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Getting the screenplay for a movie in perfect shape before starting filming is usually number one on any director’s ‘to-do’ list.

But sometimes an actor comes up with a line right in the middle of shooting that’s just so good it makes it into the finished film. And a few of them have become the most memorable moments in the movies.

Here are some of cinema’s greatest improvised lines.

“I don’t want to go.” (Avengers: Infinity War, 2018)

Actor Tom Holland delivered one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most tearjerking lines at the climax of Spider-Man’s death scene in Avengers: Infinity War.

But his heartbreaking last words were improvised by Holland on set when directors Joe and Anthony Russo felt that Peter Parker’s final line as it had been written (“I’m sorry”) just didn’t yank hard enough on our heartstrings. They asked Holland to play the scene again, and to say what he wanted to.

“He unlocked it emotionally, he understood what we were asking for,” said Joe Russo. “That's [what’s] in the film.”

“Here’s looking at you, kid.” (Casablanca, 1942)

There’s probably no movie line as well known as Humphrey Bogart’s to co-star Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. But “here’s looking at you, kid” wasn’t in the original screenplay.

In fact it was just something Bogart had said to Bergman off the top of his head while he was teaching her to play poker between scenes. (It might refer to a poker hand that includes a king, a queen and a jack as they are all ‘face cards’ and appear to be looking at you.) As the screenplay for the whole movie was constantly changing during filming, Bogart just inserted the line on a whim, and it became an instant classic.

“Heeeere’s Johnny!” (The Shining, 1980)

Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s horror story The Shining is packed with terrifying moments, but one of the most nightmare-inducing is crazy caretaker Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) bursting through a door with an axe screaming “Heeeere’s Johnny!”

The line is actually how legendary American chat show host Johnny Carson used to be introduced to TV audiences every night.

Kubrick was known for filming each scene a vast number of times in order to get exactly what he wanted, and on one of those takes Nicholson improvised the line. Kubrick was so impressed that it stayed in the movie.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat!” (Jaws, 1975)

Steven Spielberg’s shark-attack movie Jaws was a monster hit when it came out in 1975. The story, about a small seaside town terrorised by a great white shark, finally has the town’s sheriff, played by Roy Scheider, going to sea to hunt down the malevolent fish. When he finally catches sight of it, he utters the film’s most memorable line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”

In fact the improvised line was an in-joke. The filming of Jaws had been beset by problems, including a tight budget. One of the tugboats provided by the producers was clearly too small for its job, leading crew members to remark: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” whenever they saw it. Scheider had tried putting the quip in at various other points in the film but saw an opportunity to work the line into the film’s climax, and the rest is movie history.

“Hsss-ssss-ssss” (The Silence Of The Lambs, 1991)

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is widely recognised as one of cinema’s most frightening villains. In fact Sir Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his performance as the man-eating medic in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence Of The Lambs.

Some of the film’s most unnerving scenes happen between him and FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) when she interviews him in his cell. Perhaps the most bone-chilling moment is when he utters a strange slurp at her after describing how he made a meal of an unfortunate government employee.

But the bizarrre and frightening moment wasn’t in the original screenplay. Hopkins had been jokingly making the noise at Foster between takes on set, and decided to include it in the scene at the last moment.

“I know.” (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980)

The improbable love story between gruff Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and spiky Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) was one of the highlights of the Star Wars movies. Possibly its most swoonsome moment comes when Leia finally tells Han she loves him in The Empire Strikes Back.

The screenplay called for Han just to reply: “I love you too.” But Ford came up with the much more romantic response: “I know.”

“Like tears in rain…” (Blade Runner, 1982)

Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner is about futuristic policeman Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) on the trail of Roy Batty, a ‘replicant’ (a kind of synthetic human) played by Rutger Hauer. When they finally confront each other on a rain-drenched rooftop Batty realises that his time is up and delivers one of the most poetic death speeches in movie history.

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

It’s become one of the most quoted scenes in movie history. But in fact it was significantly rewritten by Hauer only hours before shooting, and he added that heartstopping ‘tears in rain’ simile.