The “Greed is Good” speech by Gordon Gecko in Wall Street.
Danny Devito gives a similar shareholder speech in Other People’s Money.
I believe it is “a sore day” not “a sword day.” The difference between Brannagh and Bernard Hill who plays Theoden is night and day. Brannagh comes off as a fop who is reciting Shakespeare in a very affected style. No army about to go into battle coult stay with that speech to its conclusion even were it delivered at its best but Brannagh is particularly uninspiring.
Theoden’s speech rings true because it could actually be delivered and received. You want to ride with them into the maw… not get out your Harbrace and diagram the sentence structure or marvel at the imagery. As beautiful as Shakespeare can write even he would admit no one would ever speak as his characters do in the heat of battle… or any other time really if the truth be known.
This.
Not sure it fits the definition of a speech, but for my money Robert the Bruce’s impassioned proclamation to his father is far more powerful:
Robert the Bruce: Lands, titles, men, power, nothing.
Robert’s Father: Nothing?
Robert the Bruce: I have nothing. Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and their children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk, they fought for William Wallace, and he fights for something that I never had. And I took it from him, when I betrayed him. I saw it in his face on the battlefield and it’s tearing me apart.
Robert’s Father: All men betray. All lose heart.
Robert the Bruce: I don’t wanna lose heart. I wanna believe as he does.
Both of these,
And I would add not a speech, but a song:
This. Still gives me chills every time I see it. Considering all the rumors about how difficult it was to get Shaw to do anything sober during the movie, it’s amazing he pulled it off.
In a similar vein the opening sequence of the HBO show Newsroom hooked me from go.
Enjoy
I prefer Laurence Olivier’s version of the Saint Crispin’s Day speech. (From the 1944 movie.) Branagh is better in more intimate moments, like carousing with Falstaff, or romancing the princess, but Olivier was better at the grand speeches.
Lots of them in The Godfather, but this one is my favorite. “She was the greatest piece of ass I’ve ever had, and I’ve had 'em all over the world!”
Field of Dreams -“People Will Come” by Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones).
Short, but says it all:
America, fuck yeah!
Annie’s speech near the climax of The Miracle Worker: “I treat her like a seeing child because I ask her to see. I expect her to see! Don’t undo what I do!”
Per the book, it’s “sword-day.”
Hold on a sec, I just got something in my eye.
-Yoda, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Another scene from Network where Ned Beatty’s character tells Beale the facts of life eerily resonates just as much today.
“There are no nations, there are no peoples, there are no Russians, there are no Arabs, there are no Third Worlds, there is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting, multi-varied, multi-national Dominion of Dollars…What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions, just like we do.”
One of my all-time favourites, too, and capped off beautifully right after the funeral when O’Sullivan sidles up to Jackie and says slyly, “Sounds like quite a fellow, your friend.”
“He had his faults.”
Speaking of eulogies, the eulogy from Four Weddings and a Funeral is quite moving. (Bit of a cheat maybe, since it includes a reading from W.H. Auden.)
Gale Sayers speech from the end of Brian’s Song.
First prize is a tank from Life is Beautiful.