< Title Drop

Title Drop/Film

Many are collected in this montage. This one as well.

  • The title characters of a famous French movie were introducing themselves to a girl. To make sure of their names, she asked, "Jim et Jules?" The response? "Non, Jules et Jim!"
  • "Mark his file...as DOA."
  • "The Last Starfighter...is dead." Oh, they go NUTS with this trope.
  • RoboCop 2: One of the rare cases this trope has been done by a sequel with a number in the title. Normally this wouldn't count, considering that "RoboCop 2" is a "character" in the movie, but it's that unusual.
  • Deathstalker II: Possibly the cheesiest use of this trope for a numbered sequel.

Sultana: I'll have my revenge, and Deathstalker too.

  • Near the end of Layer Cake, a major character who's struggled to the top explains how life works to the protagonist. He sums it up with a Title Drop. The main character is then seen having dinner with his friends and deciding he doesn't want to be part of organized crime anymore. Guess what they're eating.
  • Similarly, at the end of To Sir, With Love, "Sir" (Sidney Poitier) gets a coffee cup tagged "To Sir With Love" from the class of former delinquents he taught.
    • It's also a song!
  • In Once Were Warriors, a Title Drop occurs at the end of the film in an exchange between Beth and Jake:

Beth: Our people once were warriors. But unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit. If my spirit can survive living with you for 18 years, Then I can survive anything.

May Day: What a view!
Zorin: To a kill.

Elektra: I could have given you the world.

Bond: The world is not enough.

Elektra: Foolish sentiment.

Bond: Family motto.

      • Said family motto also shows up thirty-some odd years earlier in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, so in a way, The World Is Not Enough has been title dropped in two films.
    • "So you live to Die Another Day...Colonel."
    • Accidentally averted in Tomorrow Never Dies; originally it was titled Tomorrow Never Lies, with the intent that this would be the slogan of Carver's newspaper, Tomorrow.
      • They pulled it in the video game version, however. As he's dying, Carver pushes the three minute countdown for the nuclear launch and drops it horribly out of place.
    • Though "Nobody Does It Better" is the name of the Theme Tune from The Spy Who Loved Me, it still drops the movie's title. But does it so classy: "I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me, it tried to hide from your love light, but like heaven above me. The spy who loved me, is keepin' all my secrets safe tonight."
  • Each of the movies in The Lord of the Rings trilogy feature a Title Drop, mostly to stem the confusion about what they refer to. In the first movie, Elrond proclaims "You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring!" In the second movie, Saruman says "Who now dares to stand against the union of the two towers?" In the third movie, Gandalf says to Denethor "It is not your place to deny the return of the King, steward!"
    • Although the meanings of the first and third titles were already pretty clear, the books never came out and said which of the three towers that figured decisively in The Two Towers were the title ones. The movie line refers to Saruman's tower, Orthanc, and Sauron's fortress of Barad-dur. Supplementary information (among them the Tolkien-drawn book cover) show Orthanc and Minas Morgul. The latter isn't in the film, so it wouldn't make sense otherwise.
      • Make that five Towers. The title of the book was chosen by a publisher, not Tolkien, and Professor himself stated in his letters that it could refer to any of: Orthanc, Barad Dur, Cirith Ungol, Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, pick two.
    • Peter Jackson also had a habit of dropping chapter titles into The Fellowship of the Ring, although having characters refer to "the long-expected party" and "a shortcut to mushrooms" was more in-jokey than portentous. Composer Howard Shore got in on the act in the titles of some of the pieces of the score he wrote.
      • Bilbo's line "I'm not at home!" may refer to the chapter Not at Home from The Hobbit.
      • Gandalf also mutters the words "riddles in the dark" to himself while waiting for Frodo. That's the chapter of The Hobbit in which Bilbo finds the Ring.
    • Also: "There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will. And he does not share power!" This line is used, as in the book, to prevent audience-members from thinking that title refers to Frodo.
  • The movie Chinatown is infamous for having nothing to do with Chinatown except for one offhand and cryptic reference, which, while obviously important, appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
  • Tough Guys Don't Dance features one early on thats rather laughable and has nothing to do with the film:
    • Six months ago, they told me to stop or I was dead. I stopped. Now the spirits circle around my bed and they tell me to dance. I tell 'em, "Tough guys don't dance." They answer me, "Keep dancin'."
  • Manos the Hands of Fate: The Master says

