Five star films with the least amount of dialogue....?

Many may disagree and I would love to hear a rational explanation of why – but in as few words as possible.

The Naked Island, did not amuse me.

These three films deserve a mention…

Les hautes solitudes
Man With a Movie Camera
The Naked Island
Whispering Pages
Still Life (Saless version)
Vive l’amour / Goodbye Dragon Inn
The Corridor / The House

Mother and Son

Jacques Tati’s Playtime

I never understood what people like in Les Hautes Solitudes…I mean,I look at Apursansar’s list,and I really like all the other films of his list that I have seen.But I absolutely hated Les Hautes Solitudes.Can anyone explain me the reasons why he liked it??It’s clearly beyond me…

The Illusionist filled me with an extremely deep sense of loss that I could not shake for hours.

in addition to many already mentioned -

Teorama (pasolini)
Stalker
three times (hou hsaio hsien)

5 stars
Sokurov’s Russian Ark, Fricke’s Baraka
Anything by Lisandro Alonso some of Pedro Costa’s work.

@ Mark D Vanselow

Care to add some titles to those caps? I love the first one and want to know all about it.

I officially have at least 10 people a day tell me to watch Stalker. I guess I’ll listen now. Also, Hou Hsaio Hsien is outta this world with his transcendentalism. Holla.

Great suggestions all! Feel free to send me more.

Koyaanisqatsi: Mark D Vanselow

I second the Sharunas Bartas and Lisandro Alonso mentions. The Red and the White was a great film as well. As far as Jancsó goes, if I remember correctly, Red Psalm had very little dialog as well and was amazing.

Ruiz’s Mammame

@Redletterprints

If you haven’t watched Stalker in the three hours that passed since you post your comment,DO IT NOW!!Believe,you would hardly find anything better to do the next 2,5 hours.

Angelopoulos’ Voyage to Cythera.It’s one of his films with the less dialogue,but a really great and visually amazing film.
Werzog’s Lessons of Darkness,a great documentary with no dialogues at all

Play Time
The Corridor (And other Bartas)
Bin-Jip (And other Kim)
Mother and Son

Bin Jip forms and expresses an intense interpersonal relationship without the two ever talking to each other.

@Red

FWIW, I think the dialogue, while somewhat spare in Stalker, is somewhat prominent feature of the film. However, you listed Days of Heaven, and I think the dialogue/monologue is somewhat important in the film, althought it is minimal. So, are you looking for films where the dialogue is mininal/non-existent or where the dialogue is not very critical for the film to work?

If you haven’t seen Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot films, I’d recommend those. I recently watched The Illusionist (which is an animated film written by Tati and features his Hulot character). Like Josh H, I loved the film, and recommend it.

Also, this weekend I watched Tsai Ming-liang’s The Wayward Cloud. There is almost no dialogue, except for some entertaining musical numbers. However, I’d describe it as an arty porn comedy, so if that doesn’t appeal to you….

Nathan M pointed out to me that Apocalypto is virtually a silent film, and I’d agree with that. It is similar to Naked Prey, though, so I don’t know if you’d like it.

Also: there are long dialogue free sequences in Pixar’s Up! and Wall-E that are the best parts of those films.

Personally, I love this style of filmmaking, and I’d interested in seeing more films like this.

@Jazz

I’m looking for films where the dialogue is minimal/non-existent because I think when as a director you step into silence and you have a participating audience, it creates a completely new realm, apart from entertainment. At the same time, it is so tricky to steer clear of boredom, repetitiveness and to create an active communication using all other means available to you. This is harder than writing dialogue, but truer somehow.

I keep hearing fantastic things about The Illusionist, so I’ll check that out this week.

I would like to point out that there’s a wide variety of audio tracks in the films listed; for some of them, the music score is quite dominant; other fillms make use of natural sounds, other films mechanical sounds, and others are nearly silent. So for this list, the end results which the different directors are aiming for might be as varied as they would be for a list of dialog-rich movies.

La région centrale

Heya RED:

Ha, ha, ha, the above image is from “Fraggle Rock”. As for the others:

“Women outside the casino” is from “Koyaanisqatsi” (Godfrey Reggio, 1983).

“Motorcar skeleton” is from “Powaqqatsi” (Godfrey Reggio, 1988)

“Silent scream” (a Japanese Butoh performer, for those of you who don’t know) is from “Baraka” (Ron Fricke, 1992).

The first and the third are particularly recognisable for those who have viewed the films. They are non-dialogue documentaries set to the music of Philip Glass. These are ones you really need to experience on the big screen.

Dillinger Is Dead

Uzak
Werckmeister Harmoniak

I’d rate 5 stars to much of what was said here, basically most of Tsai’s, Tati’s and Chomet’s filmography. There were many films mentioned here which I haven’t seen yet…
I would like to add to the list ‘The Last Laugh’ by Murnau, it’s a silent film, yes, but it only has one title card.

“Baraka” is great.

Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie”.

wow.woody allen would be so much out of this topic.. ok.so “la notte” if you can consider antonioni as a filmmaker who uses the least amount of dialogue.that would be not the least but small amount of dialogue i guess. “death in venice” of visconti is a five star movie.at least for me. “the mirror” of Tarkovsky would be a great choice.and Jerzy Skolimowski’s “four nights with anna” also.oh,i almost forget Kieslowski’s powerful film “a short film about killing”,definitely should be watched.and most of the pasolini films can also be added. and finally i would like to mention “les triplettes de belleville” of sylvain Chomet as an animated film.
and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “three monkeys” if you’re interested in world cinema.

PlayTime

The Illusionist (2010)

and i totally agree on “the illusionist” ,“stalker”, “mother and son” and “teorema”. i just forgot to add Cristian Mungiu’s “4 months,3 weeks and 2 days” it’s really severe and subtle.“Repulsion” by Polanski.and two beutiful films from Andrei Zvyagintsev : “the banishment” and “the return” and of course many films by Murnau.