Best Movie Monologues

You want to work here – close. You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse you cocksucker? You can’t take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don’t like it, leave.

I can go out there tonight, the material you got, and make myself £15,000. Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can you? Go and do likewise, ‘A’, ‘I’,‘D’, ‘A’. Get mad you sonofabitches, get mad.

You know what it takes to sell real estate? It takes brass balls. Go and do likewise gents. The money’s out there, you pick it up – it’s yours, you don’t, I got no sympathy for you. You want to go out on those sits tonight and close; close, it’s yours. If not you’re gonna be shining my shoes. And you know what you’ll be saying, a bunch of losers sitting around in a bar, "oh yeah, I used to be a salesman, it’s a tough racket."

These are the new leads. The Glengarry leads. And to you they’re gold, and you don’t get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They’re for closers. I’d wish you good luck but you wouldn’t know what to do with it.

And to answer your question pal, why am I here? I’m here because Mitch and Murray asked me to. They asked me for a favour. I said the real favour is follow my advice and fire your fucking asses because a loser is a loser. (Glengarry Glen Ross)

- Withnail & I

I was then taken east, in a cage. I was taken to Toronto, then Philadelphia, and then to New York. And each time I arrived in another city somehow the white men had moved all their people there ahead of me. Each new city contained the same white people as the last, and I could not understand how a whole city of people could be moved so quickly.

Eventually I was taken on a ship and crossed the great sea, over to England, and I was paraded before them like a captured animal. An exhibit. And so I mimicked them, imitating their ways, hoping that they might lose interest in this young savage, but their interest only grew. So they placed me in the white man's schools. It was there that I discovered in a book the words that you, William Blake, had written. They were powerful words, and they spoke to me.

But I made careful plans, and I eventually escaped. Once again I crossed the great ocean. I saw many sad things as I made my way back to the lands of my people. Once they realized who I was, the stories of my adventures angered them. They called me a liar, Exebiche, "he who talks loud, saying nothing". They ridiculed me, my own people ... and I was left to wander the Earth alone ... I am nobody.
(dead man)

(Cher, 'The Witches Of Eastwick')

"Your honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Max Bialystock is the most selfish man I ever met in my life. Not only is he a liar, and a cheat, and a scoundrel, and a crook - who has taken money from little old ladies. But he's also talked people into doing things - especially me - that they would never in a thousand years had dreamed of doing. But, your honour, as I understand it the law was created to protect people from being wronged. Your honour, whom has Max Bialystock wronged? I mean, whom has he really hurt?

"Not me. Not me.

"I was- This man- Noone ever called me Leo before. I mean, I know it's not a big legal point, but even in kindergarten they used to call me Bloom. I hadn't sang a song before. I mean, with someone else. I'd never sang a song with someone else before. This man- This man- This is a wonderful man. He made me what I am today. He did. And what of the dear ladies? What would their lives have been without Max Bialystock? Max Bialystock who made them feel young, and attractive, and wanted again.

"That's all I have to say."

- Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), The Producers

the latter being such a work of world
beating energy and anger
that it may have had a hand in kiling him.
he was dead inside
months of filming it.

(This isn't strictly a monologue, but close enough, given that the other characters don't speak more than a few words, and he's practically talking over them anyway. It was adapted from one of the other characters to Quentin Tarantino's character, so he could have some juicy dialogue.)

MR. PINK
Let me tell ya what "Like a Virgin"'s about. It's about some cooze who's a regular fuck machine. I mean all the time, morning, day,
night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.

MR. BLUE
How many dicks was that?

MR. WHITE
A lot.

MR. PINK
Then one day she meets a John Holmes motherfucker, and it's like, whoa baby. This mother fucker's like Charles Bronson in "The Great Escape." He's diggin tunnels. Now she's gettin this serious dick action, she's feelin something she ain't felt since forever. Pain.

MR. PINK
It hurts. It hurts her. It shouldn't hurt. Her pussy should be Bubble-Yum by now. But when this cat fucks her, it hurts. It hurts like the first time. The pain is reminding a fuck machine what is was like to be a virgin.
Hence, "Like a Virgin."

