The last decade was rife with memorable awards show moments, and it was tough to narrow down the most powerful speeches because there were so many that went beyond thanking the Academy and shouting out moms, husbands and kids. There are themes of feminism, LGBTQ+ empowerment, equality, justice and simply love. From tearful tributes at the Tony Awards and grand gestures at the Grammys to rousing calls to action at the Oscarsand golden moments at the Golden Globes, these are the most memorable and powerful awards show speeches of the past decade.
1. Patricia Arquette at the 2015 Oscars
Patricia Arquette took home Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Boyhood, but her acceptance speech at the 2015 Academy Awards may be even more memorable than the role she played. Arquette delivered a rousing cry to close the gender wage gap, telling the crowd (including a GIF-worthy cheering Jennifer Lopezand Meryl Streep), “To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
2. Ari’el Stachel at the 2018 Tonys
Ari’el Stachel won the Best Featured Actor Tony Award for The Band’s Visit in 2018 and delivered one of the most moving speeches of the evening. “Both my parents are here tonight,” he told the crowd (via The New York Times). “I have avoided so many events with them because for so many years of my life, I pretended I was not a Middle Eastern person. And after 9/11 it was very, very difficult for me, and so I concealed and I missed so many special events with them. And they’re looking at me right now, and I can’t believe it.” He thanked the show’s creators for depicting a story about Israelis and Arabs at peace with one another, adding, “I am part of a cast of actors who never believed that they would be able to portray their own races and we are doing that. And not only that, we are getting messages from kids all over the Middle East thanking us and telling us how transformative our representation is for them.” He concluded, “I want any kid that’s watching to know that your biggest obstacle may turn into your purpose. Thank you very much.”
3. Viola Davis at the 2015 Emmys
Viola Davis was the first black actress to win a Best Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys for How To Get Away With Murder, a point she made clear in her powerful acceptance speech. “‘In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.’ That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s,” Davis began. “And let me tell you something. The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So here’s to all the writers, the awesome people,” she said. “Shonda Rhimes. People who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman. To be black. And to the Taraji P. Hensons, the Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goods. To Gabrielle Union. Thank you for taking us over that line.”
4. Lin-Manuel Miranda at the 2016 Tonys
Just hours before the 2016 Tony Awards, the Pulse nightclub shooting took the lives of 49 people, most of whom were in the LGBTQ+ community. Lin-Manuel Miranda, being honored for Hamilton, sent a powerful message to survivors via a sonnet he composed for the evening that reads in part: “When senseless acts of tragedy remind us “That nothing here is promised, not one day. “This show is proof that history remembers. “We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger. “We rise and fall and light from dying embers. “Remembrances that hope and love live longer. “And love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.”
5. Frances McDormand at the 2018 Oscars
While accepting the Best Actress Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Frances McDormandurged everyone in the room to embrace inclusive casting—and told them exactly how to do it. “Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed,” McDormand said. “Don’t talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and we’ll tell you all about them. I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: ‘inclusion rider.’”
6. Beyoncé at the 2017 Grammys
Beyoncéwon Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2017 Grammys for Lemonade, and she turned the moment into a platform for equality. After thanking her team, husband Jay-Zand daughter Blue Ivy, a then-pregnant Queen Bey told the crowd, “We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible. My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.” She continued, “It’s important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can grow up in a world where they look in the mirror, first through their own families—as well as the news, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House and the Grammys—and see themselves and have no doubt that they’re beautiful, intelligent and capable. This is something I want for every child of every race. And I feel it’s vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes.”
