The Most Iconic Phone Scenes In Music, TV & The Movies, Ranked

Throughout Hollywood history, we’ve seen a lot of drama go down on the phone. It’s where relationships have crumbled, deals have been made, pranks have been pulled, and plans have been hatched. But what are the most iconic phone scenes of all time?

From film to TV and even music videos, we’ve ranked the very best moments starring a handheld, landline or cordless device. (No ‘90s car phones, sorry.)

#9 The Glass Cage Of Emotion From Anchorman

I am not going to pretend that Anchorman is a brilliant movie. It isn’t. But, in 2004, it was a fun, satisfying cultural touchstone that produced a few lines that would be quoted to death in the decade that followed: “Milk was a bad choice”, “I love lamp”, and one that Ron Burgundy howled over the phone after seeing his dog, Baxter, go off a cliff.

In a phone box on the side of the road, in absolute hysterics, Burgundy calls a colleague and declares, “I’m in a glass cage of emotion!” Before memes came along and changed the game, this was the height of comedy.

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#8 ‘Hotline Bling’, baby

Who can say how many “u up?” texts Drake’s ode to the late-night booty call hath inspired?

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#7 The Mr Buttlicker Sales Call From The Office

‘Twas a classic Dunder Mifflin stitch-up: after Dwight and Jim both score poorly on customer service surveys, Michael tries to coach them on proper sales pitches with a pair of desk phones and a bit of G-rated roleplay, Jim pretends to be a customer named Mr Buttlicker, and hilarity ensues. The clip’s 5.6 million YouTube views can’t be wrong.

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#6 “Show Me The Money” From Jerry Maguire

AKA literally everyone in the week before pay day.

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#5 Gaga And Beyoncé’s Message To All Men

In 2010, the world’s two biggest pop stars joined forces for a pair of singles. First came ‘Video Phone’, a mostly-forgotten cut from Beyoncé’s I Am Sasha Fierce album that was “remixed” with the addition of a Gaga verse.

What came next will be etched in the pop history books for all time. ‘Telephone’ was a musical tour de force, brought to life with a nine-minute video clip that featured Gaga making out in the prison yard wearing still-burning cigarette glasses and an accidental mass homicide. The clip was avant garde, but at its core lay a heartfelt message: please don’t call your girlfriend while she’s at the club. It’s not that she don’t like you, she’s just tryna party.

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#4 The ‘Very Particular Set Of Skills’ From Taken

He has a very particular set of skills, a gracious phone manner, and iconic meme status to boot.

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#3 The Four-Way Phone Call From Mean Girls

If you lived through the ‘90s or early noughties, you already know the absolute brutality of getting caught in a three-way phone sting. A “friend” calls you and baits you into bitching about someone else… who happens to be on the line, secretly listening in.

The classic ruse was captured oh-so perfectly in this Mean Girls scene, which also packs two of the movie’s most famous lines – “I can’t go out, I’m sick” and “Boo, you whore” – into the space of a few seconds. Landlines had to die so this madness could end.

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#2 All Of Bart Simpson’s Prank Calls

Over the course of The Simpsons, Bart placed many a prank phone call to Moe’s Tavern. He called looking for Amanda Hugandkiss, he called looking for Al Coholic, he called looking for Mr Freely, first initials I.P. He even once called looking for Hugh Jass and found him.

But the best prank phone call Bart ever placed wasn’t to Moe’s, but to Australia. He called collect to find out which way our toilets flush (clockwise!), then cops a call back from an irate father who’s angry that he’s been stiffed for a bill of 900 “dollarydoos”. It turns into an international diplomatic incident… and one of the greatest Simpsons episodes ever.

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#1 The Opening Scene Of Scream

But when it comes to iconic phone scenes, nothing will ever top those first 12 minutes of Scream. The ‘90s horror classic booked one of the biggest actresses in the game, put her on the poster, then killed her off in the first scene. Still today, it reigns as one of the best movie openers ever.

“I knew all these horror movies inside and out, and I kept thinking: how do you scare an audience that grew up on VHS, that’s watched these movies over and over again?” screenwriter Kevin Williamson told Vulture last year. “So, I thought, we comment on the rules and then subvert them a bit – or, sometimes, we follow them exactly, and then you never know what you’re going to get. When you put your star actress in the opening scene and kill her, you’re putting everyone off their game.”

The fact that the horror played out with little more than a menacing disembodied voice and a cordless phone made a generation jump every time the landline rang. So, do you like scary movies?

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(Lead image: Paramount Pictures)

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