Precision F-Strike/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Ali: Come on, you big ugly bear-- I'll turn you into a rug!
Liston: Keep talkin'... I'ma FUCK you up!

Cue what may have been a Heroic BSOD for Ali. Within seconds he went right back to the trash-talking.
  • Performed calmly and elegantly by arguably the most revered Shakespeare actor of the past century, Sir John Gielgud, as Hobson the butler in Arthur (the 1981 movie):

Executive: He gets all that money. Pays his family back by bein' a stinkin' drunk. It's enough ta make ya sick.
Hobson: I really wouldn't know, sir. I'm just a servant. On the other hand... go screw yourself.

  • Gordon saying "We've got you, you son of a bitch" upon capturing The Joker, (after Joker along with much of Gotham thought Gordon was dead) in The Dark Knight is a good example.
    • Earlier in that scene, after Batman DOESN'T hit him with the Batpod, the Joker mouths the f-word, though it isn't audible. Blink and you'll miss it.
    • During the IMAX prologue, after Grumpy gets shot in the shoulder by the bank manager:

Grumpy: What the fuck!? [[[The Joker]] shoots the manager in retaliation] Where did you learn to count!?

  • The Rite: When Michael enters his room, and finds it filled with frogs (which the movie shows as a sign of demonic possession), he utters, "You gotta be fucking kidding me!"
  • Captain Rhodes wants to know what the fuck you're doing with his time.
  • 500 Days of Summer is rated PG-13, so it has to keep its language relatively friendly. When Tom is in the throes of depression after Summer leaves him, he tends to take his anger out via "poetry"
  • The film Be Cool (which was rated PG-13) used a Precision F Strike in the very beginning to lampshade the ratings system. After telling a friend that a movie can't have more than one F-bomb or else it gets an R rating (contrary to popular belief, this is not exactly true), John Travolta's character gives his opinion of that rule: "Fuck that."
    • The UK's BBFC ratings had/have a similar rule, in that the F word can be used twice and qualify for a 12 certificate, but any more gets a 15.
  • Donnie Darko was rated R and therefore made few attempts to limit its "fuck"-ing, however it still features two prime examples of precisely-used F bombs.
    • The first occurs early in the film, while the Darko family is eating dinner. Donnie and Elizabeth engage in a heated argument, in which they use remarks like "fuck-ass" and "suck a fuck." Even more comical than the fact that this is all taking place at the dinner table is the youngest Darko's response.

Samantha: "What's a fuck-ass?"

    • The second incident happens during a school assembly featuring the motivational speaker Jim Cunningham. After Cunningham's presentation, he takes questions from audience members, whom he repeatedly insists are troubled only by their own fear. Finding these suggestions preposterous, Donnie stands up as if he plans to ask a question, but instead gives his own take on Jim's advice. Jim Cunningham then calls Donnie a "troubled and confused young man."

Donnie: "You're right, actually. I am pretty-- I'm, I'm pretty troubled and I'm-- I'm pretty confused. But I-- ...And I'm afraid. Really, really afraid. Really afraid. But I... I... I think you're the fucking Antichrist."

  • In Freedom Writers, the teacher sees that one of her Troubled but Cute inner city students has given himself an F on his self-graded story. The normally clean and preppy teacher's reaction? "You know what I see with this F? A big FUCK YOU."
  • Anchorman: "Go fuck yourself, San Diego."
  • In Serenity, Mal Reynolds' line of "I will shoot you down," was written in the script as "I will fucking shoot you."
    • Though unusually, when Mal talks about how Simon knew River might go "apeshit" at any moment, it passes very quickly.
    • Watch the out-takes. There's a particularly startling one at Book's village.
  • Subverted in Accepted: Ben Lewis uses Shit many times during the meeting, and he also says "Fucking A!" Because Accepted is rated PG-13, he's not allowed to say Fuck anymore, but, when he delivers the Movies Aesop, it's beeped out. This arguably makes it even funnier.
    • As previously explained, though, there is no such single-F-bomb limit.
      • Actually there kind of is. "A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. The Rating Board nevertheless may rate such a motion picture PG-13 if, based on a special vote by a two-thirds majority, the Raters feel that most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of those words in the motion picture is inconspicuous." Taken from the MPAA's official description of the PG-13 rating. Not a "Two uses of fuck and it's R rated the end" but... you get the picture. It's possible to have 3 or 4 uses of fuck in a PG-13 movie, just unlikelier than if there were 2 uses of fuck in the same film.
        • Interestingly enough, the war documentary Gunner Palace got away with 42 uses of the word fuck and still had a PG-13 rating. That being said, the film makers had to campaign aggressively to get the rating lowered from an R, arguing that as it displayed real soldiers fighting in a real war, the swearing was not gratuitous. The Appeals Board agreed.
  • Agent Hanratty in Catch Me If You Can has one complete with perfect deadpan deliver.

"Wanna hear a joke?"
"Uhh..sure. Yeah."
"Knock knock."
(eagerly) "Who's there?"
(beat) "Go fuck yourself."

  • The Last King of Scotland is filled with lusty Scottish swearing, but one f-bomb near the climax hits particularly hard.

Dr. Garrigan: You're not a king, you're a child. That's what makes you so fucking scary.

  • Angela's use of one in American Beauty marks the point where we first start to see her true nature.
  • Alien actually has a few of these, all from different characters.

"Get away from her, you bitch!"