**** Interesting note: Shortly after the movie was released, Quentin Tarantino recieved a signed CD from Madonna, inside of which was written; "Dear Quentin, It's about love - not dick."

(Jules Winfield, Pulp Fiction)

i haven't learnt this speech = i am in no way a mere sad buff = it has never been on tv so i never taped it yet TO LEARN IT!!

(Caveh Zahedi in Waking Life)

I [to himself]:
I could hardly piss straight with fear. he was a man with 3/4 of an inch of brain who'd taken a dislike to me. What had I done to offend him? I don't consciously offend big men like this. And this one's a decided imbalance of hormone in him. Get any more masculine than that and you'd have to live up a tree. [he reads the grafitti] 'I fuck arses', Who fucks arses? [aloud] Maybe he fucks arses. [to himself again] Maybe he's written this in some moment of drunken sincerity. I'm in considerable danger in here.I must get out of here at once.
[He walks back into the bar.]

and:

Withnail:
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promotory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this mighty o'rehanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire; why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, how like an angel in aprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dusk. Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither.
[The wolves are unimpressed. Withnail exits into the rain.]

"Hello? ... Ah ... I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? ... Oh-ho, that's much better. ... yeah ... huh ... yes ... Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri. ... Clear and plain and coming through fine....I'm coming through fine, too, eh? ... Good, then ... well, then, as you say, we're both coming through fine. ... Good. ... Well, it's good that you're fine and ... and I'm fine. ... I agree with you, it's great to be fine. ... a-ha-ha-ha-ha ... Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb. ...The *Bomb*, Dmitri.... The *hydrogen* bomb! ... Well now, what happened is ... ah ... one of our base commanders, he had a sort of ... well, he went a little funny in the head ... you know ... just a little ... funny. And, ah ... he went and did a silly thing. ... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes ... to attack your country... Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri. ... Let me finish, Dmitri. ... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?! ...Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Dmitri? ... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? ... *Of course* I like to speak to you! ... *Of course* I like to say hello! ... Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... It's a *friendly* call. Of course it's a friendly call. ... Listen, if it wasn't friendly ... you probably wouldn't have even got it. ... They will *not* reach their targets for at least another hour. ... I am ... I am positive, Dmitri. ... Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. ... Well, I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. ... Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we're unable to recall the planes, then ... I'd say that, ah ... well, ah ... we're just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri. ... I know they're our boys. ... All right, well listen now. Who should we call? ...*Who* should we call, Dmitri? The ... wha-whe, the People... you, sorry, you faded away there.... The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters. ... Where is that, Dmitri? ... In Omsk. ... Right. ... Yes. ...Oh, you'll call them first, will you? ... Uh-hu ... Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri? ... Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information. ...Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm ... I'm sorry, too, Dmitri. ...I'm very sorry. ... *All right*, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well. ... I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are. ... So we're ?both sorry, all right?! ... All right."
(the Immortal Peter Sellers - "Dr. Strangelove")

