Best Film Speeches and Monologues
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Film Title/Year and Description of Film Speech/Monologue |
Screenshots
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Clerks (1994)
Screenwriter(s): Kevin Smith
Anti-Smoking
Diatribe
The scene opened with a Chewlies Gum Representative
(Scott Schiaffo) speaking to a convenience store customer,
arguing that for his health's sake, he should buy gum instead
of cigarettes and save his money ("This is where you're
heading. Cruddy lung, smoking through a hole in your throat.
Do you really want that?") His diatribe extended to a
larger crowd of smokers, in which he railed against the cancer-causing
smoking industry:
You're spending what? Twenty, maybe thirty
dollars a week on your cigarettes?...Fifty-three dollars
a week on cigarettes! Come on! Would you give somebody
that much money each week to kill you? 'Cause that's what
you're doing now, by paying for this so-called privilege
to smoke... It's that kinda mentality that allows the cancer-producing
industry to thrive. 'Course we're all gonna die some day.
But do we have to pay for it? Do we have to actually throw
hard-earned dollars down on the counter and say, 'Please
Mr. Merchant-of-Death, sir, please, sell me something that'll
stink up my breath and my clothes and fry my lungs'? ...Yeah.
Yeah, and now here comes the speech about how he's just
doing his job by following orders. Friends, let me tell
you about another group of hate mongers that were just
following orders. They were called Nazis!...Yeah, and they
practically wiped an entire nation of people off the Earth
just like your cigarettes are doing now.
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![](amazcovers/clerks3.jpg)
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Clerks
(1994)
Screenwriter(s): Kevin Smith
"If
We're So Advanced, What Are We Doin' Working Here?" -
In a Convenience Store
Play clip (excerpt): ![Clerks](wavfiles/sound.gif)
Slacker Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) gave an
uncensored reply to convenience store employee Dante Hicks
(Brian O'Halloran) when he claimed: "I'm not even supposed
to be here today", and blamed all of his problems on Randal:
Dante: You get me slapped with a fine, you
argue with the customers and I have to patch everything
up. You get us thrown out of a funeral by violating a corpse,
and then to top it all off, you ruin my relationship. I
mean, what's your encore? Do you, like, anally rape my
mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank? You know what
the real tragedy about all this is? I'm not even supposed
to be here today!
Randal: Oh, f--k you! F--k you, pal! Jesus, there you go.
Trying to pass the buck. I`m the source of all your misery.
Who closed the store to play hockey? Who closed the store
to go to a wake? Who tried to win back his ex-girlfriend
without even discussing how he felt with his present one?
You want to blame somebody? Blame yourself! (mimicking)
'I'm not even supposed to be here today.' You sound like
an asshole! Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here. You're
here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of
the world rests on your shoulder, like this place would fall
apart if Dante wasn't here. Jesus, you over-compensate for
havin' what's basically a monkey's job. You push f--kin'
buttons! Anybody could waltz in here and do our jobs. You,
you're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic,
so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work
in a convenience store, Dante, and badly I might add. I work
in a s--tty video store, badly as well. You know, that guy
Jay's got it right, man, he has no delusions about what he
does. Us - we like to make ourselves seem so much more important
than the people that come in here to buy a paper or God forbid,
cigarettes. We look down on them as if we're so advanced.
Well, if we're so f--kin' advanced, what are we doin' working
here?
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Ed Wood (1994)
Screenwriter(s): Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Introduction
to the True Story
The parody of the opening speech from bad director
Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), delivered
by Dracula cape-wearing Criswell (Jeffrey Jones) as he sat
up in a coffin on a rainy, stormy night:
Greetings, my friend. You are interested
in the unknown, the mysterious, unexplainable. That is
why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing
you the full story of what happened. We are giving you
all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony of
the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal.
The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this
a secret any longer. Can your heart stand the shocking
facts of the true story of Edward D. Wood, Jr.?