Zeus Carver: Hey, who was the twenty-first president?
Carjack victim: Go fuck yourself!

  • The trope is Older Than They Think, since it was done in Gone with the Wind with Clark Gable's memorable line: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" (There's a rumour that the producer was fined $5000 by the Motion Picture Association of America for leaving it in; in fact, the MPAA ultimately gave it a pass on the grounds that it was "damn" in the original book as well.)
  • The Sum of All Fears attempts to avoid the R rating and ends up giving its one Fuck to the U.S. President.
  • The Amazing Yen speaks nothing but Chinese for the entirety of Ocean's Eleven until, in a fit of frustration at Danny and Linus's late arrival he screams out "Where the FUCK you been?!"
  • This gets pulled off by Spike Witwicky in Transformers: The Movie. After an attempt to destroy Unicron with a moon bomb fails, Spike makes explicit his surprise by exclaiming, "It isn't even dented! Oh SHIT, what are we gonna do now?!". The fact that this was based off a cartoon for all ages makes it all the more surprising. Some versions have the line removed. This became so prevalent that on one Transformers DVD, this particular moment is titled "Swear"!
    • Later on in the film, Ultra Magnus tries to open the Matrix to defeat Galvatron and his Decepticon army. He fails, letting off a growl of "Open! Damn it, OPEN!"
  • In an attempt to Avoid the Dreaded G Rating, Sneakers has one of these.
  • Star Trek movies:
    • In Star Trek Generations, when the Enterprise is about to make a crash landing, Data (who has recently acquired his emotion chip) sums up the situation very concisely: "Oh, shit!" If any other character had delivered this line, it would have lost most if not all of its impact.
    • Also used in Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country, where Spock's response to the news of the Enterprise's decommissioning is: "If I were human, I believe my response would be... Go to Hell."
      • Homaged in Star Trek: First Contact; the Enterprise is ordered to stay out of a battle with the Borg. As the battle goes badly, Picard tells the crew he's about to violate that order and notes that any crew objections will be noted. Data (the logical android who had no emotions until the previous movie) responds with a crowning moment of awesome: "I believe I speak for the entire crew, sir, when I say... To Hell with our orders."
    • Spock's efforts at swearing, when the Enterprise crew traveled the hell back in time to 1986, in Star Trek IV the Voyage Home, demonstrated why his not using curse words is a good idea.
      • Actually, I think Kirk's "Double dumbass on you, too!" was the best example of why not to try.
      • An implied swear is present, when the local whale biologist is getting wise to time-travelling Kirk and Spock's true intentions with the whales.

Spock: Are you sure it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?

      • Although he did figure out swearing by the end of the film. "Just one damn minute, Captain."
    • And the new movie features this exchange:

Spock Prime: I have been, and always shall be, your friend.
Kirk: ... Bullshit.

  • The Live-action parody movie of the above, Star Wreck, has one engineer, whose name actually qualifies: Fukov. The way it's pronounced, it often sounds like "fuck off".
  • In Source Code when Colter finds out he's dead and Goodwin tries to calm him, Colter, who up to this point has been nothing but polite and patient, simply stands up and screams "FUCK YOU!"
  • Avatar.
    • A well-timed cuss word is used when Tsu'tey figures out that Jake and Neytiri have had sex in the middle of an already-volatile situation, Dr. Augustine responds in the following fashion:

Tsu'tey: You mated with this woman?!
Dr. Augustine: Oh, shit.

This one's made even more effective because everyone present in the scene is using Na'vi mannerisms by this point, but Augustine "breaks character" to deliver her curse with a very noticeably human tone and gesture.
    • When Jake scares off the giant... rhino... thing.

Jake: Yeah that's right bitch, run back on to mommy.

    • Turns around to subsequently see a giant... leopard... thing behind him. One wonders why he didn't swear in the presence of Quaritch considering how much of a badass Quaritch is.
  • The F-bomb is dropped somewhat early in Hancock, and an earlier (foreign) swear had been censored in the subtitles, presumably to take advantage of the rule mentioned above.
  • In the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, Cash generally sticks only to the mild, old-school country boy stuff like "damn" and "hell". But in the scene where he performs on stage drunk/high, he acts very strange, playing the guitar with a dazed smile on his face and making an unusually harsh aside to his drummer: "Just play the fucking thing." Moments later, he collapses. This surprising usage of the word catches the viewer off-guard and lets them know something bad is about to go down.
    • Later in the movie, he lampshades this trope while performing at Folsom Prison: "Now, we're recording live, so don't say 'hell' or 'shit' or anything like that."
  • In the recent film Changeling, this is important: Saying "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" shows her decision to fight for her son whatever the cost.
  • Falling Down:

Captain Yardley: (To Sgt. Prendergast, the protagonist) I never liked you. You know why? You don't curse. I don't trust a man who doesn't curse. Not a "fuck" or a "shit" in all these years. Real men curse.
(Much later, when Yardley tries to get Prendergast to say a few words and help him look good on camera:)
Sgt. Prendergast: Fuck you, Captain Yardley. Fuck you very much.

  • The Simpsons Movie: "SOMEBODY THROW THE GODDAMN BOMB!!" The reason it's effective in this case isn't the level of the swear (bitch, bastard, whore and slut having been mainstays in the series for years), but the speaker, Marge, who in the series proper almost never swears; however, only on Sky 1 is the word ever used on the show proper due to American TV blasphemy rules (see below for when Sky 1 did use that word).
    • Humourously the subtitles for the episode "Mother Simpson" on Sky 1 manages to turn a line into a weird kind of F-Strike. Makes it funnier if you are watching this episode at midday.