Link for great monologues:
http://www.whysanity.net/monos/

Elwood: Harvey and I sit in the bars, have a drink or two, play the jukebox. And soon the faces of all the other people rutn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, “We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fellow.” Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entred as streangers and soon we have friends and they come over and sit with us and they drinki with us and they talk to us and they tell about the big terrible things they’ve done. And the big wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, their regrets, their loves and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. And then, I introduce them to Harvey. And he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back, but that’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us. That’s too bad, itsn’t it?
Doctor Sanderson: How did you end up calling him Harvey?
Elwood: Well, Harvey's his name!
Sanderson: How do you know that?
Elwood: Well, actually, there was a rather interesting coincidence on that, Doctor. One night, several years ago, I was walking early in the evening dow down on Fairfax Street between 18th and 19th. I had just put Ed Hickey into a taxi--Ed had been mixing his rye with his gin, and...I just felt that he needed conveying. Well, anyway, I was walking down along the street, and I heard this voice saying, "Good evening, Mister Dowd." Well, I turned around, and here was this big 6-foot-tall rabbit leaning up against a lamppost. Well, I thought nothing of that, since when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everyone knows your name. So naturally, I went over to chat with him. And he said to me, he said, 'Ed Hickey was a bit spiffed this evening, or could I be mistaken?' Well, of course, he was *not* mistaken. I think the world and all of Ed, but he was *spiffed*. Well, we talked like that for awhile, and then I said to him, I said, "You have the advantage on me. You know my name, and I don't know yours." And right back at me, he said, "What name do you like?" Well, I didn't have to think twice about that. Harvey's always been my favorite name. So I said to him, I said, "Harvey." And --this is the interesting thing about the whole thing--he said, "What a coincidence. My name happens to be Harvey.

(from Meet the Parents)

- Chasing Amy

(this is honestly my favorite movie monologue of all time, that and the scene where the alien leader screams "You humans are so stupid! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!")

Raoul Duke: "We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit light headed, maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, and a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?" (attorney says: "What are you yelling about?") "Never mind, its your turn to drive." No point in mentioning those bats, I thought, the poor bastard will see them soon enough. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all this for the trip, but once you get locked in a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that worried me was the ether, there is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge."

(from Time Bandits)

Dr. Kessler says yes.

Which makes me wonder if this lawyer has any idea as to the kind of grades one has to recieve in college to be accepted at a top medical school. If you have the vaguest clue as to how talented someone has to be to lead a surgical team.

I have an MD from Harvard. I am board certified in cardi-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery. I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England and I am never, ever sick at sea.

So I ask you, when someone goes into that chapel, and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry, or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post operative shock, who do you think they're praying to?

Now, go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church, and with any luck you might win the Annual Raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room #2 on November 7th, and he doesn't like to be second-guessed. You ask me if I have a 'god-complex?'

Let me tell you something:

I am God."

As delivered by the great Alec Baldwin in his immortal performance in the film Malice. As masterful and honoured as his acting is in this scene, I would be remiss in mentioning that I performed the above monologue--in its entirety, live on stage--last year, to considerable applause!

When I fix a fight, say – if I pay a three-to-one favourite to throw a goddamn fight – I figure I got a right to expect that fight to go off at three-to-one. But every time I lay a bet with this sonofabitch Bernie Bernheim, before I know it the odds is even up – or worse, I'm betting the short money…

The sheeny knows I like sure things. He's selling the information I fixed the fight. Out- of-town money comes pourin' in. The odds go straight to hell. I don't know who he's sellin' it to, maybe the Los Angeles combine, I don't know. The point is, Bernie ain't satisfied with the honest dollar he can make off the vig. He ain't satisfied with the business I do on his book. He's sellin' tips on how I bet, and that means part of the payoff that should be ridin' on my hip is ridin' on someone else's. So back we go to these questions – friendship, character, ethics… So its clear what I'm sayin'?

Leo: Clear as mud.

Caspar: It's a wrong situation. It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust? For a good return you gotta gobettin' on chance, and then you're back with anarchy. Right back inna jungle. On account of the breakdown of ethics. That's why ethics is important. It's the grease makes us get along, what separates us from the animals, beasts a burden, beasts a prey. Ethics. Whereas Bernie Bernheim is a horse of a different colour ethics- wise. As in, he ain't got any. He's stealin' from me plain and simple.

Leo: You sure it's Bernie, selling you out?

The Dane: It ain't elves…

(Miller's Crossing)

'You know, I think I understand what you're like now.
You're very beautiful, and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful, but you want them to be interested in you because you're you.
The problem is - aside from all that beauty - you're not very interesting.
You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn....
I know you want someone to look past all that at the 'real person' underneath, but the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautiful.
Ironic, isn't it?
In an odd way you're your own problem."

