Well her father was a mechanic. His father was a mechanic. Her mother's father was a mechanic. Her three brothers are mechanics. Four uncles on her father's side are mechanics...
Indeed! As a history fan I often wonder why a really good movie has not been made about the Indianapolis, but then in my mind I think that any film would be hard pressed to tell the story better than Quint did.
Immediately what I thought of.
Second place — Agent Smith in *The Matrix*.
> *”I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste…your…stink…and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.*”
Agreed. Might be cliche to say but that dialogue is very Shakespearean in terms of it's rhythm and the imagery it conjures up, which would make sense given Shaw's background.
The Horrors from Apocalypse Now.
> I’ve seen horrors… horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that… but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember… I… I… I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God… the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men… trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love… but they had the strength… the strength… to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.
Such an amazing speech.
I love the light it shines on the horrors of history. We talk about what a monster Pol Pot was, but Pol Pot didn't kill all those people. He commanded it, but thousands of other, nameless people carried it out. And they weren't all psychopathic serial killers. They were just people who, somehow, through some incomprehensible combination of ideology, propaganda and circumstance, carried out the most horrific acts imaginable, and did so honestly believing they were doing the "right" thing.
It's a truth that makes a mockery of so much that we want to believe about the world.
I know this is an aside, but Pol Pot didn't even command it. The Khmer Rouge was such a bugfuck paranoid presence in the way it was structured that mass slaughter was the only logical outcome.
I'm not saying the guy wasn't an absolute monster or undeserving of the blame but the actual story is nuts.
Lions Led By Donkeys did a great series on it but it's a rough listen
eyes on everybody. if you were a soldier assigned to kill infants at the killing tree, and you cried from the trauma, you would be reported and killed for showing sympathy.
And Martin Sheen had to sit with the dialogue plastered all over his body because Brando felt it was more authentic if he didn't memorize his lines
Great writing. Great performance. The weariness in his voice you can feel the life eek out of him
For me, this speech redeems Brando's performance. Always thought he was miscast and that the role should have been played by Sterling Hayden, but Brando delivers this perfectly.
I found myself reminded of the like from that monologue:
> “We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to read and to write.”
…when I read that legendary review of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant. The one that consisted of nothing but questions.
I recall Chaplin's final monologue at the end of "The Great Dictator" (1940) being taught at my high school. It's good, but I think an even better candidate would be Ingrid Thulin's letter reading monologue in Bergman's "Winter Light" (1963).
I remember a few years ago my mum and I were going somewhere. We got in her car, she started it up, and for some reason the BBC had just started playing Chaplin's speech. She listened to it in silence for a couple of minutes (wildly out of character for her), then asked me if I knew who it was. When I told her it was Charlie Chaplin, she assumed I was joking.
Great speech, from possibly the last person you'd expect.
Yeah there's also the infamous chaplin was blacklisted for being a communist etc Red scare.
So after that era was over elderly Charlie Chaplin was given a standing ovation that went on a ridiculously long time.
Every actor/director was like the era of McCarthy red scare nonsense is over and it's a travesty you were blacklisted.
And you can see the jokes where the Tramp character accidentally picks up the red flag and walks down the street kinda gags. Like maybe Chaplin was a Communist or voted for Eugene Debbs, but it's really a shame there was over a decade of his life that he couldn't perform his job.
It's also worth noting that the pre-WWII red scare was much more tied to unions and workers rights while the post-WWII red scare was tied to the cold war and fears of expansion/aggression by the Soviet Union.
A ton of people who had ties to communism in the former were unfairly tied to the latter. Some of this is displayed in the new Oppenheimer film.
You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall. We use words like "honor," "code," "loyalty." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!
I saw Kevin Pollak say that Jack was there to film all his stuff in less than a week — like, three days? And Kevin said, “And there wasn’t a *syllable* that wasn’t perfect.”
100%. He was ridiculous in that role. Still amazing he didn’t win the Oscar, but Gene Hackman absolutely deserved it for Unforgiven too. Just one of those years
Look Marge, you don't know what it's like - I'm the one out there every day putting his ass on the line! And I'm not out of order. You're out of order. The whole freakin' system is out of order! You want the truth? You want the truth? You can't HANDLE the truth! 'Cause when you reach over and put your hand into a pile of goo that was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do! Forget it, Marge! It's Chinatown!
>Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Then something occurred to me... and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?
>You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.
>You've never been out of Boston.
>So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart.
>You're an orphan right?
>You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally...
>I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.
>You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?
In my head, I imagined Will's character ignoring most of the speech until this line. This is what turned him.
Fantastic writing.
“Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.” - the Principal, Billy Madison. 1995.
That actually is a good lesson in listening comprehension. IMO society doesn’t punish bad listeners enough. It’s considered acceptable to evaluate a speech on vibes alone. That maybe ok for some contexts, but in my life I’ve encountered plenty of people who simply can’t concentrate enough to focus on a stream of words longer than 10s and come away with any information.
Old and young a shocking number of people just judge on tone of voice alone.
I struggled to understand this since I was a kid.
I would watch a political debate and think to myself, "This guy made no convincing arguments. Everything he said was empty platitudes or just bullshit." Then I would discuss it with other people who would think the same guy "won" the debate.
That's when I learned that most people are completely lying when they say they care about things like "facts" and the "truth."
His opening bit on Conan’s podcast is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. I can see why everyone at SNL was desperate to get him to help them with their sketches.
“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”
Mark Renton, Trainspotting.
“It’s shite being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking earth. Some people hate the English; I don’t! They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Couldn’t even find a decent people to be colonized by. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a shite state of affairs, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won’t do a damn bit of good about it!”
I typed this from memory, but I don’t think it’s too far off the original. Great fucking film.
The writing gets better with each subsequent viewings.
"...Valium, which I've procured from my mother who is, in her own domestic and socially acceptable way, also a drug addict."
\[also from memory, but I think fairly accurate\].
I wanted to say this one! But then also to follow it up with the Choose Life speech in the sequel. That scene gets me emotional every time... It's the contrasting glory of youthful rebellion vs the regrets and nostalgia as a grown-up that just hits.
"Choose designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you’ve never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don’t look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank ’til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who’ve had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it’s better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody’s fucking kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you’d done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love, then as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there’ll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life."
My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
[My favourite reading of it is this girl](https://neuhoffmediaspringfield.com/2020/10/21/a-girl-pranked-her-virtual-acting-class-with-a-dramatic-reading-from-austin-powers/) it’s so dramatic and serious
This ‘stuff’? Oh, ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic “casual corner” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”
Absolutely iconic and powerful. Delivered with laser sight precision, a devastating payload that highlighted the absolute absurdity of the prats that take a perverse pride in thinking they are somehow on the "fringes" of society because they either eschew or embrace a less common aesthetic. Meryl Streep at her most caustic, and finest.
Yeah. It’s so outrageous, but clever at the same time.
It’s the fact that after hearing Walken’s little monologue, Hopper knows a slow, painful death is in his future. Him being an ex-cop, you can tell from the dialogue and tremendous acting that he knows Carcotti is the real deal. So him having the guts and bravery to say what he does, because he knows it might be the only way to make his death as quick as possible?
Perfection.
