Only 40% Of Dudes Can Name These Movies. Can You?
- by Clayton Leir
- – on
- in Movies and TV
How well do you know your cinema history? Would you say you really know your movies and their meanings to so many people around the world? That will certainly come in handy when it comes to sussing out the films below. This quiz is all about being man of the house and knowing the movies in this quiz is what your manliness hinges on.
What I'm saying is that there is a huge list of films here that will determine whether or not you're truly the man of the house. We're going to see how many of these films you can actually name and then we're going to find out just how much of a dude you are. And you should be able to name a lot of these films. At least...you should if you really think you're the man of the house.
Of course, you might be the only person in your house so that might make you think you're already the man of the house...but you don't want to be left thinking you're nothing more than a little boy who doesn't know what he's talking about, right? Well, then it's time to dig in and see just how many of these films you can actually name for us. Don't be shy. Step up and be the man of the house!
Name that film!
This film came out in 1999 and is a comedy-drama that follows a redneck Texan town's high school football team and their overbearing coach through a pretty intense and messed up season. The film was directed by Brian Robbins and stars James Vanderbeek from Dawson's Creek fame. The players of the football team all come of age in this film and have to deal with their football-obsessed community while having their coach on their back at all times. In the small and fictional town of West Canaan, Texas, football is a very straining way of life, and no one likes a loser. The film pulled in a box office gross of $52 million domestically against its estimated $16 million budget.
Name that film!
This military action romance is a film from 1986 with a pretty star-studded cast. Directed by Tony Scott, this film's starring cast includes: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, and Tom Skerritt. The film was produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (the same guy who does the CSI shows). The film was inspired by a piece that was found in California Magazine several years before the film was shot. This might be one of the biggest films of the 80s. Cruise plays Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, who is a hotshot pilot.
Name that film!
This film is also an American movie franchise that is most about street racing but also fits in heists and espionage. Distributed by Universal Pictures, this series was kicked off with this 2001 film. There are also seven sequels, two short films that fit into various storylines, and as of May 2017, it has become Universal's biggest franchise of all time. Somehow, this is currently the sixth-highest-grossing film series of all time making a gross of over $5 billion. There is a spin-off film of some sort set to be released in July of 2019...
Name that Film!
This film is the first part of an intensely American franchise of ridiculous action films written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. The film series itself was originally created to pay respect to the big hit action films of the 1980s and 90s and also pays respect to and casts the action stars of those decades, as well as more recent stars from the action movie genre. The series currently has three films to its name with a fourth and hopefully final film scheduled to be released in the not-so-distant future.
Name that film!
This 2008 film is a superhero movie directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. The only thing he didn't do was act in it! With pretty iconic DC heroes and villains, this particular film is the second part of a trilogy, starring a pretty heavy-hitting cast including Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morgan Freeman. In the story, Bruce Wayne, James Gordon and Harvey Dent work together to dismantle a criminal mob in Gotham City. However, they meet up with a super villain who manages to turn Harvey Dent to villain status.
Name that film!
This is a 2002 American-German film that would categorized as an action thriller. The movie is based on a book by Robert Ludlum which bears the same name. It stars Matt Damon, playing a guy suffering from amnesia. He spends the movie trying to discover his true identity while getting entangled with the CIA. The rest of the cast includes Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Julia Stiles, Brian Cox, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. This is the very first film of a series.
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This is a 1984 American science-fiction action film made by the notable James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill a woman named Sarah Connor. Her son, John, is the saviour of mankind in the future and the machines want him gone. Michael Biehn plays the role of Kyle Reese, who is a future soldier also sent back to 1984, but to protect Sarah Connor...and become the father of the saviour of the future, maybe. James Cameron also wrote the script.
Name that film!
This is a 1983 American crime film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone. A lot of people don't know this but it's actually a remake of a 1932 film of the same name! Tony Montana comes to Florida from Cuba, looking for a new life. Of course, he's not looking for a normal life. He's looking for power! And he becomes one of the most powerful drug lords going. The cast includes Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Robert Loggia and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The film pulled in$44 million.
