Most Iconic Got Talent Audition

The audition is a format built entirely around one moment: the second the room changes its mind about somebody. Everything in the production exists to set that up. The pre-interview establishes low expectations, the judges are shown looking bored, and the first eight bars do the reversal. When it is manufactured it is unbearable and when it is real it is genuinely one of the most effective things television does. What makes the best of these last is that the reversal happened to a person rather than a contestant — an office worker who walked on after his sister was rejected, two schoolboys rapping about being bullied.

Counting them up gives seventy-one auditions, all from the official Britain's Got Talent and America's Got Talent channels rather than reuploads.

That sourcing rule matters more here than in most brackets on this site. Talent show clips are among the most heavily reuploaded video on the internet, and using only official uploads means the entries stay available rather than disappearing on a copyright claim six months from now.