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Forrest Gump (1994)
Screenwriter(s): Eric Roth
Remembering
the Death of Jenny: "If There's Anything You Need, I
Won't Be Far Away"
With a combination of voice-over and actual dialogue,
low-IQ Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) spoke to his deceased true
love Jenny Curran (Robin Wright), who had died from an unknown
virus shortly after they were married. He was left to raise
their young son, also named Forrest Jr. (Haley Joel Osment),
and he visited her grave marker under a tree to keep her up
to date:
You died on a Saturday morning. And I had
you placed here under our tree. And I had that house of
your father's bulldozed to the ground. Momma always said
dyin' was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't. Little
Forrest, he's doin' just fine. About to start school again
soon. I make his breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.
I make sure he combs his hair and brushes his teeth every
day. Teachin' him how to play ping-pong. He's really good.
We fish a lot. And every night, we read a book. He's so
smart, Jenny. You'd be so proud of him. I am. He, uh, wrote
a letter, and he says I can't read it. I'm not supposed
to, so I'll just leave it here for you. Jenny, I don't
know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan.
I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all
just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I,
I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happenin' at the
same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need,
I won't be far away.
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![](amazcovers/forrestgump33.jpg)
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Four Weddings and a
Funeral (1994, UK)
Screenwriter(s): Richard Curtis
Funeral
Speech Quoting from W.H. Auden - "Stop All the Clocks..."
Matthew's (John Hannah) poignant introduction
and reading of W. H. Auden's Funeral Blues at the moving
funeral of his "closest friend" - "jolly bugger" Gareth
(Simon Callow), following his sudden heart attack:
Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings.
He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony
one had an outside chance of eventually being involved
in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people,
to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by
those who met him. Fat seems to be a word that people most
connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells.
So very fat and very rude seems to have been a stranger's
viewpoint. On the other hand, some of you have been kind
enough to ring me and let me know that you loved him, which
I know he'd have been thrilled to hear. You remember his
fabulous hospitality, his strange experimental cooking.
The recipe for 'Duck a la Banana' fortunately goes with
him to his grave. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous
capacity for joy. When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal
drunkenness. But I hope joyful is how you will remember
him. Not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favorite
of his waistcoats and remember him that way. The most splendid,
replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and
jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask
how I will remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately
there, I don't have words. Perhaps you will forgive me
if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another
splendid bugger: W.H. Auden. This is actually what I wanted
to say:
'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the
pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let the
mourners come. Let the aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead. Put crepe
bows 'round the white necks of the public doves, Let traffic
policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South,
my East and West. My working week and my Sunday rest. My
noon, my midnight, my talk, my song, I thought that love
would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted
now, put out every one. Pack up the moon and dismantle the
sun. Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, For nothing
now can ever come to any good.'
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Interview With the
Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
Screenwriter(s): Anne Rice
"I
Was Born to Darkness" - How I Became a Vampire
200 year-old vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad
Pitt), a New Orleans plantation owner in the late 1700s sought
to die in any way possible after his wife's tragic demise during
childbirth. He finally accepted a vampire's bite from Lestat
de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise). He began his life-story, shown in
flashback (he mourned, gambled recklessly in a tavern and invited
death), during an interview with reporter Daniel Malloy (Christian
Slater), about how he was "born to darkness":
I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't
been human for 200 years. Please, how shall I put you at
ease? Shall we begin like David Copperfield? 'I
am born...I grew up.' Or shall we begin when I was born
to darkness, as I call it? That's really where we should
start, don't you think?...
1791 was the year it happened. I was 24. Younger
than you are now. But times were different then. I was a
man at that age. The master of a large plantation, just south
of New Orleans. I had lost my wife in childbirth. She and
the infant had been buried less than half a year. I would've
been happy to join them. I couldn't bear the pain of their
loss. I longed to be released from it. I wanted to lose it
all: my wealth, my estate, my sanity....Most of all, I longed
for death. I know that now. I invited it. A release from
the pain of living. My invitation was open to anyone. To
the whore at my side. To the pimp that followed. But it was
a vampire that accepted.
