Greatest Scenes: Jerry Maguire's "You Had Me At Hello"

Remember when Tom Cruise was likable?

It's a foreign concept these days, but back in 1996, pretty much everyone loved Tom Cruise. Women wanted him, men wanted to be him, that whole deal. His likability was most evident in one of his best works to date, Jerry Maguire. The film was about a sports agent who struggles with love and his high-strung (and only) client Rod Tidwell (played fantastically by Cuba Gooding Jr.).

There are many memorable moments in this movie (I'll discuss another in a later post), but the one of the last scenes remains a huge standout. Not only did it give Tom Cruise one of his greatest monologues, it also gave the world two of the schmaltziest romantic lines in history. Even if you've never seen Jerry Maguire, you've probably heard or said the following two lines:

"You complete me"

"You had me at hello"

Facing a divorce after a quickie marriage, Jerry flies home to face his wife Dorothy, who is the middle of a married women's party. There, in front of everyone, Jerry delivers a fantastic appeal to save his marriage. Tom Cruise has never been more vulnerable in a movie I've seen him in. It was one of those moments where you forgot you were watching the biggest movie star on the planet (at the time) and believed you were watching a teary-eyed man fight for the woman that he loves. It was intense, it was fantastic, and it helped solidify the belief that Tom Cruise was awesome.

Just after he dropped the "You complete me" bomb, Dorothy interrupted his rambling with one of her own, which would go on to be one of the most quotable romantic lines in the history of cinema. After saying "You had me at hello" twice, Jerry runs over to her and pulls her into a hug.

That line was most likely responsible for putting Renee Zellweger on the map. It was the inspiration for Kenny Chesney's hit "You Had Me From Hello". It helped raise the bar for romance.

Those two lines, performed amazingly by Cruise and Zellweger, helped make Jerry Maguire a special (and Oscar-nominated) movie that remains a standard in the dramedy genre.

If you ever want to remember why you ever like Tom Cruise in the first place, watch this clip, and maybe you will forget the couch-jumping, the bitching at Brooke Shields, the craziness with Matt Lauer, the Scientology video, and Katie Holmes/Suri mess for a few minutes.