Oscar speeches have always been a significant aspect of the ceremony and have often been very influential . NineMSN explains , " If you 're an Academy Award-winning celeb , you can either give a boring run-of-the-mill acceptance speech , a touching acceptance speech , or a crazy over-the-top acceptance speech " . '' The New Yorker '' said : Common pitfalls include self-aggrandizement ( King of the World James Cameron ) , excessive weepiness ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) , and sheer who-invited-this-person weirdness ( Melissa Leo ) . Some are passive-aggressive ( Shirley MacLaine , who thanked Debra Winger for her " turbulent brilliance " ) . Some are strident ( Vanessa Redgrave , who chided " Zionist hoodlums " ) . Some are unsettling ( Angelina Jolie , who declared herself " so in love with my brother right now " ) . At their best , they offer a jolt of liberating mania ( Roberto Benigni ) , or a banquet of finely calibrated self-deprecation , gratitude , and poise ( Meryl Streep ) . '' The New Yorker '' graded the speeches in the 2013 Academy Awards , a common practice among news outlets . Christoph Waltz 's " short and classy speech ... without condescension " was graded an " A minus " while Quentin Tarantino 's " rubber-faced self-mythologizing " was graded a " C " . < ! -- WP : NFCC violation : At the 2013 Oscars , Jennifer Lawrence fell when approaching the stage to accept the award for best actress . She attempted to make up for her fall in her speech by saying , " You guys are all just standing because I fell and that 's really embarrassing " . By the next day pictures of her fall had gone viral in the Internet . Her fall was mentioned by host Ellen DeGeneres in her opening monologue at the 2014 Oscars
2013 Academy Awards
85th Academy Awards
Oscar speech