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Pulp Fiction
(1994)
Screenwriter(s): Quentin Tarantino
On
Foot Massages
Play clip (excerpt): ![Pulp Fiction](wavfiles/sound.gif)
Vincent Vega (John Travolta) spoke to his hitman
partner Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) about the personal
and erotic nature of foot massages, as they went about their
nefarious business, going up an elevator and into an apartment
hallway.
Jules: It was a foot massage. A foot massage
is nothin'. I give my mother a foot massage.
Vincent: It's layin' your hands in a familiar
way on Marsellus' new wife. I mean, is it as bad as eatin'
her pussy out? No, but it's the same f--kin' ballpark.
Jules: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop right there. Eatin' a
bitch out, and givin' a bitch a foot massage ain't even the
same f--kin' thing.
Vincent: It's not. It's the same ballpark.
Jules: Ain't no f--kin' ballpark neither. Now look, maybe
your method of massage differs from mine, but, you know,
touchin' his wife's feet and stickin' your tongue in the
Holiest of Holies ain't the same f--kin' ballpark; it ain't
the same league; it ain't even the same f--kin' sport. Look,
foot massages don't mean s--t.
Vincent: Have you ever given a foot massage?
Jules:
Don't be tellin'
me about foot massages. I'm the foot f--kin' master.
Vincent:
You
given a lot of them?
Jules:
S--t, yeah! Got my technique down and everything.
I don't be ticklin' or nothin'.
Vincent:
Would you give a guy a foot massage?
Jules:
F--k you.
Vincent:
You give 'em a lot?
Jules:
F--k you.
Vincent:
You know, I'm
kinda tired. I could use a foot massage.
Jules:
Yo, yo, yo, man.
You best back off. I'm gettin' a little pissed here...
Vincent claimed that gangster Marsellus Wallace
(Ving Rhames) became homicidally jealous when his new bride
Mia (Uma Thurman) was given a foot massage by hoodlum Antwone
- he threw him off a fourth-floor balcony into a glass-covered
greenhouse, resulting in a permanent speech impediment:
Jules: Now look, just 'cause I wouldn't give
no man a foot massage don't make it right for Marsellus
to throw Antwone off a building into a glass motherf--kin'
house, f--kin' up the way the nigger talks. That s--t ain't
right. Motherf--ker do that s--t to me, he better paralyze
my ass, 'cause I'd kill the motherf--ker, you know what
I'm sayin'?
Vincent: I ain't sayin' it's right. But you're sayin' a foot
massage don't mean nothin', and I'm sayin' it does. Now look,
I've given a million ladies a million foot massages, and
they all meant somethin'. We act like they don't, but they
do, and that's what's so f--kin' cool about 'em. There's
a sensuous thing goin' on where, where you know, you don't
talk about it, but you know it, she knows it, f--kin' Marsellus
knew it, and Antwone should have f--kin' better known better.
I mean, that's his f--kin' wife, man. He ain't gonna have
no sense of humor about this s--t. You know what I'm sayin'?
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![](speeches/pulpfiction11.jpg)
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Pulp Fiction (1994)
Screenwriter(s): Quentin Tarantino
Executioner's
"The Path of The Righteous Man" (Loosely Based on
Ezekiel 25:17)
![Top Pick](images/toppick.jpg)
Play clip (excerpt): ![Pulp Fiction](wavfiles/sound.gif)
Contract hitman killer Jules Winnfield's (Samuel
L. Jackson) oft-repeated Bible quote, spoken to Brett (Frank
Whaley), who had betrayed his business partner Marsellus Wallace
(Ving Rhames) by taking a briefcase, and was about to be executed:
You read the Bible, Brett?...Well, there's
this passage I got memorized. Sort of fits this occasion.
Ezekiel 25:17. 'The path of the righteous man is beset
on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny
of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity
and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of
darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper
and the finder of lost children. 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 My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance
upon thee!'
