from alternate realities.
Are these misquoted movie lines actually hints that our consciousnesses are surfing on quantum patterns across slightly different alternate universes? Or are they clues that what we perceive to be reality is just a glitchy simulation? Vote up the Mandela Effect movie quotes that make you question your own reality.
“Luke, I am your Father.” – Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Photo: 20th Century Fox
The Actual Line: “No, I am your father.”
In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader starts his infamous monologue with “Luke” but doesn’t repeat his son’s name for some time. The infamous line actually starts with “No,” since Vader is contradicting Luke’s accusation that Vader killed his father.
Without this context, however, many Star Wars fans and casual viewers will vehemently insist that the line starts with “Luke.” One Redditor refuses to rewatch the movie clip, claiming they “have to preserve the original memory. In one interview, even James Earl Jones himself, the voice of Vader, seems to remember the line as “Luke, I am your father.”
- Actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels
- Released: 1980
- Directed by: Irvin Kershner
“Hello, Clarice.” – The Silence of the Lambs
Photo: Orion Pictures
The Actual Line: Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) never actually says this infamous line in The Silence of the Lambs, though many movie afficionados would likely beg to differ.
The phrase has come to represent the unique relationship between Lecter and the fresh-faced FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who seeks his help on an urgent investigation. Lecter greets Starling three times in the film: “Good morning,” “Your bleeding has stopped,” and “Good evening, Clarice.” In the final scene, he also says to her over the phone, “Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?”
The misquote may have started when Jim Carrey jokingly imitated Lecter in 1996’s Cable Guy. Some proponents of the Mandela Effect theory cite this as evidence that the line was still in its “early” form when Cable Guy was made.
- Actors: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald
- Released: 1991
- Directed by: Jonathan Demme
“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” – Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Photo: RKO Radio Pictures
The Actual Line: “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”
This infamous line from Disney’s first animated feature is often confused with the version from the original Grimm Brothers fairy tale, which reads “Mirror, mirror,” not “Magic mirror.” The second part of the line is likely misremembered because it has one too many syllables to fit the rhythm, hence why people shorten “who is” to “who’s.”
One Redditor thinks the line actually changed since the movie’s original release:
How does that account for all the “Mirror Mirror” official Disney merch, all the advertisements running with the “Mirror Mirror” line, and even all the reviewers who stepped out of the cinema upon veiwing the film to utter statements like, “Mirror Mirror on the Wall / Who’s the Fairest of them all, has entered folklore.
Pair the physical evidence with the millions of people who remember “Mirror Mirror” – surely there must be some red flags going up?
- Actors: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne, Moroni Olsen, Billy Gilbert
- Released: 1937
- Directed by: David Hand
“Play it again, Sam.” – Casablanca
Casablanca is also ranked #6 of 96 on The Very Best Oscar-Winning Movies For Best Picture
Photo: Warner Bros.
The Actual Line: “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.'”
In Casablanca, both Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) ask pianist/singer Sam (Dooley Wilson) at different times to play “As Time Goes By,” the song which evokes bittersweet memories of their Parisian idyll.
This collective memory was likely formed because of Woody Allen’s 1969 play (and subsequent 1972 film adaptation) Play It Again, Sam, in which a divorced writer looking for love is given advice and encouragement by ghostly visions of Casablanca‘s Rick.
Some folks, however, insist the line really was “Play it again,” and one supposed piece of evidence is this obscure 1980s music video. Around the minute mark, you can hear an audio sample of Bogart (or someone doing a Bogart impression) saying the line, again suggesting that the Mandela ripple doesn’t affect all media equally or at the same time.
- Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt
- Released: 1942
- Directed by: Michael Curtiz
“If you build it, they will come.” – Field of Dreams
Photo: Universal Pictures
The Actual Line: “If you build it, he will come.”
At the beginning of the 1989 magical-realist baseball drama Field of Dreams, farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Coster) is wandering around a cornfield when a mysterious voice says, “If you build it, he will come.”
Kinsella becomes convinced that, if he builds a baseball diamond in the middle of his farm, legendary baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) will come to play in it. Shoeless Joe does come, along with many other players of yore, but the movie’s final twist is that the “he” actually referred to Kinsella’s deceased father, who returns at the end to play catch with his son, healing a decades-old wound in their relationship.
