Ladies And Gentlemen: 20 Great Movie Speeches

11) “This stuff?” – The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

The comedy-drama – directed by David Frankel, and adapted from Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name by Aline Brosh McKenna – took the box office by storm and landed Meryl Streep Oscar nomination number 14.

The story sees college graduate Andrea (Anne Hathaway) land a New York City job as co-assistant to Miranda Priestley – the famous and powerful editor of an influential fashion magazine. As an aspiring journalist, Andy sees the job as merely work experience – a stepping stone to a writing position somewhere else. She views the fashion industry with disdain – feeling it to be shallow, pointless and socially oppressive. Her attitude sets her in immediate conflict with the demanding Miranda, who turns her laser-like gaze to the chip on Andrea’s shoulder for a brief, humiliating moment.

“This stuff’? Oh, ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic “casual corner” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of ‘stuff.’”

In this glorious monologue, Miranda sweeps back the curtain that hides the back-room machinations of the fashion industry, to reveal to Andrea that – not only is Miranda in her influential position because she knows her stuff, but that Andrea is in an enviable position despite not knowing anything. It is an epic evisceration of Andrea’s entire values system, made all the more stunning by Streep’s delivery – quiet, articulate, and with icy cold detachment. Absolute perfection.

12) “In the Name of Democracy” – The Great Dictator (1940)

The Great Dictator would simply not have worked as a silent film, so we should be fortunate that Chaplin realized it was the perfect time to speak up. He is arguably the master of comedy cinema, although his good humor and brilliant slapstick was even more special when surrounded by piercing, truthful drama. The Great Dictator was a rousing call that criticized the rise of Nazism and fascism with a political boldness few major filmmakers have attempted since.

For those who have not yet seen his 1940 satire, Chaplin plays a Jewish barber with a look uncanny to a certain European tyrant of the era. (The actor’s square mustache should give away who it is.) At the end of the film, the barber is mistaken for that dictator, who in the film is named Hynkel, and is forced to make a speech in front of a clan of fervent fascist followers.

Chaplin begins by speaking directly to the soldiers, but then breaks the proverbial fourth wall and glares straight at the audience in the address. “The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress,” he declares. “The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.” Didactic? Sure. Powerful? You betcha.

While it was a daring move by Chaplin to challenge the changing ways of the Western world, critics and audiences responded with great power. The film was an enormous hit in North America and Europe – although it did take close to a year after its release until the United States was involved in World War II.

Even today, Chaplin’s closing words, a resounding call to defeat the soulless machine and the terror that had become so pervasive around the world, still feel prescient today. He was an artist ahead of his time, and did exactly what hundreds of writers, artists and filmmakers should have been doing during the early days of the war: he spoke out.