Manos! God of primal darkness! As thou hast decreed, so have I done. The hands of fate have doomed this man. Thy will is done!

  • In La Haine, Vinz expresses his desire to kill a cop if his hospitalized friend (a victim of police brutality) does not wake from his coma, to show that the banlieusards are finished turning the other cheek. His friend Hubert tries to talk him out of it: "La haine attire la haine!" ("Hatred breeds hatred".)
  • Colonel Glenn Manning gives one during his "circus freak" rant to a hapless sergeant:

"Why don't you make me up a sign saying, 'See The Amazing Colossal Man'?"

  • I Know Who Killed Me had a really bad drop, since it didn't even make sense in the context of the scene (hint: she wasn't killed).
  • The Black Cat had nothing to do with its title (which is from an otherwise unrelated story by Edgar Allan Poe), so a black cat walks through some scenes, just to make some sense of it.
  • The title of Full Metal Jacket is mentioned by Leonard Lawrence (Gomer Pyle) when describing some live ammunition before he uses it to kill his drill instructor and himself.
  • To some degree: "I have had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' plane!" It's a kind of chicken-and-egg story: Snakes on a Plane was the working title when the movie was in production, then it was going to be changed to something less colorful. When Samuel L. Jackson heard this, he informed the producers that the title was the reason he signed on in the first place. So the movie embraced the feeling, and re-shot certain scenes for an R rating. So the title secured the star, who kept the title, which caused reshoots, which led to the Title Drop.
  • The title of the movie Kiss of the Dragon refers to the special forbidden technique that Jet Li uses to kill the Big Bad.
  • A threefer occurs in The Rundown, which Title Drops the title ("Your kid was a tough rundown, Billy"), the working title (sign reading "El Dorado" vandalized to read "Helldorado") and an alternate title ("Welcome to the Jungle, tough guy").
  • The movie Dead Birds tries to pull a non-verbal version of these. The only scene where a dead bird ever appears -- and yes, it's only one -- has a dramatic sound in the background, and equally dramatic camera zooming on the only one dead bird that's never mentioned again. The result is that it simply feels ridiculous.
  • Failed in Plan 9 from Outer Space: Criswell says "My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?" Grave Robbers from Outer Space was the original title, but the backers of the movie had it changed.
  • In the giant mutant ant flick Them, the title is what a traumatized young girl screams when given a whiff of formic acid.
    • Later on, a scientist quips "We haven't seen the end of them!"
  • The Dark Knight has a Title Drop as the last line spoken. Also, Harvey Dent says at a press conference, "The night is darkest just before the dawn"; though that's more referencing one of the themes of the film, it's a clever way of doing it by dropping the syllables of the title.
  • The Last King of Scotland performs a Title Drop in one of Amin's speeches. This is because one of the titles Amin gave himself was "The Last King of Scotland" (the others being "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular").
    • Not exactly a title drop, since that involves working the title into the dialogue -- in this case the title was taken from the dialogue.
  • The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter has Bastian's late mom's last words be a Title Drop of sorts. Proof.
  • The Babylon 5 made-for-TV prequel movie seems appropriately titled In the Beginning, taking place a decade before the series. The movie fleshes out the Earth-Minbari War and how the Minbari, with vast technological superiority, very nearly wiped out the human race with only a single military loss. Near the end, Delenn asks another of the Minbari ruling body if there is any glory in genocide. The reply is, "Not as much as in the beginning."
    • Each Babylon 5 season has a title, such as "Signs and Portents" or "Point of No Return". Some episodes have the same title as the season they occur in. These episodes are typically rather important.
  • Give My Regards to Broad Street drops its title twice, during flashbacks to the same moment. It takes the second flashback for us to learn, and for the protagonist to realize, its significance.
  • Back to The Future
    • I: "Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future!"
    • II: "Marty, you've got to come back with me!" "Back where?" "Back to the future!"; "No! It can't be; I just sent you back to the future!"
    • III: "Hey, Doc! Where you goin' now? Back to the future? "
  • "We got a Black Hawk Down."
    • Also a case of circumstances forcing the Title Drop: most radio conversations, including the "We got a Blackhawk down" line, were taken verbatim from the radio conversations that occurred during the operation. The book author named the book after said line, then the movie came out and used the same title.
  • Towards the end of Free Willy, the Kid Hero says "Let's free Willy!"
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The title is a line from an Alexander Pope poem, which Kirsten Dunst recites at one point.
  • Melvin Udall says to a room of psychiatric patients: "What if this is As Good as It Gets?"
  • The working title of The Toxic Avenger was "The Monster Hero", so that phrase shows up repeatedly. As it stands, the trope is averted -- nobody uses the phrase "Toxic Avenger".
  • "He could have Total Recall within the hour!"
  • Done in the most Anvilicious manner in High School Musical 3: Senior Year: not only is the title of the Show Within a Show "Senior Year", but our protagonists end the show by singing a goodbye-to-the-audience song as the Title Drops down in front of the screen (in the style of the first movie's poster). And just to make sure that we know what kind of "high school musical" they're on about, they jump up, again like the first movie's poster.
  • At the end of the 2008 film Doubt Aloysius breaks down in front of another nun, sobbing "I have doubts! I have such doubts!"
  • The end of We Were Soldiers has a war photographer narrating "...for we were soldiers once, and young". This is directly lifted from the historical novel "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young", which ends the exact same way.
  • "We'll do it like The Italian Job."
  • "Seven. Six. Two. Millimeters. Full. Metal. Jacket."
  • "Maybe that's what hell is. An eternity In fucking Bruges."
  • "We who watch, are we...The Condemned?"
  • "But I believe that Love Actually, is all around us."
  • The climax of I Love You Man.
  • Steven screaming "I Love You Phillip Morris!" when he's being taken to another prison.
  • In Splendor in the Grass, the Wordsworth poem where the title is coming from is discussed at an English class.
  • Some Like It Hot:

