GOOD WILL HUNTING [1997]

Some People Can Never Believe In Themselves, 

Until Someone Believes In Them

Nail them while they're vulnerable, that's my motto.

[Sean]

I just have a little question here. 

You could be a janitor anywhere. 

Why did work at the most prestigious technical college in the whole fuckin' world? 

And why did you sneak around at night and finish other people's formulas that only one or two people in the world could do and then lie about it? 

'Cause I don't see a lot of honor in that, Will.

[Sean]

[Sean]: Do you have a soul mate?

[Will]: Define that.

[Sean]: Someone you can relate to, someone who opens things up for you.

[Will]: Sure, I got plenty.

[Sean]: Well, name them.

[Will]: Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Frost, O'Conner...

[Sean]: Well that's great. They're all dead.

[Will]: Not to me, they're not.

[Sean]: You can't have a lot of dialogue with them.

[Will]: Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts.

[Sean]: So what do you really want to do?

[Will]: I wanna be a shepherd.

[Sean]: Really.

[Will]: I wanna move up to Nashua, get a nice little spread, 
get some sheep and tend to them.

[Sean]: Maybe you should go do that.

[Will]: I didn't ask for this.

[Sean]: No, you were born with it. So don't cop out behind 'I didn't ask for this'.

[Sean]: Maybe 'you're' perfect right now. Maybe you don't wanna ruin that. 

I think that's a super philosophy, Will; that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody...

[Will]: You ever think about gettin' remarried?

[Sean]: My wife's dead.

[Will]: Hence the word: remarried.

[Sean]: She's dead.

[Will]: Yeah; well, I think that's a super philosophy, Sean. 

I mean, that way you could actually go through the rest of your life without ever really knowing anybody.

[Sean]: Time's up.

[Sean]: Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. 

Stayed up half the night thinking about it. 

Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. 

Do you know what occurred to me?

[Will]: No.

[Sean]: You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.

[Will]: Why thank you.

[Sean]: It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.

[Will]: Nope.

[Sean]: So if I asked you about art, 
you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. 

Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. 
Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, 
sexual orientations, the whole works, right? 

But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. 

You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. 

If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. 

You may have even been laid a few times. 

But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. 

You're a tough kid. 

And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, 
 "once more unto the breach dear friends." 

But you've never been near one. 

You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, 
watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. 

I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. 

But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. 

Known someone that could level you with her eyes, 
feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. 

Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. 

And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, 
be there forever, through anything, through cancer. 

And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, 
holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, 
that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. 

You don't know about real loss, 
'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. 

And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. 

And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... 
I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. 

But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. 

No one could possibly understand the depths of you. 

But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, 
and you ripped my fucking life apart. 
You're an orphan right?

*Will nods*

You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, 
how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? 

Does that encapsulate you? 

Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, 
I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. 

Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. 

But you don't want to do that, do you sport? 

You're terrified of what you might say. 
Your move, chief.

That's why I'm not talkin' right now about some girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago 
and how I always regretted not going over and talking to her. 

I don't regret the 18 years I was married to Nancy. 

I don't regret the six years I had to give up counseling when she got sick. 

And I don't regret the last years when she got really sick. 

And I sure as hell don't regret missin' the damn game. 

That's regret.

[Sean]

[Skylar]: What is your obsession with this money? 

My father died when I was 13 and I inherited this money. 

You don't think that every day I wake up and wish I could give it back? 

That I would give it back in a second if I could have one more day with him? 

But I can't, and that's my life and I deal with it. 

So don't put your shit on me when you're the one that's afraid.

[Will]: I'm afraid? What am I afraid of? What the fuck am I afraid of?

[Skylar]: You're afraid of me! You're afraid that I won't love you back! 

Fuck it, I wanna give it a shot! At least I'm honest with you.

Sometimes I wish I had never met you. 

Because then I could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there.

[Lambeau]

 

You know, I was on this plane once. 

And I'm sittin' there and the captain comes on and he does his whole, 'We'll be cruising at 35,000 feet,' then he puts the mike down but he forgets to turn it off. 

Then he turns to the copilot and goes, 'You know, all I could go for right now is a fuckin' blow job and a cup of coffee.' 