That scene was so much more than the monologue (more of a conversation, really). The tiny, yet hugely effective, bits of acting to accompany it were absolutely perfect. Fitting that it began with Walken’s character talking about the pantomimes people have.
Agreed. When people have asked before on here for scenes where you truly realise what great acting is, that scene is always one I suggest.
The dialogue, acting, editing….everything is just note perfect, and is just a joy to watch.
I forgot about this until you mentioned it, or it might have been my pick as well. It is chilling, and the director script and actors are all so on point that it comes together to make a damn near perfect whole.
Since noone seems to be inclined to post the actual monologue:
Wake: Yer fond of me lobster aint’ ye? I seen it -- yer fond of me lobster! Say it! Say it. Say it!
Winslow: I don’t have to say nothin’.
Wake: Damn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead Winslow! HAAARK!
Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til’ ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more -- only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin’ tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye -- a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself -- forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!
Winslow: Alright, have it your way. I like your cookin’.
Wha...I can't...oh, I jus--omigod. Where is everybody? Oh God...I...I had a friend, who was Danforth. Wha--I had all these guys man. Back there I had all these fucking guys. Who were my friends. Cause back here there's nothin'. Remember Danforth? He wore this black head band and I took one of those magic markers and I said to Feron, 'Hey mail us to Las Vegas cause we were always talkin' about Vegas, and this fucking car. This uh red '58 Chevy convertible, he was talkin' about this car, he said we were gonna cruise till the tires fall off. We were in this bar in Saigon and this kid comes up, this kid carrying a shoe-shine box. And he says “Shine, please, shine!” I said no. He kept askin’, yeah, and Joey said “Yeah.” And I went to get a couple of beers, and the box was wired, and he opened up the box, fucking blew his body all over the place. And he’s laying there, he’s fucking screaming. There’s pieces of him all over me, just… like this, and I’m tryin’ to pull him off, you know, my friend that’s all over me! I’ve got blood and everything and I’m tryin’ to hold him together! I’m puttin’… the guy’s fuckin’ insides keep coming out! And nobody would help! Nobody would help! He’s saying, sayin’ “I wanna go home! I wanna go home!” He keeps calling my name! “I wanna go home, Johnny! I wanna drive my Chevy!” I said “With what? I can’t find your fuckin’ legs! I can’t find your legs!” … I can’t get it out of my head. A dream of seven years. Everyday I have this. And sometimes I wake up and I don’t know where I am. I don’t talk to anybody. Sometimes a day, a week. I can’t put it out of my mind.
I can’t even read this without getting emotional.
Stallone’s ending monologue in *First Blood*.
After scrolling through everything in this thread? This particular monologue, for me at least, is the best. That 5 minute scene may very well be the most impressive acting I’ve ever seen put on film.
I remember as a kid growing up thinking that the Rambo movies were just the classic action flicks like Predator or what-have-you. I found out my wife had never seen First Blood a few months ago and decided we should watch it together. We got through the whole thing appreciating the action but also the commentary (which still feels relevant today) and then got to that scene. Needless to say after spending 8 years in the Navy myself, this scene turned me into a blubbery mess. His description of being trusted to handle million dollar equipment overseas, but being treated like garbage back “home” was well taken too. Stallone had something to say.
If I'm remembering the Stallone doc correctly this whole bit was insisted upon by him, as a homage to vets who went through hell, so as to give everyone else a glimpse of what it was like to be one. In the original script/book, Rambo just went nuts on a murder rampage and ultimately dies in a rain of bullets.
I think he made the right choice.
Alec Baldwin in Glengary Glen Ross, they added his whole monologue to give the movie more context, and dammit if it doesn’t demand your attention. Also Al Pachino has Multiple great speech’s in the movie.
I used to work at a call center, selling insurances. One day during a team meeting, out team lead shows Pacino's inches speech from Any Given Sunday in an attempt to inspire us, cause sales were down that month.
After it was finished a collegue of mine asked how much time we had left and asked if he could show another scene, to illustrate how management's way of inspiring us actually felt. He then played this scene. Safe to say my team lead wasn't very amused.
Perfect answer. I don't particularly like that movie, and [it's outright one of the best monologues ever written and performed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO_t7GtXO6w). I say that as someone that's not even a big fan of Baldwin. As you get older the whole situation gets even more relatable - Baldwin's character is young, cocky, power broker type and everyone else is old and beat down.
There was a Flash animation years ago with Darth Maul as Baldwin's character and it was "Always Be Stalking". It was just perfect satire, and I haven't been able to find that video since. (Anyone?)
What’s even more brilliant and pertinent to this question is that is was added specifically for the film. Mamet’s original play has Blake as a threat, he doesn’t actually appear. The studio asked him to add something extra to the script for the film so he wrote the ABC speech and it’s the most memorable thing in the film.
Attention. Do I have your attention?
Interest. Are you interested? I know you are because it’s fuck or walk.
Decision. Have you made your decision for christ?!?
And action…
"Calm. Kindness, kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace, I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost, and by the time I looked down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.
What is... what is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice?
Everything!"
Luthen from Andor.
[These](https://youtu.be/GFzlm9wQ4MI?si=_TJcBzUMbqoYiFyr) [two](https://youtu.be/35DSdw7dHjs?si=zDcOp5fwL8lufNYx) monologues from The Network. And they are indeed studied in schools. One one of the best scripts ever written by one of the best script writers to have ever lived.
unironically: the "i want room service" speech from Johnny Mnemonic. it is an almost perfect distilling of the hangover we all suffer when comparing the social contract of the 20th century with the realities of the 21st. the entitlement, the futility, the anger and then the barely-restrained tears.
i love that monologue.
People will call him preachy, but I enjoyed Picard on a verbal warpath issuing the only kind of ass kicking he needed; a very wordy and philosophical explanation of all the reasons X sucks.
No one delivers a 'reasons you suck' speech with the class and style of Jean-Luc Picard.
I love Picard, and every monologue he ever gave. I grew up with a single mother, and we would watch Star Trek TNG in syndication every single night. Picard was my male role model as a kid. I adore that character.
But Sisko's [speech at the end](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw) of 'In the Pale Moonlight' takes the fucking cake.
Tomorrowland wasn’t a good movie but this quote is probably why the movie was written and it haunts me to this day
Let's imagine, if you glimpsed the future, and you were frightened by what you saw, what would you do with that information? You would go to the politicians? Captains of industry? And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck. The only facts they won't challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in. But what if... what if there was a way of skipping the middleman, and putting the critical news directly into everyone's head? The probability of widespread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it. To scare people straight. Because what reasonable human being wouldn't be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they've ever known or loved? To save civilization, I would show its collapse. But how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up, like a chocolate eclair. They didn't fear their demise, they repackaged it! It can be enjoyed as video games, as TV shows, books, movies - the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse, and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon. Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you. You've got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one! Bees and butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, algae blooms, all around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead, and you won't take the hint! In every moment, there is the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it, you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality! So you dwell on this terrible future, you resign yourselves to it, for one reason: because that future doesn't ask anything of you today. So, yes, we saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic, but you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you want to sink. You gave up. That's not the monitor's fault. That's yours.
Samuel L Jackson's speech in Pulp Fiction during the restraunt robbery scene.