"Junior": Syncopators. Does that mean you play that very fast music...jazz?
Sugar: Yeah. Real hot.
"Junior": I guess some like it hot. I personally prefer classical music.

Popescu: Can I ask is Mr. Martins engaged in a new book?
Holly: Yes, it's called The Third Man.
Popescu: A novel, Mr. Martins?
Holly: It's a murder story. I've just started it. It's based on fact.

Adso: And yet, now that I am an old, old man, I must confess that of all the faces that appear to me out of the past, the one I see most clearly is that of the girl of whom I've never ceased to dream these many long years. She was the only earthly love in my life, yet I never knew, nor ever learned, her name.

  • A particularly brilliant title drop occurs in the Anthony Perkins / Stephen Sondheim-penned murder mystery The Last of Sheila. Seemingly referring to the puzzle-happy Clinton Green's obsession with his wife who was killed in a hit-and-run accident ("I wonder if we'll ever hear the last of Sheila?" says one character), the title is actually a clue to a puzzle set up near the beginning of the play, which ultimately reveals Clinton's murderer: Each of the six guests / suspects are given 'dirty secrets' that actually are the secrets of one of their fellow guests. Each secret corresponds to a letter in the word "Sheila"; the murderer is uncovered when one guest acting as detective cracks the puzzle and realises that the murderer replaced the final secret, "Alcoholic", with "Hit and Run Killer", in order to guilt someone into confessing their accidental killing of Sheila. As the detective points out, "the last of Sheila isn't an H, it's an A."
  • Lucky Number Slevin, during The Reveal.
  • Mystery Men has a Title Drop in the final scene, which the heroes hilariously do not accept as an Appropriated Appellation.