Name that film!
This is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen. Some people may not know this but the film not only starred Stalone...he wrote the script! The story is of an uneducated boxer who is working as a "collector" for a loan shark...which just means he beats people up for money...but not in the ring. As he starts out his boxing career, he's just fighting in little clubs. But amidst all the drama, he ends up fighting for the world title!
Name that film!
This particular film is a 1987 American "cyberpunk" action film. I had never heard of a film being referred to as "cyberpunk" before. The film stars Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, and Ronny Cox. The movie takes place in Detroit in some not-so-distant future. It is still full of crime after all. The main character is a cop who gets killed in a horrendous way by a gang...but he is brought back to settle the score in this cyborg form.
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This is a 1992 American heist thriller film. This is one of the greats that was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. In fact, this film was Tarantino's feature film debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunker. Each of these guys plays a criminal in a heist that goes very wrong. Let's just say that most of them don't make it out alive. The film has many of Tarantino's staples: violent crime, pop culture, swearing, and jumbled storytelling.
Name that film!
This film is all about a Vietnam vet who can't really fit in to American society anymore. He spends most of his time as a stereotypical drifter for ten years until he ends up in the town of Hope, Washington...which might be a bit symbolic. He goes to Hope to meet up with a former military friend only to discover that he had apparently died of cancer the summer previous, thanks to so much exposure to Agent Orange. This helps push Stallone's character to fight once more.
Name that film!
This is a 1987 American science fiction action horror film that is directed by the same guy who worked on Die Hard, John McTiernan. Like a number of films in the 80's this film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger. He plays the leader of a special forces team sent to rescue hostages from a ganf-held area in Val Verde in Central America. The villain of the piece is not the gang though. It's some sort of high-tech alien that is preying on the special forces team.
Name that film!
George Lucas created both the character and the franchise in question here in order to pay homage to action heroes of 1930s. This iconic character first debuted in a 1981 film that was followed by three more films as well as a tv series back in the 90s. You can find the character in novels, comics, video games, and everywhere else. He's even in a bunch of Disney parks and it seems like they're going to be making yet another unfortunate sequel.
Name that film!
This is an awesome gangster film written and directed by Martin Scorsese. He originally called the film Wise Guy but the film was put on the shelf for a number of years. Eventually, the dust was cleared but the script was given a new title. To prepare for their roles in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta often spoke with the man who wrote the very book the film was based on. Both the film and book are heavily based on real people. Some of the actors mentioned that improvisation and ad-libbing were encouraged during rehearsals and that helped form the final script.
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This is a 1998 American science fiction disaster film created by the infamous fan of movie explosions, Michael Bay. It was produced by CSI executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer. This movie is all about regular American oil driller who work out in the ocean. They are called for by NASA to train and ready themselves to travel to an asteroid and drill a hole to plant a nuke in order to save the world from imminent destruction. The movie stars Bruce Willis alongside Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Billy Bob Thornton and more!
Name that film!
This is a 2016 American superhero film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film was actually put out by 20th Century Fox though. This is the eighth film that is technically part of the X-Men series. This film is counted as a spinoff of that universe.Ryan Reynolds plays the title character and actually has free reign to joke and speak unlike his earlier version of the same character from another one of the X-Men films. Reynolds character is a constant joker who is terribly scarred.
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This is a 1995 American war film that is certainly considered an epic. The film is directed by Mel Gibson who happens to also star in the movie as the historical character of William Wallace. The film revolves around Wallace raising an army to face the British who have been oppressors for as long as they can recall. They ultimately fail in this uprising, but the story is left open and positive, to some extent. It grossed $210.4 million globally and was nominated for ten Oscars of which it received five!
Name that film!