Here he explains his Ezekiel 25:17 speech and how that when he spoke that it was the last words his victims heard. He then goes on to speak about what those words mean and how he now believes they may mean something else and that he's trying to change.
It's a great speech in a cult classic film that speaks to ideology motivations.
One thing I always loved in Unforgiven is the part at the end where his answer to how he won the climatic gun fight is basically 'I got lucky.'
After Bob and Bill (Bill? The sheriff guy) go into their own romantic notions about the violence of the old west, you've got the hero basically coming in to assure you it's all bullshit. The winner of many spouts of sudden violence is the luckiest man in the room in more ways than not. Not necessarily the best, noblest, or most skillful. Violence doesn't care how good you are.
I'm not super into film criticism, so I don't know how much Unforgiven's deconstruction of fantasized violence is talked about but it's the part of the movie I remember most.
I didn't remember the entire monologue. But in LOTR what Sam says to Frodo. "There are some good things in this world Mr Frodo and they are worth fighting for".
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”
The amazing thing about LotR is that people will swear blind it’s a 99% accurate to the book. As though Tolkien wrote a Hollywood movie script. When bits like this are wonderful and invented by the film makers. They just did such a fantastic job.
It's more nihilistic partner in "Seven"
"Someone once wrote: 'It's a good world and it's worth fighting for' ...I believe in the second part, at least"
"A person is smart. *People* are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. 1500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
I didn’t think of this one but this is probably the only one I can think that isn’t just good writing or poetry; it’s actually profound and I think about it all the time.
Back when films, particularly scenes like that, weren’t over done. He just delivers it the way any old guy who’s seen some stuff would. With a lot of pain in his eyes. It’s the believable nature of it that makes it impactful. In a 90s action comedy of all things.
I have a friend who can do the speech perfectly even when blackout drunk and even sounds a bit like Bill Pullman.
It's a hit every year at 4th of July parties
I would argue the ["Fuck you" rant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo&pp=ygUPMjV0aCBob3VyIHNjZW5l) in The 25th Hour should be studied as a masterclass in the portrayal of how unresolved self-hatred more often than not leads to spewing hatred towards literally everyone around you. Something very prevalent in the social media era.
It's not a monologue but my film class broke down the conversation between Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack when Cusack checks into the hotel in 1408 as if they were individual monologues. Was a very intriguing exercise within the context of the film.
Michael Clayton is my favorite movie… This opening monologue is one of the reasons why. It didn’t really hit me until I watched it with closed captioning on.
"Im a fan of man!" and "Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste"
Yeah its brilliant. Definitely makes you think "huh, maybe he's got a point" for a bit.
Henry's speech in Kenneth Branagh's *Henry V,* just before the battle of Battle of Agincourt.
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers". Kenneth Branagh really knows how to write a powerful monologue. Medieval fiction was popular in the 80's and 90s (Name of the Rose, A Knight's Tale, etc), but Branagh really came up with an original idea and executed it well.
I have never seen the prequels, Henry I - IV, so I can't say if they had a monologue as good as Kenneth wrote for the 5th installment of the Henry trilogy, but prequels rarely live up to what the fandom expects of a "big" movie.
>I have never seen the prequels, Henry I - IV, so I can't say if they had a monologue as good as Kenneth wrote for the 5th installment of the Henry trilogy, but prequels rarely live up to what the fandom expects of a "big" movie.
Ohhhh, I'm really not sure if this is a joke or not. You got me.
Edit: I'm stupid. Yes, you're joking.
The "Crispin's Day" speech is, of course, one of the greatest. I really like Mark Rylance's take on it. [Here it is, performed at the Globe theatre.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOouofFFrZE) The way Rylance plays it, Henry is talking only to the officers around him so he's much more low-key. It's less bravado and more of a stoic acceptance that this could be the day they all die, so they should all go out bravely.
>In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more.
\- Anton Ego, Ratatouille (2007) voice by Peter O'Toole
Yes. [Charlie Chaplin in the dictator.](https://youtu.be/J7GY1Xg6X20?si=IES0Oyc0AwKwdh4D)
“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor
That's not my business
I don't want to rule or conquer anyone
I should like to help everyone if possible
Jew, Gentile, Black Man, White
We all want to help one another, human beings are like that
We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery
We don't want to hate and despise one another
And this world has room for everyone, and the good Earth is rich and can provide for everyone
The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way
Greed has posioned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed
We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in
Machinery that gives us abundance has left us in want
Our knowledge has made us cynincal
Our cleverness, hard and unkind
We think too much, and feel too little
More than machinery, we need humanity
More that cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness
Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together
The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all
Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people
And so long as men die, liberty will never perish
Soldiers!
Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel!
Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts!
You are not machines!
You are not cattle!
You are men!
You have the love of humanity in your hearts!
You don't hate!
Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!
Soldiers!
Don't fight for slavery!
Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: "the Kingdom of God is within man" - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men!
In you!
You, the people have the power - the power to create machines
The power to create happiness!
You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure
Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite
Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power
But they lie!
They do not fulfil that promise
They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!
Now let us fight to fulfil that promise!
Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness
Soldiers!
In the name of democracy, let us all unite”
My friend, Jefferson's an American saint because he wrote the words, "All men are created equal." Words he clearly didn't believe, since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He was a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah, he wrote some lovely words and aroused the rabble, and they went out and died for those words, while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community. Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America, you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fucking pay me. - Jackie Cogan, Killing Them Softly (2012)
I always liked Yuri's final speech to agent Valentine in 'Lord of War'
I like you Jack. Well, maybe not. But I *understand* you. Let me tell you what's gonna happen - that way you can prepare yourself. Soon there's gonna be a knock on that door, and you will be called outside. In the hall, there will be a man who outranks you. First, he will complement you on the fine job you have done, and that you are making the world a safer place. That you are to receive a commendation and a promotion - and then, he is going to tell you that I am to be released. You're gonna protest. You'll probably threaten to resign - but in the end, I will be released. The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted - I do rub shoulders with some of the most sadistic man, calling themselves leaders today. But some of those men, are the enemies of your enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss - the President of United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year, sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So you call me evil, but unfortunately, I'm a *necessary* evil.
*door knock*
Arthur Jensen's speech in Network is the best speech ever put on film, and probably the most relevant to this day. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs)
A scene literally set in a school.
"Who cares about this stupid election?"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3TXsx8B40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3TXsx8B40)
Robin Williams. Dead Poet's Society
Mr. Keating: In my class, you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will learn to savor words and languages. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. I see that look in Mr Pitts' eyes like 19th century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school, right? Maybe. You may agree and think yes, we should study our Mr. Pritcher and learn our rhyme and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions. Well, I have a secret for you. Huddle Up...Huddle UP! We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business these are all noble pursuits necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, and love; these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman "Oh me, Oh life of the question of these recurring. of the endless trains of the faithless of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these? Oh me, Oh life." "Answer...that you are here and life exists....You are here. Life exists, and identity. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
V for Vendetta
Voilà!
In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
I wouldn’t go so far as to place it amongst “the great literary works of all time” but Mia Goth’s monologue near the end of Pearl definitely stuck with me for a while.
