30 of the Best Movie Taglines of All Time
The movie tagline is one of those enduring features of the film industry that nevertheless now feels like something of a lost art form. Their purpose was simple: To grab the attention in a pithy sentence or two, often splashed across the top or bottom of a movie poster. A great tagline could hint gently at a film’s content, titillate the potential audience, warn them of incoming horrors, encapsulate a vibe, or in some cases just engage in some good old-fashioned dishonest showmanship, a used car salesman approach to movie promotion. The important thing was that they helped put butts in the seats, and in some iconic cases, the turns of phrase established in a tagline would go on to be associated with a film or franchise forevermore, becoming part of its collected lore.
And yet, we don’t really see many taglines these days, or if we do, they don’t tend to stick as indelibly in the cultural consciousness in recent decades. There are likely many interlocking reasons why this is the case–for one thing, film marketing has pivoted much more in the direction of video, be it trailers or short-form video clips, rather than the static posters or newspaper ads where taglines could traditionally have been found. Movie posters in general have become a niche rather than a mainstay–many are now solely produced in digital fashion, and few audience members are making decisions about what to watch by browsing posters at the theater. There are just fewer venues now for a film to make use of its tagline, so even if it has one, it tends to get exposed to a smaller audience.
There’s a timeless joy to the perfectly tailored tagline, though, whether they hail from the Golden Age of Hollywood, the gleefully irreverent slasher boom of the 1980s, or the waning days of the tagline in the 2000s. Below, we’ve collected roughly 30 (there might be a few bonus entries) of our favorite film taglines, spread through many eras and genres: Although to be fair, horror and sci-fi do have a tendency to produce many of the best and most iconic.
Here they are, presented alphabetically, with a little commentary on what makes each so wonderful.
Alien (1979)
Tagline: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”
The tagline from Alien is surely one of the first things that would pop into the mind of any self-respecting film geek when someone broaches the topic: Few movie taglines have ever become so indelibly associated with their franchise as this one. “In space, no one can hear you scream” projects a blood-curdling experience, synonymous with Ridley Scott’s starship-set slasher film and all the xenomorph sequels to follow. Fun fact: This particular tagline is widely attributed to copywriter Barbara Gips rather than Ridley Scott or screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, replacing the earliest tagline, which appeared to be “a word of warning.” Barbara Gips was the wife of Alien poster designer Phillip Gips, and we can thank her for what ultimately became perhaps the most iconic tagline of all time. An obvious way to kick off this sort of list.
Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Tagline: “Whoever wins, we lose.”
The titanic clash promised by the film’s title didn’t really end up satisfying any of the hardcore genre junkies out there, but at least we got a classic tagline for our trouble. I enjoy how it highlights that mankind isn’t really a threat to either of the combatants–for them, it might be an honor duel, but for us it’s a choice between impregnation with a chestburster or having our skulls and spines taken as trophies by interstellar big game hunters. Humanity waits anxiously from the sidelines to learn who is about to destroy us.
Army of Darkness (1992)
Tagline: “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.”
Director Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead series famously morphed in tone across its first three installments starring Bruce Campbell, from the extreme horror and boundary pushing gore of the original Evil Dead, to the increasingly cartoonish, FX-driven wackiness of sequel Evil Dead II, to the eventual supremacy of comedy in Army of Darkness. This evolution reflected a growing, jaded cynicism within the horror genre as the 1980s came to a close and audiences became much more difficult to shock or repulse. The tagline for Army of Darkness implies the time-traveling conceit of the story, which sees Ash thrust back to medieval times for a final confrontation with the evil Deadites, but the “low on gas” cheekily acknowledges his status as a modern man who must take advantage of every ounce of his wits and technological resources if he wants to survive. That chainsaw doesn’t run on sarcastic quips, you know.
Chicken Run (2000)
Tagline: “Escape or die frying.”
A wonderfully macabre play on words for what is ostensibly a family film, but also a totally apt encapsulation of the adult tinge of humor that pretty much always populates the claymation works from Wallace & Gromit studio Aardman Animations. Chicken Run, for all its laughs, is after all a WWII prisoner of war parody, and the chickens really are facing death (whether or not in the frying pan) if they fail. The tagline sets the stakes with a gag, and extreme economy of words.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Tagline: “Being the adventure of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.”