Reporter: Well, whatever you call them, Champion City will forever owe a debt of gratitude to these mystery men.
The Sphinx: Wait! Wait, that's it. We are...the Super Squad!

  • Too many musicals to list have title songs, but the movie version of The Pajama Game deserves credit for having the title card appear word by word as Hines sings, "The Pajama Game is the game I'm in..."
  • Gone Baby Gone:

"And if that girl's only hope is you, well I pray for her. 'Cause she's gone, baby. Gone."

  • Independence Day had a Title Drop at the end of the President's Rousing Speech.
  • At the beginning of the first Lethal Weapon "Well, I guess you should be classified as a Lethal Weapon", Murtaugh says to Riggs.
  • The Naked City (1948): "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
    • Also used for the subsequent TV series.
  • André Baptiste calls Orlov the Lord of War. He does it again later, when he is persuading Orlov to take up the arms trading business again.
  • Clear and Present Danger: The President uses a Title Drop, in contrast to his earlier, more vague Spy Speak, to initiate an illegal war against the drug cartels.
    • Generally speaking, the President of the United States can name any person or group a "clear and present danger" to the safety and security of the USA. This is roughly equivalent to a Mafia don saying that he dislikes someone immensely: don't expect said person to last very long.
  • Agatha Christie's Evil Under The Sun, spoken by Hercule Poirot. Don't remember if it was in the original book.
    • It is.
  • "What was his name, the, uh, departed?"
    • And also at William's mother's funeral, where Costello left a card reading "God Bless the Dearly Departed."
    • The phrase is also said at a funeral at the end of the film.
  • In Ocean's 12, someone refers to the team as "Ocean's 11", the name of the previous movie. One of the characters later complains about this.
  • In Nil By Mouth, Ray gives a speech about his father that goes some way toward explaining his behaviour. During it, he mentions an incident in which he saw the words 'Nil By Mouth' written above his father's hospital bed.
  • In Paul Greengrass's film Bloody Sunday, the local cinema's billboard advertises a showing of John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday. Ironically, Schlesinger's film is about a bisexual love triangle and has nothing to do with Greengrass's film or the historical events upon which it is based.
  • This happens in Law-Abiding Citizen: "Your honor, I am a law-abiding citizen."
  • In the closing scene of A Bridge Too Far, Lieutenant General Frederick Browning sums up the main strategic blunder of Operation Market Garden in this manner.

Lt. Gen. Browning: Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far.

  • While in the previous World War 2 blockbuster based on a Cornelius Ryan book, Field Marshal Rommel makes his speech incorporating the quote from which the title The Longest Day was taken right at the beginning.
  • Kingdom of Heaven deserves some credit for making its Title Drop fit in naturally with a larger conversation about what it is that makes the Holy Land so appealing to many pilgrims.

Balian: What could a king ask of a man like me?
Godfrey: A new world. A better world than has ever been seen. A kingdom of conscience. A kingdom of heaven.

  • "She was the girl, I know that now. But I pushed her away. So I've spent every day since then Chasing Amy. So to speak".
  • If we're counting this...then:

Randal Graves: If title dictated my behavior, as a clerk serving the public, I wouldn't be allowed to spit water at that guy. But I did. So, my point is that people dictate their own behavior. Even though I work in a video store, I choose to go rent movies at Big Choice. Agreed?

Shannon Hamilton: Smart-ass ex-boyfriend! I've got two things to tell you. One: I don't like you. I see you every week in this mall. I don't like you shiftless layabouts. You're one of those loser fucking mallrat kids. You don't come to the mall to shop or work. You hang out all day, act like you fucking live here. Well, I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda.

