What does now or never mean?
Idiom Meaning:
last chance to do something
Examples of this Idiom in Movies & TV Shows:
Old School (2003)
Time of Scene:
Frank: Hey, I just want to thank you one last time for being here. It’s the best day ever.
Beanie: Don’t even start with me, Franklin, okay? You need to walk away from this ASAP.
Frank: What?
Beanie: You need to get out, Frankie. This is it. It’s now or never. You need to get out of here while you’re still single.
Frank: I’m not single.
Beanie: She’s 30 yards away. You’re single now.
Frank: Come on, Marissa’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Beanie: Why don’t you give that six months. You don’t think that’ll change? I got a wife, kids. Do I seem like a happy guy to you, Frankie?
Beanie: There’s my wife. See that? Always smiling? Hi, honey. Judging, watching, “Look at the baby.”
Mitch Martin: She’s coming down the aisle, Beanie. Let it go.
Fargo “Palindrome” (2015)
Time of Scene:
Lou Solverson: I was there at the end, you know? After the war, when Saigon fell, on the USS Kirk patrolling the coast. And when the country went, it went fast. And we had, like, you know, 24 hours to get everybody out. And not just Americans, but our allies, the South Vietnamese, all packed onto boats and helicopters. We stood on the deck and waved them in. And one by one, they’d land, unload, and then we’d push the whirlybirds into the sea. The damndest thing. But then, this Chinook comes. And those things, you can’t just land one on a ship this size. So we wave them off. But the pilot’s got his whole family inside, and he’s running out of fuel, so it’s now or never. So he hovers over the deck. People start jumping, scared or not, onto the ship. There’s a baby, literally a tiny baby and the mother just… just drops him. And one of my boys, like catching a ball, just sticks out his hands. So, now everybody’s out, and I’m thinking, “How the heck is this pilot” – right? – “How’s he gonna get out?” But he maneuvers off the port bow, and he hovers there for the longest time doing, you know, what we learned later, uh, takin’ off his flight suit. And somehow he rolls the bird on its side, and just before it hits the water, he jumps. Six thousand pounds of angry helicopter parts flyin’ all around him. And somehow he makes it. How’d he do that?
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