How we verify a line

Only from a legal copy

We take wording only from a copy of the film we are entitled to watch: an owned disc, a rental, or a licensed streaming service in India. The private record for each entry notes the service, the region, the point in the film where the line is spoken and the date we checked. We do not take wording from quote websites, clips uploaded by strangers or memory. A quote site can point us towards a scene; it never supplies the words.

Two people, working separately

Person A transcribes the line from the film's audio. Person B checks it independently against the audio and, where the copy offers subtitles in the same language as the dialogue, against those too. If the copy has none, Person B is simply a second independent listener, and the record says so. Person A and Person B must be different people, and no AI tool can fill either role.

If the two disagree, or any word is unclear, the line is rejected. We never trim a line, merge two lines or join fragments with an ellipsis to rescue something usable.

Hindi lines get a native reviewer

For the Bollywood track, our native Hindi reviewer acts as Person B, with their own legal access to the film. They must read Hindustani comfortably, including words of Urdu origin. They confirm the Devanagari exactly as spoken, the Hinglish and our English meaning, and they screen for double meanings a non-native reader could miss. Until a reviewer is confirmed, the Bollywood track does not publish. See How to read our Hinglish for the house scheme.

Credits from the film itself

The speaking character and the actor come from the scene, the end credits and an official studio or streaming page. We name a dialogue writer only when the on-screen or official credits name one; otherwise the entry says "not verified". Actors appear only as a plain-text credit inside the entry, never in headlines, listings or share text.

Film facts such as the year, the director and the production company come from Wikidata, whose structured data is released under the CC0 public-domain dedication, together with a second source we record with the date we read it. We do not use IMDb's datasets, which IMDb makes available for personal and non-commercial use.

Source: Wikidata [1] · IMDb Help Center [2], checked 26 October 2026.

When the popular version is different

Sometimes the version everybody repeats is not what the character says. When that happens we publish only the version we verified, and we do not print the variant, even to correct it. If you think our wording is wrong, tell us: reported wording is re-checked against the legal copy within 48 hours, and the outcome goes into the corrections log on the contact page.

Rights and safety records

Each entry also has a private record of our basis for quoting the line (criticism or review), who holds rights in the film, the fact that we hold no permission unless a written licence exists, and dated checks against our catchphrase blocklist, trade-mark registers and court orders protecting performers. A safety record shows that the line, its scene and our commentary passed our rubric, with a second reviewer for every comedy entry and every Hindi entry.

Our build checks these records automatically. An entry with a missing check, a line over 25 words, fewer than 300 words of our own commentary, or a second film from the same franchise within twelve months is refused before it can be published.

What you see on each entry

• A credit line: film, year, director, speaking character, actor and, where credited, the dialogue writer.
• A verification note: the service and region of the legal copy, the date it was checked and whether same-language subtitles were available.
• Sources for every fact in the commentary, each with the date we read it.
• A link to report an error.