Homer* upon seeing that the grave of his mother is actually another persons grave: * screams angrily* DAMN YOU, WALT WHITMAN!
Subtitle track: GOD DAMN YOU, WALT WHITMAN!

    • The episode "Fraudcast News" has one delivered by Groundskeeper Willy near the end of the episode:

Willy: Check out the Willy World News! I review the new tractors... They're all shite![1]

  • Inverted in Goodfellas: Hair-Trigger Temper Tommy, whose dialogue throughout the movie was littered with Cluster F Bombs, says "Oh no" just before his surprise execution.
  • Bruce Almighty gets in its "one F-word to avoid the dreaded R rating" when Bruce shouts "back to you, fuckers!" during a live newscast.
  • "Oh, fuck off, grasshopper!"
    • There is a slightly better example; Early on, we are introduced to the "swear box," into which one must put money if they swear. This is called back later when Nick Angel tosses in a coin and yells "Leslie Tiller was FUCKING murdered!" Up 'til then, he was shown not even to swear ever on police time.
  • From Spaceballs: "'Out of order'?! FUCK! Even in the future, nothing works!" Interestingly, the MPAA actually rated the film PG despite this F strike, making it one of VERY FEW PG-rated filmss where someone audibly says "fuck". Even more interestingly, this was also after the PG-13 rating was introduced.
  • In Baseketball, Coop lets out a distraught "Fuck!" after an argument with Remer when the Beers are exploited by Baxter Caine. Televised airings cut that F-bomb out.
  • Used in So I Married an Axe Murderer, when an axe thuds into the dresser right in front of Mike Myers and he shouts "What the Fuck?!" It's possibly a Crowning Moment of Funny.
  • The Drover in Australia sticks to the fairly mild "crikey" for most of the film. After Darwin is bombed by the Japanese and he's told his lover is dead, he goes into the ruin of a bar for a drink. When the barkeep refuses to let the Drover's aborigine friend in he snaps "Just serve the fucking drink."
  • In Quantum of Solace, Judi Dench of all people drops a spectacular one when she snaps, "I don't give a shit what the CIA thinks!" This, after 22 James Bond films where the strongest swear word heard is "bastard"... oh, my.
    • There's also Pam Bouvier in Licence to Kill, one of the series' most notable attempts to go Darker and Edgier. Her response to Q telling her Bond's just doing his usual thing in sleeping around on her is "Bullshit!"
      • It's not the first time either; when Bond hijacks an airplane in Live and Let Die, one passenger's response is to say "shit".
      • His "son of a bitch" in a crucial scene in Licence to Kill. That movie was the closest any Bond movie came to getting an R rating -- they had to cut some of the more violent scenes in order for the movie to make PG-13. And then, the film got a 15 in the UK--the only Bond film to do so. Only recently has the uncut version, officially rated R by the MPAA, been released on home video in the States--and that one's always packaged with the PG-13 cut.
  • Life of Brian In a book full of interviews with the Pythons, one of them acknowledges this trope with regards to this exchange.

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!

Brian: Excuse me, are you the Judean Peoples' Front?
Reg: Fuck off!
Brian: What?
Reg: Judean Peoples' Front? We're the Peoples' Front of Judea!

    • And during the Sermon on the Mount, when Mr. Bignose is offended by someone else's remark:

Mr. Bignose: One more time, mate, I'lll take you to the fucking cleaners!
Mrs. Bignose: LANGUAGE!

  • Dwayne of Little Miss Sunshine, who has been The Voiceless Emo Teen for the first half of the movie, lets out a very loud "FUCK!" when he learns that he's color-blind and thus can't fulfill his dream of flying airplanes.
    • On the other hand, his speech after that incident is more of a Cluster F-Bomb.
  • This trope is most definitely prevalent in Finding Forrester after Jamal calls out Forrester for being too scared to help him out. And this is to a character played by Sean Connery, nonetheless.
  • In the Towering Inferno, after Steve McQueen realizes that the only way to put out the fire will probably kill both him and Paul Newman: "Oh, Shit!"
  • The Good Son has one of the actor-side variant; you wouldn't expect the Home Alone kid to say "Don't fuck with me."
  • Lucky Number Slevin drops the F-bomb from time to time, but The Boss (played by Morgan Freeman) rarely swears up until the film's climax. His calling the Rabbi a "fucking Philistine" face-to-face--er... back-to-back? is pretty intense.
    • Additionally, Slevin only drops the F-bomb when he's repeating something his neighbour Lindsay said.
      • And when he takes the precision F-shot after revealing himself not as Slevin or Nick Fisher, but as Henry, the child whose family was killed in the first flashback of the film.
        • "The two of you killed everything I ever loved. Fuck you both."
  • The Austin Powers series doesn't have a whole lot of swearing, making it more effective in Goldmember when Dr. Evil responds to his unexpected capture in the first act with a simple "...shit."
    • This was a Call Back to a similar situation in the first film. Dr. Evil outlines an elaborate plan to blackmail the Royal Family, but Number Two shoots it down. Dr. Evil, not to be deterred, follows up with a second even more elaborate plan involving lasers and cancer the world over...but Number Two shoots it down. Dr. Evil's response? "Shit."
  • Alec Baldwin uses a perfectly-timed F bomb in The Aviator.
  • Inverted in Once Upon a Time In Mexico; aside from when he's deliberately being polite, Sands curses like a sailor throughout the movie. When he is truly, truly scared, he starts using G-rated euphemisms. For example, to Barillo and Dr. Guevara immediately before they take away his eyes:

Sands: I feel it's only fair to warn you that killing me is crossing the line, and you will have every single Marine from here to Guantanamo Bay up your keester, mister, so just know that.