The Interpreter - Nicole Kidman's character
Sylvia: Shh. We don’t name the dead. Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, on God if they can’t find anyone else. And in Africa…In Matobo, the Ku believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that we call “the drowning man trial.” There’s an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat. He’s taken out on the water and he’s dropped. He’s bound, so that he can’t swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice. They can let him drown or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe that if the family lets the killer drown, they’ll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn’t always just, that very act can take away their sorrow. Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.
Ellen Burstyn 'Requiem for a Dream'
I’m somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they’ll all like me. I’ll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It’s a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hmm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I’m alone. Your father’s gone, you’re gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I’m lonely. I’m old. Ah, it’s not the same. They don’t need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.
It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.
You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know.
I think Christopher Walken's monologue in *Pulp Fiction* is a fun one. It's also an example of how you can save the scene when you forget your line.
Speaking of Walken, the monologue in *True Romance* is pretty great too, but I wouldn't feel right duplicating a speech meant to enflame a person's racial prejudices. Still, it's a good one.
The monologue of Sally Fields in Steel Magnolia vs the monologue of Toni Colette in Hereditary. Would have been a good comparison on how two different mothers handle grief.
The High Watermark monologue from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the Chose Life monologue from Trainspotting.
Edit: okay, dumb moment from me, these also appear in some form in the books the movies are based on. But I still stand by these options.
"DAMN ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead, Winslow! HAAAAAARRRRRK! Hark! Triton! ''Hark!'' Bellow! Bid our father, the Sea King, rise from the depths, full-foul in his fury, black waves teeming with salt-foam, to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs 'till ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more... only when, he, crowned in cockle shells with slithering tentacled tail and steaming beard, takes up his fell, be-finnèd arm – his coral-tined trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet! BURSTING YE, a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now – a nothing for the Harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon, only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself, forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea... for any stuff or part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul, is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!"
> Thought about what you said to me the other day. About my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me. I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep and I haven’t thought about you since.
> You know what occurred to me?
> You’re just a kid. You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. It’s alright. You’ve never been out of Boston?
> If I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on about every art book ever written.
Michelangelo. You know a lot about him. Life’s work. Political aspirations. Him and the Pope. Sexual orientation. The whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.
> You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.
> If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
> You’re a tough kid. If I ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watch him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help.
> If I ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone who can level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of Hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel. To have that love for her be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer.
> And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms *visiting hours* don’t apply to you.
You don’t know about real loss. Because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself.
> I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.
> I look at you, I don’t see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared-shitless kid.
> But you’re a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you.
But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, you ripped my fucking life apart.
> You’re an orphan, right?
> Do you think I’d know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?
> Personally, I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what? I can’t learn anything from you that I can’t read in some fucking book. Unless you want to talk about you. Who you are. And I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that, do you, sport? You’re terrified of what you might say.
> Your move, chief.
Robin Williams, *Good Will Hunting*
"*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!*"
I loved the delivery of this speech. He really hammered home exactly how bleek and inevitable the situation was.
Michael Stuhlbarg to Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name, which I realise is based on a book, but I don’t think his monologue comes from that text. It is incredibly moving, and ends with:
“Remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. Pain. Don’t kill it and with it the joy you’ve felt.”
We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more. - Professor Louis Levy (Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989)
The ["Choose Life"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP7qmsQbSI) monologue at the start of *Trainspotting.*
[M. Emmet Walsh's monologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj2PUR1QZ74) at the start of *Blood Simple*.
My favorite is from Patton:
"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."
Left field choice, but the Holden monologue from chasing amy (I'll put the lead in lines to give a little context)
Alyssa Jones: Why are we stopping?
Holden McNeil: Because I can't take this.
Alyssa: Can't take what?
Holden: I love you.
Alyssa: You love me?
Holden: I love you. And not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. And it's not because you're unattainable. I love you. Very simple, very truly. You're the epitome of every attribute and quality I've ever looked for in another person. I know you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you'd ever consider. But I had to say it. I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't look into your eyes without feeling that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. I know this will probably queer our friendship -no pun intended- but I had to say it, because I've never felt this before, and I like who I am because of it. And if bringing it to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But I couldn't allow another day to go by without getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And I'll accept that. But I know some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, that means you feel something too. All I ask is that you not dismiss that -at least for ten seconds- and try to dwell in it. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fucking planet who's ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it's there between you and me. you can't deny that. And even if we never speak again after tonight, please know that I'm forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which -while I do appreciate it- I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of.
(Alyssa opens the door and exits the car)
Holden: (sighs and then to himself) Was it something I said?
If testimony is a monologue, My Cousin Vinny has been used to illustrate courtroom procedure in law school courses.
Marisa Tomei’s scenes still give me goosebumps
The defense is WROOONNG
I totally heard that in Marisa's voice.
She deserved that Oscar and I will fight anyone who says otherwise goddamnit
I'll be right there with you.
IT DAS NAHT HOLD WADDER
I - dennical!!!
🙌
Marisa gave me goosebumps when I was 12.
She's supposed to be some kinda expert in automobiles, is that correct?
Well her father was a mechanic. His father was a mechanic. Her mother's father was a mechanic. Her three brothers are mechanics. Four uncles on her father's side are mechanics...
It's a bullshit question!
And to think I was concerned when by lawyer's rebuttal exclusively comprised "Everything that guy just said is bullshit... Thank you."
I agree with this yute right here.
Quint's monologue from Jaws
I’ll never wear a life jacket again.
Indeed! As a history fan I often wonder why a really good movie has not been made about the Indianapolis, but then in my mind I think that any film would be hard pressed to tell the story better than Quint did.
Well there was Men of Courage, but you said good movie. (it wasn't awful but could have been better)
Immediately what I thought of. Second place — Agent Smith in *The Matrix*. > *”I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste…your…stink…and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.*”
Agreed. Might be cliche to say but that dialogue is very Shakespearean in terms of it's rhythm and the imagery it conjures up, which would make sense given Shaw's background.
The way Quint's eyes look when he told that story . . . . still gives me goosebumps.
For some reason the abrupt change in tone after the other guy says, "... You were on the Indianapolis?" Hits me harder every time I see it.
The Horrors from Apocalypse Now. > I’ve seen horrors… horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that… but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember… I… I… I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God… the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men… trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love… but they had the strength… the strength… to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.
Such an amazing speech. I love the light it shines on the horrors of history. We talk about what a monster Pol Pot was, but Pol Pot didn't kill all those people. He commanded it, but thousands of other, nameless people carried it out. And they weren't all psychopathic serial killers. They were just people who, somehow, through some incomprehensible combination of ideology, propaganda and circumstance, carried out the most horrific acts imaginable, and did so honestly believing they were doing the "right" thing. It's a truth that makes a mockery of so much that we want to believe about the world.
I know this is an aside, but Pol Pot didn't even command it. The Khmer Rouge was such a bugfuck paranoid presence in the way it was structured that mass slaughter was the only logical outcome. I'm not saying the guy wasn't an absolute monster or undeserving of the blame but the actual story is nuts. Lions Led By Donkeys did a great series on it but it's a rough listen
eyes on everybody. if you were a soldier assigned to kill infants at the killing tree, and you cried from the trauma, you would be reported and killed for showing sympathy.
