The Best Deliveries of Real Speeches in Movies and TV

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Win one for the Gipper,” that’s because of legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. While losing at halftime during a game vs. Army at Yankee Stadium in 1928, Rockne tried to rally his players by telling them the story of the dying words of Notre Dame’s best player ever, George Gipp. This speech was later depicted in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne, All American,” in which Ronald Reagan played Gipp. Notre Dame won the game, and Reagan continued to use the phrase throughout his political career.

Yankee great Lou Gehrig, shortly after being forced into early retirement due to a tragic diagnosis of ALS that led to his death in 1941 at age 37, gave one of the most famous speeches in sports history at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. This moment, in which he declared himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth,” was memorialized a year after his death by Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees.”

Daryl F. Zanuck’s 1944 Technicolor biopic of President Woodrow Wilson won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. One of the most memorable and affecting scenes in the film is when actor Alexander Knox delivers part of Wilson’s 1917 speech to Congress declaring war on Germany – calling the declaration “a distressing and oppressive duty…which I have performed in thus addressing you.”

One of cinema’s most iconic and enduring images is the very first scene in 1970’s “Patton,” in which George C. Scott, as U.S. General George S. Patton, addresses troops in front of a giant American flag during World War II. In the speech, he discusses the importance of victorious role models and the value of fighting as a team in order to defeat the enemy. This is a shorter (and less profane) version of a real speech given by Patton to the Third Army in 1944, before the Allied invasion of France.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” uttered during his first inauguration speech in 1933, is quite possibly President Franklin Roosevelt’s most famous quote. This moment was recreated by Edward Hermann (who made something of a career for himself portraying FDR) in the 1977 made-for-television movie “Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years,” the sequel to the previous year’s “Eleanor and Franklin: The Early Years.”

Gregory Peck portrayed World War II General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in this film, which received mixed reviews. Peck’s performance was praised, however – especially his delivery of MacArthur’s famous 1962 speech to West Point cadets in which he praises the virtues of “duty, honor, country.”

One of the biggest films of the ’80s, “Gandhi” was a worldwide smash and won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor – for Ben Kingsley, in the title role. At a key early moment in the film, Gandhi starts a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of Indians in South Africa, giving a memorable speech in which he argues that they are British subjects who are just as deserving of the same rights as whites.

Martin Sheen starred as President John F. Kennedy in the five-part 1983 NBC miniseries “Kennedy.” During his inaugural address, American watches intently as Kennedy declares “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”

Barry Bostwick portrayed George Washington in the 1984 made-for-TV movie “George Washington” as well as this 1986 sequel. The film received poor ratings but Bostwick’s performance was praised, especially his portrayal of Washington’s iconic farewell address, written as a letter to his “friends and fellow-citizens” before his retirement from public service.

Filmmaker Ken Burns’ 1990 documentary miniseries “The Civil War” is widely regarded as one of the best and most groundbreaking documentaries of all time. It educated millions of Americans about the war, and was praised for its use of Civil War photos and the hiring of actors – including Waterston, Jason Robards, Morgan Freeman, and Jeremy Irons – to provide voice-overs of quotes from historical figures. The most famous speech of the war, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, was delivered with aplomb by Waterston.

Denzel Washington received critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of African-American activist Malcolm X in the 1992 film of the same name, directed by Spike Lee. One of the film’s most memorable scenes is when Malcolm addresses the people of Harlem, “Every election year these politicians are sent up here to pacify us!… I say and I say it again, ya been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked!”

Anthony Hopkins gives a tour-de-force, Oscar-winning performance as President Richard Nixon in 1995’s “Nixon,” directed by Oliver Stone. Two of Nixon’s most famous speeches are seen in flashback, expertly delivered in Hopkins: his 1952 “Checkers” speech (in which he defended himself after being accused of misusing political expense funds, and admitted to receiving the gift of a cocker spaniel named Checkers, which he planned to keep) and his bitter 1962 concession speech after losing the California gubernatorial election to Edmund “Pat” Brown, in which he told members of the press that “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

“Rough Riders” is a 1997 TNT miniseries about the famed volunteer cavalry unit led by future President Theodore Roosevelt, which fought in the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. It starred Tom Berenger as Roosevelt, who gives a standout speech to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1897. “Preparation for war is the surest guaranty for peace,” he said.