  • The Sandlot (a PG-rated movie, by the way), right after Benny tries to get back the Babe Ruth autographed baseball from the neighbor's yard, the dog, Hercules, jumps over the fence and chases him all over town. His "Oh, shit!" is a perfect Oh Crap moment, too.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indy, with Willie and Short Round with him, are on a rope bridge over a huge gorge with a rock-strewn and alligator-infested river beneath them...and mad cultists at either end of the bridge. Oh, and he's lost his gun.

Indy: Oh, shit.

    • Raiders of the Lost Ark did it first, with Indy saying "holy shit" when the Nazi submarine arrives.
      • When Belloq leaves him trapped in the Well of Souls and jokes: "Who knows? In a thousand years even you may be worth something!" Indy laughs and mutters "Son of a bitch!"
    • In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Indy swipes the MP-40 away from one of the German officers as he's trying to rescue his dad, the officer says shit in German.
  • In Sixteen Candles (rated PG) the word is used one time, when Samantha realizes that her family forgot her birthday.
  • Stargate: Continuum. None of the characters swear that much in the series and then, it's fairly mild. But when SG-1 find themselves in Antarctica and Daniel has to be left alone in the freezing cold, with frost bite in his left leg, he calmly watches his friends walk away before muttering to himself: "Aw shit."
    • And later, during the interrogation montage:

Daniel Jackson: I mean, seriously, who would make this shit up?!

  • The recent Get Smart film made excellent use of this trope, especially with Alan Arkin's character.
    • Right after driving through a snack bar with a swordfish on it.

Max: Chief, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
The Chief: I don't know, are you thinking Holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went through my head? If so, yes.

  • Annoyingly averted in Galaxy Quest. Originally, when being told to go through the garbage chompers, Sigourney Weaver's reaction was supposed to be "Well fuck that!", which would have been the film's only profanity, and would have been highly effective. The line is instead dubbed to "Well screw that!", although the actor can clearly be seen saying the original line.
  • Equilibrium has little swearing, only three times by my count. The most effective one is when Preston has been caught, all seems lost, and then the polygraph he is hooked up to flatlines, accompanied by a simple "Oh... Shit." from the attendant, just before Preston says "Not without incident," and starts a Gun Kata asskicking spree that does not end until he kills DuPont.
  • As the DVD's deleted scenes reveal, X-Men: The Last Stand was originally poised to have one of these: "Mr. President, shut the fuck up!" The final cut of the film is actually the least profane of the trilogy, with not even a "shit" making it through. The most TV-unfriendly word in the movie is "dickhead".
    • The iconic line (and Ascended Meme), "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"
    • In X-Men: First Class, Wolverine gets one when approached by Charles and Erik: "Go fuck yourselves."
      • Something of a trend for him, as the second film gave him a rather effective "Holy shit" upon seeing Lady Deathstrike's claws.
  • Done by, of all people, Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate.
  • She's All That: Rachael Leigh Cook delivers the line "Am I a bet; am I a fucking bet?" This is done with the camera on a silent Freddie Prinze, Jr., making it trivial to edit for network television.
  • Oddly used in Outlander. The film is already rated R for violence, yet the only harsh profanity comes at the beginning of the film: After getting the Norse language beamed into his brain through his eyes, which is apparently rather painful, Kainan can only mutter, "Ooooooooooh fuck."
  • Normally eloquent scientist Dr. Emmett Brown chimes in with probably the funniest line from Back to The Future:

Dr. Emmett Brown: If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.

    • Also discussed when George asks Marty if he really needs to swear when he confronts him in the car with Lorraine ("Hey, You! Get your damn hands off her."), which sets up George's Crowning Moment of Awesome against Biff.
      • "Yes, George, goddammit, swear!"
  • Public Enemies makes good use of this trope, partly due to taking place in a time when swearing had yet to be as cheapened as it is today. The "bomb" itself is dropped under appropriate duress.
  • Billy Bob Thornton's character in Armageddon is a calm, subdued NASA director. During the mission, when the drillers are having trouble drilling to the necessary distance in order to plant their bomb, the president orders the bomb to be remote detonated from mission control, which would essentially waste the bomb and doom the Earth to destruction. As one of the military generals the president has sent in prepares to detonate the bomb, Thornton's character lets his disapproval be known: "This is one order you shouldn't follow and you FUCKING know it!"
  • Nicolas Cage's character in The Rock starts out as a nerdy scientist type who's obviously way in over his head participating in the Alcatraz mission, and who makes conscious efforts to avoid the use of cuss words. By the time the mission is nearly complete, he has become so affected by his experiences that he gives both his partner and the enemy soldiers a mouthful of F-bombs.
  • In Orphan, Isabelle Fuhrman's character, a 9-year-old girl named Esther or so we are led to believe, delivers the first "Fuck" of the movie. It's the first foul word in the film and it's reasonably far in; all that combined with her absolutely calm, matter-of-fact, deadpan delivery makes the whole audience jump.
  • Near the end of Shall We Dance? after Link's co-workers discover that he is a ballroom dancer and begin to mock him, he says "Fuck you all."
  • While A Fish Called Wanda is hardly short swear words, it's still a great precision strike when the proper and polite Archie finally snaps:

George: Tell those pigs to fuck off.
Archie: Fuck off, pigs.
[Police officers are dumbfounded]
Archie: Did you hear what I said? Fuck off.

