# Best movie monologues! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 5, 2001, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673 "2001-06-05T14:18:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kayeby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kayeby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kayeby)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/41 "2001-06-06T06:37:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lexicon \* > \*\*Speaking of Chasing Amy, does anyone have the soundtrack? If so, does it have the song that Alyssa sang in the bar on it? That song rocks, and as I already mentioned, I love her scratchy voice. \*\* If you want the song, **Lexicon** , I have it on MP3. Not sure if it’s on the CD though - I remember the Chasing Amy site had some info on its inclusion. Send me an e-mail if you want it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/42 "2001-06-06T06:45:00Z")
Johnny Depp in _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_: “San Francisco in the middle '60s was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive, in that corner of time in the world, whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction, at any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle: that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense. We didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum. We were riding the crest, of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas, and look west. And with the right kind of eyes, you can almost see the high-water mark, that place where the wave finally broke, and rolled back.” Warren Beatty’s TV interview in _Bulworth_ Any time Malcolm McDowell has a line of dialogue consisting of more than once sentence in _A Clockwork Orange_ Speaking of Kubrick, have to mention the “Vital Essences” speech by Col. Ripper in _Dr. Strangelove_. Aside from Holden’s declaration in _Chasing Amy_, I also liked Kevin “Silent Bob” Smith’s monologue about Amy. Anthony Hopkins in front of the Supreme Court at the end of _Amistad_. Since someone already did Nick Cave’s intro to _Raising Arizona_, I’ll offer Sam Elliot’s intro to _The Big Lebowski_ “The Dude was the laziest man in Los Angeles. Which puts him high in the running for laziest man in the world.” This, of course, is after automatically disqualifying any Shakespeare adaption as “too easy.” ---
**Author:** ![DRY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@DRY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRY)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/43 "2001-06-06T07:26:24Z")
Not one person mentioned Al Pacino’s “opening statement” in **And Justice For All**? For shame! ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/44 "2001-06-06T08:26:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Number Six \* > \*\*Florence Rasmussen in _Gates of Heaven_. Nothing else even comes close. > \*\* Yay! Someone finally came up with a woman’s speech! Another couple of great monologues that I just remembered: Michael Douglas’ “greed” speech from _Wall Street._ Roy Kinnear’s closing soliloquy in the 1988 _A Man for All Seasons_ ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/45 "2001-06-06T12:26:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hajario \* > \*\*Dennis Hopper in _True Romance_: “Do you like history…” > > Good call **Hometownboy** with Wilfred Brimly. One of my favorites. > > Haj \*\* ::tips hat to **hajario** :: Thanks! It reminds me of a similar scene in which a character comes into a scene and takes charge, telling everybody just how it’s gonna be: an episode of L.A. Law (Just checked with an episode guide and I believe it’s the episode “Where There’s A Will” from February 25, 1993)in which Michael Tucker as Stuart Markowitz(the tax lawyer of inexcessive stature) is named as chief heir in a client’s will, causing all sorts of problems with the other heirs. All of his collegues offer their strong viewpoints on what he should do with the money until he gets fed up and delivers his speech outlining what he’s going to do and straightforwardly telling each party what the consequences will be if they object. Marvelous stuff ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/46 "2001-06-06T14:06:29Z")
The opening monologue from Big Trouble in Little China, which ends "Next time some eight-foot-tall, wild-eyed maniac taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall and asks you if you’ve paid your dues, well, you just do what ole Jack Burton always does at a time like that. You stare that sucker right back in the eye. “Have you paid your dues, Jack?” “Yes, sir, the check is in the mail.” ---
**Author:** ![Lexicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ac8455/32.png) [@Lexicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lexicon)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2001, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/47 "2001-06-06T21:35:48Z")
Yet another good one is this: > [@](#): > > I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya… punk? from _Dirty Harry_. Sweet. ---
**Author:** ![Vinnie\_Virginslayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/53a042/32.png) [@Vinnie\_Virginslayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vinnie_Virginslayer)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/48 "2001-06-07T02:08:47Z")
:o I wan’t even close with that Glengarry Glen Ross monologue. Here it is, word for word: [http://www.uggr.com/ggrscdial.html](http://www.uggr.com/ggrscdial.html) ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/49 "2001-06-07T04:50:33Z")
"You talkin’ to me? … " - Travis Bickle ---
**Author:** ![Just\_A\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@Just\_A\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_A_Girl)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/50 "2001-06-07T05:15:34Z")
As my favorite, I’m going to have go with the Holden monologue in Chasing Amy… :sigh: I know that’s exactly what I’ll feel about whoever I fall in love with… 🙂 Some other good ones… Randal Graves’s Porno monologue in Clerks…when he names off all the sick titles in front of the woman and her kid…absolutely classic… 😃 Another tear-jerker for me would be Tom Hanks’s monologue in Sleepless in Seattle when he’s telling the radio doctor about his wife… Dr. Marcia: What are you going to do? Sam Baldwin: Well, I’m going to get out of bed every morning…breathe in and out all day long. Then, after awhile, I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out…and then, after awhile, I won’t have to think about how I had it great and prefect for awhile. Dr. Marcia: Tell me what was so special about your wife? Sam Baldwin: Well, how long is your program? Well, it was just a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together…and I knew it. I knew it the first time I touched her. It was like coming home…only to no home I’d ever known…I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car…and I knew. It was like…magic. ---
**Author:** ![MrO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/51 "2001-06-07T13:14:32Z")
I always kinda liked DeNiro in Cape Fear: I am like God, and God like me! I am as large as God, he is as small as I! He cannot above me, nor I beneath him be! ---