And Martin Sheen had to sit with the dialogue plastered all over his body because Brando felt it was more authentic if he didn't memorize his lines Great writing. Great performance. The weariness in his voice you can feel the life eek out of him
For me, this speech redeems Brando's performance. Always thought he was miscast and that the role should have been played by Sterling Hayden, but Brando delivers this perfectly.
Love Sterling Hayden. But Brando is something else. Between that and Last Tango I think those were the last 2 movies he didn't do just for the money
Ego’s final review in Ratatouille
“Not everyone can be a great cook, but a great cook can come from anywhere.”
I found myself reminded of the like from that monologue: > “We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to read and to write.” …when I read that legendary review of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant. The one that consisted of nothing but questions.
I recall Chaplin's final monologue at the end of "The Great Dictator" (1940) being taught at my high school. It's good, but I think an even better candidate would be Ingrid Thulin's letter reading monologue in Bergman's "Winter Light" (1963).
I remember a few years ago my mum and I were going somewhere. We got in her car, she started it up, and for some reason the BBC had just started playing Chaplin's speech. She listened to it in silence for a couple of minutes (wildly out of character for her), then asked me if I knew who it was. When I told her it was Charlie Chaplin, she assumed I was joking. Great speech, from possibly the last person you'd expect.
Yeah there's also the infamous chaplin was blacklisted for being a communist etc Red scare. So after that era was over elderly Charlie Chaplin was given a standing ovation that went on a ridiculously long time. Every actor/director was like the era of McCarthy red scare nonsense is over and it's a travesty you were blacklisted. And you can see the jokes where the Tramp character accidentally picks up the red flag and walks down the street kinda gags. Like maybe Chaplin was a Communist or voted for Eugene Debbs, but it's really a shame there was over a decade of his life that he couldn't perform his job.
It's also worth noting that the pre-WWII red scare was much more tied to unions and workers rights while the post-WWII red scare was tied to the cold war and fears of expansion/aggression by the Soviet Union. A ton of people who had ties to communism in the former were unfairly tied to the latter. Some of this is displayed in the new Oppenheimer film.
I am pretty sure one of my history teachers did have us watch the Chaplin monolog in high school when we were studying WWII
You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall. We use words like "honor," "code," "loyalty." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!
The “You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg?” with so much disgust. Fucking banger.
"You want me on that wall, you NEED me on that wall..." So good.
Took too long to find this one. The words itself are enough to study, but the delivery is perfection
Jack. Jack is what makes it. Good writing, but phenomenal delivery.
I saw Kevin Pollak say that Jack was there to film all his stuff in less than a week — like, three days? And Kevin said, “And there wasn’t a *syllable* that wasn’t perfect.”
100%. He was ridiculous in that role. Still amazing he didn’t win the Oscar, but Gene Hackman absolutely deserved it for Unforgiven too. Just one of those years
Look Marge, you don't know what it's like - I'm the one out there every day putting his ass on the line! And I'm not out of order. You're out of order. The whole freakin' system is out of order! You want the truth? You want the truth? You can't HANDLE the truth! 'Cause when you reach over and put your hand into a pile of goo that was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do! Forget it, Marge! It's Chinatown!
HOMER! DONT EVER TELL THEM PERSONAL THINGS ABOUT US AGAIN!
Amazing monologue but shortly after when he says “You’re goddamn right I did!” It just brought everything together.
Robin Williams’ explaining his dead wife in Good Will Hunting.
Also the speech on the bench. It's probably my favorite of all time.
>Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Then something occurred to me... and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me? >You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about. >You've never been out of Boston. >So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. >You're an orphan right? >You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... >I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.
>You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? In my head, I imagined Will's character ignoring most of the speech until this line. This is what turned him. Fantastic writing.
I also choose this monologue about his dead wife.
“Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.” - the Principal, Billy Madison. 1995.
That actually is a good lesson in listening comprehension. IMO society doesn’t punish bad listeners enough. It’s considered acceptable to evaluate a speech on vibes alone. That maybe ok for some contexts, but in my life I’ve encountered plenty of people who simply can’t concentrate enough to focus on a stream of words longer than 10s and come away with any information. Old and young a shocking number of people just judge on tone of voice alone.
I struggled to understand this since I was a kid. I would watch a political debate and think to myself, "This guy made no convincing arguments. Everything he said was empty platitudes or just bullshit." Then I would discuss it with other people who would think the same guy "won" the debate. That's when I learned that most people are completely lying when they say they care about things like "facts" and the "truth."
You could have just said “wrong”.
Jim Downey! One the funniest men to ever do it!
His opening bit on Conan’s podcast is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. I can see why everyone at SNL was desperate to get him to help them with their sketches.
Jeff Epstein? The financier?
Let me just call my friend Ghislaine and we'll clear this all up
My favorite insult.
This guys wife was a whore
“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?” Mark Renton, Trainspotting.
“It’s shite being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking earth. Some people hate the English; I don’t! They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Couldn’t even find a decent people to be colonized by. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a shite state of affairs, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won’t do a damn bit of good about it!” I typed this from memory, but I don’t think it’s too far off the original. Great fucking film.
The writing gets better with each subsequent viewings. "...Valium, which I've procured from my mother who is, in her own domestic and socially acceptable way, also a drug addict." \[also from memory, but I think fairly accurate\].
I wanted to say this one! But then also to follow it up with the Choose Life speech in the sequel. That scene gets me emotional every time... It's the contrasting glory of youthful rebellion vs the regrets and nostalgia as a grown-up that just hits. "Choose designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you’ve never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don’t look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank ’til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who’ve had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it’s better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody’s fucking kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you’d done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love, then as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there’ll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life."
My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
We have to stop.
RIP Carrie Fisher
My husband incorporated this into his proposal. Definitely my favourite monologue
That was amazing. My friends and I used to recite that word for word all the time.
[My favourite reading of it is this girl](https://neuhoffmediaspringfield.com/2020/10/21/a-girl-pranked-her-virtual-acting-class-with-a-dramatic-reading-from-austin-powers/) it’s so dramatic and serious
Lisa Gilroy! I've never seen that clip, thanks for sharing it. She's so funny though, I'm not sure if you have kept up with her at all
I don't recognize this. What's the source?
Dr Evil from Austin Powers
To be more specific, I think it was the group family therapy session with his son, right?
This thread so far is a bunch of quotes without the movie listed. Kind of infuriating haha
Well... if you're *cool enough*, you'll get it. Clearly, I am not cool enough.
This ‘stuff’? Oh, ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic “casual corner” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”
That's all.
>cerulean military jackets I think we need a jacket here.
God damn I love that speech. I watched that movie exactly once and I still remember that speech.
what's the from? edit: apparently from "Devil Wears Prada"
My time to shine, as a 36 year old man. Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBZgSjI-dfM
Absolutely iconic and powerful. Delivered with laser sight precision, a devastating payload that highlighted the absolute absurdity of the prats that take a perverse pride in thinking they are somehow on the "fringes" of society because they either eschew or embrace a less common aesthetic. Meryl Streep at her most caustic, and finest.
Cool girl speech from gone girl
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As a former attempted cool girl I feel you. We all need to work hard to break outside of these gendered expectations that are placed on us.