So the stewardess fuckin' goes bombin' up from the back of the plane to tell him the mic's still on, and this guy behind me goes, 'Hey hon, don't forget the coffee!'

[Will]

Every day I come by your house and I pick you up. And we go out. 
We have a few drinks, and a few laughs, and it's great. 

But you know what the best part of my day is? 

For about ten seconds, from when I pull up to the curb and when I get to your door, 
'cause I think, maybe I'll get up there and I'll knock on the door and you won't be there. 

No goodbye. No see you later. No nothing. You just left. 

I don't know much, but I know that.

[Chuckie]

*****

MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING [1997]

Julianne Fell in Love With Her Best Friend  
The Day He Decided to Marry Someone Else

If he were feeling what I'm feeling then he would know how it feels. 

[Julianne Potter]

Michael, I love you. I've loved you for nine years. 

I've just been too arrogant and scared to realize it, and, well, now, I'm just scared, so 
- I-I-I realize this comes at a very inopportune time, 
but I really have this gigantic favor to ask of you. 

Choose me. M-marry me. Let me make you happy. 

Oh, that sounds like three favors, doesn't it? B-but... 

[Julianne Potter]

[George Downes]: Listen, Jules. Why don't we stop and have a drink? 

You can take a later flight.

[Julianne Potter]: No, no, no, no. I'm a busy girl. 

I've got exactly four days to break up a wedding, 
steal the bride's fella and I haven't one clue how to do it. 

He was in love with everyday for nine godddamn years. Me!

[Julianne Potter]: You're going to humiliate me, aren't you? 

[George Downes]: Only if I can. 

[Julianne Potter]: What I mean, when I say annoyingly perfect, is that there is nothing annoying about her perfection. 

It's vulnerable and endearing... and that is annoying as shit.

[George Downes]: Ahh... you like her... 

[Julianne Potter]: If I didn't have to hate her, I'd adore her.

Look, tell him you love him. Bite the bullet.

[George Downes]

[George Downes]: Michael's chasing Kimmy?

[Julianne Potter]: Yes! 

[George Downes]: You're chasing Michael? 

[Julianne Potter]: YES! 

[George Downes]: Who's chasing you... nobody, get it? 

There's your answer. It's Kimmy. 

[George Downes]: The misery, the exquisite tragedy. The Susan Hayward of it all. 

I can just picture you there, sitting alone at your table in your lavender gown. 

[Julianne Potter]: Did I tell you my gown was lavender?

[George Downes]: Hair swept up. Haven't touched your cake. 

Probably drumming your fingernails on the white linen tablecloth, 
the way you do when you're really feeling down. 

Perhaps looking at those nails thinking: 
'God, I should have stopped in all my evil plotting to have that manicure', 
but it's too late now.

[Julianne Potter]: George, I didn't tell you my dress was lavender.

[George Downes]: Suddenly, a familiar song. 

And, you're off your chair in one, exquisite movement... 
wondering, searching, sniffing the wind like a dapple deer. 

Has God heard your little prayer? Will Cinderella dance again? 

And then, suddenly, the crowds part 
and there he is: sleek, stylish... radiant with charisma. 

Bizarrely, he's on the telephone. But then, so are you. 

And then he comes towards you... the moves of a jungle cat. 

Although you quite correctly sense that he is... gay... like most devastatingly handsome single men of his age are, you think... what the hell. 

Life goes on. 

Maybe there won't be marriage... maybe there won't be sex... 
but, by God, there'll be dancing. 

 He's got you on a pedestal and me in his arms.

[Kimmy Wallace]

[Kimmy Wallace]: He sucks soup through his front teeth. 

[Julianne Potter]: That's a trademark move. Don't touch that one. 

[Kimmy Wallace]: But he sure can kiss.

[Michael O'Neill]: Kimmy says if you love someone you say it, you say it right then, out loud. 

Otherwise, the moment just... 

[Julianne Potter]: Passes you by.

[Michael O'Neill]: Passes you by. Yeah.

*****

CONTACT [1997]

If It's Just Us, 

It Seems Like An Awful Waste Of Space

[Young Ellie]: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?

[Ted Arroway]: I don't know, Sparks. 

But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.

