The Greatest Movie Speeches of All Time

this list rocks.. full metal jacket, magnolia and a lot more movies have the coolest monologues ever, they show the video to 11 of them

The Greatest Movie Speeches of All Time

 

great link

 

i think the greatest speech ever in a movie is the "wave speech" by Hunter S. Thompson
in Fear and Loathing.

"San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean of military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

 

Jack Nicholson had two great monolouges in The Witches of Eastwyck.

The ironing board scene is classic modern pathos.
The scene in the church where he is blown-in in front of the congregation
and proceeds to discuss why god created woman.

 

Oh man, great link I thought I would be the first person to say that BALDWIN'S speech in Glengarry Glen Ross is the SHIT! I see it is the first video on that list, haha. Every time I watch that movie, which is pretty often, I rewind it and watch his speech a couple of extra times

(as close as I can get it from memory)

Baldwin: PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN.

Lemmon: (bewildered) Wha...?

Baldwin: I said PUT that COFFEE DOWN.

Lemmon: What is this? is this-

Baldwin: (approaching him) You think I'm fucking with you? (pause)... ... I am not fucking with you.

Lemmon: stunned

Baldwin: Your name's Levene?

Lemmon: (still in shock) Yeah...

Baldwin: You call yourself a salesman you son of a bitch?

Harris: I don't have to listen to this SHIT!

Baldwin: You CERTAINLY DON'T PAL. Because the good news it, YOU'RE FIRED. The bad news is you've all got two weeks to regain your jobs.

PRICELESS

edit - Dammit, I can't believe I missed a couple of key lines, having watched the clip on the website... "I'm here from downtown... I'm here from Mitch and Murray! And I am on a MISSION OF MERCY!"

 

When I was a kid, I had these two speeches memorised and frequently repeated them at every opportunity. The films themselves weren't great, but I loved these two speeches at the time.

Street Fighter - Colonel Guile

Independance Day - President Whitmore

Heh, I was a lonely child

 

I personally love the long filibuster/speech scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Jimmy Stewart was amazing.

Cool link.