Seventy-five years ago today, a desperate Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) begged Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) not to abandon her, pleading, “Rhett, Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” His famous retort, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” was an epic dis decades before the word dis existed. When Gone With the Wind premiered in 1939, Rhett’s line was shocking because the use of the word damn was a violation of the era’s production code. The fact that we still remember it today, when children’s films use spicier language, is a testament to the power of the cinematic dis. More than just an insult, a great movie dis is a summation of the relationship between the disser and the dissee. While no dis will ever top Rhett’s, these eleven great movie disses are eminently quotable.
11. 21 Jump Street
The villain in the action comedy, Eric (Daniel Franco) was a politically correct teenage drug dealer who prided himself on being environmentally aware. When he was arrested, undercover cop Jenko (Channing Tatum) let him know how difficult his life was about to become:
“They don’t serve vegan in jail, bitch.”
10. The Little Foxes
The 1941 melodrama was about a scheming Southern family. After Regina (Bette Davis) withheld heart medication from her ailing husband Horace (Herbert Marshall ) in the hopes that he would die before he had a chance to write her out of his will, he let her know exactly what he thought of her:
““Maybe it's easy for the dying to be honest. I'm sick of you, sick of this house, sick of my unhappy life with you. I'm sick of your brothers and their dirty tricks to make a dime. There must be better ways of getting rich than building sweatshops and pounding the bones of the town to make dividends for you to spend. You'll wreck the town, you and your brothers. You'll wreck the country, you and your kind, if they let you. But not me, I'll die my own way, and I'll do it without making the world worse. I leave that to you.”
9. Friday
This '90s stoner comedy was full of laid back, chill, disses. When Craig (Ice Cube) told his best friend Smokey (Chris Tucker) that he got fired when he went to his workplace to pick up his paycheck, Smokey succinctly summed up the situation:
“You got to be a stupid mother****er to get fired on your day off.”
8. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman is one of the most quotable movies of all time. It is chock full of hilarious insults. One of the funniest occurs when the sexist Ron (Will Ferrell) gets into an argument with his co-anchor Veronica (Christina Applegate) and comes up with a unique way to call her a slut:
“You are a smelly pirate hooker. Why don’t you go back to your home on Whore Island?”
7. Knocked Up
Though the Judd Apatow movie focused on Ben (Seth Rogan) and Alison (Katherine Heigl’s) unplanned pregnancy, one of the best scenes involved Alison’s sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) telling off a nightclub doorman (Craig Robinson) who wouldn’t let her into the club:
“I'm not gonna go to the end of the f***ing line, who the f*** are you? I have just as much of a right to be here as any of these little skanky girls. What, am I not skanky enough for you, you want me to hike up my f****ing skirt? What the f*** is your problem? I'm not going anywhere, you're just some roided out freak with a f***ing clipboard. And your stupid little f***ing rope! You know what, you may have power now but you are not god. You're a doorman, okay. You're a doorman, doorman, doorman, doorman, doorman, so... F*** You! You f***ing f*g with your f***ing little f**gy gloves.”
6. The Women
The entirety of this 1939 all female bitchfest about a group of New York socialite frenemies deserves to be on this list. This line from the working class Crystal (Joan Crawford), who had an affair with one of the wealthy women’s husbands, sums all the schemers up:
“There is a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society... outside of a kennel.”
5. Glengarry Glen Ross
The best known phrase from the film of the David Mamet play is Always Be Closing. During the rest of that famous sales speech, Blake (Alec Baldwin) disses all of his colleagues, including this gem to Dave (Ed Harris):
“F*** You, that's my name! You know why, mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an $80,000 BMW. That's my name!”
5. Heathers
The greatest, darkest teen comedy of all time featured a storyline that would be taboo today: a teen boy in a black trench coat (Christian Slater) seduces brainy popular girl Veronica (Winona Ryder) then persuades her to kill the popular kids, ultimately blowing up the high school. The queen bee triumvirate known as the Heathers were so awful that viewers rooted for their deaths. Heather Chandler’s (Kim Walker) dis of Veronica illustrates why:
“You were nothing before you met me. You were playing Barbies with Betty Finn. You were a Bluebird. You were a Brownie. You were a Girl Scout Cookie.”
4. A Fish Called Wanda
This farce about a jewel heist gone wrong derived much of its humor from Otto (Kevin Kline) a dimwitted hit man. When his lover, Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis), finally gets fed up with him, she lets him know that he is an idiot:
“To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs… Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up."
3. Billy Madison
In a hilarious scene from the Adam Sandler comedy about a man forced to repeat his entire education from kindergarten through high school, Billy must participate in an academic decathlon. He flubs a question about the Industrial Revolution, inspiring this response from the principal (Josh Mostel):
“Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
2. 8 Mile
The climactic battle rap scene at the end of the film is a chance for B-Rabbit (Eminem) to take down rival MC Papa Doc (Anthony Mackie) by exposing him as a poseur.
“Don't ever try to judge me dude / You don't know what the f--- I've been through / But I know something about you / You went to Cranbrook - that's a private school / What's the matter, dog? / You're embarrassed? / This guy's a gangster? / His real name is Clarence / Now Clarence lives at home with both parents / And Clarence parents have a real good marriage”
1. Clueless
The definitive 1990s teen movie featured Beverly Hills teen Cher’s (Alicia Silverstone) attempts to make over new student Tai (Brittany Murphy). When Tai usurped her as queen bee then asked Cher to help her bag Cher’s stepbrother/crush Josh, Cher told her that she was all wrong for Josh, prompting Tai’s famous dis:
“You’re a virgin who can’t drive.”
