Movies with telephone or phone booth scenes

January 29, 2013 1:02 AM

Help me find movies with telephone or phone booth scenes! (even if said scene is only 10 seconds long).

Bonus point if we can hear the conversation or if the character is doing something other than making a call (think Clark Kent in the phone booth…). I'm interested in every genre and every era, and the more diverse the better.
Thank you in advance, I'm looking forward to reading and watching all your suggestions!

posted by mugitusqueboom to media & arts (65 answers total)

Pulp Fiction
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:09 AM on January 29

Brazil
posted by pompomtom at 1:10 AM on January 29

Adventures in Babysitting
posted by mannequito at 1:14 AM on January 29

The Matrix
posted by monkey!knife!fight! at 1:17 AM on January 29

Phone Booth
posted by Rob Rockets at 1:18 AM on January 29

Phone Booth.

Well, someone had to.
posted by MuffinMan at 1:18 AM on January 29

Brick has some very charming phone booth scenes.

And who could forget Ron Burgendy's I'm in a glass case of emotion!!!!!
posted by Grandysaur at 1:18 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Also: as per normal with these things, there is a page on TVTropes about this, so:

Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run)
The Birds
High Anxiety
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Jumpin Jack Flash
Duel
La Cabina
Local Hero
Dumb and Dumber
The President's Analyst
posted by MuffinMan at 1:22 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Scott Pilgrim.

I also was about to link to TVTropes. That is a rabbit hole that can take you down hours.

Also if you want any TV there's some phone booth action in Community when they do their Inspector Spacetime bits, which are a Doctor Who parody.
posted by NoraReed at 1:25 AM on January 29

American Graffiti
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:51 AM on January 29

Goodfellas
Ghostbusters
posted by Under the Sea at 1:59 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Rosemary's Baby has a short but excellent phone booth scene in which Rosemary both has a conversation and does something other than make a call (pretends to be on the phone as she waits for a call back).
posted by distorte at 2:04 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Dr. Strangelove. When Mandrake calls the President.
posted by three blind mice at 2:59 AM on January 29

When Harry Met Sally - lot of phone action. There are the split screen phone calls between Harry/Sally, Marie/Sally Jess/Harry (sorry, can't find clips right now) and Harry leaves a series of phone messages when Sally stops returning his calls including humorous and singing.

Withnail and I - - Withnail calls his agent from a country phonebox to see if he has any work - "well, lick ten per cent of the arses then...".
posted by AnnaRat at 2:59 AM on January 29

One of my all time favorite films, Joe Versus the Volcano - I'm not arguing that with you.
posted by Eumachia L F at 3:04 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

The first Superman movie had Clark Kent run up to a contemporary public phone which is more of a kiosk. He just looks askance at it before running into an alleyway to change.

In the great Powell-Pressburger film, I Know Where I'm Going, a phone call is made from a booth that is seemingly in the middle of nowhere beside a roaring waterfall. A line in the movie notes it was built in the dry season. It's a real phone booth though on the isle of Mull.

Rear Window has an intense scene when Jimmy Stewart's character calls the police in an effort to save Grace Kelly who was trapped in Thorwald's apt when he returned home unexpectedly.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 3:04 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Clueless - Cher and her friend start talking on their cell phones to each other while walking through the school hall and end up walking along next to each other (while being on the phone to each other).
posted by AnnaRat at 3:06 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

The beginning of Arsenic & Old Lace was my first thought.

Sometimes I think the scale and cross-referencing of content on TV Tropes is even more impressive than Wikipedia.
posted by pete_22 at 3:07 AM on January 29

Oh and there's a great scene where James Cagney forces another guy into a phone booth and some other gangsters shoot him thinking it's Cagney. I think it was in Angels with Dirty Faces...?
posted by pete_22 at 3:10 AM on January 29

The Blues Brothers
posted by ceribus peribus at 3:15 AM on January 29

True Romance. They use the booth to make a call, then use it for "something other"
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 3:22 AM on January 29

Commando
posted by djb at 3:26 AM on January 29

Christian Marclay's 7.5 minute film montage Telephones (1995) may be of interest to you.
posted by hot soup girl at 3:36 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]

More about La Cabina (aka ‘The Telephone Box,’ 1972) included in MuffinMan’s list above.
posted by misteraitch at 3:46 AM on January 29

Mission Impossible (1996) -- Cruise's character calls in after the mission goes awry. Possibly the beginning of the "Go Secure" meme.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

The Ninth Gate: roughly 34 minutes in, Corso asks the taxi to pull over at a phone booth, where he gets out and makes a call.

Fargo (Not sure if this meets the phone booth definition): Marge Gunderson places a call from a payphone in a hotel phone alcove at roughly 53mins.

Honorable mention: the intro to the old 60s TV show "Get Smart" ended with Maxwell Smart disappearing into a phone booth.
posted by ceribus peribus at 3:54 AM on January 29

Charade with Audrey Hepburn has a number of scenes, including one in a phone booth where the bad guy is throwing lit matches at her.
posted by catatethebird at 3:54 AM on January 29

A Life Less Ordinary
posted by akrasia at 4:03 AM on January 29

My favorite scene with a phone is, hands down, the opening sequence of Once upon a time in America. Close to six minutes, it connects past and present, introduces characters and locations. The phones are shown in the last half minute or so, but everybody refers to this sequence as the phone scene.
posted by ouke at 4:04 AM on January 29

Abbot & Costello in "Who Done It?" - the phone booth scene
posted by evilmomlady at 4:09 AM on January 29

Terminator 1: looking up Sarah Connor in the phone directory. (TV Tropes also has a handy Ripped From The Phonebook page.)

