10 Greatest War Movie Speeches Of All Time, Ranked

Throughout cinema history, war movies have delivered some of the most crowd-pleasing and rousing moments in any film genre. These are movies that are about two sides at war with each other, and while many of the releases are horrific tragedies showing that war is hell, others are stories about soldiers overcoming all odds to come to victory in the end. It is these releases that offer up some of the best movie speeches of all time.

In the war movies that offer up stories of underdogs coming out on top or heroes defeating villains on the battlefield, the right words, delivered at the right moment, can win the battle before a single shot is fired. Often, these speeches are so famous that the war movie quotes remain ingrained in pop culture years after the movie's release. Whether it's “we band of brothers,” “earn this,” “This is Sparta,” “tonight we dine in hell,” or “they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom,” the quotes remain iconic.

Of course, it's not always just the words, but also the delivery or the imagery during the speeches that help many stand out above others. The improvised drill-instructor tirade by R. Lee Ermey and the five-minute flag monologue stand out in history thanks to the performances, even more so than the scripted stories.

Kingdom Of Heaven (2005)

Directed by Ridley Scott, Kingdom of Heaven stars Orlando Bloom as Balian of Ibelin, a blacksmith who becomes the defender of Jerusalem against Saladin’s army. Balian delivers his war movie speech inside the city as the defenders prepare for the siege, having just knighted the common men-at-arms, which enrages the religious authorities. His speech isn't just a call to arms, but a slam against the fact they have to fight in this war at all.

He announces that no one fighting this battle took the city from Muslims, and none of the Muslims in Saladin's army were born when the city was lost. His argument is that they are fighting a war that has nothing to do with them. While this is about the Crusades, he points out that they need to fight to protect each other and the people in the city, and not to protect something no one should have claim to. This war speech defines the battle in human terms, not religious ones.

We Were Soldiers (2002)

Written and directed by Randall Wallace, We Were Soldiers stars Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, and the movie is based on the memoir We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young by Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway. The war speech in this movie is delivered by Moore as he speaks to the 7th Cavalry before shipping out to Vietnam, ahead of the Battle of Ia Drang. This was the first major U.S.-North Vietnamese engagement.

Moore frames the unit’s diversity as its strength, saying they have soldiers from Ukraine, Puerto Rico, Japan, and China, with Black soldiers, Hispanics, Native Americans, Jews, and Gentiles. He then says that they are all Americans. He finishes the speech by promising he will be the first person to step on the battlefield and the last off, and he will leave no man behind, swearing they will all come home together. This send-off helps cement this as one of the most emotional Vietnam War movies.

300 (2006)

300 is a fictional war movie that is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. Directed by Zack Snyder and shot almost exclusively in front of a green screen, 300 stars Gerard Butler as King Leonidas as he leads 300 Spartans against Xerxes’ massive Persian army, and he uses this speech to convince them to fight, even when hopelessly outnumbered.

The most famous line in this entire war speech comes when Leonidas says, "Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty ... For tonight, we dine in hell." Later in the movie, he adds the line, "This is Sparta," proving this is a story as much about big speeches as it is about his Spartans battling various threats as they start to best their enemies.

Henry V (1989)

Released in 1989, Henry V stars Kenneth Branagh as King Henry V in a movie he also wrote and directed. Based on the William Shakespeare play of the same name, the speech that King Henry V delivers is pulled straight from the Bard's own writing. This war speech is Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day address from Act IV, Scene III, delivered on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt to vastly outnumbered English troops.

King Henry V urges his men to imagine the glory and immortality victory will bring, turning their small numbers into a badge of honor. This is the speech that includes one of the most popular lines in war movie history when he says, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," the origin of the phrase "band of brothers." Branagh’s delivery is regularly cited as a landmark screen rendition of one of the greatest battle cries ever written.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Not all war movie speeches are calls to arms at the start of a battle. In the case of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, there is a speech delivered by Aldo Raine, and it isn't about going off to battle. It is about the glory of killing a Nazi. Brad Pitt stars as Raine, an Allied fighter during this alternate-history World War II film, and he delivers the speech to his men, who are Jewish American soldiers known as the Basterds.

These men are not soldiers going into an honorable battle. They are soldiers who are haunting the woods in Nazi-occupied France, looking for Nazis that they will kill and scalp. In this iconic speech, Raine says they are there to do only one thing, and that is to kill Nazis. He finishes his speech by saying each of his men owes him 100 Nazi scalps.

Another war movie speech that has nothing to do with going into battle, or even being an honorable soldier, comes in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. R. Lee Ermey, a former real-life U.S. Marine drill instructor, plays Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, a role he was given while he was on set working as a technical advisor. He was then allowed to improvise his lines, and up to 50% of his speech was not in the script.

The tirades run through the Parris Island boot camp half of the movie, as Hartman verbally brutalizes recruits to break them down and rebuild them as Marines. Ermey's authenticity as a genuine former drill instructor is repeatedly credited as what made the performance land, and it makes Hartman one of the most hated characters in any war movie.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Saving Private Ryan is widely considered one of the best war movies ever made, and it is one of Steven Spielberg's masterpieces.The movie follows a squad of soldiers sent to Omaha Beach on D-Day, where they are then ordered to find a soldier named Private James Ryan and return him home after his three brothers died in action. The war speech here isn't one leading into battle, but one after a perilous fight.

Ryan (Matt Damon) doesn't want to return home, but when Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) is mortally wounded during the mission to extract him, Miller delivers the speech as he dies in Ryan's arms. Miller tells Ryan to "earn this," meaning that he and his men died to save Ryan, and now Ryan has to live a life worthy of that sacrifice. The speech is powerful as it represents the thousands who died in Normandy.

Glory (1989)

Directed by Edward Zwick, Glory is a movie that follows the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the Union Army’s first African American regiments, from formation to the assault on Fort Wagner. The speech in this movie takes place around the campfire the night before the assault as the men all gather together to speak, pray, and sing songs. The speech here includes lines by several men before they head into battle.

In this Civil War movie, Jupiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy) delivers a prayer where he says, "Let me fight with the rifle in one hand, and the Good Book in the other." This is when an unidentified soldier adds that he has no family left other than the men in this regiment. This scene goes a long way in humanizing these soldiers as they deliver the reason they are fighting a battle that is a near-suicidal mission.

Patton (1970)

Patton is a war movie that has an opening that makes anything else that follows hard to match. George C. Scott plays General George S. Patton, and the entire opening has him standing in front of a giant American flag and delivering a roughly five-minute monologue to the audience. This speech is a toned-down version of the real speech that Patton gave the Third Army in World War II.

The speech opens with the iconic line, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country." There are several things Patton said that the movie leaves out, and there is still enough left over for five minutes of monologue. Scott's performance is so great that he won the Oscar for Best Actor, but he declined the award.

Braveheart (1995)

One of the most famous war speeches of all time is also one of the most parodied, which speaks volumes for its quality. Directed by and starring Mel Gibson, Braveheart tells the story of William Wallace, the 13th-century leader of the Scottish rebellion. The speech is delivered to Wallace’s outnumbered troops just before their battle, rallying men who are about to battle a much larger English army.

The best line in the speech is also the most famous, delivered when Wallace yells, "They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom." What is most impressive is that the battle is real, but the speech is entirely invented for the film. The actual Battle of Stirling Bridge (Sept. 11, 1297) saw Wallace’s outnumbered forces defeat the English. Braveheart won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Gibson.