Great monologues in film

[evilC]

(...or near-monologues, since mine isn't quite a perfect monologue.)

Travis, in 'Paris, Texas'

[Tony C]

Great monologues in film

Alec Baldwin's 'pep talk' to the salesmen in 'Glegarry Glenross'.

Again, not a perfect monologue but perfectly delivered.

[Ek weet nie]

Great monologues in film

One of the more bizarre monologues from JCVD

[nefertiti]

Great monologues in film

The opening of Patton

Double Indemnity

[EIM]

Great monologues in film

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian Delady, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. `Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like `ol squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark would go for nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces.
Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He'd a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start 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 in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks ttook the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

[evilC]

Great monologues in film

The intro sequence of 'La Ronde'.

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

Great monologues in film

I can do a thousand...

[Incandenza]

Great monologues in film

EIM is correct.

Others: unfortunately, Tom Joad's at the end of The Grapes of Wrath doesn't seem to be online.

Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion..."

Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York

And I know it has a lot of detractors on here, but yes, Brando in On the Waterfront

[M_L_M]

Great monologues in film

Michael J. Douglas in "The American President"

Concisely sums up US right wing politics for the most part.

[Reed John]

Great monologues in film

People will come.

[ian.64]

Great monologues in film

Baldwin's 'I Am God' speech in Malice.

Ian Holm's 'I admire its purity' speech in Alien.

[evilC]

Great monologues in film

"I've seen horrors..."

[evilC]

Great monologues in film

"We're living in a shop..."

[Ginger Yellow]

Great monologues in film

Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - there's a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place so darned interestin'. See, they call Los Angeles the "City Of Angels"; but I didn't find it to be that, exactly. But I'll allow it as there are some nice folks there. 'Course I ain't never been to London, and I ain't never seen France. And I ain't never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I'll tell you what - after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I'm about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin' as you'd seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin' like the good Lord gypped me. Now this here story I'm about to unfold took place in the early '90s - just about the time of our conflict with Sad'm and the I-raqis. I only mention it because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced it enough.

[ian.64]

Great monologues in film

"There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada... made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!"

[Spearmint Rhino]

Great monologues in film

"This watch was first purchased by your great-grandfather in the First World War..."

[E10 Rifle]

Great monologues in film

Straight up, this is one of the best Shakespearean renditions ever:

[willie1foot]

Great monologues in film

** WARNING - NOT WORK FRIENDLY**

[evilC]

Great monologues in film

Can't find a suitable clip of it online, but...

Kikuchiyo's outburst in 'The Seven Samurai':

"What do you think of farmers? You think they're saints? Hah! They're foxy beasts! They say, "We've got no rice, we've no wheat. We've got nothing!" But they have! They have everything! Dig under the floors! Or search the barns! You'll find plenty! Beans, salt, rice, cake! Look in the valleys, they've got hidden warehouses! They pose as saints but are full of lies! If they smell a battle, they hunt the defeated! They're nothing but stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean! God damn it all! But then who made them such beasts? You did! You samurai did it! You burn their villages! Destroy their farms! Steal their food! Force them to labor! Take their women! And kill them if they resist! So what should farmers do?"

You really have to see it, though.

[Mr Beast]

Great monologues in film

Hello. My name is Marty DiBergi. I'm a film maker. I
make a lot of commercials. That little dog that chases
the covered wagon underneath the sink? That was mine.
In 1966, I went down to Greenwich Village, New York City
to a rock club called the Electric Banana.
Don't look for it, it's not there anymore.
But that night I heard a band that for me redefined the
word "rock and roll". I remember being knocked out by
their, their exuberance, their raw power -- and their
punctuality. That band was Britain's now-legendary Spinal
Tap. Seventeen years and fifteen albums later, Spinal Tap
is still going strong, and they've earned a distinguished
place in rock history as one of England's loudest bands.
So in the late fall of 1982 when I heard that Tap was
releasing a new album called 'Smell the Glove,' and was
planning their first tour of the United States in almost 6
years to promote that album, well needless to say I jumped
at the chance to make the documentary, the, if you will,
rockumentary that you're about to see. I wanted to capture
the, the sights, the sounds, the smells, of a hard-working
rock band on the road. And I got that. But I got more, a
lot more. But hey -- enough of my yakkin'.
Whaddaya say, let's boogie!

[Levin]

Great monologues in film

No mention of The Third Man? Now there is a monologue

[Reed John]

Great monologues in film

Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds!

[Guy Profumo]

Great monologues in film

And so began the journey north to safety to our place in the sun. Among us we found a new leader: The man who came from the sky - the Gyro Captain.

And just as Pappagallo had planned we traveled far beyond the reach of men on machines.
The juice - the precious juice, was hidden in the vehicles.

As for me, I grew to manhood and in the fullness of time, I became the leader - the Chief of the Great Northern Tribe.

[MsD]

Great monologues in film

E10 Rifle wrote:

Straight up, this is one of the best Shakespearean renditions ever:

yep, excellent.

No Travis Bicker here (I haven't checked every link)?

I like Madeleine's letter from Vertigo and James Stewart's "you were an apt pupil" rant near the end.

Both Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman made great (largely improvised) courtroom speeches in Kramer vs Kramer.

[jason voorhees]

Great monologues in film

Guy - That would probably be Greatest Voiceovers, not necessarily monolouges. But points off for leaving off the best line, that being "...he only exists in my memory."

What scene did E10 post ? (I can't YouTube at work.) I loved Branagh's "Alas Poor Yorick" scene, which may be my favorite scene of any filmed Shakespeare.

I'm going to try to post the monolouge of the hooker coming up to William Munny to inform him of Morgan Freeman at the end of Unforgiven. That actress did a tremendous job, as she realized she was standing in the presence of the devil.

Obviously Alec Baldwin's monolouge was great, but Pacino's seduction of the mark in Glengarry was much more difficult an acting job.