  • Spare me... I won that tournament... fuckin' Chuck Norris!
  • In Red Eye, Psycho for Hire Jackson Rippner spends the majority of the film suave, calm, and in control of himself. His voice even borders on a Creepy Monotone at times. However, when he catches Lisa attempting to foil his plan, again, in the airplane bathroom, not only does he get seriously violent, but he finally starts to swear. (The rest of the swearing in the movie is from mostly heroic characters.) In a callback to his earlier misjudged drink order--

"You know what I think? I think you're not such an honest person. Because I've been following you for eight weeks now, and I never once saw you order anything but a fucking Sea Breeze!

  • While Jay is pretty potty-mouthed himself, Silent Bob gets one in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Jay's monkey is kidnapped and driven away in a van with a poster on the back that clearly shows its destination. After about 3 minutes of stupidity, Silent Bob is forced to set his friend straight.

Silent Bob: The sign! On the back of the car! Said "Critters...Of Hollywood!!" YOU DUMB FUCK!!!

  • In 28 Days, the writers had to deliberate over the best place for Sandra Bullock to use the F word, it being a PG-13 movie an' all. In the end, they struck "Fuck Mr. Rogers" and went with the more perfunctory scene in which Bullock's character defends herself in a group circle. "Would you please just BACK THE FUCK OFF?!"
  • Steve Martin's character launches a Cluster F-Bomb at an unsuspecting rental car agent in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but the rental car agent wins the battle with one solidly placed Precision F-Strike. Crowning Moment of Funny for the film.
  • An extremely creative usage in Raising Arizona, one of the Coen Brothers' few PG-13 rated movies:

So, he's got the sandwich in one hand, and the fucking head in the other!

  • In another PG-13 rated Coen Brothers' film, Intolerable Cruelty, the one f-bomb is used really well.

Wrigley: Do you have any baby field greens?
Diner Waitress: What did you call me?
Wrigley: Uh -- do you have a green salad?
Waitress: What the fuck color would it be?

  • Val Kilmer delivers the sole F bomb in Tombstone while playing Chopin on the piano. The saloon's resident music critic/drunken gunfighter apparently had never heard of "Frederic fucking Chopin".
  • Questionably employed in the remake of The Italian Job. Apparently following the "one and only one use in a PG-13 movie" rule, the writers gave it to the villain when his truck full of gold vanishes on him ("Where the fuck is my TRUCK!!") Which is a good place for it, but meant that another character (with no in-character reason to self-censor) got to shout the laughable "mother-freaking Ukrainians!" in another scene.
  • Beetlejuice (Which was only rated PG by the way): "Nice fucking model!"
    • HONK HONK!
  • In Jennifer's Body, after she realizes she's making out with Jennifer, Needy screams "What the fuck!?!" Jennifer tells her that it's the first time she's heard her say "fuck".
  • YOU GOT KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT!
  • On the director's commentary for Shattered Glass, which was a PG-13 movie, director Billy Ray notes that they specifically saved up their allotted uses of the word "shit" for Chuck Lane's furious World of Cardboard Speech against Stephen Glass. Considering that Lane had been portrayed as a sensible, no-dramatics kind of guy, when he finally loses his temper the accompanying swearing is very effective.
  • In The Brothers Bloom, Bang Bang, a character who says almost nothing throughout the entire film, uses one of her few lines to simply say "Fuck me" when the gang accidentally causes a huge explosion.
  • When Ron tells Harry to "piss off" in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Not exactly the F-bomb, but the reaction in my theatre was EPIC nonetheless.
    • Also, same movie, when Harry says "I don't give a DAMN what your father says, Malfoy!"
    • From Deathly Hallows - Part 2: "Not my daughter, you bitch. AVADA KEDAVRA!"
  • John Carpenter's The Thing:

Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!

    • The crawling head scene's hilarious quip: "You gotta be fucking kidding..."
    • "YEAH, FUCK YOU TOO!!"
  • Good Morning Vietnam: The fighting men have fought to get Cronauer back on the air after he reported censored news, but he's given up. His attitude pushes the normally mild-mannered Garlick to his breaking point: "So that's it? You're just gonna leave the whole fucking thing behind?!"
  • Quentin Tarantino, known for his vulgar dialogue, also likes throwing in precision strikes:
    • Pulp Fiction, Honey Bunney speaks in a Tastes Like Diabetes fashion to Pumpkin until they start their robbery, when she barks out "Any one of you fucking pigs move and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!" Later, the very business-like Wolf ends a request, "...so, pretty please, with sugar on top, clean the fucking car."
      • Also when Marcellus Wallace runs into the man he's been looking for, just by sheer coincidence, his reaction is a single well-timed "Motherfucker".
    • In Kill Bill, O-Ren gives a poisonously sweet, friendly and courteous speech to the Yakuza council about her open-door management philosophy, then finishes it off with an increasingly angered, "Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!"
    • Inglourious Basterds has a particularly notable example from a relatively mild word. A Gestapo officer discovers in a bar some of the Basterds disguised as German officers with the German actress Bridget von Hammersmark, a British double agent. The very Affably Evil Gestapo officer makes this point known and Hammersmark starts to speak, to which he replies "shut up slut". For a film that includes many instances of Crosses the Line Twice, that alone got an audible gasp among the audience.
  • Tremors: Cold my ass, he's dead. We killed it. We killed it! Fuuuuck yoooouuu!!
  • The Devil's Rejects, the f-bomb king, has one precision f-strike made all the sweeter by the fact it actually lampshades the f-strike itself!

