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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.
Greatest Film Speeches and Monologues: Video store
chain Blockbuster Video (in the UK) held a series of polls in
late 2003 with its customers to determine the 20 Greatest Film Speeches
and Monologues in cinematic history. These are marked in the following
lists with this symbol --  and
by their original ranking number in the top 20. Although
there were some excellent choices in their poll, the results almost
completely ignored early films, and entirely disregarded films with
speeches made by female characters. Greatest Films has provided
this expanded listing of Best Film Speeches and Monologues here
of deserving, best film monologues and speeches.
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 |
The Naughty Nineties (1945)
 "Who's
On First?" Skit
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Although not technically a speech or
monologue, Abbott and Costello's radio routine 'Who's On First?' was reprised in this film, in the roles of Dexter Broadhurst and Sebastian Dinwiddle, and is considered one of the classic comedy
dialogues and sketches ever written |
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The
Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Veteran's
Bedroom Admission of Helplessness
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The touching bedroom speech in which
disabled returning veteran Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), who has
prosthetic hooks for hands, tells his fiancee Wilma Cameron (Cathy
O'Donnell): ("This is when I know I'm helpless. My hands are
down there on the bed. I can't put them on again without calling
to somebody for help. I can't smoke a cigarette or read a book.
If that door should blow shut, I can't open it and get out of this
room. I'm as dependent as a baby that doesn't know how to get anything
except to cry for it. Well, now you know, Wilma. Now you have an
idea of what it is. I guess you don't know what to say. It's all
right. Go on home. Go away like your family said.") |
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The Big Sleep (1946)
Sexy
Horse-Race Conversation
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One of the most famous scenes of dialogue in film history
- noted for its sharp-edged wit, double entendres, and sexual innuendo
- a slyly flirtatious, sexy horse-race conversation between detective
Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall):
(Vivian: "Well, speaking of horses, I like to play them myself.
But I like to see them work out a little first, see if they're front-runners
or come from behind, find out what their hole-card is. What makes
them run." Marlowe: "Find out mine?" Vivian: "I
think so." Marlowe: "Go ahead." Vivian: "I'd
say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open
up a lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come
home free." Marlowe: "You don't like to be rated yourself."
Vivian: "I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?"
Marlowe: "Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance
of ground. You've got a touch of class, but, uh...I don't know how
- how far you can go." Vivian: "A lot depends on who's
in the saddle. Go ahead Marlowe, I like the way you work. In case
you don't know it, you're doing all right." Marlowe: "There's
one thing I can't figure out." Vivian: "What makes me
run?" Marlowe: "Uh-huh." Vivian: "I'll give
you a little hint. Sugar won't work. It's been tried.") |
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| "Nothing You Can't Fix" |
In the final scene after everything has been resolved and the police are
being summoned, Marlowe and Vivian are now together in the darkened parlor
of Geiger's house and waiting for the police's arrival. Vivian appraises the situation and notices
that there is still some unfinished business to take care of with Marlowe: (Vivian: "You've forgotten one thing. Me." Marlowe (pulling her to him): "What's wrong with you?" Vivian: (with a smoldering glance) "Nothing you can't fix") |
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It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Words to Cruel Mr. Potter at the Loan Board In Defense of His
Deceased Father
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# 14
George Bailey's (James Stewart) defense of his
dead father's name to the tyrannical, miserly and cruel Mr. Potter
(Lionel Barrymore) in an address to the Loan Board: ("...Just
remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about,
they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in
this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay
and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway,
my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him, but
to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in
my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be... I know
very well what you're talking about. You're talking about something
you can't get your fingers on, and it's galling you. That's what
you're talking about, I know. Well...I've said too much. I --
You're the Board here. You do what you want with this thing. There's
just one thing more, though. This town needs this measly one-horse
institution if only to have some place where people can come without
crawling to Potter") |
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| Plea
to Investors of the Bailey Building and Loan Society: "We've
Got to Stick Together" |
George Bailey's (James Stewart) plea to the
worried investors at Bailey Saving and Loan threatening a bank
run: ("Can't, can't you understand what's happening here?
Don't you see what's happening? Potter isn't selling. Potter's
buying! And why? Because we're panicky and he's not. That's why.
He's pickin' up some bargains. Now, we can get through this thing
all right. We've, we've got to stick together, though. We've got
to have faith in each other!") |
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Force of Evil (1948)
Making
My First Million Dollars
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Young, successful, and on-the-make
Wall Street lawyer Joe Morse's (John Garfield) opening voice-over
(during a high-angle camera view of towering skyscrapers surrounding
St. Andrew's Church near Wall Street): ("This is Wall Street
and today was important because tomorrow, July Fourth, I intended
to make my first million dollars, an exciting day in any man's life.
Temporarily, the enterprise was slightly illegal. You see I was
the lawyer for the numbers racket") |
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Hamlet (1948)
"To
Be Or Not To Be" Speech
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Perhaps the greatest, best-known Shakespearean
monologue of all-time - Laurence Olivier's rendition (dubbed the
"suicidal" version by film scholars) of the Danish prince
Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in his Best Picture-winning
version of the bard's iconic play: ("To be, or not to be: that
is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea
of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more;
and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural
shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be
wish'd. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's
the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come...")
- this soliloquy is the most used monologue ever and subject
to endless interpretations, having also been performed memorably
by Nicol Williamson (the "amused" rendition), Mel Gibson
(the "distraught" rendition) and Kenneth Branagh (the
"calculating" rendition) |
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Gravedigger
Scene Speech |
The "other" famous monologue
from the Bard's classic tale is the gravedigger scene in which Hamlet
comes upon the skull of an old jester Yorick: ("Alas, poor
Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most
excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times,
and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now? Your gambols, your songs, your flashes
of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning?...") [The scene was also memorably
parodied in Steve Martin's L.A. Story (1991).] |
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The Lady
From Shanghai (1948)
"Hall
of Mirrors" Speech
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Crippled husband Arthur Bannister's (Everett
Sloane) ominous speech to blonde femme fatale wife Elsa (Rita Hayworth) in the Hall of Mirrors at the film's conclusion:
("...I presume you think that if you murder me here, your sailor
friend will get the blame and you'll be free to spend my money.