[David Drumlin]: I know you must think this is all very unfair. 

Maybe that's an understatement. What you don't know is I agree. 

I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, 
where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, 
not taken advantage of. 

Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. 

[Ellie Arroway]: Funny, I've always believed that the world is what we make of it.

[Executive]: We must confess that your proposal seems less like science and more like science fiction. 

[Ellie Arroway]: Science fiction. Well you're right, it's crazy. 
In fact, it's even worse than that, nuts. 

*angrily slams down her briefcase and marches up to the desk*

You wanna hear something really nutty? 

I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an "airplane," 
you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's ridiculous, right? 

And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon, or atomic energy, 
 or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? 

Look, all I'm asking, is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. 

You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. 

To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history.

[Palmer Joss]: What are you studying up there? 

[Ellie Arroway]: Oh, the usual. Nebulae, quasars, pulsars, stuff like that. 

What are you writing?

[Palmer Joss]: The usual. Nouns, adverbs, adjective here and there.

[Palmer Joss, Ellie challenges Palmer to prove the existence of God]: Did you love your father?

[Ellie Arroway]: What?

[Palmer Joss]: Your dad. Did you love him? 

[Ellie Arroway]: Yes, very much. 

[Palmer Joss]: Prove it.

[Palmer Joss]: By doing this, you're willing to give your life, you're willing to die for it. Why?

[Ellie Arroway]: For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, 
some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we? 

If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer... 
I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. 

Don't you? 

So what's more likely? 

That an all-powerful, mysterious God created the Universe, 
and decided not to give any proof of his existence? 

Or, that He simply doesn't exist at all, and that we created Him, 
so that we wouldn't have to feel so small and alone?

[Ellie Arroway]

Mathematics is the only true universal language.

[Ellie Arroway]

Is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? 

We shop at home, we surf the web... 
at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history... 

[Palmer Joss]

I'm not against technology, doctor. 

I'm against the men who deify it at the expense of human truth. 

[Palmer Joss]

As a person of faith I'm bound by a different covenant than Doctor Arroway. 

But our goal is one and the same: the pursuit of Truth. 

I for one believe her. 

[Palmer Joss]

*****

HERCULES [1997]

Zero to Hero!

I'm a big tough girl. I tie my own sandals and everything.

[Meg]

[Hercules]: You know, wh-when I was a kid, I-I would have given anything to be exactly like everybody else.

[Meg]: You wanted to be petty and dishonest?

[Hercules]: Everybody's not like that.

[Meg]: Yes, they are.

[Hercules]: You're not like that.

[Meg]: How do you know what I'm like? 

[Hercules]: Meg, when I'm with you, I-I don't feel so alone.

[Meg]: Sometimes it's better to be alone.

[Hercules]: What do you mean?

[Meg]: Nobody can hurt you.

[Hercules]: Aren't you... a damsel in distress?

[Meg]: I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day. 

The one and only Thebes. The Big Olive itself. 

If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

[Phil]

I trained all those would-be heroes. Odysseus, Perseus, Theseus. A lot of "yeuseus." 

And every one of those bums let me down flatter than a discus. 

None of them could go the distance.

[Phil]

 [Zeus]: So, Hades, you finally made it. How are things in the underworld?

[Hades]: Well, they're just fine. You know, a little dark, a little gloomy. 

And, as always, hey, full of dead people.

What are you gonna do? It's a small underworld, after all, huh?

[Hades]

We dance, we kiss, we schmooze, we carry on, we go home happy. 

What do you say? Come on.

[Hades]

*****

CONSPIRACY THEORY [1997]

What You Know Could Kill You

Have you ever been a place where hope was gone? Where all that's left is patience?

[Dr. Jonas]

[Jerry Fletcher]: David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Richard Speck... 

[Alice Sutton]: What about them?

[Jerry Fletcher]: Serial killers. Serial killers only have two names. You ever notice that? 

But lone gunmen assassins, they always have three names. 

John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman... 

[Alice Sutton]: John Hinckley. He shot Reagan. He only has two names. 

[Jerry Fletcher]: Yeah, but he only just shot Reagan. Reagan didn't die. 

If Reagan had died, I'm pretty sure we probably would all know what John Hinckley's middle name was. 

*****