Films/Series with amazing Sound Design
by dibakarsilenceplease | created - 6 months ago | updated - 1 month ago | PublicFilms around the world that have amazing Sound Design work. From small indie films to blockbusters, I'll add everything I like on this list.
P.S.- I'll also add films that may be bad otherwise, but have a good soundscape.
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1. There Will Be Blood (2007)
R | 158 min | Drama
A story of family, religion, hatred, oil and madness, focusing on a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarán Hinds, Martin Stringer
Votes: 641,535 | Gross: $40.22M
2. The Killing of Two Lovers (2020)
R | 85 min | Drama
David desperately tries to keep his family of six together during a separation from his wife. They both agree to see other people but David struggles to grapple with his wife's new relationship.
Director: Robert Machoian | Stars: Clayne Crawford, Sepideh Moafi, Chris Coy, Avery Pizzuto
Votes: 5,314
3. Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)
Not Rated | 321 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
A clash between Sultan and Shahid Khan leads to the expulsion of Khan from Wasseypur, and ignites a deadly blood feud spanning three generations.
Director: Anurag Kashyap | Stars: Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Richa Chadha
Votes: 103,899
4. Dahaad (2023– )
TV-MA | 55 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Sub-inspector Anjali Bhaati investigates a series of deaths where women are found in public bathrooms. The deaths first appear as suicides but as the investigation progresses, Bhaati realizes that there's a serial killer on the loose.
Stars: Sonakshi Sinha, Vijay Varma, Gulshan Devaiah, Sohum Shah
Votes: 13,810
5. Midsommar (2019)
R | 148 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A couple travels to Northern Europe to visit a rural hometown's fabled Swedish mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
Director: Ari Aster | Stars: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren, William Jackson Harper
Votes: 403,908 | Gross: $27.33M
6. The Woman in the Window (2021)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors; only to witness a disturbing act of violence.
Director: Joe Wright | Stars: Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Fred Hechinger
Votes: 83,065
7. Evil Dead Rise (2023)
R | 96 min | Horror
A twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
Director: Lee Cronin | Stars: Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anna-Maree Thomas, Lily Sullivan
Votes: 137,015
8. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
R | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Socially frustrated Barry Egan calls a phone-sex line to curb his loneliness. Little does he know it will land him in deep trouble and will jeopardize his burgeoning romance with the mysterious Lena.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Andrews
Votes: 177,603 | Gross: $17.84M
9. Skyfall (2012)
PG-13 | 143 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
James Bond's loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her. When MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.
Director: Sam Mendes | Stars: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Judi Dench
Votes: 731,387 | Gross: $304.36M
10. The Decalogue (1989–1990)
TV-MA | 60 min | Drama
Ten television drama films, each one based on one of the Ten Commandments.
Stars: Artur Barcis, Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Olaf Lubaszenko, Aleksander Bardini
Votes: 27,896 | Gross: $0.10M
11. Stalker (1979)
Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko
Votes: 144,860 | Gross: $0.23M
12. A Quiet Place (2018)
PG-13 | 90 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A family struggles for survival in a world where most humans have been killed by blind but noise-sensitive creatures. They are forced to communicate in sign language to keep the creatures at bay.
Director: John Krasinski | Stars: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe
Votes: 584,050 | Gross: $188.02M
13. The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
TV-MA | 57 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.
Stars: Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reaser
Votes: 288,600
14. Breaking Bad (2008–2013)
TV-MA | 45 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer turns to manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with a former student in order to secure his family's future.
Stars: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Betsy Brandt
Votes: 2,139,119
15. The Underground Railroad (2021)
TV-MA | 59 min | Drama, Fantasy, History
A young woman named Cora makes an amazing discovery during her attempt to break free from slavery in the deep south.
Stars: Thuso Mbedu, Chase Dillon, Joel Edgerton, Reshonnah Harvey
Votes: 8,447
16. The Seventh Walk (2013)
72 min | Documentary
An experimental documentary on the charcoal drawings of Indian artist Paramjit Singh.
