The Best Ever: Death Speeches

http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/movies/galleries/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=9289009

I imagine there will be some spoilers here as they are "death" speeches.








12. Gallipoli

One of the most haunting death speeches of them all, gasped out as a young Aussie sprinter-turned-soldier throws himself out of the trenches and runs face-first into a lethal hail of enemy gunfire. “How fast can you run? As fast as a leopard. How fast are you going to run? As fast as a leopard. Then let's see you do it.”

11. True Romance

Genius scriptwriting from Tarantino as ex-cop Dennis Hopper gets ready to bite the bullet from Italian gangster Christopher Walken. Usually the king of speeches, Walken sits in stunned silence as Hooper informs him exactly where his ancestors came from. “Now tell me, am I lying? Cos you, you're part eggplant!" Bang.

10. 2001: A Space Odyssey

As surviving astronaut Bowman shutsdown HAL’s brain cells, the killer supercomputer suddenly emerges as the human character in Kubrick’s space-opera. “I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it…” Cue an eerie, touching robo-rendition song ‘Daisy, Daisy’.

9. Terms of Endearment

Another gusher of a weepie, as Debra Winger says cheerio to his children before dying on cancer in her hospital bed. "You're gonna realise that you love me. And maybe you're gonna feel badly, because you never told me. But don't - I know that you love me. So don't ever do that to yourself, all right?"

8. Star Wars

Deliberately sacrificing himself to former pupil Darth Vader, Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness) signs out with a prophesy of his mythical martyrdom: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." He wasn't kidding either.

7. Ace In The Hole

Lying bleedng at the feet of his newspaper editor, Kirk Douglas’ beaten journalist signs his last byline in Billy Wilder’s bitter, brilliant satire. "How'd you like to make yourself a thousand dollars a day, Mr. Boot? I'm a thousand-dollar-a-day newspaperman. You can have me for nothing."

6. The Wizard of Oz

A twisted, melty death for the green-faced Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), after Dorothy dunks her a fatal bucket of water. She doesn't take it well... "I'm melting! I'm melting. Who would have thought that some little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?!"

5. Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Get your hanky out – get five of them – as dying elderly schoolmaster Mr Chips (Robert Donat) scoffs at the remark that he’d been a lonely man, having devoted his life to the school instead of children of his own. “But you're wrong,” he smiles, closing his eyes. “I have...thousands of them...thousands of them...and all boys!"

4. King Kong

One of the most immensely moving death scenes in cinema history, spoken as the mortally wounded great ape falls to his death from the top of the Empire State Building. Did the airplanes get him? “Oh no, says explorer-scientist Carl Denham. “It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast."

3. White Heat

A brutal gangster with a seriously unhealthy obsession with his dear old mum, Arthur 'Cody' Jarrett (James Cagney) ends up cornered by the feds at the top of a giant gas tower. Blowing himself up by blasting the gas tank with bullets, he yells, "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"

2. Citizen Kane

“Rosebud…” Okay, so it’s a one-word speech. But Charles Foster Kane’s dying breath is the first word in the ‘greatest films of all time’, the last word in the last-gasps, perhaps the most profound movie MacGuffin ever. What is rosebud? There are two answers. Ones of them is very rude.

1. Blade Runner

Improvised by Rutger Hauer on the spot, replicant Roy Batty's deeply moving existential soliloquy on a rain-lashed rooftop looks back on his galaxy-spanning four-year life as the final seconds tick away. “All those moments will be lost in time... like tears... in rain. Time... to die.”

1. Blade Runner

Improvised by Rutger Hauer on the spot, replicant Roy Batty's deeply moving existential soliloquy on a rain-lashed rooftop looks back on his galaxy-spanning four-year life as the final seconds tick away. “All those moments will be lost in time... like tears... in rain. Time... to die.”

Man yeah and I did not know he improvised that. It gets me everytime and I'd say it is also number 1 in my book.

These are all brilliant. I'd add Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar: "Mother of Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?"

James Gagney character Cody Jarrett in White Heat:

"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"

well it ain't a speech...but watching emile hirsch write the line in my sig as he's crying was very moving