The Best Films With (Almost!) Zero Dialogue: ‘All Is Lost,’ ‘Robot Dreams,’ and More

‘The Last Laugh’ (1924)

Okay, this is cheating a little. ‘The Last Laugh’ is a straight-up silent film, from German master F. W. Murnau. But, unlike other films of its era, it doesn’t attempt to fill in the gaps in the storytelling with intertitles. Instead, the entirety of Murnau’s tale of a hotel doorman humiliated when he’s demoted to a washroom attendant goes by without a single title card, relying on pure images to tell the story. Murnau famously saw written language as an ‘obstructive presence in film,’ and sought to create a movie where the visuals could ably carry the meaning. He cheats a little at the film’s conclusion with the only intertitle in the film, but even then, the card doesn’t show dialogue, but omniscient narration from the point of view of Murnau himself, as he takes pity on his humble hero and provides him with an improbable but happy ending. 

‘The Thief’ (1952)

An offbeat, experimental approach to the noir genre, ‘The Thief’ was marketed and sold at the time of its release for its complete lack of dialogue; the poster proudly proclaims ‘The only motion picture of its kind!’ and ‘Not a word is spoken!’ Russell Rouse, a vet of the genre, doesn’t cheat on the conceit either; he manages to tell the entire story of a nuclear physicist (Ray Milland) on the run from the FBI for selling information to the Soviets without a single line of dialogue passing from any of his actors’ mouths. If that sounds like it could get a little gimmicky, the film often is; the amount of contrivances needed to prevent the characters from ever exchanging even a single hello gets absurd at points. Still, Milland is a perfect choice for the stoic lead role the exercise requires, and there’s undeniable fun in watching Rouse rely purely on visuals to tell this nifty little adventure. 

‘Playtime’ (1967)

All of French director Jacques Tati’s films in which he plays the character of Monsieur Hulot (which also include ‘Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot,’ ‘Mon Oncle,’ and ‘Trafic’) keep the dialogue as minimal as possible; the persona is, after all, a throwback of sorts to the silent film comics of old like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. His best outing as the character is 1967’s ‘Playtime,’ although Hulot’s a bit less central than the earlier films, instead co-starring alongside a young American tourist (Barbara Dennek). The two go through distinct adventures in a futuristic Paris, created on an enormous set that’s still stunning to look at today. As the pair stumble through this mazelike, comic world, visual comedy and sound effects take precedence over dialogue. In fact, even when people are speaking, Tati tends to lower the volume to the level of background noise, leaving the chatter as just another element of his world’s soundscape. 

‘Eraserhead’ (1977)

David Lynch is a highly visual director who doesn’t put much stock in things like ‘explaining what’s happening to the audience,’ instead preferring to let his nightmarish visions do the talking. His breakout film ‘Eraserhead’ was famously made with a 22-page script, and it shows in the sparseness of its narrative about a couple who birth a monstrous child. Much of the film consists of surreal images and sequences in which the characters on screen are crying or screaming more than they’re talking; as a result, in a 90-minute film, there are about 4 minutes of actual dialogue in the script. 

‘Quest For Fire’ (1981)

French director Jean-Jacques Annaud made several films featuring zero dialogue, or extremely minimal dialogue, including ‘The Bear,’ a drama about a, well, bear. His breakout feature ‘Quest For Fire’ is a particularly extreme example, featuring zero modern language in its entirety. A prehistoric adventure set in the days of literal cavemen, ‘Quest For Fire’ slathers prosthetics and makeup on its cast (Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nameer El-Kadi and Rae Dawn Chong) to tell the story of early men searching for a way to produce fire and save their tribe. The characters communicate through a fictitious language, meaning viewers need to rely on visual storytelling and the actors’ performances to understand the storyline. It sounds a bit silly, but ‘Quest For Fire’ was acclaimed at the time, and even won the Oscar for Best Makeup that year. 

A similar film — although set in modern times, and starring Bigfoot-like creatures — also lacking in real dialogue titled ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ and directed by David Zellner and Nathan Zellner would premiere in 2024. 

‘Koyaanisqatsi’ (1983)

Godfrey Reggio’s debut feature ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ is a documentary unlike any other. Described as a visual tone poem, the film lacks any narration or dialogue, instead expressing its themes through its images and the score from Philip Glass. Across 86 minutes, Reggio uses slow motion and time-lapse footage to capture images both natural and man-made across the United States, trusting that the audience will connect these images together and come to their own conclusions about the human relationship with the world around us. 

‘All Is Lost’ (2013)

There are about 50 words of English dialogue spoken in J.C. Chandor’s ‘All Is Lost,’ and the vast majority of them are in the film’s opening, where Robert Redford’s lead character narrates a letter addressed to the people he will miss when he dies. The rest of the film shows the circumstances that lead this man to this point, as he awakens lost at sea and finds himself fighting to survive the elements. A classic man vs. nature story with Redford as the only cast member, ‘All Is Lost’ doesn’t need its lead to speak to convey his desperation or the terror of the wide open sea. The silence makes it that, when Redford drops an F-bomb during a particularly dismal low-point, we understand immediately how grave things seem. 

‘Under the Skin’ (2014)

Jonathan Glazer is a director who often uses silence and visuals to tell his stories; his most recent film, ‘The Zone of Interest,’ features long stretches without audible dialogue, instead observing the mundane routines of its characters. His prior film, ‘Under the Skin,’ is even more radically silent, spending much of its time observing Scarlett Johansson’s otherworldly woman as she drives through Scotland. She eventually talks, when she’s luring men to their deaths in a liquid abyss, but even then their conversations tend to be short and bland. Glazer is much more interested in just observing this woman rather than explaining her origins or purpose, and the frequent absence of words only contributes to the film’s chilling, alien nature.

‘A Quiet Place’ (2018)

If anything, the problem with ‘A Quiet Place’ is that it isn’t silent enough. John Krasinski’s feature debut boasts a fun and distinctive premise, following a family that must avoid making any sounds to survive a post-apocalyptic landscape filled with murderous aliens that substitute sight for a sharp sense of hearing. The use of silence is vital for the tension to work, and it’s a shame that ‘A Quiet Place’ mucks it up a bit with a musical score that doesn’t need to be there. Still, of all the films in the franchise, the first is easily the one that most succeeds in delivering the type of wordless storytelling the conceit promise. There’s a significant amount of sign language, but the film on a whole only has roughly 25 lines of voiced dialogue. 

‘Robot Dreams’ (2023)

Like a classic silent comic strip in motion, ‘Robot Dreams’ relies on its expressive, colorful character designs to tell its story of the friendship and separation between two unlikely pals. Adapting Sara Varon’s comic of the same name, Paolo Berger keeps both of his characters — the lonely Dog and the Robot he builds as a companion — completely silent throughout the film’s 100-minute runtime. In fact, nobody the two ever encounter throughout their year in 1984 Manhattan ever speaks a word, beyond maybe a snickering laugh or a cough or the humming of music. The conceit works perfectly, making the story feel simple and timeless, and making the well-placed needledrop of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s  ‘September’ — the only real human voices to be heard in the film — all the more impactful.