Guides
Part of How to Study Award Speeches as Live Performances
How to assess lists of best award speeches
A framework for judging lists of best award speeches: separate emotional impact, humor, consequence, and craft, then state their criteria and selection process.
A list of best award speeches is easier to assess when it says what its compiler values. A ranked collection of greatest acceptance speeches can use different criteria: emotional impact, humor, consequence, or craft.
This page explains four ways to define “best” and offers a process for making a list’s choices clear. It focuses on criteria and method, not on ranking individual speeches.
What to take away
- Every published list of best acceptance speeches is competing on the same twenty or so clips, because those are the ones that circulate.
- The lists rarely say what they are measuring, and the four plausible criteria disagree with each other completely.
- The categories that never appear on any list tell you more about the genre than the entries that always do.
Four criteria that get blended into one word
"Best" in this genre silently means one of the following, and a list that mixes them produces a ranking nobody can argue with because nobody knows what it claims.
Four criteria
- Most affecting.The speech that made the room quiet. Judged from reaction, which the broadcast mix partly controls.
- Funniest.A different skill, usually prepared, and heavily favored by clip circulation because humor survives being cut out of context.
- Most consequential.Remarks that changed something afterwards: a rule, a practice, a public argument. Rare, and usually unpopular on the night.
- Best made.A well-built speech: a clear structure inside a hard time limit, one idea, an ending that lands before the music. This is the only criterion that can be assessed without knowing anything about the recipient.
The fourth criterion is the one this site can actually work with, because it depends on the observable shape of the remarks rather than on a judgment about a person. The devices that make a short speech land inside a fixed slot are set out in rhetorical devices.
The compiler's incentives
A list that depends on footage may be shaped by what a publisher can show and clear. Review the relevant award-speech archives when assessing the material available.
Compiler incentives vs list effects
Incentive
- Embeddable video
- Only clearable clips
- Written in a day
- Recycled from prior lists
- Recognizable names
- Technical categories excluded
- Works muted on phone
- Visual moments outrank speeches
- No legal query
- Administered works described, not shown
Effect on list
- Embeddable video
- Written in a day
- Recognizable names
- Works muted on phone
- No legal query
| Incentive | Effect on the list |
|---|---|
| The piece needs embeddable video | Entries exist only where a clip is clearable |
| The piece needs to be written in a day | Entries come from previous lists |
| The audience must recognize the names | Recipients from technical categories are excluded |
| The item must work without sound on a phone | Visually striking moments outrank well-built speeches |
| The publisher does not want a legal query | Anything actively administered is described, not shown |
The awarding bodies have their own interest. A body promoting its anniversary will assemble a canon of its own best moments, which is a marketing document with an archive attached.
Encyclopedia coverage of a long running ceremony, such as the entry on the Academy Awards, is a quick way to see how much of a body's public history is organized around its own broadcast. It is useful evidence about what the body values and poor evidence about what happened on any given night.
Categories to check for omissions
- Technical and craft categories.Check whether recipients in these categories are represented; their acceptances may be brief and precise, yet a list focused on prominent moments can overlook them.
- Speeches in languages other than the broadcast's.Check for acceptances delivered in other languages. Subtitles can make them less visible in print-focused selections.
- Acceptances read by a proxy.An acceptance read for an absent or deceased recipient is a distinct form worth considering.
- Ceremonies outside entertainment.A list limited to entertainment awards will omit scientific, literary, and civic prizes; the material on cultural speeches approaches those on its own terms.
- The competent majority.A list of standout moments can omit ordinary, competent speeches. A canon built only from outliers describes exceptions, not the form.
Building a list that survives scrutiny
Building a list
- Say which criterion you are using, in the first paragraph, and use one.
- Restrict yourself to one awarding body, or say plainly that you are comparing across bodies with different rules and time limits.
Six rules for a defensible list
- State one criterion in first paragraph
- Restrict to one awarding body, or say so
- Identify each entry by ceremony, edition, date, category
- Name the artifact and whether full or clip
- Include one entry you could not see in full
- Describe, do not reproduce passages
How to judge a speech you can only watch once
Working from a single viewing is normal, and it is more reliable than it
Five observations from one viewing
- Time the speech
- Count the movements
- Note where the middle is spent
- Note if ending was reached or imposed
- Note one moment the speaker changed direction
Five observations of that kind, written down before you form an opinion, will support a judgment that a reader can check. An impression written from memory will not. The general method is set out in speech analysis, and it is the same method whether the speech ran four minutes or forty seconds.
Common questions
Why do the same clips appear on every list?
Because they are the clips that are cheap to license and easy to find, and because most lists are assembled from earlier lists rather than from archives.
Is a list from the awarding body more reliable?
It is better sourced and more biased. The body has the recordings and also a reason to present its own history well. Use it for dates and facts, not for judgment.
Can a speech be great and boring to watch?
Yes, and the consequential ones often are. A speech that caused an argument about the ceremony's own rules may have been flat in the room and still be the most important thing said that night.
Should a list rank at all?
Ranking invites the reader to argue with the order rather than the criterion. A grouped list, organized by the problem each speaker faced, is harder to dismiss and more useful to anyone who has to speak.