This is a 1995 British spy film. It happens to be the 17th installment of the James Bond series and it stars Pierce Brosnan in his very first film as the famous James Bond. This is the very first Bond movie that actually has nothing to do with stories from author Ian Fleming. In this film, Bond fights off 006 who is an agent played by Sean Bean who seeks to wreak havoc on the financial sector of London in order to disrupt the entire world.
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This is a 1997 American action film produced by the man behind all of your favourite CSI shows, Jerry Bruckheimer. The film has a famous cast featuring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and John Malkovich, as well as Steve Buscemi, Colm Meaney, Mykelti Williamson, Ving Rhames, Nick Chinlund, Jesse Borrego, Jose Zuniga, and Monica Potter. This film managed to pull in over $224 million which is pretty good considering they only spent $75 million making the film itself. A lot of people had critical reviews of the film...but critics actually praised Cage.
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This could possibly be one of the greatest martial films of all time. Or at least it is recognized as such because in 2004, this film was preserved in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress because it is apparently "culturally, historically, [and/or] aesthetically significant". This martial arts film included elements of the Blaxploitation genre which sort of makes this film pretty racist overall, but it still manages to get saved as an important part of American culture...
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This is a 2006 British spy film, and the 21st installment of the James Bond series. The story is taken from a 1953 novel by Ian Fleming but this is not the first film to bear the name of that novel. This is actually the third film of the same name. This is the first of the Bond films to star Daniel Craig as James Bond. He would go on to do several more Bond films and is sometimes regarded as the best Bond.
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This is a 1998 American crime drama that is very heavy in subject matter. Starring both Edward Norton and Edward Furlong this film tells the tale of two brothers. One of whom was a neo-nazi who murdered several African Americans and went to prison for a time. Once he gets out, he is reformed to some extent and seeks to save his brother from the same dark path he travelled. Unfortunately, life isn't always fair and while he does save his brother from that path...someone else from that path meets up with his brother...
Name that film!
This is perhaps one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. My sister and I watch this every single year, along with its direct sequel. The film follows Bruce Willis' character John McClane who travels to California to visit his big-time executive wife and his kids for Christmas. Meeting his wife at her company's Christmas party, they are surprised by a group of thieves who lock down the place and aim to eventually kill all the hostages. This movie was originally offered to Frank Sinatra and also to Arnie. Thankfully, they both turned it down.
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This particular movie is a 1988 American martial arts film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Donald Gibb, Leah Ayres, and Bolo Yeung. The movie is at least partially based on some claims by a fighter named Frank Dux. The film was a huge success and one of Van Damme's first big roles. The film brought in a whopping $65 million on a budget no bigger than $2.3 million. The film has since received cult status much in the same way that Van Damme has.
Name that film!
This is a 2006 American war epic. Not that it's Americans in the war. Just meaning that it's an American-made film. The film is based on a Frank Miller comic series which is based on the retelling of The Battle of Thermopylae. Obviously, both the comic and the film really fictionalize things, but that the battle did actually happen during the Persian War against the Greeks. I doubt there is much in the film itself that is real beyond that though.
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This is a 1984 American comedy that is written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis as "eccentric parapsychologists", which basically means they are very deep into the supernatural ghost sort of stuff. So much so that they even start their own ghost-hunting business. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were originally to be the leads for the film and they were meant to travel through time and space to fight ghosts...but John Belushi died and the time/space travel just didn't work.
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This is a 1942 American dramatic romance based on an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison called Everybody Comes to Rick's. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid and features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. The film was set during WWII (which was underway at the time of the film's release. It focuses on an American ex-pat who runs a swanky club. He has decide what is more important...love of a woman...or helping that woman and her husband flee the Nazis.
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This is a 1971 American action crime thriller and is the first of several films in a series bearing the same name. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, as police inspector Harry Callahan. Much of the film pulls on the real-life case of the Zodiac Killer (which has still never been solved). The movie was an absolutely huge success and helped to launch Eastwood's career even farther. And while not all of the sequels of this franchise were necessarily better, they still managed to get four more out of this film.