The use of the word “rape” has an immediately jarring, shock effect in A Clockwork Orange’s tagline, while the additional details–the confusing “ultra-violence” for someone who hasn’t seen the film, and the totally contextless Beethoven reference–make the reader want to know exactly what’s going on here. We can tell, at the very least, that the “young man” in question must be quite a piece of work, and that proves to be accurate for Malcolm McDowell’s Alex DeLarge. Kubrick’s tale of a sociopathic delinquent deserves something of a content warning, which this tagline aptly provides.
Cocktail (1988)
Tagline: “When he pours, he reigns.”
Hey look, we’re not above a stupid pun, here at Paste. Tom Cruise’s Cocktail provides a doozy, hinting at the film’s focus around the unheralded pageantry of … flair bartending. At the end of the day, the genuine meat of the film is its romantic drama and fraying character relationships, but it’s all the drink shaking and flipping that people remember. The tagline was right to zero in on the film’s most memorable selling point.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Tagline: “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.”
What a perfectly ominous, foreboding tagline for George Romero’s seminal zombie classic, which checks in at #1 in our exhaustive list of the best zombie movies of all time. This phrase has an almost biblical sheen of gravitas to it, suggesting a hideous theory that no one ever really broaches in Romero’s zombie movies, that the plague of the dead is effectively a divine judgment on a species that is well past saving. Each film in Romero’s series only makes this possibility seem that much more likely.
The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
Tagline: “Unwittingly, he trained a dolphin to kill the President of the United States.”
Imagine it’s 1973, and you’re walking out of a screening of The Sting, only to run into a poster for The Day of the Dolphin and be hit by this all-timer of an absurd tagline. The word “unwittingly” is unintentionally hilarious in this application–oh, so he didn’t realize that he was training an assassin dolphin, then? How could you not burst out laughing, confronted by this poster? How could you not want to know the convoluted method by which the dolphin assassination might occur? Why is the President going to be swimming in the ocean, exactly? Or does the dolphin try to leap out of a tank at SeaWorld to stab him? Imagine the possibilities!
Double Indemnity (1944)
Tagline: “From the moment they met, it was murder!”
Film noir is a great venue for a juicy, salacious tagline playing up a film’s criminal elements, which is just what we get on the poster for 1944’s Double Indemnity, a prominent entry on our own list of the best film noirs of all time. This is a tagline that implies an erotic dalliance gone wrong, and Double Indemnity delivers by forcing its leads down a slippery slope toward unforgivable crimes.
Easy Rider (1969)
Tagline: “A man went looking for America. And couldn’t find it anywhere…”
What a great set-up and subversion, all in the course of two short sentences. The trailing second sentence perfectly captures the despondence of the 1960s youth counterculture, suggesting a nation in the process of losing its soul. Easy Rider became a touchstone of the era because elements like its tagline evoked the sentiment that was coalescing among a large segment of its generation, as the idea of American exceptionalism increasingly became regarded as a bitter joke.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Tagline: “There are 3.7 trillion fish in the ocean. They’re looking for one.”
There’s nothing like a well-deployed ounce of statistics to really hammer home the reality of how wondrous the natural world can be. We have a tough time as a species really wrapping our heads around numbers as large as a trillion, but it does a great job of evoking the true enormity of protective father Marlin’s task as he sets out to find his son Nemo in the incomprehensible vastness of the ocean.
The Fly (1986)
Tagline: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
This is another one of those phrases that I can almost guarantee you’ve heard some iteration of in the past, without even knowing that it came from a movie tagline. The most influential film taglines, like the previously cited one from Alien, have the power to transcend film entirely and escape into a broader array of pop culture applications. This one from the classic David Cronenberg body horror remake of The Fly has more or less become just a stock expression in the decades that followed, endlessly parodied and reiterated.
Halloween (1978)
Tagline: “The night He came home.”
Don’t discount the subtle inflection that can be put into a tagline via formatting and poster design, and don’t forget that despite us mostly discussing the taglines as pithy descriptions here, they originally lived a primarily visual existence: You didn’t hear them so much as you saw them, in print advertising. John Carpenter’s iconic, formative slasher movie thrives on the mystique of Michael Myers, and its tagline–and the subtle use of capitalization and italics–implies a certain otherworldly dimension to the character, which the film reinforces. You can never really say if there’s something “supernatural” about Michael Myers, or why this little boy became a vessel of evil. But that tagline is dripping with portent.
