Most Memorable Movie Monologues
Unforgettable Speeches: Greed is Good, The Horror, Wipe My Mouth
Oct 17, 2008
We can all spout memorable movie lines--the famous riffs that a character tosses off that define the movie's flavor forever. Rarer, though, are the moments when a character has a good two minutes or so of uninterrupted speech that give him a chance to reveal something other than offhand pithiness--that offer the actor a chance to reveal something elementary about his character's motivation or his mental state.
Following are a few such memorable movie monologues, in no particular order:
Gordon Gecko's “Greed is Good” Speech from Oliver Stone's Wall Street
Delivered at a stockholder's meeting by a corporate raider and so eerily convincing that it turned lead into gold--and later, of course, back into lead--this speech by Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) persuades the assembled that "greed is good." Stone was reportedly influenced by a similar contention by 1980s convicted inside trader Ivan Boesky that "greed is right." Here's a portion of Gecko's moving speech:
- I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed--for lack of a better word--is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms--greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge--has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed--you mark my words--will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
Colonel Kurtz's "The Horror" Speech from Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now
Coppola's purported problems with getting Marlon Brando to play ball during the filming of this movie were certainly wiped out by this astonishing performance in which Kurtz (Brando) describes in excruciating detail the heinous sights that have tipped him over the edge--or as he prefers to see it--"like I was shot with a diamond bullet right through my forehead."
Brando's performance transcends the dialogue, part of which includes:
- 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 mortal terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
Mildred Rogers' "Wipe my Mouth" Speech from John Cromwell's Of Human Bondage
Mildred's (Bette Davis) explosion of derisive fury when she's told "You disgust me" is fascinating primarily because the venom just keeps escalating long past the point where the desperate woman can ever hope to set things right. In geopolitics, her response would be characterized as "disproportionate retaliation."
The vicious riposte includes such incisions as "you know what you are, you gimpy-legged monster? you're a cripple, a cripple, a cripple!" Because, yeah, the guy is a cripple, a fact that has rendered him insecure enough to fall for the vulgar Mildred.
The most famous part of the speech:
- It made me SICK when I had to let you kiss me! I only let you kiss me because you begged me, you hounded me, you drove me crazy! And after you kissed me I always used to wipe my mouth. Wipe! My! Mouth!
Jules Winnfield's “I’m Tryin' Real Hard to Be the Shepherd” Speech from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction
Samuel L. Jackson cemented his place in the pantheon of blaxploitation heroes forever, not only with his overall performance in this movie, but especially with his ending monologue, where he struggles with at least nominally biblical notions of right, wrong and revenge while toying with his (we just know it's gotta get used sometime!) gun.
Jules drops some Ezekiel 25:17 on his hapless listener:
- And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a mother****er before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice.
“Put That Coffee Down" Speech from David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross
James Foley is the film's director, but it's Mamet's dialogue, based on his stage play of the same name, that is the real star of this movie.
"Coffee's for closers only. You think I'm f**king with you? I am not f**king with you." Alec Baldwin's performance as the unnamed but scary top salesman sent from "downtown" to motivate the slacking salesmen through fear is one of the most oft-repeated of the movie, spawning numerous memorable lines including "ABC: Always Be Closing," "Have you made your decision for Christ?" and "You see this watch? This watch cost more than your car."
Howard Beale's “I’m As Mad as Hell!” Speech from Sidney Lumet's Network
Of all the cinema dystopia of the 1970s, Network remains one of the most scarily prescient, and this monologue from disintegrating-on-air anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) among the movie's two or three classic moments. Indeed, Finch won the Best Actor Oscar in 1977 for this role--and almost certainly, specifically for this speech. The fact that his exhortation to vent pent-up anger culminates in the mass throwing of TVs out of windows visually cements the dialogue. Here, a bit from the award-winning speech:
- You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, g*dd**mit! My life has value!" So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
