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We're closing in on the holiest holiday of the year, Awardsgiving, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unleashes a heap of golden hardware onto a bunch of unsuspecting stars (and Anne Hathaway). The Oscars are a gleefully ridiculous occasion when some actors give fantastic speeches (Marion Cotillard, anyone?) and some dubious ones too (Jane Fonda stealing Louise Fletcher's sign language skills for her Coming Home speech? Not a fan -- but don't hold it against me, Jane!) Fortunately, most Oscar speeches are never as annoying as the five listed below. Here they are, the five most annoying Oscar speeches in history.

5. Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver (1942)

This famously interminable speech -- a record six-minute monologue that ended after 1 a.m. -- turned Greer Garson into exactly the kind of person she pretended to rally against: an actress who valued the stature of the Oscar. Most of Garson's gigantic speech (excerpted above) was about the pettiness of actors in competition, including the salient point that "a nomination means that an actress had one of the five best roles and opportunities of the year and the actress had met the challenge." Too bad the speech's epic nature made Garson seem like an unapologetic attention hog. It invalidates her smart commentary.

4. Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love (1998)

It's OK to be emotional -- but it's kind of a crime to revel in your weepiness and burden a huge TV audience with minutes upon minutes of your lachrymose thank-yous. Gwyneth Paltrow didn't gain any fans when she methodically sobbed a long list of her most precious family members when she won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. Sure, an Oscar speech should be personal, but it should also be, um, somewhat entertaining to a viewing audience. Or at least not baffling. When you blather in vagaries about your upbringing, viewers can't understand what you're talking about, and that's unthinkable. Take the Cloris Leachman route and make your family thank-yous funny ("To Buck Leachman, who paid the bills!") next time, Gwyneth.

3. Melissa Leo for The Fighter (2010)

I will never, ever forget how excruciating this was -- and not just because 94-year-old Kirk Douglas barged in on Melissa Leo's podium time with the comic timing of, well, a 94-year-old. Melissa Leo's road to Oscar was paved with her scowl-worthy "Consider" campaign featuring a bizarre photo spread, so when she eventually won the Oscar, she had no reason to act astonished, overwhelmed, or vulgar. Leo's time-consuming weirdness was at first just uncomfortable, but when she dropped an "f-bomb" without any good reason, the speech felt like a Network-style on-air meltdown. When did this woman go from the kickass thespian of Homicide: Life on the Street to the most erratic Amy Sedaris character ever?

2. Halle Berry for Monster's Ball (2001)

I understand getting caught up in the emotion of winning an Oscar, the trophy that has essentially surpassed the Purple Heart and the Nobel Prize in terms of perceived valor. But I don't understand giving the Academy credit for being progressive when they just aren't. Halle Berry's ridiculously overwrought speech for Monster's Ball began with a medley of sobs, wails, and whimpers that I'd compare to Neve Campbell's more terrified scenes in Scream, then moved into a bizarre moment of self-idolization in which Berry announced that "every faceless, nameless woman of color" would have a chance at Best Actress now that she's opened the door. True, Halle Berry's win was the first black Best Actress win, but isn't it weird to assume that because you won an Oscar that suddenly the Academy will always reward black actresses? Or that they should be criticized less for their ridiculous, historical marginalization of black stories on the big screen? This speech could've been insightful, but it was just misguided blubbering that felt ended up feeling like an astounding sequence of crocodile tears.

1. George Clooney for Syriana (2005)

Trey Parker and Matt Stone said it first, but come on: What kind of sick hooray-for-Hollywood tripe was this? When George Clooney basically called Hollywood a heroic gang of moralists for awarding Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939, he drew an annoying, uninformed conclusion about a very real (and still pervasive) racism in the film world. Yes, Hattie McDaniel was black and awarded an Oscar -- but she was also seated by herself like a leper at the ceremony! Furthermore, she wasn't even allowed to write her own speech. It's fine to be proud of being actor, but it's weird to tout the fine ethics of the entertainment industry because you won an Oscar. This speech rubs me the wrong way every single time I revisit it.

What are your least favorite speeches?