Patton's Opening Monologue Contains the Most Unforgettable War Movie Quote

Patton, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola two years before The Godfather, remains a vivid character portrait of General George S. Patton Jr. Despite courting controversy as a pro-war film during the Vietnam era, it won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, and still resonates 56 years after its release.

The film opens with an impassioned speech delivered in 1943 as Patton departs North Africa and prepares for the invasion of Sicily. Standing before a giant American flag, the general makes the blunt declaration: "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.

He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country." That line's jingoistic bluntness and Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest logic can be hard to hear, yet the speech captures the brutal mentality a wartime commander adopts. The monologue has endured in film history and is often cited as one of the most durable war movie quotes.

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