Highlander (1986)
Tagline: “There can be only one.”
Another tagline that has long since almost left its own decayed franchise behind, there are probably people out there quoting some variant of “there can be only one” without even knowing much of anything about Highlander, its sequels or subsequent TV series. It refers to the original film’s concept of “the prize,” wherein the last immortal left standing (retaining his head on his shoulders) will inherit incredible power. In the vein of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome’s “two men enter, one man leaves!”, it’s a phrase that implies a mythic showdown is about to happen.
Inception (2010)
Tagline: “Your mind is the scene of the crime.”
It’s sort of easy to forget, looking back, how radical the concept of Christopher Nolan’s Inception seemed to the rank and file multiplex audiences of 2010. Multiple levels of dreams; subliminal and overt mental conditioning; repression and secret motivations–it’s all a lot to take in, and it remains one of Nolan’s most effective and endlessly debatable puzzle box movies. The tagline manages to condense all of its complexity into a single expression, implying the cerebral heist that Nolan has in store for us.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Tagline: “If adventure has a name … it must be Indiana Jones.”
Like Jones himself, this tagline is a spectacular throwback to the heyday of adventure serials, and their strapping, larger than life pulp hero protagonists, such as Doc Savage. It’s a tagline particularly fitting for the first sequel starring Indiana Jones, because it might have been presumptuous to introduce the character in Raiders of the Lost Ark with such a superlative. After Spielberg gave Jones an all-timer of a first outing, though, the cultural cache of Indiana Jones (and Harrison Ford as a mega-star) makes the “If adventure has a name…” tagline ring particularly true. Ford wouldn’t have been sucked into making more of these films in his late 70s if that wasn’t the case.
Jaws 2 (1978)
Tagline: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.”
The entire Jaws series is perhaps the pinnacle of blockbuster movie taglines–every single entry has something memorable, starting with the original’s “You’ll never go in the water again.” The tagline of Jaws 2, though, is on another level entirely: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” might very well be one of the most heavily repeated (and especially parodied) taglines ever written. Its only function is to remind the reader of the fear they experienced in the original Jaws, at a time when blockbuster sequels were still an entirely novel phenomenon. Even Jaws 3 had a pretty sweet tagline, acknowledging its 3D presentation gimmick: “The third dimension is terror.” As for Jaws 4 … well, that deserves its own acknowledgement.
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
Tagline: “This time, it’s personal.”
Quick show of hands: Did you know that the tagline of the fourth Jaws movie and third sequel was the origin point for the phrase “this time, it’s personal”? How many dozens or hundreds of times have you encountered said phrase in the wild in the years since 1987? This expression has been used as the title of songs, albums or TV episodes, used as a catchphrase or quip in sitcoms, videogames or other films, and generally run into the ground with great zeal. I’ve always thought it’s a particularly funny tagline, given that in the actual context of the film, it’s talking about a shark that is out for vengeance against not Chief Martin Brody, who killed the original shark in Jaws, but the extended family of Brody after the character has been killed off. Predators in nature kill as a result of impersonal instinct, so attaching actual, evil malice to them always feels like it carries a risk of jumping … well, you know. Still, this might be the most oft-repeated tagline on the entire list.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Tagline: “An adventure 65 million years in the making.”
The films of Steven Spielberg really do nail their “adventure”-based taglines, don’t they? There’s nothing fancy or complicated about this quick little encapsulation of Jurassic Park; it simply plays off of studios highlighting the time and resources spent on production in their advertising by cleverly referencing the vast gulf of time that has passed on our planet since dinosaurs walked the Earth. It also makes the result feel momentous, like we’ve been patiently waiting 65 million years for this marvel to be unveiled.
