43 Years Later, Scarface's Best Quote Isn't "Say Hello To My Little Friend"

Published Sep 3, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT Richard Craig is a Senior Author at Screen Rant covering film and TV. Richard has also written extensively about horror and film soundtracks, contributing a chapter to the first major academic collection on the folk horror genre, The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror. Richard is also a performing musician and holds an MA in Music and Sound Art. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Forty-three years after its release, Scarface still has one line that towers over the rest of its dialogue – but it isn't the one most people immediately associate with Tony Montana. Brian De Palma's 1983 crime epic has accumulated countless memorable moments, from Tony's bloody final stand to Al Pacino's increasingly unhinged performance as the Cuban immigrant who builds a cocaine empire in Miami. Of course, there is one quote that has become inseparable from the movie. During Scarface's climactic assault on Tony's mansion, he grabs a rifle with a grenade launcher and unleashes the immortal declaration, "Say hello to my little friend!" before firing at the men attacking him. The line has been endlessly quoted, parodied, referenced in music, and separated from its original context to become a piece of pop-culture shorthand. However, Scarface is much more than a collection of tough-guy one-liners. Oliver Stone's screenplay uses Tony's rise and eventual collapse to examine ambition, greed, power, immigration and organized crime. The movie's violence is spectacular, but its most interesting ideas are found in the way Tony explains the world he is trying to conquer. One particular exchange, delivered long before Tony's empire reaches its bloody conclusion, explains exactly how he believes America works. It also exposes the fatal flaw behind everything he does. That makes Tony's most important quote considerably less explosive, but far more revealing: "In this country, you gotta make the money first." The True Genius Of Scarface Lies In Tony Montana's "Money" Quote Tony's full explanation is one of the clearest statements of Scarface's central theme: "In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women." It isn't nearly as immediately quotable as "Say hello to my little friend," but it arguably defines the entire movie. Scarface is a deconstruction of the American Dream. Tony arrives in Miami with almost nothing and becomes convinced that wealth is the key to everything he wants. Money gives him influence, influence gives him power, and power gives him access to status, luxury, and women. The tragedy is that Tony actually succeeds at the first two stages. He makes an enormous amount of money and becomes one of Miami's most powerful drug traffickers. Yet the final stage collapses because his pursuit of power destroys the relationships that might have given that wealth meaning. The quote therefore isn't simply Tony explaining his philosophy. It is a blueprint for his downfall. He believes money will give him everything, only to discover that the things he wants cannot be purchased without consequence. Scarface's Best Quote Even Received A Perfect Parody The brilliance of Tony's "money" quote is perhaps easiest to appreciate through one of its best parodies. The Simpsons famously recreated the structure of the speech when Homer Simpson develops an obsession with a large supply of sugar that he has stolen from a wrecked truck. When Marge asks Homer to come inside the house, Homer lays out his own absurd spoof of the Scarface line: “In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.” The rhythm and logic of Tony's original speech is immediately recognizable. The Simpsons doesn't need to recreate the violence or imitate Pacino's performance. The underlying structure is already funny enough to support an entirely different scenario. That parody also demonstrates why Tony's speech is so memorable. Beneath the gangster posturing is an incredibly simple progression: money leads to power, and power leads to everything else. Tony believes that progression absolutely. The rest of Scarface exists to prove how catastrophically wrong he is. Release Date December 9, 1983 Runtime 170 minutes Director Brian De Palma