What Words Are Used Most Frequently in Oscar Acceptance Speeches?

Josh Duboff

Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Irons
Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Irons

The frontrunners in this year's acting races-Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto, and Lupita Nyong'o-have each given consistently entertaining and eloquent speeches this season. (Blanchett's joke about McConaughey's Neptune reference during the SAGs perhaps being the high point.) As we wait to see what speeches are in store for us Sunday night, we thought it would be a good time to take a look back at acceptance speeches of yore.

We collected transcripts of all the acceptance speeches given by winners in the best-actor and best-actress categories, and created word clouds, which-indicated by the relative size of the words-represent how frequently they were uttered by the pool of winners. Small words ("and," "the," etc.) were discarded; we also discounted acceptance speeches that were given by someone else on behalf of the victor. Once we had produced word clouds representing all the speeches for the two categories, we decided to additionally make ones with just the speeches from the best-actor and actress categories the past 10 years.


SEE MORE: The Weirdest Oscar Couples You Forgot About


O.K.-enough of all this rules and regulations talk-let's get to the word clouds!

We begin with this cloud that represents all the best-actor acceptance speeches. Clearly, "thank" is giant, like LeBron James in a room full of Hayden Panettieres. (Unsurprisingly, this outcome will be consistent throughout our journey of clouds.) Other words used with great frequency: "love" (aww), "Academy," "great," "film," "much," and "people." All of these seem to make sense, right? When we journey one level deeper and start getting into the muck, though, things get a little more surprising: "God" comes up more than "wife" or "father"; "wonderful" trumps "beautiful"; and "honor," somewhat curiously, does not rank particularly highly.


SEE MORE: Kate Middleton at the Oscars, What The Duchess Would Wear


Now let's turn to the women! Here we have a word cloud populated with the words that come up most frequently in the acceptance speeches for best-actress winners across all years. Like their male counterparts, women use "much" and "like" and "want" with the most frequency. Interestingly, "really" shows up in a major way, which is a word that didn't register prominently on the best actor list. "God" doesn't come up as often as "friends." And, in the reverse of the finding with the actor winners, "husband" (or "children" for that matter) is not a very popular word- "crew" has been uttered more than either. One word that comes up here that did not make an appearance on the actor side: "heart."

SEE MORE: What Words Are Used Most Frequently in Oscar

Now let's use that microscope and take a look at the cloud for the best-actress winners over the past 10 years. It gets pretty wild, be forewarned. For one thing, "much" is huge! Still not close to the behemoth "thank," but it would appear best-actress victors over the past 10 years are slightly more emphatic. Other words that come up with an increased frequency: "incredible," "feel" "love," "family," and "people." It's also fun to spot the proper names: "Meryl," unsurprisingly, as well as "Clint" (Eastwood), and "Stephen." And "C.A.A." makes an appearance, as well-about the same size as "Dad."

See more from Vanity Fair:
What 10 of This Year's Nominees Wore to Their First Oscars
The All-Time Greatest Movies About Love
Oscar Babies: See Adorable Sisters Recreate Stills from This Year's Best-Picture Nominees