Adam Banjo:(bleeding to death) Fuck... you...
Otis B. Driftwood: That's what they all say. "Fuck you!" Well it ain't gonna save you. It don't scare me none and it don't suddenly make you a fucking hero.

  • From Knocked Up: Sure, there was plenty of cursing (it WAS an R-rated Judd Apatow movie, after all), but surprisingly enough, very little from Paul Rudd (who usually somehow ends up delivering Cluster F Bombs in most of his comedy movies before and since)...until he's looking for some nookie from his wife, played by Leslie Mann, and gets rebuffed.

"Well...FUCK!"

Gang Leader: Don't fuck with the Lords of Hell.
Chris Parker: Don't fuck with the babysitter.

  • Even Siskel & Ebert considered this trope to be hilarious in the film Critters, in which it's uttered in Critterese by a foot-tall alien furball, and the translation appears as a subtitle.
  • Subverted in the Porky's sequel, when a character's misheard demand that an evangelist "get the flock out of here!" is mis-heard by an arena full of people ... and (this being a Porky's film) receives a standing ovation from the teen protagonists.
  • The Running Man gets bonus points for this one, by having its Precision F-Strike delivered by a sweet-looking little old grandmother on live television.
  • "You blew me hat off, ya bitch!"
  • In Inside Man, the mayor of New York gets one. He and Madeleine White, played by Jodie Foster, are all smiles and pleasantries until the door to his office closes, at which point he shifts gear dramatically. After she's finished her list of politely-phrased demands, he tells her "You are a magnificent cunt."
  • In Soap Dish, Sally Field, no less, complains about her character's outfit. "It makes me look like Gloria fucking Swanson!"
  • Fuck the man in the sky!
  • Crimson Tide features a fantastic example, when Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington are having a disagreement and talking over each other, during which Hackman's character appears polite, calm and rational, but finally snaps, "Mr Hunter. I've made a decision. I'm Captain of this boat. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
  • The French-Canadian dub of Team America: World Police does a variation of this. As in the English-language original, swear words are used throughout. However, they are all translated as international French swearwords, such "putain" or "merde", which in Québec are considered as rather mild. However, when all hell breaks loose in the Egypt mission, one of the puppets let out a deadpan "Oh, shit". In that case, and ONLY in that case, it is translated by a "sacre", an infamous religious-based swear word unique to Quebec: "Ostie".
  • In The Blind Side when Leigh Ann is facing down a drug dealer while looking for Michael.

Leigh Ann: No, you hear me, bitch!

  • The Spy Kids series had used "shittake mushrooms" to cover for the kids' swearing, especially in the first film when Juni almost says "Oh shit" when facing down his robot double and Carmen covers for him. In the second film during a duel against a traitorous agent, she tells him "You're so full of shit," causing the various monsters and reanimated skeletons watching the fight to gasp in shock.
    • In the second movie, "-take mushroom" is actually subtly muttered after Carmen's use of "shit," similar to its use in the first movie.
      • Carmen does it again in the fourth film, when she and her family are surrounded by Tick Tock's agents:

Carmen: Oh, shittake mushrooms.

  • In Robert Altman's Mash, the 4077th is playing a football game against the 8063rd. During the game one of the 4077th's players decides to tell a player on the other team, "All right, bud, your fuckin' head is coming right off." Not only is this the only use of the word in the movie, it's one of the earliest uses of the word in all of mainstream Hollywood cinema.
  • Two occur in Julie & Julia: The first when Julia Child (Meryl Streep) is removing pasta from a pan, remarking to her husband that "These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock!" The second, is later in the film; her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) is consoling her over a failed book deal, with the style and gravitas one would expect from a diplomat - until he concludes with a heartfelt "Fuck them."
  • Daniel Craig's character in Munich: "Don't fuck with the Jews."
  • Bill Cosby - a famously clean comedian - uses one in one of his most famous routines. From Bill Cosby: Himself:

I said to a guy, "Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful," and he said, "Because it intensifies your personality." I said, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"

  • "You cannot control me father; Daddy's girl's a fucking monster!"
  • In Date Night, Phil (Steve Carell) gets more and more tired of looking at the perpetually shirtless Mark Wahlberg. While asking him for some assistance before the climax, he ends by tearfully saying "And would you please, for the love of god, put on a fucking shirt?"
  • In Killers, after Katherine Heigl has found that her husband never told him about being an agent (and nearly getting killed several times), and then at the end finds out her father was also lying about who he was, she snaps and forces her husband and her parents into a "trust circle" and tells them that there will be no more secrets or lies in the family and no more killing, she then firmly illustrates her point by stating "I don't even want to see you swat a FUCKING fly!"
  • FUCK BARBRA STREISAND!
  • In Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, after Robin and Azeem launch themselves over the castle walls with a catapult:

Will Scarlett: Fuck me, he cleared it!

