Ellen DeGeneres's 5 Best Oscar Monologue Barbs

By Nate Jones

03/02/2014 at 09:30 PM EST

Ellen DeGeneres at the 2014 Oscars

Kevin Winter/Getty

Ellen DeGeneres is generally thought of as the anti-Ricky Gervais. She's a friendly, inoffensive choice to host an awards show, who is sure to leave everyone with warm and fuzzy feelings ... right?

Wrong.

In her opening monologue at Sunday night's Academy Awards, Ellen bared her claws, leaving no nominee unspared. The mood may have been a little sharper than Oscar producers expected, but there's no denying that Ellen gave one of the better Oscar monologues in recent memory.

Below, the host's best zingers, ranked.

5. To Liza Minnellii: "Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I've ever seen. Good job, sir!"

4. On the Oscars' resemblance to a recent box-office smash: "There are cameras everywhere, you're starving, Jennifer Lawrence won – it's The Hunger Games !"

3. After running down the lineage of Bruce Dern, whose grandfather was governor of Utah, whose great-uncle was a renowned poet, and whose godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt: "What happened?"

PHOTOS: Step & Repeat: Fun on the Red Carpet!

2. To Jennifer Lawrence, whose award-winning fall at the 2013 Oscars was the subject of an extended riff: "If you win, we should bring you the Oscar."

1. On the night's biggest race: "There are so many different possibilities. Possibility no. 1, 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Possibility no. 2: You're all racist."

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