Top 6 Oscar acceptance speeches: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Jonathan Glazer …

Charles Bright
·6 min read
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The 96th Academy Awards are officially in the history books. The ceremony provided great honors, amazing performances and, as usual, some incredible acceptance speeches. The 2024 winners were full of gratitude, humor, occasional humility and deep emotion. Here’s a look at the six best speeches at this year’s Oscars. Which one was your favorite? Did we not include it in this recap? Sound off in the comments section below.

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Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

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Randolph started the night’s speeches on a high note by talking about how when she started as a singer her mother told her to look for an opportunity in the theater department. She then thanked Ron Van Lieu who “told me I was enough. And when I told you I don’t see myself, you said, ‘That’s fine. We’re going to forge our own path. You’re going to lay a trail for yourself.’” She also shouted out her publicist even though “y’all said don’t say nothing about no publicist” and thanked the academy for seeing her.

Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey, Jr., “Oppenheimer”

Downey has been giving slam dunk acceptance speeches all season and he started off this one with one of his best lines. “I would like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order.” After thanking his wife for rescuing him, he admitted that “I needed this job more than it needed me,” before thanking his “Oppenheimer” crew. He went on to thank his own publicist as well as agent, den mother and even his stylist before closing with, “My entertainment lawyer, Tom Hansen, of 40 years, half of which he spent trying to get me insured and bailing me out of the hoosegow. Thanks, bro.”

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Best Adapted Screenplay: Cord Jefferson, “American Fiction”

Jefferson pleaded for those in charge to acknowledge that “there are so many people out there who want the opportunity that I was given.” He then declared, “I understand that this is a risk-averse industry. I get it. But $200 million movies are also a risk, you know. And it doesn’t always work out, but you take the risk anyway. Instead of making one $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies or 50 $4 million movies. I want other people to experience that joy. They are out there, I promise you. The next Martin Scorsese is out there. The next Greta is out there, both Gretas. The next Christopher Nolan is out there. I promise you. They just want a shot, and we can give them one, and this has changed my life.” He closed by thanking those who worked on the movie for “trusting a 40-year-old Black guy who has never directed anything before.”

Best International Feature: Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest” (United Kingdom)

After thanking some who had helped in getting the movie made, Glazer, who was joined on stage with his producer, Jim Wilson, pivoted to talking about how the choices made in the movie were to “reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now.” He then said, “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist? Alexandria, the girl who glows in the film as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance.” I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Glazer.

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Best Documentary Short Subject: Kris Bowers, “The Last Repair Shop”

Speaking alongside his fellow winner, Ben Proudfoot, Bowers said the short is about school heroes who often go “unsung, unthanked and unseen” and told the crowd they were sung, thanked and seen. He then talked about how both he and his hero, composer John Williams, were products of L.A. public schools and introduced Portia Grieger, a 12-year-old learning violin in Los Angeles public schools. He noted that “L.A. is one of the last cities in America to give public school students free and freely repaired instruments. We need to fix that because music education isn’t just about creating incredible musicians. It’s about creating incredible humans.”

Best Documentary Feature: Mstyslav Chernov, “20 Days in Mariupol”

In what may have been the most powerful speech of the night, the photographer and filmmaker celebrated that this was the first ever Oscar for Ukranian cinema but admitted that it’s something he’d rather not have had to achieve. “I will be the first director on this stage who will say I wish I never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities. I wish to give all the recognition to Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians. I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their lands, all the civilians who are now in their jails.” After saying that he couldn’t change the past, he pleaded, “But we all together among you, some of the most talented people in the world, we can make sure that the history record is set straight, and that the truth will prevail and that the people of Mariupol and those who have given their lives will never be forgotten, because cinema forms memories, and memories form history.”

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