Our memory of this line may have been skewed for a couple of reasons. First, writer Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) tells Kinsella that “people will most definitely come” to the ballpark and pay admission – this might have infected people’s memories of the line with the concept of “they.” Second, the 1994 film Wayne’s World 2 muddied the waters with a line that roughly spoofed Field of Dreams: “If you book them, they will come.”
One piece of Mandela Effect “residue” is the 2001 stoner comedy How High, which features a pre-SNL Tracey Morgan in a Field of Dreams spoof. He’s standing in a cornfield when a voice whispers “If you build it, they will come.”
- Actors: Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Gaby Hoffmann, Ray Liotta
- Released: 1989
- Directed by: Phil Alden Robinson
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” – Jaws
Photo: Universal Pictures
The Actual Line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
In the unforgettable scene from Jaws, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) gets his first close-up look at the gigantic shark he and his companions are hunting. He then staggers back into the Orca‘s cabin and tells Quint (Robert Shaw) that he’s going to need a bigger boat. The line is likely misremembered as “we’re” since the more inclusive term makes more sense outside of the dramatic context.
Even Roy Scheider himself claims the line – which he improvised on set – starts with “We’re.”
- Actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton
- Released: 1975
- Directed by: Steven Spielberg
“Please, sir, may I have some more?” – Oliver Twist
Photo: Columbia Pictures
The Actual Line: “Please, sir, I want some more.”
Collective memory has changed this to “Please, sir, may I have some more?” probably because it sounds meeker that way. However, there is something satisfying about his slight tone of defiance in the original line.
- Actors: Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, Mark Lester, Shani Wallis, Harry Secombe
- Released: 1968
- Directed by: Carol Reed
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” – The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz is also ranked #8 of 204 on Musical Movies With The Best Songs
Photo: Loew’s, Incorporated
The Actual Line: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
The phrasing Dorothy (Judy Garland) uses for “I’ve a feeling” sounds rather archaic to modern ears, hence why this famous line seems to have been altered over time.
Redditors are divided as to whether this line is a legitimate Mandela Effect candidate – some actually have always remembered it as “I’ve a feeling.” The discussion, however, raises another Oz oddity: in the Haunted Forest scene, the Scarecrow is carrying a pistol. Some insist this was not in the original film, though they may have just blocked it out of their memories.
- Actors: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley
- Released: 1939
- Directed by: Victor Fleming
“Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?” – The Graduate
Photo: Embassy Pictures
The Actual Line: “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?”
Our collective reimagination of this Graduate line is more compact than the actual wording, which helps it to stay in our memories. However, when Dustin Hoffman poked fun at the line in the 1991 Simpsons episode “Lisa’s Substitute,” he did phrase it as a statement, not a question.
- Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton
- Released: 1967
- Directed by: Mike Nichols
“Greed is good.” – Wall Street
Photo: 20th Century Fox
The Actual Line: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
The nuance between the actual line and the Mandela Effect is important – the former suggests that Gordon Gecko, the villain of 1987’s high-finance drama Wall Street, doesn’t really feel that the word “greed” properly captures the entrepreneurial drive that keeps capitalist systems chugging along. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the moralistic implications of that word, but he uses it anyway, because, as he admits, he can’t think of a better one.
Time tends to whittle down extraneous words in quotations until only the essence remains, and this may very well be the case here.
- Actors: Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Terence Stamp, Sean Young
- Released: 1987
- Directed by: Oliver Stone
“Life is like a box of chocolates.” – Forrest Gump
Photo: Paramount Pictures
The Actual Line: “My mamma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
Many folks are convinced this line was really “is” back in 1994 when the movie released. Arguments mostly center around grammatical nitpicking: “Mamma always said life was like a box of chocolates” is, in Mandela believers’ view, nonsensical, because the past tense usage should have ceased after the word “said.”
Others chalk this discrepancy up to a few faulty memories influencing the widespread usage of the famous line.
- Actors: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, Sally Field
- Released: 1994
- Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
