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7 Great Movies That Don’t Have (A lot Of) Dialogue

As a writer, I take a certain delight in weaving characters’ voices together with wonderful dialogue. However, I like to give myself challenges, so I have been working on a few ideas where I wouldn’t use dialogue to tell the story.

And it’s perfect timing, honestly, since the dialogue-free indie film Flow beat out Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

I’m trying to make it the ultimate “show, don’t tell” project, maybe. But to make it, I have been watching a lot of movies without dialogue in order to gain inspiration.

No, I’m not talking about silent films, but more modern movies where characters simply don’t talk for most of it.

I have some options on which of them I think are the best, so let’s dive in.

1. Wall-E

  • Director: Andrew Stanton
  • Writers: Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon Story by: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
  • Voice Cast: Ben Burtt: WALL-E / M-O, Elissa Knight: EVE, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver.
For me, this is the gold standard. of all Pixar movies. we actually cared about a robot, the repopulation of Earth, and the environment without words.

2. All is Lost

  • Director: J.C. Chandor
  • Writer: J.C. Chandor
  • Cast: Robert Redford
I remember seeing this at the Arclight and you could hear a pin drop in the audience. The boat is sinking and there’s not even cursing, it’s just determination and skill.

3. The Bear

  • Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
  • Writer: Gérard Brach (adaptation and screenplay), James Oliver Curwood (novel)
  • Cast: the main cast of this movie are real Bears.
When I was a kid, I loved watching this movie. We follow a family of bears around, and there’s a really emotional story at its center.

4. Cast Away

  • Director: Robert Zemeckis
  • Writer: William Broyles Jr.
  • Cast: Tom Hanks
The middle stretch of this movie is just a wordless plan for survival. Zemeckis and Hanks keep it all minimal, and you really need a strong actor to pull off all the emotions involved when he returns home.

5. A Quiet Place

  • Director: John Krasinski
  • Writers: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski
  • Cast: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe
Not having a lot of dialogue was built into the story in such a clever way. We have aliens who listen, and we have a family that needs to say a lot of repressed things out loud.

6. Under the Skin

  • Director: Jonathan Glazer
  • Writers: Walter Campbell, Jonathan Glazer (based on the novel by Michel Faber)
  • Cast: Scarlett Johansson
This is one of my favorite weird movies. Such a strange look at aliens watching humans, and a fun dissection of humanity in general.

7. Duel

  • Director: Steven Spielberg
  • Writer: Richard Matheson
  • Cast: Dennis Weaver
I saw this movie as a kid, and I frequently go back to it. Spielberg had such complete control of this story without words. We get all the terror and worry about being stalked across the highway without anyone even having to make a phone call or exposition dump. It’s isolating.

Summing Up 7 Great Movies That Don’t Have Dialogue

These are the tops on my list of seven, but I bet you have some movies without dialogue that you love. I steered completely away from classic silent films, only focusing on more modern fare.

We have a great post that covers silent films you should check out.

And I want to hear your favorite movies without dialogue.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.

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