    • Some versions change this to "Blimey, he cleared it!", or just "Cleared it", annoyingly.
  • Million Dollar Baby has a single swear word, given by a priest of all people. While arguing with Clint Eastwood's character, he says, "Okay, now you're a fucking paganist".
    • I believe it was "there are no demigods, you fuckin' pagan!" in response to his questions about the one God/holy trinity dichotomy.
  • Gran Torino has one as well; when you see a very serious and straight-laced Catholic priest take the lord's name in vain (in a church, no less), you know things are about to get grim.
    • Walt employs a Precision Black Strike once, and not only is it his only racial slur against blacks in the entire film, it's the only racial slur against blacks in the entire film period!

Walt: What are you spooks up to?

  • Driving Lessons has a well-placed F strike toward the end (in the American version it's one of only two F words, the earlier one being spoken by Evie earlier on during their road trip to Edinburgh, and the two lines that follow this one are cut entirely):

Ben Marshall: Fuck off, Sarah.
Sarah: What?
Ben Marshall: I said, "fuck off."

Inigo Montoya: Hello! My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die.
Count Rugen: No!
Inigo Montoya: Offer me money.
Count Rugen: Yes...
Inigo Montoya: Power, too. Promise me that.
Count Rugen: All that I have and more, please...
Inigo Montoya: Offer me everything I ask for.
Count Rugen: Anything you want.
Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch. And then, finally, he kills Count Rugen.

    • This is carried over almost exactly from the original novel. The main difference is that in the novel, Inigo practically screams the line; in the film, he says it very softly and intently and it's awesome.
  • Three Days of the Condor: "You play games. Six people died, and you play fucking GAMES?"
  • Although Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was rife with all sorts of profanity, calamity, and insanity, Duke's "FINISH! THE FUCKING! STORY!!" is very effective, and due to the way he says it, is actually almost just as frightening as what he had been hallucinating: his attorney turning into a werewolf like demon with six breasts growing out of his back, accompanied with some scary ass music and creepy red lights everywhere.
  • In 2012, a very desperate Jackson Curtis tells his wife and kids to "get in the fucking car!", as their house crumbles around them.
  • In Married to the Mob, Connie Russo (Mercedes Ruehl) is tearing through the (pretty crappy looking) apartment of Angela de Marco (Michelle Pfeiffer), looking for her philandering husband Tony "The Tiger" Russo (played by Dean Stockwell, but he's not there). In mid-tear, Connie stops, looks around and says to no one in particular, "What a fucking dump."
  • Karl Urban manages one in the last 5 minutes of RED, the only one in the whole film. And it is glorious. "Fuck you, Cynthia
  • In Air Force One, the Big Bad played by Gary Oldman drops the f-bomb twice, including the scene where the plane is about to land at Ramstein Air Force Base, but he won't allow it: "GET THE FUCK IN THE AIR!"
  • The movie version of Little Shop of Horrors, when Audrey II is electrocuted, right before he explodes he shouts "Oh, SHIT!"
    • Also when Seymour figures out his plan to take over the world with his plant army Audrey II responds "Well no shit Sherlock!".
  • In Knight and Day, there is a little swearing, and every use of it counts.
  • Played for humor in Panic Room. Meg and her daughter Sarah are trapped in the room, which has an intercom.

Meg: <Over intercom> Get out of my house!
Sarah: Say "fuck".
Meg: Fuck!
Sarah: No, say, "Get the fuck out of my house."
Meg: Oh. <Intercom> Get the fuck out of my house!

  • Rupert Grint swears at least once in all his films. Aside from the above examples, he gets his obligatory profanity in Wild Target when Victor Maynard's home is beseiged by Dixon and his right-hand man. He also assures his friend Patrick he's going to be "Goddamn fine" during an encouraging speech toward the end of Thunderpants--despite being a 13-year-old in a room full of adults, including Ned Beatty!
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was going to contain a Precision F Strike, using their one PG-13 allotted curse word by having Envy Adams say the line "Shut the fuck up Julie." According to the director's commentary, the f-bomb was censored in the same way that Julie's lines jokingly were because they unwittingly used up their curse word allotment when Scott called the third evil ex-boyfriend a "cocky cock."
    • Though they did keep Wallace's "Oh, Shit" line from the comic book.
    • It's arguably funnier with the bleep (complete with a black box to cover her mouth)
  • In the beginning of Mixed Nuts, Mrs. Munchnik (Madeline Kahn) is generally pretty uptight and never curses. Later in the film, Phillip and Catherine discover her stuck in an elevator, only to get distracted and leave her there for a number of minutes. They forget about her, and she's pretty accomodating about it. Until, that is, she gets impatient and picks the perfect moment to shout "HEY...DICKHEADS!!!!"
  • Planet of the Apes has a very well known closing sequence, featuring Charlton Heston shouting "GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!"
    • "Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
  • Star Wars has mostly clean language, which is why its few moments of swearing are so special.
    • A New Hope has the following conversation between Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi:

Han: Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam.
Obi-Wan: Leave that to me.
Han: Damn fool, I knew you'd say that.

Rebel technician: Sir, your tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker.
Han: Then I'll see you in hell!

