The Rambo movies have evolved a lot over the years, going from a quiet, contemplative study of the effects of PTSD confined to a small town to a series of increasingly bloody orgies of violence, ratcheting up the body count with each installment. But for all that the movies have changed, the character has changed very little. He’s always been a bold, brave, ultimately reluctant hero.
Updated on May 24th, 2020 by Ben Sherlock: Since this list was initially published, the Rambo saga has been joined by another movie, which promised to be the final chapter in the series. Rambo: Last Blood failed to impress critics, but diehard Rambo fans had their heartstrings tugged by the emotional twists and turns taken by Sylvester Stallone’s last ever performance as the grizzled Vietnam vet. So, we’ve updated this list with a few new entries – including a couple from Last Blood.
15 “I’m Gonna Tear You Apart.”
Like any action hero, John Rambo has uttered a handful of badass one-liners to his enemies in the past. The only thing cooler than killing a bad guy is having the perfect line to say before killing them.
Last Blood provided another great example of those quippy one-liners: “I’m gonna tear you apart.” It’s simple and concise, it gets to the point – it’s spectacular action movie dialogue.
14 “Whatever Possessed God In Heaven To Make A Man Like Rambo?”
John Rambo is a very specific type of man. He didn’t have much of a direction in life and then he got sent to war, where he became a killing machine. When Teasle hypothetically asks, “Whatever possessed God in Heaven to make a man like Rambo?” Trautman tells him, “God didn’t make Rambo. I made him.”
He makes a good point: Rambo was just a regular guy before he was armed and shipped off to Vietnam to fight in a war.
13 “I Want Them To Know That Death Is Coming, And There Is Nothing They Can Do To Stop It.”
Revenge has been a common theme throughout the Rambo franchise. Whether Rambo is liberating P.O.W.s or rescuing Col. Trautman, vengeance is often on his mind.
In Last Blood, Rambo swears revenge against the villains in the most articulate way possible: “I want revenge. I want them to know that death is coming, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.”
12 “Sir, Do We Get To Win This Time?”
At the beginning of Rambo: First Blood Part II, when Col. Trautman approaches Rambo with a mission to head back to Vietnam and free some prisoners of war, Rambo is understandably skeptical.
Having lost one war in Vietnam before, he asks his commanding officer, “Sir, do we get to win this time?” Of course, it’s Rambo, a one-man army, so he does get to win this time.
11 “I Will Fight To Keep Their Memory Alive Forever.”
Rambo has always been known for his verbose monologues, and the final moments of Last Blood brought perhaps the character’s most poignant monologue yet.
He says, “I’ve lived in a world of death. I tried to come home, but I never really arrived. A part of my mind and soul got lost along the way, but my heart was still here where I was born, where I would defend to the end the only family I’ve ever known, the only home I’ve ever known. All the ones I’ve loved are now ghosts. But I will fight to keep their memory alive forever.”
10 “Old men start it, young men fight it, nobody wins, everybody in the middle dies, and nobody tells the truth!”
Rambo delivers this monologue to the freedom fighter Sarah in the fourth movie: “We’re like animals! It’s in the blood! It’s natural! Peace? That’s an accident! It’s what is! When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing. When the killing stops in one place, it starts in another, but that’s okay, ‘cause you’re killing for your country. But it ain’t your country who asks you; it’s a few men up top who want it. Old men start it, young men fight it, nobody wins, everybody in the middle dies, and nobody tells the truth! God’s gonna make all that go away? Don’t waste your life, I did. Go home.”
9 “You’re not hunting him...he’s hunting you.”
The cops who are desperately chasing Rambo through the woods after he escapes their grasp before his trial in First Blood bring in Col. Trautman as the negotiator. Since he was Rambo’s commanding officer in Vietnam, he’s the only guy he’ll listen to – and the only guy he trusts. When Trautman is brought onto the scene and briefed on the situation, he assures the cops that they’re not the ones hunting Rambo – Rambo’s the one hunting them. It’s lines like this that help to build up the mystique around the Rambo character, and then the man himself comes in with a bullet belt and a helicopter to live up to the hype.
8 “To survive a war, you gotta become war.”