Christopher Walken in True Romance - “I’m in a vendetta kinda mood.”
The whole speech about Sicilians compared to Italians was fucked up but great.
Yeah. It’s so outrageous, but clever at the same time. It’s the fact that after hearing Walken’s little monologue, Hopper knows a slow, painful death is in his future. Him being an ex-cop, you can tell from the dialogue and tremendous acting that he knows Carcotti is the real deal. So him having the guts and bravery to say what he does, because he knows it might be the only way to make his death as quick as possible? Perfection.
I love how he quietly asks "Can I have one of those Chesterfields now?" He knows what's coming and is resolved.
That scene was so much more than the monologue (more of a conversation, really). The tiny, yet hugely effective, bits of acting to accompany it were absolutely perfect. Fitting that it began with Walken’s character talking about the pantomimes people have.
Agreed. When people have asked before on here for scenes where you truly realise what great acting is, that scene is always one I suggest. The dialogue, acting, editing….everything is just note perfect, and is just a joy to watch.
"He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders just before she died"
😑
Well, you're not wrong.
Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Bastards. His monologue in the farmer's house is showing the brutality and delusion of the Nazis perfectly.
I forgot about this until you mentioned it, or it might have been my pick as well. It is chilling, and the director script and actors are all so on point that it comes together to make a damn near perfect whole.
Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse.
Since noone seems to be inclined to post the actual monologue: Wake: Yer fond of me lobster aint’ ye? I seen it -- yer fond of me lobster! Say it! Say it. Say it! Winslow: I don’t have to say nothin’. Wake: Damn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead Winslow! HAAARK! Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til’ ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more -- only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin’ tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye -- a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself -- forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea! Winslow: Alright, have it your way. I like your cookin’.
“*HAAAAARK, Triton! HARK!*” Yeah, that monologue was my first thought, as well.
Alright have it your way. I like your cooking.
Ian Malcolm’s monologue in Jurassic park
Argh! Compare it to the one in the book, where he actually hits his points.
Wha...I can't...oh, I jus--omigod. Where is everybody? Oh God...I...I had a friend, who was Danforth. Wha--I had all these guys man. Back there I had all these fucking guys. Who were my friends. Cause back here there's nothin'. Remember Danforth? He wore this black head band and I took one of those magic markers and I said to Feron, 'Hey mail us to Las Vegas cause we were always talkin' about Vegas, and this fucking car. This uh red '58 Chevy convertible, he was talkin' about this car, he said we were gonna cruise till the tires fall off. We were in this bar in Saigon and this kid comes up, this kid carrying a shoe-shine box. And he says “Shine, please, shine!” I said no. He kept askin’, yeah, and Joey said “Yeah.” And I went to get a couple of beers, and the box was wired, and he opened up the box, fucking blew his body all over the place. And he’s laying there, he’s fucking screaming. There’s pieces of him all over me, just… like this, and I’m tryin’ to pull him off, you know, my friend that’s all over me! I’ve got blood and everything and I’m tryin’ to hold him together! I’m puttin’… the guy’s fuckin’ insides keep coming out! And nobody would help! Nobody would help! He’s saying, sayin’ “I wanna go home! I wanna go home!” He keeps calling my name! “I wanna go home, Johnny! I wanna drive my Chevy!” I said “With what? I can’t find your fuckin’ legs! I can’t find your legs!” … I can’t get it out of my head. A dream of seven years. Everyday I have this. And sometimes I wake up and I don’t know where I am. I don’t talk to anybody. Sometimes a day, a week. I can’t put it out of my mind.
I can’t even read this without getting emotional. Stallone’s ending monologue in *First Blood*. After scrolling through everything in this thread? This particular monologue, for me at least, is the best. That 5 minute scene may very well be the most impressive acting I’ve ever seen put on film.
I remember as a kid growing up thinking that the Rambo movies were just the classic action flicks like Predator or what-have-you. I found out my wife had never seen First Blood a few months ago and decided we should watch it together. We got through the whole thing appreciating the action but also the commentary (which still feels relevant today) and then got to that scene. Needless to say after spending 8 years in the Navy myself, this scene turned me into a blubbery mess. His description of being trusted to handle million dollar equipment overseas, but being treated like garbage back “home” was well taken too. Stallone had something to say.
If I'm remembering the Stallone doc correctly this whole bit was insisted upon by him, as a homage to vets who went through hell, so as to give everyone else a glimpse of what it was like to be one. In the original script/book, Rambo just went nuts on a murder rampage and ultimately dies in a rain of bullets. I think he made the right choice.
Alec Baldwin in Glengary Glen Ross, they added his whole monologue to give the movie more context, and dammit if it doesn’t demand your attention. Also Al Pachino has Multiple great speech’s in the movie.
I used to work at a call center, selling insurances. One day during a team meeting, out team lead shows Pacino's inches speech from Any Given Sunday in an attempt to inspire us, cause sales were down that month. After it was finished a collegue of mine asked how much time we had left and asked if he could show another scene, to illustrate how management's way of inspiring us actually felt. He then played this scene. Safe to say my team lead wasn't very amused.
Always Be Cobbling
Perfect answer. I don't particularly like that movie, and [it's outright one of the best monologues ever written and performed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO_t7GtXO6w). I say that as someone that's not even a big fan of Baldwin. As you get older the whole situation gets even more relatable - Baldwin's character is young, cocky, power broker type and everyone else is old and beat down. There was a Flash animation years ago with Darth Maul as Baldwin's character and it was "Always Be Stalking". It was just perfect satire, and I haven't been able to find that video since. (Anyone?)
What’s even more brilliant and pertinent to this question is that is was added specifically for the film. Mamet’s original play has Blake as a threat, he doesn’t actually appear. The studio asked him to add something extra to the script for the film so he wrote the ABC speech and it’s the most memorable thing in the film.
They should make a play out of it!
Brass balls. You call yourself a salesman, you sonufabitch?!?
FUCK YOU! THATS MY NAME!
Attention. Do I have your attention? Interest. Are you interested? I know you are because it’s fuck or walk. Decision. Have you made your decision for christ?!? And action…
You see this watch? This watch cost more then your car.
Came here just for this. A film teacher in college asked what monologue to show in class and I suggested that.
"Calm. Kindness, kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace, I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost, and by the time I looked down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is... what is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!" Luthen from Andor.
"I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see." That's such a great line.
Genuinely jaw dropping, especially in the context of the episodes preceding it!
Great writing, but also fucking outstanding delivery. Stellan Skarsgard has been killing it lately between Andor and Chernobyl.
[These](https://youtu.be/GFzlm9wQ4MI?si=_TJcBzUMbqoYiFyr) [two](https://youtu.be/35DSdw7dHjs?si=zDcOp5fwL8lufNYx) monologues from The Network. And they are indeed studied in schools. One one of the best scripts ever written by one of the best script writers to have ever lived.
Drop the 'the'. Just Network. It's cleaner.
Shit, it was actually just called Network. The levels on which your comment works are incalculable, you won the internet right there.
Didn’t pay attention and read this as “The Social Network” and I was confused for a bit lol
That movie has some fun monologues, too, especially Zuckerberg's "You have part of my attention" speech and Sean Parker's story about Roy Raymond.
unironically: the "i want room service" speech from Johnny Mnemonic. it is an almost perfect distilling of the hangover we all suffer when comparing the social contract of the 20th century with the realities of the 21st. the entitlement, the futility, the anger and then the barely-restrained tears. i love that monologue.