2001’s “Pearl Harbor” is a big, bombastic Michael Bay romantic war drama, and is about as “Michael Bay” as a movie can get. One of the most stirring scenes in the film, however, follows the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. Jon Voight plays President Roosevelt as he gives his iconic address to the nation, declaring December 7, 1941, to be “a date which will live in infamy” and asks Congress to declare war on Japan.

As Britain’s King George VI, Colin Firth spends much of the 2010 film “The King’s Speech” working to overcome a speech impediment that makes it challenging to address crowds, one of the monarch’s primary responsibilities. When he is forced to make a speech declaring war on Germany, potentially the most consequential speech of his reign, and rises to the occasion, it’s one of the film’s most poignant moments.

Meryl Streep won a Best Actress Oscar for her towering performance as Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving U.K. Prime Minister of the 20th century and first woman to hold the office. The film received mixed reviews, but Streep’s performance was praised, especially in scenes where she gives powerful speeches, such as the one she gave to the Conservative Party Conference when starting her term as PM in 1979.

Perhaps the greatest portrayal of President Lincoln ever committed to film, Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” won him a Best Actor Oscar. The film follows Lincoln in the last four months of his life, as he attempts to get the 13th Amendment passed, banning slavery. In the film’s poignant final scene, after he’s assassinated, the film flashes back to his Second Inaugural Address, where he famously intones the words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all…”

“Killing Kennedy,” a 2013 National Geographic Channel made-for-TV film based on the non-fiction book by Bill O’Reilly, starred Rob Lowe in the title role. It follows Kennedy through his presidency and includes a great speech given during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tensest moment of his tenure, in which he promises “Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right.”.

Less than two months after Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration as President, civil rights leaders were attacked by police as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to protest voter suppression. Shortly thereafter, Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to push for a voting rights bill in a speech officially called “The American Promise,” but widely remembered as “We Shall Overcome” – a phrase borrowed from an iconic civil rights song. Tom Wilkinson recreated the speech, watched by more than 70 million Americans and considered Johnson’s “greatest oratorical triumph,” in Ava DuVernay’s film.

“Suffragette” is a 2015 historical drama about the fight for women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom, starring Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, the political activist who organized the movement. The film depicts a famous 1912 speech given by Pankhurst at Royal Albert Hall after being released from prison, in which she famously proclaims, “I incite this meeting to rebellion! Be militant in your own way…”

One of the most memorable speeches by Queen Elizabeth II was actually given on her 21st birthday, before she became queen. Even though Claire Foy was no longer portraying the Queen in season four of Netflix’s “The Crown,” the actress returned to appear in a flashback in which she gives this first major speech. In it, she famously dedicated her life to service to the Commonwealth nations, stating “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

John Lithgow turned in an impressive performance as Winston Churchill in Netflix’s “The Crown,” and did an admirable job of recreating one of the Prime Minister’s most moving speeches, in which he eulogized King George VI in 1952 and voiced his support for the new queen.

King Edward VIII famously abdicated the throne in 1936, after less than a year as king, in order to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson – a divorcée who would have been unacceptable as the monarch’s wife. He explained his actions in an address broadcast worldwide by the BBC, in which he famously proclaimed, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” This was depicted in episode three of the first season of Netflix’s “The Crown,” with actor Alex Jennings playing Edward.

In this account of Winston Churchill’s early tenure as prime minister during World War II, Gary Oldman stars as the British leader. In the film’s climax, as Germany prepares to invade Britain, Churchill gives one of his most memorable and famous speeches to Parliament, in which he dramatically declares, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”