Movie speeches are a great opportunity see how much impact you can have in a short space of time.

I watched ‘Fair Game‘ last night (with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts) which ended with a powerful movie speech. Powerful and short. In fact, the best movie speeches are only about 100 seconds. (The Gettysburg Address was about 2 min long).

Hopefully these movies speeches will get you in the mood to produce powerful business presentations (most of which are longer than they need to be).

And by the way, the speakers giving these movie speeches don’t rush. There are long pauses. In fact, they generally speak at half the pace of most business presentations. Yet they convey so much.

You can say a lot in a minute or two if you clarify your ideas and craft your messages.

Enjoy.

List of great movie speeches…

Ali (2001)

(Less than a min) Ali was a master at getting a poetic rhythm in his speeches. Like a dance (which is the way he boxed). In this movie speech, he defends his decision not to participate in the war in Vietnam. Watch this movie speech here. (Starts at .48 seconds into this clip).

TRANSCRIPT:

“Well…You know, so much of the time we’re just lost. We say, “Please, God, tell us what is right. Tell us what is true.”

I mean there is no justice. The rich win; the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time we become dead, a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims — and we become victims. We become weak; we doubt ourselves; we doubt our beliefs; we doubt our institutions; and we doubt the law.

But today you are the law. You are the law, not some book, not the lawyers, not a marble statue, or the trappings of the court. See, those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are, in fact, a prayer, I mean a fervent and a frightened prayer.

In my religion, they say, “Act as if you had faith; faith will be given to you.”

If we are to have faith in justice we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts.”

Malice (1993)

(90 seconds) One of the most devious movie speeches; where Alec Baldwin plays a Doctor intentionally losing a malpractice suit to collect a share of the insurance money. Watch the movie speech here.