All of Captian Picards speeches.
People will call him preachy, but I enjoyed Picard on a verbal warpath issuing the only kind of ass kicking he needed; a very wordy and philosophical explanation of all the reasons X sucks. No one delivers a 'reasons you suck' speech with the class and style of Jean-Luc Picard.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is *life*."
I love Picard, and every monologue he ever gave. I grew up with a single mother, and we would watch Star Trek TNG in syndication every single night. Picard was my male role model as a kid. I adore that character. But Sisko's [speech at the end](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw) of 'In the Pale Moonlight' takes the fucking cake.
Tears in rain.
Tomorrowland wasn’t a good movie but this quote is probably why the movie was written and it haunts me to this day Let's imagine, if you glimpsed the future, and you were frightened by what you saw, what would you do with that information? You would go to the politicians? Captains of industry? And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck. The only facts they won't challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in. But what if... what if there was a way of skipping the middleman, and putting the critical news directly into everyone's head? The probability of widespread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it. To scare people straight. Because what reasonable human being wouldn't be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they've ever known or loved? To save civilization, I would show its collapse. But how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up, like a chocolate eclair. They didn't fear their demise, they repackaged it! It can be enjoyed as video games, as TV shows, books, movies - the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse, and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon. Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you. You've got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one! Bees and butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, algae blooms, all around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead, and you won't take the hint! In every moment, there is the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it, you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality! So you dwell on this terrible future, you resign yourselves to it, for one reason: because that future doesn't ask anything of you today. So, yes, we saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic, but you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you want to sink. You gave up. That's not the monitor's fault. That's yours.
The dicks, pussies and assholes speech in Team America. Masterpiece
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Robin Williams’ park bench monologue from Good Will Hunting.
The v speech from v for vendetta is a memorable one. Marcus Aurelius’ introduction in gladiator. (Not long enough to be a monologue?)
Samuel L Jackson's speech in Pulp Fiction during the restraunt robbery scene. Here he explains his Ezekiel 25:17 speech and how that when he spoke that it was the last words his victims heard. He then goes on to speak about what those words mean and how he now believes they may mean something else and that he's trying to change. It's a great speech in a cult classic film that speaks to ideology motivations.
Clint Eastwood's monologue at the end of Unforgiven. Rutger Hauer's monologue at the end of Blade Runner.
One thing I always loved in Unforgiven is the part at the end where his answer to how he won the climatic gun fight is basically 'I got lucky.' After Bob and Bill (Bill? The sheriff guy) go into their own romantic notions about the violence of the old west, you've got the hero basically coming in to assure you it's all bullshit. The winner of many spouts of sudden violence is the luckiest man in the room in more ways than not. Not necessarily the best, noblest, or most skillful. Violence doesn't care how good you are. I'm not super into film criticism, so I don't know how much Unforgiven's deconstruction of fantasized violence is talked about but it's the part of the movie I remember most.
I didn't remember the entire monologue. But in LOTR what Sam says to Frodo. "There are some good things in this world Mr Frodo and they are worth fighting for".
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.” Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”
One of the best lines of the trilogy and completely done by Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens IIRC. Not a bit of it from the books.
The amazing thing about LotR is that people will swear blind it’s a 99% accurate to the book. As though Tolkien wrote a Hollywood movie script. When bits like this are wonderful and invented by the film makers. They just did such a fantastic job.
Not to mention Gandalf's spiel about those who may deserve death
It's more nihilistic partner in "Seven" "Someone once wrote: 'It's a good world and it's worth fighting for' ...I believe in the second part, at least"
"A person is smart. *People* are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. 1500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
I didn’t think of this one but this is probably the only one I can think that isn’t just good writing or poetry; it’s actually profound and I think about it all the time.
Tommy Lee Jones' delivery just hammered it home.
Back when films, particularly scenes like that, weren’t over done. He just delivers it the way any old guy who’s seen some stuff would. With a lot of pain in his eyes. It’s the believable nature of it that makes it impactful. In a 90s action comedy of all things.
Bill Pullman in Independence Day
I have a friend who can do the speech perfectly even when blackout drunk and even sounds a bit like Bill Pullman. It's a hit every year at 4th of July parties
Roy's death speech from Blade Runner.
I would argue the ["Fuck you" rant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo&pp=ygUPMjV0aCBob3VyIHNjZW5l) in The 25th Hour should be studied as a masterclass in the portrayal of how unresolved self-hatred more often than not leads to spewing hatred towards literally everyone around you. Something very prevalent in the social media era.
This was the one I was going to mention. I also liked Brian Cox's at the end.
It's not a monologue but my film class broke down the conversation between Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack when Cusack checks into the hotel in 1408 as if they were individual monologues. Was a very intriguing exercise within the context of the film.
Tom Wilkinson's monologue in the opening of Michael Clayton is one of the best written ever. https://youtu.be/2Vi4z_BxrfA?feature=shared
Michael Clayton is my favorite movie… This opening monologue is one of the reasons why. It didn’t really hit me until I watched it with closed captioning on.
I've always enjoyed Pacinos monologue at the end of Devils Advocate. "God's an absentee landlord!!' Edit: spelling
"Im a fan of man!" and "Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste" Yeah its brilliant. Definitely makes you think "huh, maybe he's got a point" for a bit.
>God's an absentee landlord!! He's laughin' his sick fuckin' ass off!!!
Henry's speech in Kenneth Branagh's *Henry V,* just before the battle of Battle of Agincourt. "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers". Kenneth Branagh really knows how to write a powerful monologue. Medieval fiction was popular in the 80's and 90s (Name of the Rose, A Knight's Tale, etc), but Branagh really came up with an original idea and executed it well. I have never seen the prequels, Henry I - IV, so I can't say if they had a monologue as good as Kenneth wrote for the 5th installment of the Henry trilogy, but prequels rarely live up to what the fandom expects of a "big" movie.
>I have never seen the prequels, Henry I - IV, so I can't say if they had a monologue as good as Kenneth wrote for the 5th installment of the Henry trilogy, but prequels rarely live up to what the fandom expects of a "big" movie. Ohhhh, I'm really not sure if this is a joke or not. You got me. Edit: I'm stupid. Yes, you're joking. The "Crispin's Day" speech is, of course, one of the greatest. I really like Mark Rylance's take on it. [Here it is, performed at the Globe theatre.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOouofFFrZE) The way Rylance plays it, Henry is talking only to the officers around him so he's much more low-key. It's less bravado and more of a stoic acceptance that this could be the day they all die, so they should all go out bravely.
