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 Introduction: Film speeches are normally
delivered orally and directed at an audience of three or more
people, although there can be exceptions. They are usually persuasive-type
speeches, either designed to promote or to dissuade, and they
are highly quotable.
Key to Iconic Symbol:
 - Entries in Blockbuster Video's Top 20 Best Film Speeches and Monologues with ranking number (#)
Note: The films that are marked
with a yellow star  are the films that
"The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films
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Film and Brief Title |
Speech |
Example |
Tootsie (1982)
 "It's
Time to Set the Record Straight"
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During a live broadcast of the soap opera show Southwest General, the strong-willed character played by Dorothy Michaels named Miss Emily Kimberly (both Dustin Hoffman) was introduced as the guest of honor; she concocted Emily Kimberly's over-the-top back-story before revealing her true identity as Emily's brother, Mr. Edward Kimberly -- AND -- as Michael Dorsey, to the consternation of the rest of the cast and the filming crew: ("Thank you, Gordon. I cannot tell you all how deeply moved I am. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be the object of so much genuine affection...It makes it all the more difficult for me to say what I'm now going to say. Yes. I do feel it's time to set the record straight. You see, I didn't come here just as an administrator, Dr. Brewster; I came to this hospital to settle an old score...Now you all know that my father was a brilliant man - he built this hospital. What you don't know is that to his family, he was an unmerciful tyrant. An absolute dodo bird...He drove my mother, his wife, to - to drink. In fact, she, uh, she went riding one time and lost all her teeth. The son Edward became a recluse, and the oldest daughter, the pretty one, the charming one - became pregnant when she was fifteen years old and was driven out of the house. In fact, she was so terrified that she would, uh, that, uh, that, that, that the baby daughter would bear the stigma of illegitimacy that she, she - she decided to change her name and she contracted a disfiguring disease... after moving to Tangiers, which is where she raised the, the, the little girl as her sister. But her one ambition in life - besides the child's happiness - was to become a nurse, so she returned to the States and joined the staff right here at Southwest General. When she worked here, she knew she had to speak out wherever she saw injustice and inhumanity. God save us. You do understand that, don't you, Dr. Brewster? (John Van Horn (George Gaynes): 'I never laid a hand on her!') Yes, you did. And she was shunned by all you nurses, too...what do you call it, uh, like a pariah, to you doctors who found her outspokenness threatening. But she was deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply loved by her brother. It was this brother who, on the day of her death, swore to the good Lord above that he would follow in her footsteps, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just owe it all up to her. But on her terms. As a woman. And just as proud to be a woman as she ever was. For I am not Emily Kimberly, the daughter of Dwayne and Alma Kimberly. No, I'm not. (His voice deepened as he ripped off his feminine disguise - he removed his glasses, tore off his false eyelashes and removed his wig) I'm Edward Kimberly, the reckless brother of my sister Anthea... Edward Kimberly, who has finally vindicated his sister's good name. I'm Edward Kimberly. Edward Kimberly. And I'm not mentally ill, but proud, and lucky, and strong enough to be the woman that was the best part of my manhood. The best part of myself"); at home watching the show on television, his roommate Jeff Slater (Bill Murray) exclaimed: "That is one nutty hospital!" |
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National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
"It's
a Quest for Fun"
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Half-crazed Clark Griswold's (Chevy
Chase) deranged, foul-mouthed exhortation and rant to his beleaguered family to press
on to Wally World: ("I think you're all f--ked in the head.
We're ten hours from the f--kin' fun park and you want to bail out!
Well, I'll tell you somethin'. This is no longer a vacation. It's
a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna
have fun. We're all gonna have so much f--kin' fun we'll need plastic
surgery to remove our god-damn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee
Doo-Dah' out of your assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage
to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S--t!") |
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Amadeus (1984)
Amazement
at Mozart's Genius
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Austrian court
composer Antonio Salieri's (F. Murray Abraham) blissful, amazed
narration while examining Mozart's sheet music for Serenade
for Thirteen Wind Instruments: ("Extraordinary!
On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic.
Just a pulse - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox.
Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging
there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into
a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing
monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing,
such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me
that I was hearing a voice of God.") |
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| "The
Very Voice of God" |
Salieri's
reaction to Mozart's first draft music brought to him in secret
by Mozart's wife Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge): ("Astounding!
It was actually beyond belief. These were first and only drafts
of music yet they showed no corrections of any kind. Not one. Do
you realize what that meant? He'd simply put down music already
finished in his head! Page after page of it, as if he was just
taking dictation! And music... finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment.
Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall. It was clear
to me. That sound I had heard in the Archbishop's palace had been
no accident. Here again was the very voice of God! I was staring
through the cage of those meticulous ink-strokes at an absolute,
inimitable beauty.") |
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The
Company of Wolves (1984)
Warning
About Wolves
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The cautionary
warning Granny (Angela Lansbury) gives the innocent Rosaleen (Sarah
Patterson), after earlier advising her: ("You've got a lot
to learn, child. Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall
apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet!"), and before
telling her a story: ("A wolf may be more than he seems. He
may come in many disguises. The wolf that ate your sister was hairy
on the outside, but when she died she went straight to Heaven. The worst kind of wolves are hairy on the inside, and when they
bite you, they drag you with them to Hell!") |
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Gremlins (1984)
The Death of Santa Claus
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The
tragic, black-comedy story that Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates) told her boyfriend bank
clerk Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) about how she found out that there was
no Santa Claus - another reason to hate Christmas: "The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas. Oh, God. It was so horrible. It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple of hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search. Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire. That's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus." [The speech was parodied in the sequel Gremlins II: The New Batch (1990) when Kate began a similar tale about how she hated Lincoln's birthday (due to encountering a strange man dressed as Lincoln): "Don't mention Lincoln! Something terrible happened to me on Lincoln's birthday! I was six or seven, and there was a day off from school, and Momma let me go to the park. She made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich... I was going through a peanut butter and jelly sandwich phase, and this man with this beard and this hat and he looked just like Lincoln...And he said, "Hello, little girl..."] |
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Irreconcilable
Differences (1984)
"Don't
Treat Your Kid Like a Dog"
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Neglected
nine year-old Casey Brodsky's (Drew Barrymore) "Don't treat
your kid like your dog" speech with a lawyer - about why she
wanted to sue her parents Albert and Lucy (Ryan O'Neal and Shelley
Long), a bickering Hollywood couple - for divorce: ("I'm just
a kid, and I don't know what I'm doing sometimes. But I think you
should know better when you're all grown up. I think you should
know how to act, and how to treat people. And I think if you once
loved someone enough to marry them, you should at least be nice
to them, even if you don't love 'em any more. And I think if you
have a child, you should treat that child like a human being and
not like a pet. Not like you treat your dog or somethin'. You know,
when you have a dog sometimes you forget he's there, and then when
you get lonely suddenly you remember him, and you remember how cute
he is and stuff, and you kiss him a lot, but then the next day when
you're busy again you don't notice him. That's how I've been treated
for the past four years, and you don't treat your kid like your
dog. It's not right.") |
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Love Streams (1984)
"I Know This Looks Crazy, But..."
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In a comic-pathetic scene, recently divorced Sarah Lawson's (Gene Rowlands) nervous, upbeat explanation to her alcoholic writer brother Robert Harmon (John Cassavettes) about why she purchased and adopted farm animals and brought them in a cab to his house, to give him "something to love": ("I know this looks crazy, but... but... I just got carried away. I mean, I couldn't resist these! These... are miniature horses! Aren't they small? I was only going to get one, but then I figured they'd get lonely, and if you have one, you may as well have two, and so I just - come on, sweetheart! - Anyway, the goat... the goat gives milk so that's not a waste. And the chickens, and the duck, well, uh, they'll have eggs... eventually and we can eat those. And they'll all live here at the park! Well, we'll talk about it in a minute. I'm going to take these in, and... and give them a little food and water, because it was really hot coming over.") |
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Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
"She Had a Young Face"
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The nightmarish memory of Winston Smith (John Hurt) as he wrote in his journal - a recollection of a past visitation with a whore (Shirley Stelfox) in the off-limits proletariat areas - her seemingly youthful beauty masked a middle-aged, homely, bruised and repulsive woman: ("It was three years ago on a dark evening. Easy to slip the patrols, and I'd gone into the proletarian areas. There was no one else on the street, and no tele-screens. She said: 'Two dollars,' so I went with her. She had a young face, painted very thick. It was really the paint that appealed to me: the whiteness of it like a mask, and the bright red lips. There were no preliminaries. Standing there with the scent of dead insects and cheap perfume, I went ahead and did it just the same.") |
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Paris,
Texas (1984)
"I
Knew These People"
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One of the
best monologues in recent film history, Travis' (Harry Dean Stanton)
8-minute "I knew these people" monologue to Jane (Nastassja
Kinski), a summation of their own life together, while separated
by a one-way peep-show mirror, where Jane is unable to see Travis
until the climactic moment when he turns off the light so she can
view him: ("I knew these people. These two people. They were
in love with each other. The girl was very young, about 17 or 18,
I guess. And the guy was quite a bit older. He was kind of raggedy
and wild. And she was very beautiful, you know. And together they
turned everything into a kind of adventure. And she liked that....") |
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The
Terminator (1984)
Warning
About the Terminator - "It Absolutely Will Not Stop..."
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Tech-Com protector Kyle Reese's
(Michael Biehn) description and warning about the unemotional,
relentless cyborg killer Model 101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to Sarah
Connor (Linda Hamilton), while driving and pursued: ("I'm Reese...assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for termination...It's very important that you live....(The Terminator) He's not a man - a machine. A Terminator. A Cyberdyne Systems Model 101...Not a robot. A cyborg. A cybernetic organism...The Terminator's
an infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath, it's
a hyper-alloy combat chassis - microprocessor-controlled, fully
armored. Very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue - flesh,
skin, hair, blood, grown for the cyborgs...The 600 series had
rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these are new, they look
human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot...");
then he famously warned her harshly: ("Listen, and understand!