Sergeant Major:
(with hardened military efficiency) Don't stand there gawping like you've never seen the Hand of God before! Right, today, we're going to do Marching Up and Down the Square! That is, (puts on a sardonic twist) unless any of you have got anything better to do. Well?! Anyone got anything they'd rather be doing than marching up and down the square?! (is suddenly distracted) Yes?! (sneering) Atkinson… And what would you... rather be doing, Atkinson?

Atkinson:
(hesitant) Well, to be quite honest, Sarge, I'd... rather be at home with the wife and kids.

Sergeant Major:
(deliriously incredulous) Would you, now??????????

Atkinson:
Yes, Sarge.

Sergeant Major:
(short) Right! Off you go! (composure returns) Now, everybody else happy with my little plan... of marching up and down the square a bit?

Coles:
Sarge!

Sergeant Major:
Yes?!

Coles:
I've got a book I'd quite like to read.

Sergeant Major:
(quickly) Right! You go read your book then! (with sadistic assurance) Now! Everybody else... quite content to join in... with my little scheme of marching up and down the square?!

Wyclif:
Sarge?

Sergeant Major::
Yes, Wyclif?! What is it?!

Wyclif:
Well, I'm, uh, learning the piano.

Sergeant Major::
(pushes face in close and hat nearly falls off he is so outraged) Learning the piano?????????????????????????

Wyclif:
Yes, Sarge.

Sergeant Major:
(menacing) And I suppose you want to go and practise, eh? (really screaming) Marching up and down the square not good enough for you, eh?!?

Wyclif:
Well…

Sergeant Major:
Right! Off you go!

Wyclif:
Oh.

Sergeant Major:
Now! What about the rest of you? (assumed prissy deliberation) Rather be at the pictures, I suppose.

Squad:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

Sergeant Major:
(roaring) All right! Off you go!

Squad:
Oh. Ooh. Great. That's great. What a day. I want to see the Merle Oberon picture.Eh hehheh.

Sergeant Major:
Bloody army! I don't know what it's coming to. (pulls himself together) Right! Sergeant Major, marching up and down the square. Left, right, left. Left..

Trainspotting

Braveheart.