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This 1999 film is based on a 1996 novel of the same name by now famed author, Chuck Palahniuk. The film stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton and also features one of Tim Burton's favourites, Helen Bonham Carter. Essentially, Norton's character, known only as the narrator, hates his job and ends up forming a group with a soap-maker named Tyler Durden. Norton's character ends up in a pretty messed up sort of relationship with Carter's character and Pitt's character and it all unfolds at a pretty nutty pace.
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This is a 2002 American epic, for sure. One of the greatest period dramas to be done in the past two decades, I'd say (no matter how stylized it might be).This film was directed by the incredible Martin Scorsese, and it takes place in the middle of the 1800s in New York during a time of political unrest, war, and intense gang violence. The film was based on on a book by Herbert Asbury. The book was written in 1928. This film was nominated for nine Oscars.
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This particular movie is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and is based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel which shares the very same name. Starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, the film is all about a fictional mafia family. The story takes off just at the end of WWII and stretches out as far as 1955. The whole film follows the story of the passing of Brando's character as he passes on the reigns of the family to Pacino.
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This is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film that stars Mel Gibson, from before he went completely insane. The film also features Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, and Roger Ward. This film is all about a post-apocalyptic world. It's a great story of societal ruin, murder, mayhem, revenge and all sorts of really cool vehicles. Basically, a cop gets caught up with a crazy biker gang and things just go nutty from there. It's a cult classic film though.
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This is a 1964 British spy film and is the third installment in the James Bond series. This particular Bond film stars Sean Connery who is perhaps one of the greatest Bonds of all time. This is one of the Bond films which is based on a novel by Ian Fleming. This movie also features Honor Blackman as Bond girl Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the titular character, as well as Shirley Eaton as the iconic Bond girl, Jill Masterson.
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This is a 2005 American crime thriller directed by the famous David Cronenberg. I had no idea but this film is actually adapted from a 1997 graphic novel which shares the same name. The film stars Viggo Mortensen as well as Ed Harris. Mortensen's character is seemingly an innocent owner of a little diner but after he schools to crooks who try to rob him, he gets pulled into a life he never wanted. While maybe not the biggest film of it's year, it certainly was a hit.
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This heist film came out in the States in 2001 and is a remake of the classic 1960 Rat Pack movie which bears the same name. It is one of the most popular heist films in history. This version of the film has a star-studded cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Andy García, and Julia Roberts. The first installment of this several-part series was a huge success, becoming the 5th-highest grossing film of that year. There are two sequels and an all-female reboot is set for this year.
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This 1994 Hong Kong kung fu film is perhaps one of the greatest, most hilarious, and most iconic kung fu films of all time. This movie was in part directed by Jackie Chan, who also stars in the leading role as Chinese folk hero, Wong Fei-hung. This was Chan's first return to traditional martial arts in film since The Young Master and Dragon Lord. While this is a 90's film, it wasn't released in the U.S. until 2000. And this film is actually a sequel to a 1978 film which shares a pretty similar title. Technically, it's more of a reboot than a sequel though.
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This is a hilarious and very gritty 2000 British crime comedy which was written and directed by Guy Ritchie. The cast for this film is star-studded to say the least and even features underground favourite Vinnie Jones, who used to be a footballer before making film-star status. The movie is set in London and shows the gruesome, criminal underbelly of the city. There are two main storylines to follow in the film. Both are violent yet also hilarious...got to love Brad Pitt's attempt at an accent.
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This is a 2015 action film which was a sort of joint endeavour between both an American and an Australian studio. Which makes total sense since the very first of these films (as well as the follow ups) were Australian-born. This is a reboot of the franchise and is technically the fourth film to bear this title. This is a great post-apocalyptic film that is set in a desert wasteland of future Australia where people search for two things. Water and gasoline. The film stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.
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This is a 2008 Hong Kong martial arts film that is wonderfully biographical in nature. The movie is based on the life of a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun. The reason why a lot of people would find this guy important is because he was historically the teacher of famous martial artist Bruce Lee. The film is set around the time of the Sino-Japanese war and follows this grandmaster (played by Donnie Yen) as he fights for fairness and freedom and peace.
