Directed by former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam and inspired by the short film La Jetée. The screenplay was written by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples.

James Cole

• Oh, wouldn't it be great if I was crazy? Then the world would be okay.

• It's just like what's happening with us, like the past. The movie never changes. It can't change; but every time you see it, it seems different because you're different. You see different things.

• All I see are dead people.

Jeffrey Goines

• Telephone call? Telephone call? That's communication with the outside world. Doctor's discretion. Nuh-uh. Look, hey — all of these nuts could just make phone calls. They could spread insanity, oozing through telephone cables, oozing into the ears of all these poor sane people, infecting them. Wackos everywhere. Plague of madness.

• You are a total nutcase, completely deranged, delusional, paranoid. Your thought process is all fucked up. Your information tray is jammed, man!

• There's the television. It's all right there — all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive any more. We don't make things any more. It's all automated. What are we for, then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally ill. Fact, Jim, fact: if you don't buy things — toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, servo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers...

Others

• Dr. Peters: I think, Dr. Railly, you have given your "alarmists" a bad name. Surely there is very real and very convincing data that the planet cannot survive the excesses of the human race: proliferation of atomic devices, uncontrolled breeding habits, the rape of the environment, the pollution of land, sea, and air. In this context, isn't it obvious that "Chicken Little" represents the sane vision and that Homo Sapiens' motto, "Let's go shopping!" is the cry of the true lunatic?

Dialogue

L.J. Washington: I don't really come from outer space.

Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L.J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.

L.J. Washington: Don't mock me, my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

Jeffrey Goines: You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs, for example.

James Cole: Germs?

Jeffrey Goines: Uh-huh. Eighteenth century: no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person. Along comes this doctor, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do they call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, up to the 20th century — last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole — I go in to order a burger at this fast-food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. James, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says "I don't believe in germs. Germs is a plot made up so they could sell disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right?

James Cole: Look at them. They're just asking for it. Maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.

Jeffrey Goines: Wiping out the human race? That's a great idea. That's great. But more of a long-term thing. I mean, first we have to focus on more immediate goals.

James Cole: This is a place for crazy people. I'm not crazy.

Dr. Peters: We don't use the term "crazy," Mr. Cole.

James Cole: Well, you've got some real nuts here.

Cast

• Bruce Willis - James Cole
• Madeleine Stowe - Kathryn Railly
• Brad Pitt - Jeffrey Goines
• Jon Seda - Jose
• Christopher Plummer - Dr. Goines
• Frank Gorshin - Dr. Fletcher
• David Morse - Dr. Peters