The 10 best moments of silence in cinema history
A spectacular combination of sound and vision, cinema is one of the most immersive forms of art and entertainment there is, with such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese knowing the perfect songs for the perfect moment of movie magic. Yet, on the other side of the coin, silence is equally important, used to emphasise the dramatic or emotional weight of any given scene.
Indeed, in the age of contemporary cinema, incessant social media and modern reality TV shows like Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, silence doesn’t always get the recognition it so severely deserves. The finest filmmakers find a way to use silence just as well as moments of musical grandeur, with the total lack of music and sound effects having the ability to convey some truly powerful messages.
So, for our list of the ten best moments of silence in cinema history, we’ve delved into each and every corner of the movie world to find the very best scenes where directors and sound designers combine to bring us blissful quiet. It should be noted, however, that whilst most of these moments include complete silence, some include ambient noises, which we’ll reluctantly approve for this list.
Take a look at our full list, which includes magic moments from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, below.
The top 10 instances of silence in movies.:
10. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002)
George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel trilogy is the source of regular ridicule on the internet, and for good reason too. Yet, it’s very easy to simply disregard each and everything it did, with moments of greatness coming from even the worst film of the trio, 2002’s Attack of the Clones. Following Anakin Skywalker on his ascendancy to evil, Lucas’ film features the character as a teenager, working with his Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi to uncover a sinister plot.
The moment of silence comes from an unlikely source, appearing when Obi-Wan is evading Jango Fett through the cosmos when suddenly the bounty hunter drops a massive seismic charge. Capturing the goofy nature of the space opera as well as the severity of the Jedi master’s situation, the silent explosion of the bomb is admittedly very cool.
9. A Ghost Story (David Lowery, 2017)
In the vast landscape that is modern cinema, American filmmaker David Lowery is too often forgotten in the blinding smog of Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, Ari Aster and Robert Eggers. One of his finest films was the niche 2017 drama A Ghost Story, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, which told the story of a house that’s haunted over generations by the spirit of a middle-aged man.
The man in question is Affleck’s C, who leaves his wife as a widow following his untimely death. Unable to process her grief, Mara’s M is hypnotised by emptiness, sitting on the floor of her kitchen where she consumes a whole cake. All this time, Lowery holds the camera on her in total silence. It’s truly powerful stuff.
8. No Country for Old Men (Coen brothers, 2007)
As undisputed masters of cinema, the Coen brothers have countless classic movies and scenes that have gone on to educate filmmakers working in the industry themselves. Their 2007 ‘Best Picture’ winner No Country for Old Men may be their greatest movie, telling the story of a drug deal gone wrong and a hunter who becomes entangled within a criminal plot, starring the likes of Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem.
Silence is utilised brilliantly throughout the film, but we’ve opted for the moment when Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss gets into an intense shootout with Bardem’s Anton Chigurh. Tailing each other like two quiet predators, the Coen’s keep the entire shootout in relative silence, building intensity whilst transporting you to the eerily realistic situation.
7. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019)
There are plenty of modern movies that place audio, or the lack thereof, at the very forefront. Just take John Krasinski’s Quiet Place, Fede Álvarez’s Don’t Breathe or Mike Flanagan’s Hush, but for our money, the best of the bunch is Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal. Robbed of awards praise at the Oscars, Marder’s film stars Riz Ahmed as a rock drummer whose sudden loss of hearing leads him to an existential crisis.
Trying to decide whether to embrace the silence of his newfound life or seek a return to his former life, he eventually decides on the former, with the final shot of the movie showing the protagonist sitting on a park bench in total solitude. After such an intense character-led movie, this moment lands perfectly and transports the viewer to the protagonist’s state of mind.
6. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
One of the most deafening noises ever heard in human history was the explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima in 1945. The moment is a tragic and historically pivotal one, changing the course of the 20th century, so naturally, it has also become a key talking point in pop culture. Mori Masaki’s Barefoot Gen contains an excellent use of silence to convey the horror and magnitude of the world event, but we’ve opted for Katsuhiro Otomo’s anime classic, Akira.
Set in Neo-Tokyo, decades after a fictional nuclear attack in 1988, Akira follows a biker gang member who is transformed into a monstrous psychic being. The silent moment in question comes at the start of the movie, however, when the bomb is dropped, and the effect of the destruction is immediately realised. It’s the perfect way to open Otomo’s epic.
5. Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997)
Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 extraterrestrial flick Contact, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, is far from perfect, telling the somewhat goofy story of a scientist who finds conclusive radio proof of alien life transmitting plans for a curious machine. Still, credit where credit is due, the sci-fi flick begins with an unforgettable moment of silence that instantly gives the viewer an idea of the scale of the universe.
Opening with a shot of the earth, we hear the hundreds of radio signals being sent from our home planet, but as we move further and further away into the outer solar system, these signals are lost, and soon we’re left alone floating in a silent, empty space.
4. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
A keen musician, each of Damien Chazelle’s movies so far contains some sort of link to his early passions of jazz. Such is certainly apparent in his breakthrough 2014 film Whiplash, the ‘Best Picture’ nominee that told the story of a promising young drummer who enrols in a cut-throat music school where he discovers what it truly takes to be the best and is forced to face up to the reality of an obsessive culture.
Miles Teller’s Andrew clashes violently with his teacher Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), but by the end of the film, it’s clear the latter was simply giving his student some (very) tough love. Performing a spontaneous drum solo in the film’s spectacular final sequence, Andrew stops for a moment, with Chazelle plunging the movie into silence to focus on each of the main character’s expressions before we cut to black with an epic crescendo.
3. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
There’s no doubt that Martin Scorsese is one of the very best filmmakers to grace modern cinema, with the director having a particular knack for when and when not to use music. This is evident throughout his filmography, with moments of silence being used particularly well in 1990’s Goodfellas, but no moment is as powerful as the dramatic moment of dizzying stillness that occurs in 1980’s Raging Bull.
In the film, Robert De Niro plays Jake La Motta, a violent and tempestuous boxer who mastered his sport whilst destroying his private life. The extent of his dangerous obsession can be seen at the moment when he allows Sugar Ray Robinson to punch him in a wild frenzy mid-fight, with Scorsese bringing total silence to the moment in order to emphasise the force of each swing.
2. Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998)
Steven Spielberg has created countless iconic scenes, from the bike chase in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to the boulder chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark, yet none of these can better the artistry of the D-Day landing moment from 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. Accurately recreating the horrors of the conflict, Spielberg used hundreds of extras and painstaking cinematic effects to do the event justice.
As Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller embarks on Omaha Beach as part of the Normandy invasion, he is immediately faced with the visceral terrors of war, with deafening screams combined with vast mortar explosions. Taking a moment to ingest the chaos, Miller looks around him and isn’t able to process what he sees before him, with Spielberg using just the hollow sound of an underwater muffle to score the moment.
1. Bande a Part (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
Despite exploring some of cinema’s very best moments of silence, the very best comes in a humble conversation between friends in Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal 1964 classic Bande a Part. Telling the story of two movie-loving crooks who convince a young language student to help them commit a crime, Godard’s film is stuffed with a passionate adoration for the moving image, with the filmmaker tweaking the makeup of the medium with glee throughout.
One of the most obvious examples of this playful approach to cinema comes when the trio of main characters, played by Claude Brasseur, Anna Karina and Sami Frey, respectively, are talking in a cafe when they decide to sit in silence for one moment. Whilst Godard treats this moment like playtime, it also speaks to the character’s wishes to live in the moment, as well as the genuine bliss that comes with sitting down with one’s own thoughts whilst the pace of life rushes blindingly by.
