The Oscars only come once a year, and it's like a holiday season for movies, with the same torrid mix of glamour, drama, disappointment, and victory. Las Vegas even takes bets on the winners, which goes to show how much interest persists in the Oscars despite the falling viewer count.The television viewing audience likes drama, but they also like brevity, and long-winded acceptance speeches are part of what was dragging the yearly show out to three hours or more back in the day. Some Oscar acceptance speeches are famous for how moving, memorable, or entertaining they were, and these speeches live on in pop culture history.
7 Lupita Nyong’o, 2014
Lupita Nyong'o won the Oscar in 2014 for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Patsey in 12 Years a Slave. Remembered as one of the most emotionally moving Oscar acceptance speeches, she opens with an excerpt of a letter from a fan, who wrote to her about trying to "lighten her skin."
Nyong'o continues to express her own experience with looking at television or magazines and seeing only fair faces. She talked about the women who inspired her, and her joy and hope and doing the same for others. There wasn't a dry eye in the house after this brief but profound four minutes.
6 Alberto Benigni, 1998
Life Is Beautiful was controversial from the start, getting all kinds of publicity for its Oscar nominations. All of that was eclipsed by Benigni's acceptance speech, which started with taking an unconventional route through the crowd to the podium.
After vaulting over a few rows of seats, and that actually happened, the winning nominee was on stage, reveling in the beauty of the total surprise of winning. It was clear he hadn't rehearsed or made any notes, and didn't need them. In a string of broken Italian and English, Benigni expressed his thanks in the most Italian of ways, with lovemaking, mountains, and by invoking the god Jupiter.
5 Sally Field, 1985
Even people who ignore movies entirely have heard about the "you like me" Oscar acceptance speech, and this is the one. It wasn't just that Sally Field gave an amazing performance in a critically acclaimed film, Places In The Heart, it was her spontaneous and joyful acceptance speech that took many in the audience and at home as a pleasant surprise.
Up until this point, Oscar acceptance speeches had been rather standard and dry affairs that were more about protocol than sincerity, with a few exceptions. Field, however, didn't fit the mold of the previous winners when it came to her acting background and was genuinely shocked but equally ecstatic when she won.
4 Tom Hanks, 1993
It seems odd to think of Tom Hanks as a comedic actor now, but for most of the 20th century, that's how it was. Hanks got his start on television sitcoms and Saturday Night Live, and it wasn't until the 1990s that he took on some dramatic roles. ​​​​​​​His words at the podium that night are memorable for both the right and wrong reasons.
This acceptance speech is a double-edged sword in that it includes a heartfelt recognition of the real people that the film memorializes and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. However, Hanks also inadvertently outed some people that had worked on or inspired his performance. Critics said this was a result of the fervent and perhaps naive optimism that made up most of the speech.
3 Cuba Gooding Jr., 1997
Cuba Gooding Jr. had already been in several popular and critically acclaimed films, like Boyz In The Hood and A Few Good Men. It wasn't exactly a shock that he won, as he was among Hollywood's best and brightest new talents, but if there was an acceptance speech that could eclipse Sally Field's in terms of pure spontaneous joy, this was it.
Gooding used every available space and moment to express himself, taking it upon himself to extend some of his time on the stage despite the band trying to play him off and the staff trying to coax an exit. The crowd loved it, and it's gone down in history as one of the Academy's most memorable acceptance speeches.
2 Jack Palance, 1991
When Jack Palance won the Best Supporting Actor award for City Slickers, it was also unofficially recognized as a lifetime achievement award as well. Palance had been a fixture of Hollywood for decades, the survivor of a whole list of tough guys that included names like John Wayne and Steve McQueen.
Palance's speech isn't just memorable for the great jokes and anecdotes, most of them directed a bit on the racy side, with a jab at host and co-star Billy Crystal, but also for his adherence to the concept of "show, don't tell." The animated actor does a few one-handed pushups without even getting winded, probably more than the City Slickers he shared the set with could manage.
1 Charlie Chaplin, 1972
Speaking of lifetime achievement awards, here's the real thing. When Charlie Chaplin took the stage to accept his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1972, it was the first time he was able to return to the United States after decades in exile. His crime was being labeled as a "communist" by Joseph McCarthy, which was really just another way of saying "entertainer and Jewish" in that day and age.
To be fair, this isn't so much about the acceptance speech itself, which is very short and deeply moving, it's about the standing ovation. When the award was announced, and Chaplin appeared on stage, the crowd gave him a standing ovation that lasted for a full twelve minutes. It's still the longest in the Academy's history.