2021 Oscar winners: Acceptance speech moments you don't want to miss

By Jessica Wedemeyer 5:34am PDT, Apr 27, 2021

Wonderwall.com is taking a look back at the best moments from acceptance speeches during the 2021 Academy Awards, starting with this amazingly awkward moment… Daniel Kaluuya went delightfully off track as he accepted the Oscar for best supporting actor for his work in "Judas and the Black Messiah." He started off innocently enough by sweetly thanking his mother: "I'd like to thank my mom. Thank you so much for pouring into me. You gave me everything. You gave me your factory settings so I can stand at my fullest height," he said. Then things took a turn. "There's so much work to do, guys — and that's on everyone in this room. This ain't no single-man job. I look at every single one of you: We've got work to do," he continued. "I'm gonna get back to work Tuesday morning because tonight, I'm going up. We're going up! We're enjoying ourselves tonight because we've got to celebrate. We've got to celebrate life, man. We're breathing! We're walking! It's incredible. It's incredible! My mom met my dad; they had sex — it's amazing! I'm here! I'm so happy to be alive, so I want to celebrate that tonight." As he went on, the cameras cut to the audience, where Daniel's mom could be seen looking stunned as his sister buried her head in her hands while laughing hysterically. Hilarious!

Now keep reading for more of the best moments from acceptance speeches during the 2021 Oscars…

"I have no words. My voice is in my sword. We know the sword is our work. And I like work. Thank you for knowing that and thanks for this." –Frances McDormand, Best Actress for "Nomadland"

"Wow, Mr. Brad Pitt, finally! Nice to meet you! Where were you when we were filming in person? I'm very honored to meet you. … I cannot believe I'm here. Let me pull myself together. … I don't believe in competition. How can I win over Glenn Close? I've watched her in so many performances. All the nominees, the five nominees, we are the winners for different movies. We played different roles. So we cannot compete with each other. Tonight, I'm here. It's just I have a little bit of luck, I think — maybe I'm luckier than you. Also maybe it's American hospitality for the Korean actor. I'm not sure. But anyways, thank you so much. And I'd like to thank my two boys who made me go out and work. This is the result because Mommy worked so hard." –Youn Yuh-jung (with presenter Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actress for "Minari"

"They said, 'Write a speech,' but I didn't because I just didn't think this would ever happen. … The only speech I ever wrote was when I was 10, and I had a look to see if there'd be anything useful from it. But unfortunately, [I] mostly thanked Zack Morris from 'Saved by the Bell,' who was my very supportive husband. Unfortunately, he hasn't been as much a part of my life as I'd hoped, and so that speech is not that useful." –Emerald Fennell, Best Original Screenplay for "Promising Young Woman"

"This is beyond anything I could ever imagine — except this is something I've always imagined. Since I was five or something, I've been preparing speeches in train stations, at school, in the toilet — and here I am. It's real. It's amazing. Wow. … We wanted to make a film that celebrates life, and four days into shooting, the impossible happened: an accident on a highway took my daughter away — someone looking [at their] cellphone. We miss her, and I love her. Two months before we shot this movie and two months before she died, she was in Africa and she sent me a letter — she'd just read the script and she was glowing with excitement. She loved this and she felt seen by this — and she was supposed to be in this. If anyone dares to believe that she's here with us somehow, you'll be able to see her clapping and cheering with us. We ended up making this movie for her as her monument. So, Ida, this is a miracle that just happened, and you're a part of this miracle. Maybe you've been pulling some strings somewhere. I don't know. But this one is for you." –Thomas Vinterberg, Best International Feature Film for "Another Round"

"All the people we met on the road, thank you for teaching us the power of resilience and hope and for reminding us what true kindness looks like." –Chloé Zhao, Best Picture for "Nomadland"

"Please watch our movie on the largest screen possible, and one day very, very soon, take everyone you know into a theater — shoulder-to-shoulder in that dark space — and watch every film that's represented here tonight. We give this one to our wolf. [Howls.]" –Frances McDormand, Best Picture for "Nomadland"

