10 Actors Who Stole Movies In A Single Scene

The prospect of stealing away a movie crammed with heavyweight performances from the likes of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, and Kevin Spacey seems absolutely ridiculous on paper, until you see the damn acting clinic that Alec Baldwin puts on in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Early in the acid-tongued drama, Baldwin enters the flailing real estate office occupied by the central characters, playing Blake, a top-ranking salesman sent to motivate the team of sad sacks.

In a mesmerising eight-minute scene, Baldwin delivers a deliciously scathing monologue which at once both eviscerates the assembled salesmen for their poor results and attempts to motivate them to succeed, by threatening their jobs if they don't.

Baldwin oozes confidence and machismo in a way that makes Blake easy to loathe, even though Baldwin's immaculate delivery and brutal put-downs of the other salesmen are undeniably darkly hilarious.

To make it even better, Blake didn't appear in David Mamet's original play, but was added into the movie's screenplay in order to clarify the story's narrative thrust.

And in turn, the writer came up with perhaps the single finest monologue of his career, with Baldwin giving a short-but-sweet performance that should've scored him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.