Winners' Oscar thank-you speeches over the years

Express Tribune

03-03-2025

At the Oscars over the years, we have seen it all with the winners' speeches, ranging from dull, endless, cringe, heartwarming or, when we're lucky, hilarious.
A few stick in the mind, from the astounded gasps of an 11-year-old Anna Paquin to Patricia Arquette's rousing feminist oration that brought Meryl Streep to her feet for a standing ovation.
But, taken together, an AFP analysis of nearly 2,100 speeches dating back to March 1953, of which 80 per cent are by men, reveals winners most often thank the Academy, their family, the film crew or a film influence.
Pithy and epic
Speeches averaged nearly three sentences in the 1950s but since winners have become more talkative on stage: in 2024 they reached 15 sentences. On Tuesday, this year's nominees were urged to stick to a 45-second speech.
Daniel Kaluuya, Best Supporting Actor for Judas and the Black Messiah in 2021, delivered the most epic speech ever, running for almost 70 sentences.
In three minutes 30 seconds, the British actor who has Ugandan parents thanked some 30 people from God to his team, taking in his family and "everyone (he) loves, from London Town to Kampala".
At the other extreme, nearly 200 winners took the fast route back to their seats, delivering one-sentence speeches.
In 1954 when Titanic trio Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Richard Breen won Best Original Screenplay, Brackett barely got out a "Thank you" before the trio was ushered aside on stage.
Women, meanwhile, are the longest orators, averaging over nine sentences compared to seven for men.
By category, Best Actress winners deliver the longest speeches, with 18 sentences, two and a half more than their male counterparts.
All about gratitude
Naturally, most thank-you speeches are all about saying thanks - the word "thank" appears in nearly 95 per cent of all speeches in AFP's analysis.
Of the five per cent remaining, some were being more imaginative in their choice of words – Vincente Minnelli for example expressed his "gratitude" in 1959 when he received the Best Director Oscar for Gigi.
Arthur Harari won in 2024 with Justine Triet for Best Original Screenplay (Anatomy of a Fall) - his partner had given all the thank-yous.
Looked at by category, the Best Actresses with their longer speeches are also the ones who say thank you the most, using "thank" 6.2 times on average.
Positively loquacious with her more than 60 sentences, Halle Berry dedicated half of those to thanks in 2002 when she became the first Black actress in Oscar history to win, for Monster's Ball.
After opening with two "Oh my Gods" followed by "this moment is so much bigger than (her)," she dedicated her award to "every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened".
In contrast, Frances McDormand, not one to mince her words, almost skipped the "thanks" entirely when she won her first of three top actress awards for Fargo in 1997 by the Coen brothers.
She did slip one in right at the end – "Thank you for acknowledging our work" - and had dished out a congratulation to producers for "allowing directors to make autonomous casting decisions based on qualifications and not just market value".
From God to Spielberg
The giver of the golden statuette, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is the most frequently cited entity in speeches.
In the 1950s it features in one out of 12 speeches; in the last decade, one out of two. Another frequent reference is to "God," appearing nearly 190 times in over 140 speeches.
More than six out of 10 occurrences refer to the religious figure, among which slightly less than half are as part of phrases with "God bless" to the audience, America, the Academy.
Among all instances of "God", one in five corresponds to the phrase "Oh (my) God", which does not directly refer to the religious figure.
Among individuals, Hollywood titan Steven Spielberg - a nominee 23 times and winner three - is the most mentioned name, coming up around 40 times. AFP