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Pulp Fiction (1994)
Screenwriter(s): Quentin Tarantino
A
Incredulous Tale About Great-Grandfather's Gold War Watch
Play clip (excerpt): (short)
The unforgettable speech (a childhood flashback)
of "special visitor" Captain Koons (Christopher Walken)
talking to Butch Coolidge as a young child (Chandler Lindauer)
about an important heirloom - a gold watch - that had been
in the Coolidge family for three generations. For five years,
Koons claimed he had been with Butch's father when he died
in a Hanoi POW camp:
Hello, little man. Boy, I sure heard a bunch
about you. See, I was a good friend of your dad's. We were
in that Hanoi pit of hell together over five years. Hopefully,
you'll never have to experience this yourself, but when
two men are in a situation like me and your dad were for
as long as we were, you take on certain responsibilities
of the other. If it'd been me who'd - not made it, Major
Coolidge'd be talking right now to my son Jim. But the
way it turned out, I'm talking to you. Butch. I got somethin'
for ya. This watch I got here was first purchased by your
great-grandfather during the first World War. It was bought
in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee,. Made
by the first company to ever make wrist watches. Up 'til
then, people just carried pocket watches. It was bought
by Private Doughboy Erine Coolidge on the day he set sail
for Paris. This was your great-grandfather's war watch
and he wore it everyday he was in that war, and when he'd
done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother,
took the watch off, put it in an old coffee can, and in
that can it stayed until your granddad, Dane Coolidge,
was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight
the Germans once again. This time they called it World
War II.
Your great-grandfather gave this watch to your
granddad for good luck. Unfortunately, Dane's luck wasn't
as good as his old man's. Dane was a Marine and he was killed
-- along with all the other Marines at the battle of Wake
Island. Your granddad was facing death. He knew it. None
of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin' that island
alive, so three days before the Japanese took the island,
your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport, name
of Winocki - a man he had never met before in his life -
to deliver to his infant son who he'd never seen in the flesh,
his gold watch. Three days later, your granddad was dead,
but Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid
a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father
his dad's gold watch. This watch. (He held the watch up
- and paused) This watch was on your daddy's wrist when
he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese
prison camp. He knew that if the gooks ever saw the watch,
it'd be confiscated and taken away. The way your Dad looked
at it, this watch was your birthright. He'd be damned if
any slope's gonna put their greasy, yellow hands on his boy's
birthright, so he hid it in one place he knew he could hide
something - his ass. Five long years he wore this watch up
his ass. Then, he died of dysentery. He give me the watch.
I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years.
Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. Now,
little man, I give the watch to you.
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Pulp Fiction
(1994)
Screenwriter(s): Quentin Tarantino
"I'm
Tryin' Real Hard to Be The Shepherd"
In the film's epilogue, while hitman Jules Winnfield
(Samuel L. Jackson) was eating breakfast in the Hawthorne Grill
with partner Vincent Vega (John Travolta), he contemplated
quitting the profession (during
"a moment of clarity"). When he was confronted by two
robbers:
"Pumpkin"/Ringo (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny"/Yolanda (Amanda
Plummer) (from the film's pre-credits prologue) stealing from
the patrons, he held his gun on them, and reprised and reinterpreted
his Biblical speech to "Ringo" - ultimately,
to redeem himself, he decided to let the two go with $1,500 from
his wallet (but not the briefcase), because he was in a "transitional
period":
I'm givin' you that money so I don't have
to kill your ass. You read the Bible, Ringo?...Well, there's
this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. 'The path
of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities
of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is
he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds
the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly
his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. 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 saying that s--t for years, and if you
heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought
to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded
s--t to say to a mother f--ker before I popped a cap in his
ass. But I saw some s--t this mornin' made me think twice.
See, now I'm thinkin' maybe it means you're the evil man
and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. 9-millimeter here, he's
the shepherd protectin' my righteous ass in the valley of
darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm
the shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish.
Now, I'd like that. But that s--t ain't the truth. The truth
is, you're the weak and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But
I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.
Go.
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