"I've been thinking a lot lately of how I keep going when things get hard, and I think it goes back to something I learned when I was a kid. When I was growing up in China, my dad and I used to play this game: We would memorize classic Chinese poems and texts and we would recite it together and try to finish each other's sentences. There's one that I remember so dearly: It's called 'The Three Character Classic' and the first phrase goes, 'People at birth are inherently good.' Those six [words] had such a great impact on me when I was a kid. I still truly believe them today — even though sometimes it might seem like the opposite is true. But I have always found goodness in the people I met everywhere I went in the world. So this is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves and to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that. This is for you — you inspire me to keep going." –Chloé Zhao, Best Director for "Nomadland"

"Thank you to the Academy — I've always wanted to say that! … I have to thank God for giving us these gifts and my parents — my beautiful mother who's here with me today and my father at home. All those days of listening to Sly and the Family Stone and Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, they really paid off. So thank you, Dad! … Musicians, filmmakers, I believe we have an opportunity and a responsibility to tell the truth and to write history the way that it was and how it connects us to today and what we see going on in the world today. … Knowledge is power, music is power, and as long as I'm standing, I'm always going to fight for us. I'm always going to fight for my people and fight for what's right. I think that's what music does, and that's what storytelling does." –H.E.R (center, with Tiara Thomas and D'Mile), Best Original Song for "Fight for You" from "Judas and the Black Messiah"

"God gave us 12 notes. It's the same 12 notes Duke Ellington had, Bach had. It's the same 12. Nina Simone. … I'm just thankful to God for those 12 notes, man. That's so dope." –Jon Batiste (left, with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), Best Original Score for "Soul"

"I was raised by my grandfather, James Holland. He was an original Tuskegee Airman. He represented the U.S. in the first Pan Am Games. He went to Argentina. He met Evita. He graduated from Northwestern University at a time when they did not allow Blacks to stay on campus, so he stayed at the YMCA. After all of his accomplishments, he went back to his hometown in hopes of becoming a teacher, but they did not hire Blacks in the school system. So I want to say thank you to our ancestors who put the work in and were denied but never gave up. I also stand here as Jamika [Wilson] and I break this glass ceiling with so much excitement for the future because I can picture Black trans women standing up here and Asian sisters and our Latina sisters and indigenous women. I know that one day it won't be unusual or groundbreaking, it will just be normal." –Mia Neal (left, with Jamika Wilson and Sergio Lopez-Rivera), Best Makeup and Hairstyling for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

"Today the police will kill three people. And tomorrow the police will kill three people. And the day after that, the police will kill three people because on average, the police in America every day kill three people, which amounts to about a thousand people a year — and those people happen [to be] disproportionately Black people. James Baldwin once said, 'The most despicable thing a person can be is indifferent to other people's pain,' and so I just ask that you please not be indifferent. Please don't be indifferent to our pain." –Travon Free (right, with Martin Desmond Roe), Best Live Action Short Film for "Two Distant Strangers"

"We dedicate this film to all those who've lost loved ones to gun violence. We deserve better than to live in a country where more than 100 people die by gun violence every single day. We deserve better. We must do better. We will do better." –Will McCormack (right, with Michael Govier), Best Animated Short Film for "If Anything Happens I Love You"