The Last House on the Left (1972)
Tagline: “To avoid fainting, keep repeating: ‘It’s only a movie, only a movie, only a movie…’”
Many of the most memorable movie taglines of the 1970s and 1980s were for exploitation flicks, where a tagline could serve as both a warning to the prospective audience and an overt dare, attempting to provoke the viewer into seeing the film, often by implying that it would be too intense, frightening or upsetting for them to handle. That’s certainly the case for this tagline for Wes Craven’s bleak The Last House on the Left, which goes out of its way to promise a twisted and subversive experience, which the rape-and-revenge story undoubtedly delivers. Horror pushed far more realistically grisly and extreme boundaries during this era, with taglines that reflect a growing subculture of darkly minded thrill seekers.
Pieces (1982)
Tagline: “It’s exactly what you think it is!”
Oh, how I love the complete lack of shame in this tagline for vintage trash slasher Pieces. You’re meant to see the poster, complete with chainsaw and stitched together woman, and complain out loud: “What is this, another sicko horror movie about a guy cutting women into little pieces?” And then there’s the tagline, to affirm in no uncertain terms: Yep, that’s exactly what this is; deal with it. Legend has it that this particular tagline was written by none other than the embattled owner of small Georgia film studio Film Ventures International, Edward L. Montoro, who in 1984 disappeared with more than $1 million in embezzled company funds, never to be seen again. He also reportedly wrote the film’s other, equally excellent tagline: “You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!” Truly a Hollywood visionary.
Platoon (1986)
Tagline: “The first casualty of war is innocence.”
Oliver Stone’s Platoon is, as you might expect from a classic war film, an examination of how armed conflict builds and breaks human beings, turning some into cult-like leaders and bringing out the humanity in others. We see the Vietnam conflict through the eyes of Charlie Sheen’s fresh recruit, and the casualty of innocence referred to in the tagline above is both his and our own. Notions of honor and glorious combat are dashed and put aside, replaced by the reality of survival and the prerogative to prevent the worst abuses of wartime, perpetrated by men who are taking advantage of a setting with no rules or laws. The tagline is a grave promise that the film will challenge any romantic notions the viewer might have about going to war.
Roar (1981, 2015)
Tagline: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film. 70 cast and crew members were.”
This is a special instance of a tagline that didn’t exist when the film was originally marketed and released, but rather one that was written for the re-release of the notorious Roar several decades later, in 2015, when Drafthouse Films bought the rights and kicked off a series of screenings. It aptly captures the pure chaos and what must have been frequent terror of the set of Roar, a film that features a family living amidst dozens of wild, untrained lions and tigers. The tagline accurately makes reference to the incredible variety of injuries suffered by the cast and crew working on the Roar set, including cinematographer and director Jan de Bont of Speed, who was literally scalped on set by a lion, requiring more than 200 sutures. The tagline reinforces the legend of a deeply strange and inarguably irresponsible film.
Sharknado (2013)
Tagline: “Enough said!”
Sometimes, you just let a title speak for itself, and few titles have ever spoken with more misplaced enthusiasm than The Asylum’s original Sharknado, which kicked off an overnight pop cultural sensation when it arrived on SyFy in 2013. The tagline rightly observes that the title is already about as perfect as these things get, impossible to improve upon. Subsequent entries in the series would muck up the simplicity with more overwrought jokes, although I can at least appreciate the tagline of Sharknado 5: Global Swarming being “Make America Bait Again.” Not bad, Asylum.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Tagline: “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
Frank Darabont’s beloved adaptation of Stephen King’s short story is all about the indomitable nature of the human soul, and the film’s tagline both hints at its entire arc and the pitfalls inherent to surviving a place like Shawshank. The danger is always quite literal in the corrupt prison, but a greater danger to Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne is the threat of spiritual decay; advancing despair; or sheer complacency with a regimented way of living that eventually starts to become so familiar that you depend on it and can’t imagine anything better. Andy shakes off the temptation of simply living in Shawshank as a well-liked and influential figure to chase a dream of escape that could easily end in his death. The tagline, like the film, instructs us to aim high and take risks.
The Social Network (2010)
Tagline: “You don’t get to 500 friends without making a few enemies.”
The rare example of a modern movie tagline that really did embed itself squarely into American pop culture, this one was far more prominently displayed than most of its era. Credit belongs to theatrical poster designer Neil Kellerhouse, who also wrote the tagline for the Mark Zuckerberg Facebook drama and then put the text front and center, making it the central focus point of the poster rather than the images. The text implies a classic “rise and fall” type of story, reminiscent perhaps of something like Citizen Kane, although we don’t yet know if Zuckerberg will expire while clutching a snow globe. It seems as likely as anything else, yes?