  • Alex tells Lara "Well, you're the Tomb Raider."
  • Half of one, with "Are you ready for the big move?"
  • "And though I never would've anticipated it, in the end she did for me what I have done for so many: help solve a problem, first by observation, then by careful intervention -- in other words, the Zero Effect."
  • A rare Coen Brothers example has Sy Ableman described as "A Serious Man" at his funeral.
  • Both versions of True Grit have Rooster Cogburn described with the title phrase.
  • Bart Got a Room. Bart got a room?
  • "It must be some kind of...Film/HotTubTimeMachine." Craig Robinson lampshades the trope by delivering a deadpan Aside Glance to the camera immediately after saying the line.
  • "I give you Happily Never After!!!" -- said by the evil stepmom in...you guessed it, Happily N'Ever After.
  • Throw Momma from the Train is the title of the book Larry writes based on the events of the movie.
  • "Are you sure [your car] is safe?" "It's better than safe. It's Death Proof."
  • In Motel Hell, the film's title comes from Motel Hello's neon sign's broken last letter.
  • This is how the title of Entrapment first appears in the movie's dialogue:

Gin: I said this is called entrapment.
Mac: No, actually it's called blackmail. Entrapment is what cops do to thieves.

"I'm Howard Hughes...TheAviator..."

  • "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have the only gun onboard. Welcome to Con Air".
  • Kill Me Again: Said by Joanne Whalley to Val Kilmer.
  • "I'm sorry, it's just Rush Hour".
  • German movie Goodbye Lenin manages a visual title drop in its climactic moment, when a woman who was in a coma during the end of communism goes outside for the first time. After seeing west german students, car dealers, and western advertisment posters, she watches a helicopter passing by, carrying a dismantled statue of Lenin that seems to stretch out its hand to her before vanishing in the sunset.
  • Titles Drop like flies in Weird Al's "Theme From Spy Hard," which is the theme from Spy Hard.
  • Happens in First Blood, twice in one scene.

Colonel Trautman: Well you did some pushing of your own, John.
John Rambo: They drew first blood, not me.
Colonel Trautman: Look, Johnny, let me come in and get you the hell out of there.
John Rambo: (to himself) They drew first blood.

  • In Suspect Zero, the titular numbered suspect is often mentioned in the cryptic communications between FBI Agent Mackelway and Serial Killer O'Ryan.
  • "Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time! Cool Runnings!"
  • The title for Awake is dropped in the opening moments that explain the premise of the film.

"Each year, over 21,000,000 people receive general anesthesia. The vast majority go to sleep peacefully. They remember nothing. 30,000 of these patients are not so fortunate. They find themselves unable to sleep. Trapped in a phenomenon known as Anesthesia Awareness. These victims are completely paralyzed. They cannot scream for help. They are...Awake."

  • "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"
  • Towards the end of Unthinkable, Samuel L. Jackson's character, a torture expert working for the US military, says "what I am about to do...is unthinkable".
  • Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has a partial one: "Money is the bitch that never sleeps".
  • "Looked dead, didn't I? But I wasn't. But it wasn't from lack of trying, I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last bullet put me in a coma -- a coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a "Roaring Rampage of Revenge". I roared. And I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction. I've killed a hell of a lot of people to get to this point, but I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna Kill Bill."
  • Defied in Goodbye Solo. In the second to last scene William very pointedly doesn't say the line as he goes to (probably) kill himself.
  • In Once Were Warriors, Beth says, "Our people once were warriors..."
  • "Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call 'The Prestige'."
  • All That Jazz drops its title in a speech made by Ben Vereen:

"Folks, what can I tell you about my next guest? This cat allowed himself to be adored but not loved and his success in show business was met by his failure in his personal relationship bag. Now that's where he really bombed. And he came to believe that work, show business, love, his whole life, even himself and all that jazz was bullshit. He became a numero uno gameplayer to the point where he didn’t know where the games ended and the reality began. Like for this cat, the only reality is death, man."