  • In Battle: Los Angeles, Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) gets one very rousing example when he encourages men to "show those bastards who they're fuckin' with" during an alien invasion.
  • 1971's "A New Leaf" (which co-writer and co-star Elaine May had since disavowed) has Walter Matthau dropping "hell" and "damn" several times (throwing in a "damn it to hell") as well as "son of a bitch"once (after being called a son of a bitch). Plus it had a scene of a woman removing her bikini top, cutting away to Matthau running off in a panic just in time. The MPAA gave this film a "G" rating.
  • In the PG-13 rated Cellular, Mooney finally reaches the end of his rope with people calling his retirement business a beauty parlor. "It's a day spa, you fuck!"
  • Possibly in The King's Speech. While Bertie's practicing with Lionel, Lionel suggests that Bertie tries swearing. Bertie isn't up for it at first, but in the end he goes into a long tirade of "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK tits." (The word possibly is used here because the swearing is to help Bertie speak more fluently. Previously in the movie, Bertie could get so angry that he would have a short outburst where he didn't stutter at all.)
  • Tank features one. While in the chow hall, Command Sergeant Major Carey (James Garner) is eating with the enlisted men, much to the displeasure of the mess sergeant. Fully prepared to chew the Sergeant Major a new one for such a breach of etiquette, the master sergeant points out that he's been working mess halls over 27 years. Dwight D. Eisenhower ate his cooking! Carey calmly explains he came in not for a surprise inspection, but because he wanted to eat with the men and because the food smelled good, and proceeded to compliment the mess sergeant on his cooking.

MSG Johnson: "You wanna talk about my food, you taste that apple cobbler and then you talk about my food."
CSM Carey: (takes bite) Beat "Sergeant."
MSG Johnson: "Yeah?"
CSM Carey: "That's the best fucking apple cobbler I ever tasted."
MSG Johnson: "Give that man some seconds."

  • Friday the 13th (film): "What's going on?" "Jason fucking Voorhees, that's what's going on!"
    • In Friday the 13th Part VI, when Tommy chews out the sheriff for not burning Jason's remains upon discovering them, the sheriff has this to say before Tommy sets off to finish the job the sheriff allegedly slacked off on:

Sheriff: Well, we were gonna, but some asshole paid to give him and his mother a proper burial.

  • In the first Critters film two crites are having a subtitled argument about how harmless the humans when suddenly one of them gets blown to pieces with a shotgun blast the survior shouts "Oh fuck!" in subtitles.
  • In the anti-Mc Carthyism film The Front, Woody Allen spends the entire film fronting for blacklisting writers, but without committing himself... until (in the last line) he tells the Unamerican Activities Sub-Committee to go fuck themselves... in a PG-rated movie!
  • Bullitt: The only profanity in the film occurs in a brief exchange near the end. According to IMDb, this was actually the first uncensored appearance of this word in a major film.

Senator Chalmers: Frank, we must all compromise.
Lt. Bullitt: Bullshit.

Olin: It's an evil fucking room.

  • 1980s gem Galaxina features two. One, when it dawns on Chopper the high priest/leader of the motorcycle gangsters imprisoned on a distant planet that if he possesses the Blue Star, he'll be able to rule "the whole fucking universe!" The other is aimed at Sam, the elderly Oriental crewman who is prone to spouting off faux Confucianisms. Suffering from a neck injury, his crewmate, Maurice, has had one too many.

Sam: Robot woman like clock: pretty face, pretty hands, pretty movement, but hard to regulate when she get out of order.
Maurice: Sam, would you shut the fuck up?

  • In Kuffs, Christian Slater's brother Tony Goldwyn launches into a heavily-bleeped tirade spoofing profanity bleeps (every swear word is covered with a different sound), culminating in a very loud and unbleeped "FUCK YOU!"
  • In Warriors of Virtue Ryan says "shit happens" near the end.
  • Wanted has the character Sloan (played by Morgan Freeman) dropping the F-bomb twice during the course of the film to punctuate some of its most dramatic scenes.
  • A very mild one in Plan 9 from Outer Space: "Find them, Colonel. See what in HELL it is they want!"
  • From The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as Tuco reunites with his old partners in crime while planning his revenge on Joe for leaving him in the desert after saving him from the noose a second time:

Tuco: And people talk bullshit.

    • Right after said second attempt to hang him, Tuco has this to say about how it feels to be hanged:

Tuco: When that rope starts to pull tight you can feel the devil bite your ass!

  • The normally reserved Eduardo in The Social Network delivers one after finding out that Mark has essentially kicked him out of the company.

Eduardo: "Sorry! My Prada's at the cleaners! Along with my hoodie and my 'fuck you' flip-flops, you pretentious douchebag!"

Zander: One day someone like me is gonna kill you and your whole fucking race!

  • Terminator 2, when Sarah Connor realizes that Cyberdyne actually does have the remains of the original Terminator, as she'd believed:

"Son of a bitch, I knew it!"

  • In Super 8, the stoner kid looks around, sees the carnage, and says simply, "What the fuck?"
  • Bladerunner has one exquisite F-bomb: android Roy Batty, confronting his maker and aware he was designed to expire after 4 years, says calmly and evenly, "I want more life, fucker."
  • Ed Wood has Bela Lugosi's response to someone mentioning him playing Boris Karloff's sidekick:

"Karloff? Sidekick?!? FUCK! YOU!' Boris Karloff is not good enough to SMELL! MY! SHIT!"

  • Otherwise mentioned for being hilarious, in Resident Evil: Afterlife, Luther's comment when Bennett betrays the others and steals Alice's plane, intent on leaving them behind, only for the plane to sink like a stone upon takeoff:

Luther: Yeah, that's right bitch! Fuck you!

  1. ↑ Guess which three words of that sentence have always been cut from subsequent British TV airings... after being left intact for its premiere on Sky One, shown before the watershed.
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