Director: Amit Dutta
Votes: 100
17. The Cloud-Capped Star (1960)
Not Rated | 126 min | Drama
A selfless young woman (Supriya Choudhury) sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family.
Director: Ritwik Ghatak | Stars: Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gyanesh Mukherjee, Bijon Bhattacharya
Votes: 3,244
18. 7 Khoon Maaf (2011)
Not Rated | 137 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Susanna is hungry for love and will go to any extent to find it in its purest form. In her quest for the perfect man, she gets married a number of times as each of her husband's die mysteriously.
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj | Stars: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Vivaan Shah, Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham
Votes: 6,551 | Gross: $0.27M
19. Angamaly Diaries (2017)
Not Rated | 132 min | Action, Comedy, Thriller
Vincent Pepe who wanted to be a powerful leader of a righteous gang that ruled the city, like his seniors. And then there's the rival clan with the malicious gangsters of Angamaly a locale on which the film is based.
Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery | Stars: Antony Varghese, Reshma Rajan, Binny Rinky Benjamin, Amrutha Anna Reji
Votes: 6,698
20. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
R | 164 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
Young Blade Runner K's discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former Blade Runner Rick Deckard, who's been missing for thirty years.
Director: Denis Villeneuve | Stars: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista
Votes: 666,045 | Gross: $92.05M
21. Boogie Nights (1997)
R | 155 min | Drama
Back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, an idealistic porn producer aspires to elevate his craft to an art when he discovers a hot young talent.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán
Votes: 282,225 | Gross: $26.40M
22. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)
PG | 40 min | Short, Adventure, Comedy
Chronicles a variety of stories, but the main one follows Henry Sugar, who is able to see through objects and predict the future with the help of a book he stole.
Director: Wes Anderson | Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley
Votes: 69,998
23. Panic Room (2002)
R | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A divorced woman and her diabetic daughter take refuge in their newly-purchased house's safe room when three men break-in, searching for a missing fortune.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam
Votes: 297,062 | Gross: $96.40M
24. The Conversation (1974)
PG | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 121,940 | Gross: $4.42M
25. Suspiria (I) (2018)
R | 152 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.
Director: Luca Guadagnino | Stars: Chloë Grace Moretz, Tilda Swinton, Doris Hick, Malgorzata Bela
Votes: 92,416 | Gross: $2.47M
26. Poker Face (2023– )
TV-MA | 58 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Charlie has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying. She hits the road with her Plymouth Barracuda and with every stop encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can't help but investigate and solve.
Stars: Natasha Lyonne, Benjamin Bratt, Simon Helberg, Pedro Hollywood
Votes: 48,232
27. The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
TV-MA | 62 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built a pharmaceutical company into an empire of wealth, privilege and power; however, secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying.
Stars: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Mary McDonnell, Henry Thomas
Votes: 109,354
28. The Killer (2023)
R | 118 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
After a fateful near-miss, an assassin battles his employers and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn't personal.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard
Votes: 183,451
29. Nest (I) (2022)
22 min | Short, Drama
Siblings building a tree house together over the course of a year. We experience the beauty and brutality of the seasons, as we follow them through their struggles and moments of joy.
Director: Hlynur Pálmason | Stars: Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Grímur Hlynsson, Þorgils Hlynsson
Votes: 1,108
30. Merry Christmas (2024)
144 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Two strangers meet on a fateful Christmas Eve. A night of delirious romance turns into a nightmare. Revealing anything more would be a crime.
Director: Sriram Raghavan | Stars: Katrina Kaif, Vijay Sethupathi, Tinnu Anand, Pari Sharma
Votes: 25,601
31. The Golden Thread (2022)
90 min | Documentary
Outside Kolkata a few jute mills crank on, virtually unchanged since the industrial revolution. Powered by steam and sweat, work is a dance to the dictate of profit and century-old machines... See full summary »
Director: Nishtha Jain | Stars: Maqsoood Alam, Babujaan, S.C. Chandra, Prem Chaurasia
Votes: 36
32. Under the Skin (I) (2013)
R | 108 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A mysterious young woman seduces lonely men in the evening hours in Scotland. However, events lead her to begin a process of self-discovery.