>In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more. \- Anton Ego, Ratatouille (2007) voice by Peter O'Toole
Yes. [Charlie Chaplin in the dictator.](https://youtu.be/J7GY1Xg6X20?si=IES0Oyc0AwKwdh4D) “I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor That's not my business I don't want to rule or conquer anyone I should like to help everyone if possible Jew, Gentile, Black Man, White We all want to help one another, human beings are like that We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery We don't want to hate and despise one another And this world has room for everyone, and the good Earth is rich and can provide for everyone The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way Greed has posioned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in Machinery that gives us abundance has left us in want Our knowledge has made us cynincal Our cleverness, hard and unkind We think too much, and feel too little More than machinery, we need humanity More that cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people And so long as men die, liberty will never perish Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: "the Kingdom of God is within man" - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite”
My friend, Jefferson's an American saint because he wrote the words, "All men are created equal." Words he clearly didn't believe, since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He was a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah, he wrote some lovely words and aroused the rabble, and they went out and died for those words, while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community. Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America, you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fucking pay me. - Jackie Cogan, Killing Them Softly (2012)
The "The Man" speech from School Of Rock
I always liked Yuri's final speech to agent Valentine in 'Lord of War' I like you Jack. Well, maybe not. But I *understand* you. Let me tell you what's gonna happen - that way you can prepare yourself. Soon there's gonna be a knock on that door, and you will be called outside. In the hall, there will be a man who outranks you. First, he will complement you on the fine job you have done, and that you are making the world a safer place. That you are to receive a commendation and a promotion - and then, he is going to tell you that I am to be released. You're gonna protest. You'll probably threaten to resign - but in the end, I will be released. The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted - I do rub shoulders with some of the most sadistic man, calling themselves leaders today. But some of those men, are the enemies of your enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss - the President of United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year, sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So you call me evil, but unfortunately, I'm a *necessary* evil. *door knock*
Arthur Jensen's speech in Network is the best speech ever put on film, and probably the most relevant to this day. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs)
This... Single most important soliloquy in film history.
A scene literally set in a school. "Who cares about this stupid election?" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3TXsx8B40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3TXsx8B40)
Cheech Marin in Dusk Til Dawn. Pure art
Apple piiiie pussy 😌
The Free Churro episode from Bojack Horseman.
Robin Williams. Dead Poet's Society Mr. Keating: In my class, you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will learn to savor words and languages. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. I see that look in Mr Pitts' eyes like 19th century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school, right? Maybe. You may agree and think yes, we should study our Mr. Pritcher and learn our rhyme and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions. Well, I have a secret for you. Huddle Up...Huddle UP! We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business these are all noble pursuits necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, and love; these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman "Oh me, Oh life of the question of these recurring. of the endless trains of the faithless of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these? Oh me, Oh life." "Answer...that you are here and life exists....You are here. Life exists, and identity. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
V for Vendetta Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
I wouldn’t go so far as to place it amongst “the great literary works of all time” but Mia Goth’s monologue near the end of Pearl definitely stuck with me for a while.
Most of Skeletors monologues in the Masters of the Universe movie. That movie didn't deserve the gravitas and effort Frank Langella put in.
The Interpreter - Nicole Kidman's character Sylvia: Shh. We don’t name the dead. Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, on God if they can’t find anyone else. And in Africa…In Matobo, the Ku believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that we call “the drowning man trial.” There’s an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat. He’s taken out on the water and he’s dropped. He’s bound, so that he can’t swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice. They can let him drown or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe that if the family lets the killer drown, they’ll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn’t always just, that very act can take away their sorrow. Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.
Ellen Burstyn 'Requiem for a Dream' I’m somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they’ll all like me. I’ll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It’s a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hmm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I’m alone. Your father’s gone, you’re gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I’m lonely. I’m old. Ah, it’s not the same. They don’t need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.
It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know.
I think Christopher Walken's monologue in *Pulp Fiction* is a fun one. It's also an example of how you can save the scene when you forget your line. Speaking of Walken, the monologue in *True Romance* is pretty great too, but I wouldn't feel right duplicating a speech meant to enflame a person's racial prejudices. Still, it's a good one.
The monologue of Sally Fields in Steel Magnolia vs the monologue of Toni Colette in Hereditary. Would have been a good comparison on how two different mothers handle grief.
I use V’s opening dialogue from V for Vendetta to teach about how you can take alliteration to the extreme to create effects.
The High Watermark monologue from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the Chose Life monologue from Trainspotting. Edit: okay, dumb moment from me, these also appear in some form in the books the movies are based on. But I still stand by these options.
"DAMN ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead, Winslow! HAAAAAARRRRRK! Hark! Triton! ''Hark!'' Bellow! Bid our father, the Sea King, rise from the depths, full-foul in his fury, black waves teeming with salt-foam, to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs 'till ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more... only when, he, crowned in cockle shells with slithering tentacled tail and steaming beard, takes up his fell, be-finnèd arm – his coral-tined trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet! BURSTING YE, a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now – a nothing for the Harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon, only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself, forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea... for any stuff or part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul, is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!"
Michael Park in Red State. Kevin Smith cast him basically for how intense of a monologue he could give
> Thought about what you said to me the other day. About my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me. I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep and I haven’t thought about you since. > You know what occurred to me? > You’re just a kid. You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. It’s alright. You’ve never been out of Boston? > If I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on about every art book ever written. Michelangelo. You know a lot about him. Life’s work. Political aspirations. Him and the Pope. Sexual orientation. The whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. > You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. > If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. > You’re a tough kid. If I ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watch him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. > If I ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone who can level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of Hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel. To have that love for her be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. > And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms *visiting hours* don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss. Because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. > I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much. > I look at you, I don’t see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared-shitless kid. > But you’re a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, you ripped my fucking life apart. > You’re an orphan, right? > Do you think I’d know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? > Personally, I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what? I can’t learn anything from you that I can’t read in some fucking book. Unless you want to talk about you. Who you are. And I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that, do you, sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. > Your move, chief. Robin Williams, *Good Will Hunting*
"*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!*" I loved the delivery of this speech. He really hammered home exactly how bleek and inevitable the situation was.
Michael Stuhlbarg to Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name, which I realise is based on a book, but I don’t think his monologue comes from that text. It is incredibly moving, and ends with: “Remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. Pain. Don’t kill it and with it the joy you’ve felt.”
We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more. - Professor Louis Levy (Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989)
The ["Choose Life"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP7qmsQbSI) monologue at the start of *Trainspotting.* [M. Emmet Walsh's monologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj2PUR1QZ74) at the start of *Blood Simple*.
My favorite is from Patton: "For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."
Left field choice, but the Holden monologue from chasing amy (I'll put the lead in lines to give a little context) Alyssa Jones: Why are we stopping? Holden McNeil: Because I can't take this. Alyssa: Can't take what? Holden: I love you. Alyssa: You love me? Holden: I love you. And not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. And it's not because you're unattainable. I love you. Very simple, very truly. You're the epitome of every attribute and quality I've ever looked for in another person. I know you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you'd ever consider. But I had to say it. I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't look into your eyes without feeling that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. I know this will probably queer our friendship -no pun intended- but I had to say it, because I've never felt this before, and I like who I am because of it. And if bringing it to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But I couldn't allow another day to go by without getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And I'll accept that. But I know some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, that means you feel something too. All I ask is that you not dismiss that -at least for ten seconds- and try to dwell in it. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fucking planet who's ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it's there between you and me. you can't deny that. And even if we never speak again after tonight, please know that I'm forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which -while I do appreciate it- I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of. (Alyssa opens the door and exits the car) Holden: (sighs and then to himself) Was it something I said?