Well, dear, you aren't the only one who wants me to die. Our good
friend, the District Attorney, is just itching to open a letter
that I left with him. The letter tells all about you, lover. So
you'd be foolish to fire that gun. With these mirrors, it's difficult
to tell. You are aiming at me, aren't you? I'm aiming at you, lover.
Of course, killing you is killing myself. It's the same thing. But
you know, I'm pretty tired of both of us.") |
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The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
"Gold
Fever" Speech
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In a flophouse before an expedition
begins, grizzled prospector Howard (Walter Huston) delivers a wise
description of "gold fever", gold's worth, and the seductive,
"devilish" lure of gold: ("...Why is gold worth some twenty
bucks an ounce?...A thousand men, say, go searching for gold, after
six months one of 'em's lucky. One out of a thousand -- his find
represents not only his own labor, but that of 999 others to boot.
That's uh, 6,000 months, uh, five hundred years. Scrabblin' over
a mountain, going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, Mister,
is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the
finding and getting of it...Well, there's no other explanation mister,
gold itself ain't good for nothing except for making jewelry with
... or gold teeth. Ahh, gold is a devilish sort of thing anyway...Yeah,
I know what gold does to men's souls.") |
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Adam's Rib (1949)
Defense
of Murder
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Doris Attinger's (Judy Holliday) speech
in court to defend her actions: ("...An unwritten law stands
back of a man who fights to defend his home. Apply this same law
to this maltreated wife and neglected woman. We ask you no more
- Equality!... Consider this unfortunate woman's act as though you
yourselves had each committed it. Every living being is capable
of attack if sufficiently provoked. Assault lies dormant within
us all. It requires only circumstance to set it in violent motion.
I ask you for a verdict of not guilty. There was no murder attempt
here - only a pathetic attempt to save a home.") |
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All the King's Men (1949)
Rousing
Campaign Speech for Governor
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Willie Stark's (Broderick Crawford) no-notes
rousing, half-drunken campaign speech at a fairgrounds barbecue:
("Now, shut up! Shut up, all of you! Now listen to me, you
hicks. Yeah, you're hicks too, and they fooled you a thousand times
like they fooled me. But this time, I'm going to fool somebody.
I'm going to stay in this race. I'm on my own and I'm out for blood....") |
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The Fountainhead (1949)
Closing
Summation to a Jury
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Howard Roark's (Gary Cooper) closing
summation (and Ayn Rand's treatise on Objectivism) to a jury, defending
his destruction of a building: ("Now you know why I dynamited
Courtland. I designed Courtland; I made it possible; I destroyed
it. I agreed to design it for the purpose of seeing it built as
I wished. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.
My building was disfigured at the whim of others who took all the
benefits of my work and gave me nothing in return.") |
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The
Third Man (1949)
Opening
Voice-Over Narration
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The opening monologue given by Holly
Martins (Joseph Cotten), with two versions of the speech (this is
the original UK version): ("I never knew the old Vienna before
the war with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople
suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period
of the Black Market. We'd run anything if people wanted it enough
- mmm - had the money to pay. Of course, a situation like that does
tempt amateurs but you know they can't stay the course like a professional.
Now the city - it's divided into four zones, you know, each occupied
by a power: the American, the British, the Russian and the French.
But the center of the city that's international policed by an International
Patrol. One member of each of the four powers. Wonderful! What a
hope they had! All strangers to the place and none of them could
speak the same language. Except a sort of smattering of German.
Good fellows on the whole, did their best you know. Vienna doesn't
really look any worse than a lot of other European cities. Bombed
about a bit. Oh, I was gonna tell you, wait, I was gonna tell you
about Holly Martins, an American. Came all the way here to visit
a friend of his. The name is Lime, Harry Lime. Now Martins was broke
and Lime had offered him, some sort, I don't know, some sort of
job. Anyway, there he was, poor chap. Happy as a lark and without
a cent") |
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| Ferris
Wheel Ride "Cuckoo Clock" Speech |
Harry Lime's (Orson Welles) 'cuckoo clock'
dialogue after a ferris wheel ride with Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten):
("In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare,
terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo
da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly
love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that
produce? The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly.") |
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All
About Eve (1950)
Opening
Voice-Over Narration
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Theatre critic Addison DeWitt's (George
Sanders) opening narration introducing the key characters of the
movie: ("...Eve. Eve the Golden Girl, the Cover Girl, the Girl
Next Door, the Girl on the Moon. Time has been good to Eve. Life
goes where she goes. She's the profiled, covered, revealed, reported.
What she eats and what she wears and whom she knows and where she
was, and when and where she's going. Eve. You all know all about
Eve. What can there be to know that you don't know?") |
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| Perfect
Blackmail and Exposure of Eve's Duplicity |
DeWitt's blackmailing of Eve Harrington
(Anne Baxter), exposing her lies and treachery privately: ("That
I should want you at all suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability,
but that, in itself, is probably the reason. You're an improbable
person, Eve, and so am I. We have that in common. Also a contempt
for humanity, an inability to love and be loved, insatiable ambition
- and talent. We deserve each other...and you realize and you agree
how completely you belong to me?"); this was followed by his
reaction to her reluctance to go on stage after he "claimed"
her: ("Couldn't go on! You'll give the performance of your
life.") |
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BEST FILM SPEECHES AND MONOLOGUES