First and foremost, John Rambo is a soldier. His adult life began when he was drafted to fight in Vietnam, and then he returned with PTSD and the ability to do just one thing: kill. From then on, there was nothing else he could do. He didn’t like that fact, and he had a hard time accepting it, but he’s finding a way to reconcile that.
Whenever he’s called into action, he refuses at first, but sooner or later, he reluctantly takes on the task. Following his own ethos, John Rambo has become war, and as a result, he’s survived it.
7 “I want...what they want, and every other guy who came over here, and spilt his guts and gave everything he had wants: for our country to love us, as much as we love it.”
At the end of Rambo: First Blood Part II, Trautman thinks that after everything he’s been though at the hands of the U.S. government, Rambo hates his country. But Rambo assures him that he doesn’t hate his country, so a confused Trautman asks him what he wants, and then he delivers this monologue. Sylvester Stallone has said recently that the Rambo character wasn’t meant to come across as a political statement, but come on. This impassioned speech about how he and all the other veterans of the Vietnam War just want to be appreciated by their country is as political a statement as any – and an important one, too.
6 “Who are you?” “Your worst nightmare.”
Rambo III is easily the worst of the four Rambo movies, but that’s not to say that it’s not without its moments. It’s the closest to a generic, corny ‘80s actioner that the Rambo franchise ever got (all of the others were elevated above that by a political subtext that actually commented on world issues amid the chaotic violence), but that just means that it has a bunch of big, brash, explosive set pieces and one-liners. Soviet Colonel Zaysen is the primary villain of the threequel, and when he asks Rambo who he is, he tells him, “Your worst nightmare.”
5 “Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe.”
While John Rambo would eventually be known as the shirtless bodybuilder who flies into exotic countries with a gigantic gun and a bullet belt slung over his shoulder and sprays bullets at dozens of people, his beginnings in First Blood were much more grounded than that. He didn’t kill anyone in that movie. He was just an innocent vet who got chased into the woods by some crooked cops. When he has Sheriff Teasle pinned down with a knife to his neck, he tells him, “I could have killed ‘em all. I could kill you. In town, you’re the law. Out here, it’s me. Don’t push it. Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe. Let it go. Let it go.”
4 “Are you bringing any weapons?” “Of course not.” “You’re not changing anything.”
David Morrell, the author who created John Rambo with his novel First Blood, has said that he was pleased with the fourth Rambo movie, because it portrayed the character exactly as he created him: a gruff cynic who ultimately does what he does best, despite hating himself for it.
When the freedom fighters first ask Rambo for the use of his boat so that they can implement some change for the oppressed people of Karen, he asks if they’re bringing any weapons. They say they’re not, and he boldly tells them that they won’t be changing anything if they’re not armed.
3 “You know there’s more men out there. You know where they are. Find ‘em, or I’ll find you.”
In Rambo: First Blood Part II, Murdock is the stock character who represents the military leaders who see wars in numbers and figures and results, without thinking about the actual people who are on the battleground, fighting it for them. When Rambo realizes there are a ton of American P.O.W.s around Vietnam that the U.S. military is doing nothing about, he pins Murdock to his own desk and slams his knife down next to him, telling him that if he doesn’t get out there and rescue those men, he’ll be coming for him. Rambo as we know him was born.
2 “Live for nothing or die for something.”
This is Rambo’s mantra from the fourth movie, in which he helps some resistance fighters go into Burma and liberate the people of Karen who are being brutally oppressed by the Burmese government. It wasn’t just an action movie – it was a wake-up call, focusing on a very real world conflict. The Karen National Liberation Army reportedly loved the movie for its vivid portrayal of the military oppression in Karen and it encouraged them to continue their fight. They’ve even adopted this line as a battle cry. In response, Sylvester Stallone said, “That, to me, is one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had in film.”
1 “They drew first blood.”
As Peter Griffin pointed out in a Family Guy cutaway, it’s always a delight when a character says the title of a movie in the movie itself. John Rambo utters the title of his first outing, First Blood, as he’s speaking over the radio to his old commanding officer, Trautman. Trautman has been tasked with talking Rambo down, as he’s been told that Rambo just went crazy and starting terrorizing the cops in the town. As we know, and Rambo knows, that’s not the case at all, because it was the cops who drew first blood. They brought it on themselves.
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