Tiffany Haddish Delivered the Greatest Awards Speech You’ll Ever See Last Night

At Wednesday night’s New York Film Critics Circle awards ceremony, we got speeches from the likes of Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, and Timotheé Chalamet. If all goes well over the next two months, this won’t be the last time we hear from them this awards season, given the fact that Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name are two of the best films of the year. But all other NYFCC speeches paled in comparison to the 18-minute personality bomb that was Tiffany Haddish accepting her award for Best Supporting Actress.

Starting with an appreciative nod to the calligraphy on her award certificate, Haddish wound her way through a speech that was grateful, quirky, and genuinely wise, but at all times was also wildly funny. She did two and a half minutes alone on the giant, decorative Hindu statue that stood at the back of the stage at New York’s TAO restaurant. She gave a special nod to film critics, noting, “The only critics I ever knew before this were Siskel & Ebert, and when they passed I was like, ‘Oh well.’ Who’s the new movie critic TV show, is there one? That part, get it together, y’all.”

Haddish was presented her award by her Girls Trip director Malcolm D. Lee, who called out her “black girl magic,” and there’s no better way to describe what was happening during her speech, where she held an audience full of Gotham’s finest film critics in the palm of her hand. In the best, most rousing moment, Haddish gave a shout to the actresses her win has inspired: “To be able to be this example to so many youth… There’s so many people like me that you guys have no clue about. But they coming. Cause I kicked the fucking door open.”

Watch the whole speech in this video, uploaded by NYFCC member and Buzzfeed critic Alison Willmore:

Haddish’s 18-minute festival of joy is worth it on its own terms, and if this is the only speech we get to hear her give this awards season, it’ll have been worth it. But man oh man is this another fabulous reminder that things would be so much better if Tiffany Haddish gets an Oscar nomination on January 26th. It’s not too late to make it happen, Oscar voters. I wrote this plea at the beginning of awards season, before the NYFCC voted on their winners, and they came through and did their part. Unfortunately, the Golden Globe and SAG voters dropped the ball when it came to their nominations, and now look: we have a Golden Globes on Sunday to look forward to with no hope of a Tiffany Haddish acceptance speech. It’s a  tragedy.

Don’t let this happen to you, Oscars! Every Oscar voter needs to watch the above video. Twice if necessary. This kind of infectious, joyful, massively entertaining performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination on its own. The least you can do is recognize her black girl magic from Girls Trip.

Where to stream Girls Trip