- Sexy Beast

"Took a charter flight on a DC-10 to London. Landed at Heathrow. Took a cab to the city centre. Don't let people lie to you, the hostiles are pretty ugly. I'm staying in Home House the most beautiful hotel in the world. Called a friend from school who was selling hash but she wasn't in. Met a couple of Brits who took me to of all places Camden Street. I flirted a bit at the Virgin Megastore, bought some CDs, then followed some girls with pink hair. I wandered around trying to get laid until it started to rain, then went back to Home House. Ministry of Sound is dead so I go Reform but it's gay night. I find the one hetero girl in the place and we dry-hump on the dance floor. We cab it back to Home House and I strip her clothes off, suck her toes and we fuck. Hung out for four or five days. Met the world's biggest DJ Paul Oakenfold. Kept missing the changing of the guard. Wrote my mom a postcard I never sent. Bought some speed from an Italian junkie who was trying to sell me a stolen bike. Smoked a lot of hash that had too much tobacco in it. Saw the Tate, saw Big Ben, ate a lot of weird English food. It rained a lot, it was expensive and I'm drowsy so I split for Amsterdam. The Dutch all knew English so I didn't have to speak any Dutch which was a relief. I cruised the red light district, visit a sex show, visit a sex museum, smoke a lot of hash. I meet a Dutch TV actress and we drank Absinth at a bar called 'Absinth'. The museums are cool, I guess. Wandered around, bought a lot of pastries, ate some intense waffles. We bought some coke and I cruised the red light district until I found some blonde with big tits that reminded me of Lara. I gave her a hundred guilders. In the end she pulls me out and I come between her tits even though I'm wearing a rubber. Afterward we made small talk about AIDS, her Moroccan pimp and herself. I wake to the sound of a wino singing. It's 8AM and hot as blazes. I pretend to ice skate around Central station whilst someone plays the sax. I trade songs with a Kiwi girl then split for Paris by train. I wander the Champs Elysee, climb the Eiffel Tower for only seven francs because the ticket machine was broken. Got the hang of the Metro, took it everywhere. Went to a foreign model party. Hooked up with a Romanian model named Corinna. She choked on my cock in the Mont-Fleuri Champs Elysee which is good. We played billiards, went shopping. Met a member of the Saudi royal family, made out with a Dutch model in front of the Louvre. Saw the Arc De Triomphe and almost became roadkill crossing the street. Oakie invites me to Dublin so I catch an Aer Lingus flight and stay at the Marsden. Dublin rocks but you can't imagine Oakenfold as we spin some discs with him. Irish girls are as small as leprechauns. I swop hickeys with a drunk one after groping my ass and calling me a 'Straight A'. She strips for me in the back room of the club. Sneak into the Guinness factory and steal some stuff so good my dick goes hard. I fly to Barcelona which is a low-rent Boston. Too many fat Americans, dude, there's too many meat markets. I dropped acid at this ground I found familar which was a trip to say the least. Cruise up the coast to the Casa Mila but had no more acid which sucked. Some from Camden calls me on my cell so I let her listen to the church bells. It's beautiful but there are no girls there, just old hippies. So I went to Switzerland where I ironically couldn't find anyone with the time. Took the Glacier Express up to Zermatt which is beautiful in a way which I can't describe. Moved ass up into Italy and ended up in Venice where I met a hot girl who looks like Rachel Leigh Cook and speaks better English than I do. She's living for a year on only five dollars a day. We gondola'ed around, flashed some cash. She thinks I'm a capitalist because my hotel room costs more than she's spending on her entire trip. She doesn't mind it so much when I pay the bills. I ditch her and hook up with a couple who obviously want a threesome. Too much tension there but the food was hot. She drove me to Rome and after I jump out the traffic is bad and we're stopped for hours without moving. The wife turns out to be a freak. The guy starts to wig out on me. It's like a Polanski film. We stop for a while in Florence where I see some big dome. A bomb goes off and I lose the weird couple which is probably for the best. Ended up in Rome which is big and hot and dirty, just like LA but with ruins. I went to the Vatican which was ridiculously opulent. Stood for two hours to get into the Sistine chapel which, now that it's been cleaned, looks fake. I meet two underage Italian girls who I try to talk into fucking each other while I jack off onto them. Bored, I buy them some ice cream instead. My hotel has a gym so I work out. I bump into some guy from Camden who says he knows me but I'm sure that he's a fag so I lose him. I try to fart and instead shit my pants. Back in my hotel room, I masturbate and have a pain in my groin. That night I dream about a beautiful girl, half in water, stretching her lean body. She asks me if I like it and I tell her she can feed fish with it. I don't know what it means, but I wake well-rested and masturbate in the shower and check out. I make my way back to London and hang out in Picadilly Circus. Hmm, how laconic. I swop shirts with some upper-crustie Cambridge chick. Hers was an Agnès B, mine was a cut from Chanel. She acts stuffy and prudish but is really wild underneath it all. She barely looks at my abs though she wants to. The next day I drop some acid and get lost on the subway for a full day and can't find my way out. I meet a cute girl who lets me jack off onto her as long as no come gets onto her Paul Smith coat. We get stoned while listening to Michael Jackson records and the next morning I wake up talking to myself. I have a big bump on my head from flailing in my sleep. I get my stuff and barely make my plane back to the United States. I no longer know who I am and I feel like the ghost of a total stranger."

It's better with the pictures.

And James is right; it's WAY better with the pictures.

Oh, whoops. That wasn't a movie.