**Author:** ![Yankee\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Yankee\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yankee_Blue)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/52 "2001-06-07T14:13:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by puddleglum \* > \*\*The opening monologue from Big Trouble in Little China, which ends > "Next time some eight-foot-tall, wild-eyed maniac taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall and asks you if you’ve paid your dues, well, you just do what ole Jack Burton always does at a time like that. You stare that sucker right back in the eye. “Have you paid your dues, Jack?” “Yes, sir, the check is in the mail.” \*\* I chose this one too. In fact every time Jack waxes philosophic I love it. “I never drive faster than I can see…” I also have to go with James Stewart’s monologue in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/53 "2001-06-07T15:05:53Z")
My fav monologue, not yet mentioned, is from an obscure 1968 George Segal movie, “Bye Bye Braverman,” unfortunately not available on VHS or DVD, but it does pop up on cable. Segal finds himself at one of those vast New York cemetaries with acres of chest-high headstones. He is miked closely, but the camera first shows him far off in the distance, quite obscured by the stones. As he makes his way toward the camera, which never moves or zooms, he is talking to the graves, telling the people what has happened in the world since they died, sort of “what’s hot, what’s not.” It’s a charming, rambling monologue that I wish I had a transcript of. Needless to say, Segal gets no reply. It’s not a Stephen King flick, after all. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Doubleclick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Doubleclick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubleclick)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/54 "2001-06-07T15:33:16Z")
I can’t for the life of me find the quote, but the monologue that all ways stuck with me was Gergory Pecks closing statement to the court in “To Kill A Mockingbird”. ---
**Author:** ![Heloise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e36b37/32.png) [@Heloise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heloise)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/55 "2001-06-07T15:44:01Z")
The speech Kenneth Branagh gave in Henry V. I wish I remembered it, I’ll have to look it up. Great! Very stirring. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/56 "2001-06-07T21:05:30Z")
Another one by a woman, and **Coldfire** , the other great monologue from Bull Durham: _“I believe in the church of baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic’s rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn’t work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball. And it’s never boring. . . . It’s a long season and you gotta trust it. I’ve tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the church of baseball.”_ – Annie Savoy, opening speech in the movie Bull Durham ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/57 "2001-06-07T22:10:48Z")
Scotty explaining how he was duped to Judy (“You were a very apt pupil!”)–_ **Vertigo** _ HAL’s trying to talk Dave out of pulling the plug (“I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going”)–_ **2001: A Space Odyssey** _ Norval Jones declares his lifelong love to Trudy Kockenlocker (“Cooking wasn’t so bad, but sewing…”)–_ **The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek** _ Rev. Powell talks about LOVE and HATE with his hands (“These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man”)–_ **Night of the Hunter** _ President Muffley on the phone with Premiere Kissoff (“Well, then, as you say, we’re both coming through fine”)–_ **Dr. Strangelove** _ Plus the two stunning erotic confessions in Godard’s _ **Weekend** _ and Bergman’s _ **Persona** _ And then of course, there’s my sig ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2001, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/58 "2001-06-07T23:44:16Z")
A couple of good ones in _All About Eve_. I particularly like the one where Margo (Bette Davis) finally sums up her disatisfactions and comes to terms with what kind of person she is becoming: > [@](#): > > Funny business, a woman’s career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you’ll need them again when you get back to being a woman. That’s one career all females have in common whether we like it or not–being a woman. Sooner or later we’ve got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we’ve had or wanted. And in the last analysis, nothing’s any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is. Without that, you’re not a woman. You’re something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings, but you’re not a woman. Slow curtain, the end. Then earlier in the movie you have Bill Sampson’s (Gary Merrill) definition of “theater”: > [@](#): > > The theatuh, the theatuh - what book of rules says the theater exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris, or Vienna? Listen, junior. And learn. Want to know what the theater is? A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man band - all theater. Wherever there’s magic and make-believe and an audience - there’s theater. Donald Duck, Ibsen, and the Lone Ranger. Sarah Bernhardt and Poodles Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable, Rex the Wild Horse, Eleanora Duse - they’re all theater. You don’t understand them, you don’t like them all - why should you? The theater’s for everybody - you included, but not exclusively - so don’t approve or disapprove. It may not be your theater, but it’s theater for somebody, somewhere…It’s just that there’s so much bourgeois in this ivory green room they call the theater. Sometimes it gets up around my chin. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/59 "2001-06-08T00:42:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Heloise \* > \*\*The speech Kenneth Branagh gave in Henry V. I wish I remembered it, I’ll have to look it up. Great! Very stirring. \*\* “Who’s he that wishes so? My cousin Westmorland? O no, fair cousin; If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss, and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more; Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship, to die with us. This day is called the feast of Crispian; He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Shall stand a-tiptoe when this day is named And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and sees old age, Shall yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispin’s Day.” Then shall 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 their mouths as household words – Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester – Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by From this day to the ending of the world But we in it shall be remembered: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today 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 abed 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.” That one? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673/60 "2001-06-08T14:26:23Z")
You beat me to it **Katisha**. Of course she could have been talking about… Once more into the breach dear friends or wall it up with you English dead. or, Will you yeild and this avoid or guilty and defence and be thus destroyed. What say you? So other favs Schindlers List Raphe Fines gives a great speech before they go and ‘clean out’ the ghetto. “Today is history” Very chilling. Of course the greatest speech in the history of entertainment is Space The Final Frontier These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise Her five year mission, to seek out new life, new civilizations To boldly go where no man has go before [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movie-monologues/67673.md?page=4)