Top 10 Movie Speeches

Newest list in my continued collaboration with Clint over at Guy with a Movie Blog.

Speeches. One of the most powerful tools in the hands of the best storytellers is the speech, the monologue. They can be used for any number of effects on the characters and story of a movie, and here are some of my favorites. I can bet that I've missed quite a few great speeches, probably even some that I love and just forgot about as I was making this list, please feel free to tell me about them in the comments. Something I'd like to share my immediate disappointment about, though, is the lack of great female speeches. In my thinking on this list, I came up with very few iconic or memorable speeches from women. Phoebe Cates's speech about why she hates Christmas, because that's when her father died, in Gremlins nearly made the list, but even it wasn't of the caliber of the ones that did make the list.

The greatest speech, I think, is the most famous. "To be, or not to be..." from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Yet there have been too many adaptations of Hamlet to be able to pick just one performance of this most famous of speeches. Mel Gibson is the actor who most embodied Hamlet's anger and confusion. David Tennant also tapped into that most central driving emotion of the character. Kenneth Branagh probably has the best command of the material and the most engaging performance of the speech (as well as the best cinematic version of the play). Unfortunately there are others that have butchered it on screen. Niccol Williamson's isn't awful, but it isn't good. Laurence Olivier says the words, but there's nothing behind them, and his staging of the speech is laughable (again, Branagh's is the standard there). So this is a catch-all entry to honor the many Hamlet's and the many wonderful performances of this amazing speech.

10. Alec Baldwin - Glengarry Glen Ross

One of the most famous speeches in the movies is this "Always be closing" speech from Alec Baldwin to the desperate real estate salesmen in James Foley's movie version of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize winning play Glengarry Glen Ross. Now, I've never seen the play, but apparently Baldwin's speech isn't in it. It was written specifically for Baldwin, specifically for the movie. Strange that it wasn't in the play, because it's in the opening of the movie and Baldwin's presence lingers over the entire film. "First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is, you're fired." Baldwin's barely contained anger, condescension, and disbelief at the men to whom he's giving the speech make it memorable. His command of Mamet's language is mesmerizing. The contents of the speech are kind of like the "fuck you" version of a "let's go get 'em!" type of speech you'd see from a coach in a sports movie. It's pretty depressing if you really look at it. These guys are not great salesmen, they mostly don't know it, but Baldwin does and he has no patience for them. He even closes with the not so rah-rah line of "I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to, they asked me for a favor. I said, the real favor, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass because a loser is a loser."

9. Mel Gibson - Braveheart

The culmination of a terrific performance from Mel Gibson, the sort of rah-rah speech that Baldwin's is not, as Scotsman William Wallace leads his men into battle against the English. A classic big epic like Braveheart can live or die depending on the successful execution of the lead role by the star actor, and the capturing of spectacle on the part of the filmmaker. Though he'd only directed the small character drama The Man Without a Face before Braveheart, Gibson proves himself to be a better filmmaker than he was already a considerably talented actor. The combination of those two traits, along with the leadership, sacrifice, and power of the story make this a really tremendous speech that is still regularly talked about by movie lovers and regular joes even 20+ years later.

8. Robert Shaw - Jaws, USS Indianapolis

Robert Shaw's great work in Jaws is too often overlooked when talking about the great performances, but his work in one of Jaws's most famous scenes can't be overlooked. The famous USS Indianapolis speech where Shaw's character recounts the time sharks took more away from him than WWII itself seemed to. "the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’" it's a powerful speech. The other characters quiet down for the few minutes that Shaw is speaking. The movie itself almost stops, but really that's when the movie turns and becomes what it is. We understand what it means to have a killer shark loose so close to the shore and attacking people. It becomes real, it becomes terrifying, and it become narratively gripping. Shaw's speech is what lifts the movie up into real greatness.