That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't
be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And
it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!") |
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2010:
The Year We Make Contact (1984)
"A
World of Two Suns"
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Heywood Floyd's
(Roy Scheider) letter to his son while returning to Earth from Jupiter,
in the film's finale: ("Your children will be born in a world
of two suns. They will never know a sky without them. You can tell
them that you remember when there was a pitch black sky with no
bright star, and people feared the night. You can tell them when
we were alone, when we couldn't point to the light and say to ourselves -
'There is life out there.' Someday the children of the new sun will
meet the children of the old. I think they will be our friends") |
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The
Goonies (1985)
True
Childhood Confession
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The confession
by fat kid Lawrence 'Chunk' Cohen (Jeff Cohen) when interrogated
by the Fratellis: ("Everything. OK! I'll talk! In third grade,
I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle
Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew
School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs
and I blamed it on the dog... When my Mom sent me to the summer
camp for fat kids and then they served lunch, I got nuts and I pigged
out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done -
I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie
theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and
then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa
- and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the
audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting
sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in
my entire life.")
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Out
of Africa (1985)
"I
Had a Farm in Africa"
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The opening
flashback monologue of Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) reflecting back
on her love of Africa, in this sweeping epic: ("...You see,
I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. But it really
began before that; it really began in Denmark. And there I knew
two brothers. One was my lover, and one was my friend. I had a farm
in Africa...I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
I had a farm in Africa...") |
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Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
How
to Fake Out Parents and Avoid School
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The opening
monologue from smug and confident Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick)
about how to avoid school: ("The key to faking out the parents
is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big
believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony
fever is a dead lock, but, uh... you get a nervous mother, you
could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school.
You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and
wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid,
but then, so is high school...Incredible! One of the worst performances
of my career and they never doubted it for a second") |
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| "Anyone?
Anyone?" |
The droning
and dry Economics teacher's (Ben Stein) lecture to bored students,
prompting often with 'Anyone?': ("In 1930, the Republican-controlled
House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects
of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the...
Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which,
anyone? Raised or lowered?... Raised tariffs, in an effort to collect
more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone
know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper
into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this.
Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this
before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that
at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same
amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial.
Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone?
Something-d-o-o economics. 'Voodoo' Economics") |
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The
Fly (1986)
"Insect
Politics"
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The infamous
"insect politics" speech made by a decaying -- both physically
and mentally -- Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) to girlfriend Veronica
Quaife (Geena Davis): ("You have to leave now, and never come
back here. Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have
I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion,
no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the
first... insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid,
uh... I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamt he was
a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect
is awake... I'm saying: 'I'll hurt you if you stay'") |
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Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
"God,
She's Beautiful"
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Elliot's
(Michael Caine) opening "God, she's beautiful" monologue
in which he lusts after his married sister-in-law Lee (Barbara
Hershey): ("God, she's beautiful. She's got the prettiest
eyes, and she looks so sexy in that sweater. I just want to be
alone with her and hold her and kiss her and tell her how much
I love her and take care of her. Stop it, you idiot. She's your
wife's sister. But I can't help it! I'm consumed by her. It's
been months now. I dream about her. I, I, I think about her at
the office. Oh, Lee. What am I gonna do? I hear myself mooning
over you, and it's disgusting. Before, when she squeezed past
me in the doorway, and I smelled that perfume on the back of her
neck, Jesus, I, I thought I was gonna swoon!") |
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| Disgust
at American Culture |
Bitter and
reclusive artist Frederick's (Max Von Sydow) dismissal of contemporary
American culture to his younger lover Lee (Barbara Hershey): ("It's
been ages since I sat in front of the TV... just changing channels
to find something. You see the whole culture - Nazis, deodorant
salesman, wrestlers, beauty contests, the talk shows -- can you
imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling, hmm? -- but the worst are the fundamentalist
preachers, third-rate con men, telling the poor suckers that watch
them that they speak with Jesus... and to please send in
money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back, and saw what's going
on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up") |
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| Life
Affirmation |
Suicidal Mickey
Sach's (Woody Allen) life-affirming monologue when he almost kills
himself and then finds refuge in a movie theatre that is playing Duck Soup (1933) - and his climactic
epiphany: ("One day about a month ago I really hit bottom.
You know, I just felt that in a godless universe, I didn't want
to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle...which I loaded,
believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember
thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought ...what
if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody
really knows that....I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know
what was playing or anything. I just, I just needed a moment to
gather my thoughts and, and be logical, and, and put the world back
into rational perspective. And I went upstairs to the balcony, and
I sat down and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen
many times in my life since I was a kid, an-and I always u-uh, loved
it. And, you know, I'm, I'm watching these people up on the screen,
and I started getting hooked on...on the film, you know? And I started
to feel how can you even think of killing yourself?...") |
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BEST FILM SPEECHES AND MONOLOGUES