Best Speech in Movie History

[Boxman]

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Samuel L. Jackson is "Russell Franklin", Chief Executive Officer of the corporation financing an underwater experimentaion facility. This is the speech he gives to rally the staff who are trapped in the lab with the genetically altered "smart" sharks.


Russell Franklin:

You think water's fast?

You should see ice. It moves like it has a mind.

Like it knows it killed the world once. It got a taste for murder.

When the avalanche came...it took us a week to climb out. And somewhere we lost hope.

I don't know when we turned on each other.

I just know...that seven of us survived the slide...and only five made it out.

Now, we took an oath that I'm breaking now.

Swore that we'd say it was the snow that killed the other two.


But it wasn't.


Nature can be lethal.But it doesn't hold a candle to man.

You've seen how bad things can get and how quick they can get that way.

Well, they can get a whole lot worse.

So we're not going to fight anymore!

We're going to pull together and find a way to get out of here!

First, we're going to seal off this pool!


Shark jumps out and swallows Samuel L. Jackson


Dr. Susan McCallister:

Oh, my God.


Tom Scoggins:

It just ate him.

[Peca277]

Oddly enough, I even get chills when reading it. Good choice Mia.

[esad]

Second one:

Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition! And woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble!!

So, a rich little man with white hair died. What does that got to do with the price of rice, right? And why is that woe to us?

Because you people and 62 million other Americans are listening to me right now.

Because less than 3 percent of you people read books.

Because less than 15 percent of you read newspapers.

Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube.

Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube.

This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation.

This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers.

This tube is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world.

And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people.

And that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died.

Because this company is now in the hands of CCA -- the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what [censored] will be peddled for truth on this network.

So, you listen to me. Listen to me!

Television is not the truth. Television's a goddamn amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players.

We're in the boredom-killing business.

So if you want the Truth, go to God.

Go to your gurus.

Go to yourselves!

Because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth.

But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you wanna hear. We lie like hell. We'll tell you that Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of the hour, he's gonna win. We'll tell you any [censored] you want to hear.

We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true!

But you people sit there, day after day, night after night -- all ages, colors, creeds.

We're all you know!

You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here!

You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal.

You do whatever the tube tells you --

You dress like the tube.

You eat like the tube.

You raise your children like the tube.

You even think like the tube.

This is mass madness, you maniacs!

In God's name, you people are the real thing.

We are the illusion!

So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I'm speaking to you now.

Turn them off!!

[FlyWf]

Rankings:
1. Alec Baldwin's speech, as above. If you disagree you are wrong.

2. Nicholson's in A Few Good Men. Best part: "You, Lt. Weinberg?"

3. Branagh does a good job in Henry V. Mel Gibson in Braveheart is a pale substitute of the Saint Crispin's Day speech.


4. Of course that's your contention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished readin' some Marxian historian -- Pete Garrison probably. You're gonna be convinced of that 'til next month when you get to James Lemon, and then you're gonna be talkin' about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year -- you're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin' about, you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization... Wood drastically -- Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth.' You got that from Vickers, 'Work in Essex County,' page 98, right? Yeah, I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you...is that your thing? You come into a bar. You read some obscure passage and then pretend...you pawn it off as your own idea just to impress some girls and embarrass my friend? See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One: don't do that. And two: You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f----n' education you coulda' got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.

5. Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

[Yo Adrians!]

[ QUOTE ]
So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

[/ QUOTE ]

My vote lies here.

[FlyWf]

Oh, I thought somebody had already done Henry V.:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Oh, and Pullman's ID4 monologue is this speech's retarded cousin.

[Estrop]

Pussies don’t like dicks because pussies get [censored] by dicks. But dicks also [censored] assholes, assholes that just want to [censored] on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can [censored] an [censored] is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is they [censored] too much or [censored] when it isn’t appropriate. And it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes pussies can be so full of [censored] that they become assholes themselves, because pussies are an inch and half away from assholes. I don’t know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don’t let us [censored] this [censored], we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in [censored].

[Dan87]

Good Will Hunting:
Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a [censored]. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

[PierceAndPierce]

People have yet to mention another great:

"I don't know what to say, really.
Three minutes, 'til the biggest battle of our professional lives.
It all comes down to today.
Either we heal as a team, or we're gonna crumble.
Inch by inch, play by play, 'til we're finished.
We're in hell right now, gentlemen.
Believe me.

And we can stay here, get the [censored] kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light.
We can climb out of hell, one inch at the time.

Now, I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.

I look around, I see these young faces, and I think... I mean.
I made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make.
I pissed away all my money, believe it or not.
I chased off anyone who's ever loved me.
And lately, I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know, when you get old in life, things get taken from you.
That's part of life.
But you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out life's this game of inches

So is football

Because in either game, life or football...
the margin for error is so small!
I mean, one-half a step too late or too early, and you don't quite make it.
One half-second too slow, too fast, you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch.
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone else around us, to pieces for that inch.
We claw with our fingernails for that inch.
Because we know when we add up all those inches,
that's gonna make the [censored]' difference between winning and losing!
Between living and dying!

I'll tell you this.
In any fight, it's the guy who's willing to die,
who's gonna win that inch.
And I know if I'm gonna have any life anymore,
it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch.
Because that's what living is,
the six inches in front of your face!

Now, I can't make you do it.
You got to look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes!
Now I think you're gonna see a guy,
who will sacrifice himself for this team,
because he knows, when it comes down to it,
you're gonna do the same for him!


That's a team, gentleman!
And either we heal now, as a team...
or we will die as individuals.


That's football guys.

That all it is...

NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"

[Bill Murphy]

"I am Gunnery Sgt. Hardman, your senior drill instructor...",

"...A jelly donut? How did it get here?...",

&

"So this bank job up in Secaucus...Funny how?..."

Then of course the usuals from Patton, Network, & Apocalypse Now.