"When I set out to help someone, it is my intention to do just that. I'm not trying to do anything other than meet somebody at their humanity. … About 17 years ago, I rented this building and we were using it for production. I was walking to my car one day and I see this woman coming up out of the corner of my eye. I say, 'She's homeless. Let me give her some money.' Judgment. I wish I had time to talk about judgment. Anyways, I reach in my pocket and I'm about to give her the money and she says, 'Excuse me, sir, do you have any shoes?' It stopped me cold. I remember being homeless and having one pair of shoes — they were bent over at the heel. So I took her into the studio. She was hesitant to go in, but we go to wardrobe and there are all these boxes and everything around the walls — fabrics and racks of clothes. We ended up having to stand in the middle of the floor. So as we're standing there, we find some shoes, we help her put them on. I stand up, I'm waiting for her to look up. All this time, she's looking down. She finally looks up, and she's got tears in her eyes. She said, 'Thank you, Jesus, my feet are off the ground.' In that moment, I just recall her saying to me, 'I thought you would hate me for asking.' I'm like, 'How can I hate you when I used to be you?' How can I hate you when I had a mother who grew up in the Jim Crow South in rural Louisiana — right across the border from Mississippi — who at 9 or 10 years old was grieving the death of Emmett Till? As she got a little bit older, she was grieving the death of the civil rights boys and the little girls who were in the bombing in Alabama. She grieved all these years. And I remember being a little boy and coming home and she was at home … but [she was] supposed to be at work. She was in tears that day. She said there was a bomb threat and she couldn't believe that someone wanted to blow up this place where she worked, where she took care of all these toddlers. It was the Jewish community center. My mother taught me to refuse hate. She taught me to refuse blanket judgment. And in this time with all the Internet and social media and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way — the 24-hour news cycle — it is my hope that all of us would teach our kids to refuse hate. Don't hate anybody. … I want to take this Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and dedicate it to anyone who wants to stand in the middle. No matter what's around the wall, stand in the middle because that's where healing happens, that's where conversation happens, that's where change happens. It happens in the middle. So anyone who wants to meet me in the middle to refuse hate, to refuse blanket judgement and to help lift someone's feet off the ground, this one is for you too." –Tyler Perry, Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

"I wrote the script for [Anthony Hopkins]. To me, he's the greatest — the greatest living actor. Just the idea to work with him was like a dream, and I knew that it was not an easy dream to fulfill because I'm French — as you can hear — [and] it was my first feature film and he's Anthony Hopkins. But I thought until someone comes and proves that it was not possible, it means that potentially it is [possible]. Sometimes we are the ones who close the door of what is possible and what is not possible. For 'The Father,' I really wanted not to close that door and to follow my inspiration, my desire and my dream. So thank you, Anthony, for having said yes to that script, and thank you for having given everything in that film — your energy, your grace and your talent. Sharing that journey with you was the most amazing experience of my life." –Florian Zeller (shared with Christopher Hampton), Best Adapted Screenplay for "The Father"

"Our main character, Joe, is a music teacher. We want to thank music teachers and art teachers everywhere, including my parents Dave and Rita and Dana's parents Pam and Tom — you make the world a better place. My wish for all of us tonight is that we could follow the example of jazz musicians: that wherever we are and whatever we have, we turn it into something beautiful." –Pete Docter (right, with Dana Murray), Best Animated Feature Film for "Soul"

"Today is Colette's birthday. She was born just 22 days before the very first Oscars in 1929. … When we got nominated, she reminded us that the power of documentary filmmaking ensured that her brother Jean-Pierre was — as she put it — no longer lost in the night and fog of the Nazi concentration camp system. I want to say that I think it's that same power of documentary storytelling that is going to ensure that the memory, courage and resilience of Latasha Harlins, Horace Bowers, the innocent children of Yemen and the protestors in Hong Kong are not forgotten. That's why we do this. That's why we make these films. So thank you. We're grateful that these stories and these individuals have been honored tonight." –Anthony Giacchino, Best Documentary Short Subject for "Colette"

"This award is a tribute and this film is a tribute to women everywhere in the world of any age who are joining hands and fighting for justice. Vive Colette and vive la France." –Alice Doyard, Best Documentary Short Subject for "Colette"

"In many ways, this really is a tiny, personal story that played out in a sea forest at the very tip of Africa, but on a more universal level, I hope that it provided a glimpse of a different kind of relationship between human beings and the natural world." –Pippa Ehrlich, Best Documentary Feature for "My Octopus Teacher"

"If a man can form a friendship with an octopus, it does sort of make you wonder what else is possible." –James Reed, Best Documentary Feature for "My Octopus Teacher"

"I'd like to thank my family: my wife and my amazing crew and my father, who won this same award." –Scott R. Fisher (shared with Andrew Jackson, David Lee and Andrew Lockley), Best Visual Effects for "Tenet"

"One above all, [director] Darius Marder, thank you for your incredible vision. Thank you for inviting me on this life-changing journey. It's been like following a rainbow for me, and today I feel like we found the gold." –Mikkel E.G. Nielsen, Best Film Editing for "Sound of Metal"