Great Film Taglines

Part 1


Introduction: Taglines (often called slogans) are catchy, enticing short phrases used by marketers and film studios to advertise and sell a movie, and to sum up the plot, tone or themes of a film. Many films have multiple taglines. Composing ad copy for posters and trailers is generally the first step in marketing a film and setting a strategic direction for the product. These 'sound-bite' epigrams are often placed on either film posters (above or below the film's title) or on the merchandise itself (DVD or video cassette box, etc.), to reinforce what the film is all about. Some films do not have a tagline at all, and instead choose to provide evocative images to convey the meaning, mood, symbolism, or setting of the film (i.e., Chinatown (1974)). Some taglines are quite obscure, unrecognizable and forgettable. Often, the best taglines are for very inferior films.

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that
"The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.



Great Film Tag Lines
(chronological, by film title - Part 1)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

"The Fiery Cross of the Ku Klux Klan." The Birth of a Nation (1915)
"6 reels of Joy." The Kid (1921)
"The epic of the American doughboy." The Big Parade (1925)
"Love, Locomotives, and Laughs." The General (1927)
"Warner Bros. Supreme Triumph" The Jazz Singer (1927)
"Garbo TALKS!" Anna Christie (1930)
"The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!" Dracula (1931)
"A Monster Science Created - But Could Not Destroy!" Frankenstein (1931)
"Six sticks of dynamite that blasted his way to freedom... and awoke America's conscience!"
I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
"The strangest story ever conceived by man." King Kong (1933)
"Together for the first time." It Happened One Night (1934)
"A laugh tops every thrilling moment!" The Thin Man (1934)
"Handcuffed to the girl who double-crossed him." The 39 Steps (1935)
"The Monster demands a Mate!" The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
"Don't miss it! The funniest picture ever made!" A Night at the Opera (1935)
"They're Dancing Cheek-to-Cheek Again!" Top Hat (1935)
"You who are so young--where can you have learned all you know about women like me?" Camille (1936)
"Rocking America with laughter!" Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
"You'll never laugh as long and as loud again as long as you live! The laughs come so fast and so furious you'll wish it would end before you collapse!"
Modern Times (1936)
"A glorious songburst of gaiety and laughter!" Swing Time (1936)
"Still the fairest of them all!" Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) (re-release tagline)
"Only the rainbow can duplicate its brilliance." The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
"The Most Passionate Adventure of Them All!" Algiers (1938)
"The South's Greatest Romance." Jezebel (1938)
"The most magnificent picture ever!"
AND
"The greatest screen entertainment of all time!"
Gone With The Wind (1939)
"Capra at his greatest!" Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
"Garbo LAUGHS!" Ninotchka (1939)
"Thrilling As Love Born Amid A Thousand Fabulous Adventures!" Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
"A Powerful Story of 9 Strange People!" Stagecoach (1939)
"Gaiety! Glory! Glamour!" The Wizard of Oz (1939)
"I am Heathcliff! I love a woman who belongs to another man!... My love was fierce... my hate is burning! I will have vengeance!" Wuthering Heights (1939)
"The World's Greatest Dancers in the World's Greatest Musical Show!" Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
"Walt Disney's Technicolor FEATURE triumph" Fantasia (1940)
"She learned about men from him!" His Girl Friday (1940)
"Broadway's howling year-run comedy hit of the snooty society beauty who slipped and fell - IN LOVE!" The Philadelphia Story (1940)
"For anyone who has ever wished upon a star." Pinocchio (1940)
"The shadow of this woman darkened their love." Rebecca (1940)
"EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT IT! It's Terrific!" Citizen Kane (1941)
"A picture different from anything ever screened before!" Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
"Millions Have Read This Great Novel... Millions more will see an even greater picture!" How Green Was My Valley (1941)
"When you deal a fast shuffle...Love is in the cards." The Lady Eve (1941)
"A story as EXPLOSIVE as his BLAZING automatics!" The Maltese Falcon (1941)
"Veronica Lake's on the take." Sullivan's Travels (1941)
"They had a date with fate in Casablanca." Casablanca (1942)
"She Was Marked With The Curse Of Those Who Slink And Court And Kill By Night!" Cat People (1942)
"Real life screened more daringly than it's ever been before!"
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
"The Yankee Doodle Dandiest Entertainment of 'Em All!" Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
"From the Moment they met it was Murder!" Double Indemnity (1944)
"The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!"
Laura (1944)
"M·G·M's glorious love story with music" Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)
"An Original Philip Marlowe Mystery" Murder, My Sweet (1944)
"Humphrey Bogart...with his kind of woman in a powerful adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's most daring man-woman story!" To Have and Have Not (1944)
"Gable's Back and Garson's Got Him" Adventure (1945)
"The Screen Dares To Open The Strange And Savage Pages Of A Shocking Best-Seller!"
The Lost Weekend (1945)
"A mother's love leads to murder." Mildred Pierce (1945)
"Three wonderful loves in the best picture of the year!" The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
"The picture they were born for!" The Big Sleep (1946)
"There NEVER was a woman like Gilda!" Gilda (1946)
"They're making memories tonight!" It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
"TENSE! TAUT! TERRIFIC! told the untamed Hemingway way!" The Killers (1946)
"She was everything the West was - young, fiery, exciting!" My Darling Clementine (1946)
"Notorious woman of affairs... Adventurous man of the world!" Notorious (1946)
"Their Love was a Flame that Destroyed!" The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
"A MAN - Trying to run away from his past... A WOMAN - Trying to escape her future!" Out Of The Past (1947)


Previous Page Next Page