Director: Jonathan Glazer | Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay, Dougie McConnell
Votes: 158,330 | Gross: $2.61M
33. Dune: Part Two (2024)
PG-13 | 166 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.
Director: Denis Villeneuve | Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem
Votes: 386,143
34. Hereditary (2018)
R | 127 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.
Director: Ari Aster | Stars: Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff
Votes: 378,647 | Gross: $44.07M
35. Ran (1985)
R | 160 min | Action, Drama, War
In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other...and him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû
Votes: 136,298 | Gross: $4.14M
Classic example of ambience depicting the state of mind of the character. When Hidetora is banished, the extreme use of chaotic crickets denotes his disturbed and maddening state of mind. Use of other natural elements like a specific kind of bird or wind to punctuate emotions. Purpose driven use of music. Very minimal and extremely effective. In the attack on the third castle scene, the absence of any sound effects and only music creates a very helpless atmosphere. The music is interrupted suddenly by the gunshot killing Taro, after which sound effects take over to depict the horror and ruthlessness of the attack. It's one of my favourite moments in the film. The sound of horses running through the war field sounds very grand. To achieve this in a monaural soundtrack is commendable. Some creative use of exaggerated reverbs especially in the Kyoami and Hidetora scene around a rocky hill top. The reverb makes it feel otherworldly where the role of servant and master has flipped.
36. Poor Things (2023)
R | 141 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An account of the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos | Stars: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef
Votes: 254,126
The music is extremely unique. It uses conventional instruments like flute in an unconventional way. The usual purpose of music in films is to provide an emotional background to a scene. In Poor things, it hardly does that. Music here helps in the world building to make it more peculiar and awkward. The sound design was very understated and done around the score. On first watch, it never caught my attention. It is very difficult to achieve that because visually the world was so surreal, the temptation, to make sound grab your attention, is very difficult to resist. Every sound was well thought, carefully measured and purpose driven. It brought a dry sense of humour to the scenes. As with visuals, the sound design was also a hybrid of realism with a pinch of surrealism. I particularly liked the ambience of the ship. Instead of a ship engine they used a rhythmic pounding sound and metal rumbles and squeaks. It doesn't sound completely realistic but also doesn't sound completely off.
37. Funny Games (1997)
Not Rated | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Two violent young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.
Director: Michael Haneke | Stars: Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
Votes: 84,188
It is evident that Haneke's style is influenced by Robert Bresson. He uses sound to create images in the mind of the audience. Some gruesome violence is not shown, but heard. Image often maintain a conflicting relation with sound. Sound is not used here as an emotive tool, but as a provoking one. Haneke establishes this from the first scene where a seemingly normal game of guessing opera singers is suddenly disrupted by a loud chaotic death metal song. It's so bizarre that you feel like its there by mistake. We can see the characters talking but can't hear them. Haneke foreshadows the violence that's about to come through this. We hear the same song when Paul, the torturer, plays it again from a CD later.
The scene where they kill the child is a striking one. We hear the violence and see a very mundane image of the torturer making a sandwich, but right after that there's a long take with a wide shot where we see the child lying dead, the mother sitting still with shock, we hear sounds of a racing sport commentary alongwith the buzzing noise of the racing cars from the TV. This combination of image and sound disturbs the audience. The mother, it feels, then takes the role of the audience. The first thing she does when she moves is turn off the damn TV.
38. Society of the Snow (2023)
R | 144 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
The flight of a rugby team crashes on a glacier in the Andes. The few passengers who survive the crash find themselves in one of the world's toughest environments to survive.
Director: J.A. Bayona | Stars: Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi
Votes: 132,298
The biggest challenge for sound in this kind of realistic survival drama is create immersion through realistic sound. The plane crash scene with no music to create drama, the brilliant sound effects makes you feel like you are sitting with them on the plane. The mix is delicately balanced making every little sound register and create an emotion- The vibrating metal parts, the deafening engine, the break of a bone, the rummage of luggages moving around, the deep rumble. The design of the wind on the crash site is also very emotive and detailed. With almost no other sound, its different kinds of wind interacting with the metal remains of the plane.
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