Superman (1978)
Tagline: “You’ll believe a man can fly.”
I suppose a tagline like this could have come off as conceited or boastful, but Richard Donner’s Superman was such an earnest, inspiring experience for those who witnessed it in 1978 that the tagline conjures a genuine wave of positivity and optimism, even now. Superman’s groundbreaking FX work saw the promise made by said tagline through to completion, and it’s questionable whether any subsequent superhero movie really filled its contemporary audience with a comparable degree of giddy wonder.
Suspiria (1977)
Tagline: “The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92.”
A gloriously silly, borderline boastful tagline for one of the pinnacles of Italian horror, courtesy of Dario Argento. William Castle, lover of gimmicks in films like The Tingler or Mr. Sardonicus, would no doubt have deeply admired the wording here. It hypes the reader by promising that Suspiria will have an impactful, memorable closing sequence, but then turns the tables by suggesting that the rest of the film will also be just as luridly entertaining. This is some classic, flashy showmanship.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Tagline: “Who will survive, and what will be left of them?”
Without a doubt, one of the greatest horror movie taglines in film history–possibly the very best. What a chilling phrase, suggesting the savagery that is to come, while likewise implying that even if there are any survivors–like Sally Hardesty, an entry on our list of the best final girls of all time–they will be irretrievably broken by the ordeal. Half a century later, Texas Chain Saw Massacre still maintains its infamous reputation, and its tagline is one of the first things that comes to mind when someone broaches the topic of the film and its many lesser sequels and reimaginings.
The Thing (1982)
Tagline: “Man is the warmest place to hide.”
First of all: Gross. But also accurate. John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing From Another World plays up the body horror and mystery of the story, introducing a shape-shifting alien consciousness that not only kills with calculating intellect, but can perfectly mimic anyone after killing them. Trapped on an Antarctic research station, with the threat that every person on the base will soon be contaminated by an alien life form intent on spreading over the globe, it’s up to Kurt Russell’s R.J. MacReady to contain a threat that could be the end of mankind. Without knowing what The Thing will entail, the tagline sets the reader on edge, hinting at the invasive, transgressive nature of the danger.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Tagline: “The nearer they get to their treasure, the farther they get from the law.”
You’ve got to love the taglines that evoke a duality the way this one does, suggesting that the closer we get to our goals, or the object of our inflamed passion, the more danger will ultimately follow us. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a classic tale of gold, greed and the worst of human nature, so it stands to reason, as the tagline suggests, that whoever finds themselves in possession of the titular treasure will be squarely in the crosshairs of everyone else.
12 Angry Men (1957)
Tagline: “Life is in their hands–death is on their minds!”
Speaking of dualities, there’s this famous tagline for Sidney Lumet’s classic courtroom drama. It’s a bit on the sensationalist side, perhaps meant to compensate a bit for the relative lack of “action” in 12 Angry Men, although there’s no denying that life and death do hang in the balance, contingent upon the decision of the titular members of the jury as they decide a young man’s fate. With that said, the secondary tagline might be a bit much: “It explodes like 12 sticks of dynamite!” Alright, ease off the gas just a bit there.
Zodiac (2007)
Tagline: “There’s more than one way to lose your life to a killer.”
A wonderfully subtle tagline graced the posters for David Fincher’s masterful 2007 psychological thriller, which would serve as a pretty clear inspiration to his equally meticulous and beautiful Netflix series Mindhunter. Someone who hasn’t seen the film would likely see the tagline above and naturally conclude that it’s referring to multiple ways one might be murdered by a serial killer. Rather, it instead refers to the effect that studying (and obsessing over) the Zodiac Killer case eventually has on Mark Ruffalo’s Inspector Dave Toschi and especially Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith, who are ultimately left with decades spent pursuing dead ends and unsatisfying conclusions that can’t be proven. The tagline hits on, without directly spelling out, what becomes the film’s most powerful recurring theme: The maddening effects of sacrificing your life for a private obsession.
Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter or on Bluesky for more film writing.