  • "I'm going to take his face...off."
    • They didn't just drop this title, they carpet bombed the audience with it - the "face...off" line gets repeated at least 3 times in less than a minute.
  • In Show Me Love, the original Swedish title Fucking Åmål is dropped gloriously by Elin: "Varför måste vi bo i fucking, jävla kuk-Åmål?"
  • Brilliantly subverted in the Indie Movie "Rocket Science;" the main character has a stutter, and when trying to figure out love, he says, "You know, it shouldn't be, it really shouldn't be, it shouldn't be rocket, uh, shouldn't be rocket, um, sometimes..." stopping just short of saying the whole title.
  • "They tell me you are a man with True Grit."
  • The G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra live action movie has one, incidentally at the same time that the film reveals who Cobra Commander is.

The time has come for the Cobra to rise.

  • Black Narcissus. The Young General explains that it's the perfume he uses to scent his handkerchief.
  • "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club."
  • "I didn't want you to think Earth girls were easy."

Mac: What is "easy"?
Valerie: [kissing him] This is "easy".

  • "That's the answer to the riddle. Because that's what an 8000-pound mako thinks about. About freedom. About the Deep Blue Sea."
  • The Ides of March features a subversion. The film's working title of Farragut North (the name of the play that it's based on) gets title dropped twice. Meanwhile, The Ides of March is never said once in the film.
  • "I used to be like you...a long time ago. All brand new and perfect. No mistakes, no regrets. People look at you and think of how wonderful your future will be. They want you to be something special...like a doctor or a lawyer. I hate to tell you this, but if you grow up here, you're more likely to wind up selling your bodies on the streets, or shooting dope from dirty needles in a bus stop. And if you're successful, you'll make money selling junk to crackheads, and won't think twice about killing someone's wife, because you won't even know it's wrong in the first place. Maybe...you'll end up like me. A Hobo with a Shotgun."
  • "Today is a Training Day, Officer Hoyt."
  • In "Star Trek: First Contact" Zefram Cochrane says: "So you guys are astronauts, on some kind of Star Trek?".
  • Takes until the end credits for Sleeping Dogs, when the theme song plays, with, of course, the line "let sleeping dogs lie."
  • "You've got nothing kiddo. Snake Eyes. The house wins."
  • "I am Bruce Almighty! My will be done!"
  • A partial example appears in Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans, or an entire one if you go by the film's original title.

Chavez: Are you still working with the police department?
McDonaugh: Port of call still New Orleans.

  • In Bend It Like Beckham Jess speaks the exact title once ("No one can cross a ball or bend it like Beckham") and a close variant at another moment ("Anyone can cook aloo gobai, but who can bend a ball like Beckham?").
  • In the 2001 indie film Jump Tomorrow, George uses the title words to talk a man out of suicide. Later, the man turns the words back at him when telling him to stay another night at the family of the girl he really loves, rather than go to the wedding he's been pressured into.
  • S.O.B.: One of the characters refers to to the studio's latest stunt as "S.O.B". He then explains to a bewildered listener that it stands for "standard operational bullshit".
  • The title of The Right Stuff is mentioned early in the film by one of the characters.
  • "Inception, is it possible?"
  • "Eventually, all things merge into one, and A River Runs Through It".
  • Barbara Graham says, I Want to Live! In a Voiceover Letter.
  • "Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you had the cash? Have you ever been blue, or thought your train was moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the '60s. Or maybe I was just a girl ... interrupted."
  • Freddy Got Fingered gets it's name from when the main character accuses his father of sexually molesting his younger brother Freddy in order to humiliate him and tarnish his reputation.
  • "... so what else can I do, but Carry On Cruising?"
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