Terminator 2: Calling John's foster parents; "You got a quarter?"

posted by ceribus peribus at 4:14 AM on January 29

Anchorman - "I'm in a glass case of emotion!"
posted by GilvearSt at 4:27 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Some Like It Hot has a few talking-on-the-phone scenes, with a key payphone scene at 23.06. The phone call that sets the premise for the whole story begins at 14.06 and the one that sets up the ending involves a phonebooth at 1:55:01.
.
posted by GreenEyed at 4:33 AM on January 29

Withnail and I - phoning his agent from a red telephone box in Wales.
posted by guy72277 at 4:33 AM on January 29

Ask Google.
posted by devnull at 4:41 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Fight Club: calling Tyler Durden after the Narrator's apartment blows up.

Oh wait, the scene just has to have a phone? Too many to count, then. But here are some fun ones:

Top Secret

The Listening (trailer), a movie about Echelon which is full of telephones and headphones.

posted by ceribus peribus at 4:41 AM on January 29

Don't forget Hackers.
posted by davidr at 4:53 AM on January 29

glengarry glenross / jack lemmon callin dr from booth in the rain.
posted by The_Auditor at 4:56 AM on January 29

Sid and Nancy
posted by Raymond Marble at 5:03 AM on January 29

I seem to remember a scene in 'Hear No Evil, See No Evil' when Gene Wilder's character lip reads someone else's conversation they are having on a public phone. Can't recall if it is a phone booth or not..
posted by Trivia Newton John at 5:04 AM on January 29

Ghost.
posted by southern_sky at 5:07 AM on January 29

In Wargames Matthew Broderick uses a soda pull-tab to make a phone call from a booth. So you have him unscrewing the receiver, etc. You can also hear his conversation.
posted by mikepop at 5:13 AM on January 29

Bladerunner.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 5:18 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
posted by Ziggy500 at 5:27 AM on January 29

The Big Sleep
Amazon Women on the Moon
Can't Hardly Wait
Run Lola Run
posted by ApathyGirl at 5:44 AM on January 29

There's a bit in East is East where a number of people cram into a phone booth to call an estranged family member.
posted by fight or flight at 5:50 AM on January 29

Jumpin Jack Flash
Lot's of little phone snippets (hilarious btw) in Airplane
posted by trivia genius at 6:15 AM on January 29

All the President's Men, Robert Redford makes contact with Deep Throat.
posted by Smallpox at 6:32 AM on January 29

Miller's Crossing
posted by komara at 6:38 AM on January 29

In Back to the Future, when Marty goes into the diner for the first time, he goes into a phone booth.
posted by 23skidoo at 6:41 AM on January 29

The scene in WarGames where the hacker protagonist makes free calls in a phone booth by shorting the receiver.

Also, 10 movie telephone tricks.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:57 AM on January 29

In The American, George Clooney's character makes several phone calls from phone booths in Italy. The phones are interesting looking (that's about the only good thing about the movie, though).
posted by yawper at 6:57 AM on January 29

Lost Highway
posted by milk white peacock at 7:34 AM on January 29

Three of the Beatles hide in a bank of phone booths to avoid being mobbed by Beatlemaniacs at the beginning of the movie A Hard Day's Night (starting at :30 in that clip).
posted by k8lin at 7:45 AM on January 29

King of New York opens with a wonderful telephone booth scene.
posted by gettingpaidforthis at 7:53 AM on January 29

In The Secret of My Success, Michael J Fox calls his parents from a phone booth and gets caught up in the crossfire of a robbery or something.
posted by bq at 8:23 AM on January 29

Die Hard with a Vengeance, near the end.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 9:12 AM on January 29

Bye Bye Birdie has a big long song and dance number on the telephone.
posted by crush-onastick at 9:15 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

My immediate gut response was the punch-through-the-phone-booth scene in Dumb and Dumber that muffin man cited.

But there are some good phone moments in The Graduate, and my absolute favorite part of Broke Back Mountain takes place in a phone booth.

On a lighter note, The Pink Panther Strikes Again.
posted by RingerChopChop at 10:09 AM on January 29

Six Degrees of Separation. During the final phone conversation between Ouisa and Paul, Paul is using a pay phone in NYC (can't remember if it's a booth per se); Ouisa switches back and forth on the phone between him and her daughter Tess, who is on the phone in her dorm room at Harvard.
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:41 AM on January 29

Not a movie, but I remember seeing this telephone booth skit on the Carol Burnett Show when it originally aired and laughing myself silly.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:42 AM on January 29

OH, and Rain Man! "Uh-oh, fart." "How can you stand that?" "I don't mind it."
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:46 AM on January 29

Jerry Maguire has those phone scenes.

Carnage. Christoph Waltz is attached to his cell phone

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
posted by beccaj at 2:11 PM on January 29

Pillow Talk! My parents first date.

Split screen scene both in tub on phone.
posted by beccaj at 2:20 PM on January 29

Catch Me If You Can has a lot of phone conversations too!
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 2:35 PM on January 29

Woah, thank you everybody for your answers! You gave me days and days of watching :)
posted by mugitusqueboom at 2:19 AM on January 31