7. Adele at the 2017 Grammys
Remember the final line of Beyoncé’s 2017 Grammys speech about repeating mistakes? It was noticed by many that Beyoncé’s work was under-recognized by the Recording Academy, and Adelewas quick to point it out during her own acceptance speech for Album of the Year for 25. The “Hello” singer tearfully began her speech by describing the difficulties of balancing motherhood and her art, then told the crowd, “I can’t possibly accept this award and I’m very humbled and I’m very grateful and gracious, but my artist of my life is Beyoncé.” She continued, “This album for me, the Lemonade album, was just so monumental, Beyoncé…and so well thought-out, and so beautiful and soul-baring, and we all got to see another side to you that you don’t always let us see and we appreciate that. All us artists here, we f—king adore you. You are our light, and the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way that you make my black friends feel is empowering and you make them stand up for themselves, and I love you. I always have. I always will.”
8. Leonardo DiCaprio at the 2016 Oscars
It took so long for Leonardo DiCaprioto finally win an Oscar after years of nominations that the world waited with bated breath to see what he’d say when he finally got to the podium for The Revenantin 2016. DiCaprio used his moment to not just remind us that the win was long-deserved, but also that we really need to step up our game when it comes to protecting our planet. After thanking everyone he worked with on the film, DiCaprio noted, “Making The Revenant was about man’s relationship to the natural world. A world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.” He continued, “We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.”
9. Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Golden Globes
You probably remember Jennifer Lawrence for her acceptance speech at the 2013 Oscars when the poor woman tripped on her Dior gown and fell on her way to accept her Best Supporting Actress trophy for Silver Linings Playbook. But it was her acceptance speech at the 2013 Golden Globes for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical when she quoted First Wives Club that first cemented the world’s adoration: “What’s it say? ‘I beat Meryl!’”
10. Andrew Garfield at the 2018 Tonys
Andrew Garfieldwas honored for his role in Angels In America, a play about the AIDS crisis, at the 2018 Tony Awards. In his acceptance speech, Garfield called for an end to bigotry that hit the LGBTQ+ community. “At a moment in time where maybe the most important thing we remember right now is the sanctity of the human spirit, it is the profound privilege of my life to play Prior Walter in Angels In America, because he represents the purest spirit of humanity and especially that of the LGBTQ community,” Garfield said. “It is a spirit that says no to oppression; it is a spirit that says no to bigotry, no to shame, no to exclusion. It is a spirit that says we are all made perfectly and we all belong…We are all sacred and we all belong.” He concluded with a nod to the bakeries that have refused to make wedding cakes for gay couples, by saying, “so let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked.”
11. Lupita Nyong’o at the 2014 Oscars
When Lupita Nyong’owon the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2014 for Twelve Years A Slave, she thanked Patsey, the slave upon which her own character was based. “It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s and so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey and thank her for her guidance. And to Solomon, thank you for telling her story as well as your own,” she said. After thanking her family, as well as the cast and crew of the film, she added, “When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where you’re from your dreams are valid.”
12. Jodie Foster at the 2013 Golden Globes
Upon accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2013 Golden Globes, Jodie Fostersubtly acknowledged her sexuality and former partner, Cydney Bernard, publicly for the first time—while simultaneously refusing to let it define her. “I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never been able to air in public that I’m a little nervous about—but maybe not as nervous as my publicist. So I’m just going to put it out there, loud and proud, right? I’m going to need your support on this. I am, uh—I’m single.” After some laughter, she continued, “I already did my coming out a thousand years ago, in the Stone Age. Those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to friends and family and coworkers then gradually to everyone that knew her, everyone she actually met.” She acknowledged that simpler times are long gone. “But now apparently I’m told that every celebrity is to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a primetime reality show. In the future people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.”
13. Oprah Winfrey at the 2018 Golden Globes
Oprah Winfreytook home the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2018 Golden Globes—the first black woman to ever win it—and her acceptance speech was so powerful that people begged her to run for President of the United States afterward. It’s impossible to do her justice in a summary, so we’ll leave you with her closer—but do yourself a service and watch the entire thing. “In my career, what I’ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave: to say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome,” she said. “And I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning—even during our darkest nights. “So I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say, ‘Me too’ again. Thank you.” Inspired by what you’ve just watched? Learn how to deliver a killer speech of your own.