7. Sam Jackson - Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction is full of great dialog, even a couple of great monologues. Christopher Walken's story of the gold watch could've easily been on this list. We've even heard Sam Jackson's Jules Winfield give part of this speech before, when he and John Travolta's Vincent kill Brett in the opening chapter of the movie. But it's the way Jackson delivers the Ezekiel 25:17 speech to Tim Roth's Pumpkin in the diner at the end of the movie that really brings the whole thing to a close. Tarantino himself has even said that he didn't write the movie in the order it's told, but when Jackson auditioned, he said to himself "wow, now that's the end of the movie." It's Jules's realization that he's given that speech so many times, always in the name of death and destruction, but that he's trying to be a better man now. The same words can take on a new meaning. He's trying real hard to be the shepherd now. It's great symbiotic work from Jackson and Tarantino.

6. Billy Bob Thornton - Sling Blade

This piece is so long it didn't immediately come to me as even qualifying as a "speech". It's an entire story, with pain and murder and regret and so much more. Billy Bob Thornton said the speech just came to him, almost flowed out complete from his unconscious as he looked in the mirror one day. He made a short film based around the speech, called Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade, and eventually made his directorial debut and made his mark in Hollywood using it as essentially the opening of his movie Sling Blade. It's our introduction to his character, lets us know why we're in an asylum, gives us Karl's backstory as well as his direction in the future. "I don't reckon I got no reason to kill nobody." It's powerful stuff, delivered by one of the least appreciated talents in cinema, I think.

5. Morgan Freeman - The Shawshank Redemption

I almost picked Freeman's speech to the parole board, which is equally brilliant, I think, but instead went with the closing speech delivered in Frank Darabont's great movie The Shawshank Redemption. It's such a universally beloved movie that I think its greatness actually gets undervalued. This speech essentially sums up the movie, as Red had earlier spoken against the concept of hope. He told Andy and the other prisoners that hope would ruin them. It's only once he experiences being free again that he realizes how right Andy was to defend that most hard to tamp down emotion.

4. Marlon Brando - On the Waterfront

Serving as the crowing achievement on the greatest performance I've ever seen in a movie, this speech has reached such pop cultural awareness that it has lost most of its significance. Really, as you'll see in the text I quote below, it's the story of a little brother treated wrong by the older brother who wasn't on his brother's side like he should've been. Marlon Brando's towering performance shows that Terry isn't the brightest guy, but he knows what life he could have had if just a couple things had gone differently. And it's not the "I coulda been a contender" part of the speech that even affects me so much, it's the brotherly "You shoulda looked out for me, Charlie. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit." that gets me so much.

3. Peter O'Toole - Ratatouille

You might not think about having great speeches in an animated kids movie, but Ratatouille is not your average kids movie. In this great speech, Peter O'Toole, as food critic Anton Ego, delivers these tremendous words with such care and delicacy of emotion and insight. He should've won every award in sight for this speech, as should've the screenwriters. It's a brilliant comment on the nature of the relationship between artists and critics, as well as fitting so beautifully into the context of the movie.

2. Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator


One of the longer speeches on the list, maybe the longest, I didn't look, is Charlie Chaplin's famous speech from his movie The Great Dictator. I am not a huge Chaplin fan, and The Great Dictator is not a beloved movie for me, though it continues to be one of Chaplin's most enduring works, and I think in great part because of this speech. Made during the second World War, while Hitler was still alive and powerful and running roughshod across Europe, this little man with the same mustache made a movie parodying Hitler, making him look foolish. But there's nothing funny about this famous speech. It's a rallying cry to humanity, to brotherhood, to love and happiness. It's a diatribe against hatred and tyranny. It's a powerful bit of writing, and even more powerful acting on the part of Chaplin.

1. Robin Williams speech in Good Will Hunting

Not only the best movie speech based on words, but Robin Williams' performance of the text is just next level amazing. This is what deservedly won him an Oscar. This speech. It gets better with time, with age. I understand it more. It hit harder, deeper, truer. It's easily my pick as the greatest movie speech ever given.