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This particular film is a classic to be sure. It was made to try and show the "moral decay" of American youth. And they picked the right star to show that decay. The film stars James Dean in one of very few roles he was ever able to play before his death. The movie is all about generational differences between young and old and how they clash. The title of the film actually came from a book by psychiatrist Robert M. Lindner, written in 1944 book. The book bore the subtitle: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath.
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This film was released in 1994 in the United States, and was screened at the Venice Film Festival that same year. It was a definitive success pulling in over $50 million at the box office over a budget of about $34 million. Not a huge success, but a definitive one. It received pretty great reviews which is crazy considering just how messed up the movie really is. It is a very violent and graphic film and has been ranked as one of the most controversial of its time.
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This film is a 1997 American military science-fiction action movie that is sort of based on a book of the same name. Of course, the movie is never as good as the book. It was also inspired from a separate script entitled Bug Hunt on Outpost Nine, which they thankfully changed in place of the final title. The story is of a young man who signs up for the space army and finds love and death and all those things in between.
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This particular movie is a 2008 English-language but French-made action thriller starring the awesome Liam Neeson, as well as Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Katie Cassidy, Leland Orser, and Holly Valance. Neeson plays the role of Bryan Mills, who is a former CIA agent. He is a retired man...until his daughter is kidnapped and he goes on a rampage to track her down and get revenge on those who took her. Not even the government can stop him from taking justice into his own hands.
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This is 1993 American Western stars Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, with Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, and Dana Delany in supporting roles. It even features narration by Robert Mitchum. It's a pretty incredible cast of characters. The movie is actually based on true events that happened in Arizona, including the whole O.K. Corral incident, not to mention Wyatt Earp. Even Doc Holliday makes an appearance with a few other notable real-life Western favourites. A film classic for sure.
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This is a 1982 American science fiction and horror film which was directed by John Carpenter. I never knew this before but it is actually based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There? The film follows a group of researchers working in Antarctica who come across an alien life form who systematically goes about killing each of them off as it takes their own form. Trust is quickly lost in the group as anyone could be the creature and the only way to kill it is with fire!
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This is a 1996 American action thriller which is directed by the master of Hollywood explosions, Michael Bay. It's also produced by the guy who brings you CSI, Jerry Bruckheimer. The film has a star-studded cast with the likes of Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris in it, along with William Forsythe and Michael Biehn co-starring. It is dedicated to a man who worked on the film, who passed away only five months before the film hit the cinema. The movie was well-enough received to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound...which isn't saying much. But it was a huge box office hit pulling over $335 million to a budget of only $75 million.
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This is a 1987 American gangster film that is perhaps one of the biggest mafia classics of all time. It was directed by Brian De Palma, who brought us Scarface! The script was written by David Mamet who is a huge fan favourite among the theatre-going crowd. The film is based on a book by the same name. The cast is incredible, starring Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro, and Sean Connery. Essentially, the film is all about taking down Al Capone.
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This film is apparently based on a book by Paul Brickhill, written in 1950. It carries the same title. It is a fictional story of a group of British soldiers (and an American or two) who make a break for it at a German POW camp. They dig a series of tunnels beneath the camp and source all of the uniforms and papers they need in order to escape into the German country and eventually back home...unfortunately for most of the characters, that's not the way things turn out. Many of the characters in the film are actually based on real people who really did try and escape.
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This is a 2000 historical drama and it is definitely an epic. Directed by the famous Ridley Scott, this film tells of the character Maximus Decimus Meridius who was once a Roman general but was cast into the fighting pits of Rome because of a jealous son to the emperor. The film has an amazing cast featuring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel, and Richard Harris. This was actually Oliver Reed's very last role as he died sometime during production. He was to play a larger role in the film but his part is still iconic all the same with his "shadows and dust" line.