In the beginning, there was Jack. And Jack had a groove. And from this groove came the groove of all grooves. And while one day viciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldly declared, "Let there be House!" And House music was born. I am, you see. I am the creator. And this is my House. And in my House there is only House music. But I am not so selfish, because once you've entered my House, it then becomes our House, and our House music. And you see, no one man owns House, because house music is a universal language spoke and understood by all. You see, House is a feeling, that no one can understand really, unless you're deep into the vibe of House. House is an uncontrollable desire to Jack your body. And as I told ya before, this is our house, and our House music. And in every house you understand, there is a keeper. And in this house the keeper is Jack. Now some of you might wonder, "who is Jack and what is it that Jack does?" Jack is the one who gives you the power to Jack your body. Jack is the one who gives you the power to do the snake. Jack is the one who gives you the key to the wiggly worm. Jack is the one who learns you how to walk your body. Jack is the one that can bring nations and nations of all Jackers together under one house. You may be black, you may be white, you may be Jew, or Gentile. It don't make a difference in our house. And this is fresh!

Vicki Vale: …What do you want?

Joker: I want my face on the one-dollar bill!

(Batman)

LOUNDS: No. I don't want to see you.

DOLLARHYDE: Mr. Lounds, you're a reporter. You're here to titillate your readers. If you don't open your eyes, I'll staple your eyelids to your forehead… Well: here...I...am...

LOUNDS: Oh my dear God Jesus.

DOLLARHYDE: Look at the screen. That is William Blake's 'The Great Red Dragon and The Woman Clothed with the Sun. Do you see?

LOUNDS: Yes ...

DOLLARHME: Do you see?

LOUNDS: Yes .

DOLLARHYDE: Do you see?

LOUNDS: Yes.

DOLLARHYDE: Mrs. Leeds harlequined with blood, her husband beside her. Do you see?

LOUNDS: Yes .

DOLLARHYDE: Mrs. Jacobi after her changing. The Dragon rampant. Do you see?

LOUNDS: Yes .

DOLLARHYDE: Freddie Lounds. Your photograph. Do you see?

LOUNDS: Oh, God…

DOLLARHYDE: Do you see?

LOUNDS: Please, no.

DOLLARHYDE: 'No' what?

LOUNDS: Not me.

DOLLARHYDE: Are you a man?

LOUNDS: Yes.

DOLLARHYDE: Do you imply that I'm a queer?

LOUNDS: God, no.

DOLLARHYDE: Are you queer, Mr. Lounds?

LOUNDS: No.

DOLLARHYDE: Before me you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great becoming and you recognise nothing. You are an ant in the afterbirth. It is your nature to do only one thing correctly: tremble. Bur fear is not what you owe me. Lounds: you and the others, YOU OWE ME AWE! We have one more piece of work to do…

(Manhunter)

does red dragon have *anything like* as scary a scene ?

-Henry Fonda, The Grapes of Wrath

-Bill Murray, Rushmore

In fact, very few of us here are actually mentally ill. I'm not saying you're not mentally ill, for all I know you're crazy as a loon. But that's not why you're here. Why you're here is because of the system, because of the economy.

There's the TV. It's all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials. We are not productive anymore, they don't need us to make things anymore, it's all automated. What are we for then? We're consumers. Okay, buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, you know what? You're mentally ill! That's a fact! If you don't buy things...toilet paper, new cars, computerized blenders, electrically operated sexual devices...

SCREWDRIVERS WITH MINIATURE BUILT-IN RADAR DEVICES, STEREO SYSTEMS WITH BRAIN IMPLANTED HEADPHONES, VOICE- ACTIVATED COMPUTERS, AND...

Louise Schumacher: Get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back! Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else! Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or -- or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it! And, if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance! (sobbing) I hurt! Don't you understand that? I hurt badly!

(Network)

Howard: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's no one anywhere that seems to know what to do with us. Now into it. We know the air is unfit to breathe, our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don't go out anymore. We sit in a house as slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster, and TV, and my steel belted radials and I won't say anything." Well I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crying in the streets. All I know is first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm a human being. God Dammit, my life has value." So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now. Get up. Go to your windows, open your windows, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Things have got to change my friends. You've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open your window, stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. 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 and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? (pause) You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably deter- mined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr.Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality --one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.
Howard: (humble whisper) Why me?
Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

What a great film.