Movie plots advanced soley by dialog, or lack of dialog

Cafe Society
1

I find “dialgue-propelled” movies very interesting and many of them end up on my favourite movie list. In this thread I am talking about movies that are entirely dialog based - however, I want to include both movies that are purely dialog, and movies that contain little to no dialog.

Some of my favourite exmaples include:

2001: A Space Odyssey (minimal dialog)

Being There (entirely dialog)

Castaway (minimal dialog)

What I’m looking for, of course, is other movie suggestions with these themes in mind.

2

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” is a bunch of people sitting in a boat and talking.

3

For a movie entirely advanced by dialogue, see “My Dinner With Andre” - which is literally what the title states, two men having dinner & conversing with each other.

A great movie w/ little to no dialogue is “the Triplets of Belleville.” Simply amazing, IMO.

4

Twelve Angry Men is almost entirely dialog-based, too.

5

The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito, is pretty dialogue-driven.

6

In a similiar vein, Glengarry Glen Ross

7

Well, there goes my suggestions.

8

Before Sunset, the sequel to Before Sunrise. Great movie, out in theaters now. As a bonus, the entire conversation takes place in real time.

9

American Buffalo

Written by the same guy that wrote Glengarry Glenross.

If you want plot driven/heavy movies then go for movies that are based on plays.

Plays are always talk heavy.

10

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is pretty much all dialog driven.

11

The Lion in Winter is a dialog-heavy film.

Eraserhead is not. Long periods of nothing but surreal background noise.

12

The Thief with Ray Milland as an atomic-bomb spy has no dialog, although otherwise a full soundtrack

13

Waking Life is almost entirely dialogue, and although it isn’t a movie, the infamous Buffy Episode Hush (from Season 4) was Joss Whedon’s retort to the critics who said the only good thing about Buffy was its dialogue. A few years ago a film called [utl=“http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275719/”]Tape with Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Robert Sean Leonard was also a very minimalist piece. One set, a few small props, and dialogue dialogue dialogue!

The playwright mentioned above is David Mamet, and Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo are two of his best. His dialogue is always awesome, if occasionally profanity-laced.

14

I once had the pleasure of seeing both those movies in a double header at my local art house cinema for £5 (US $8.50).

What a night :smiley: :smiley:

15

Phone booth was driven by almost nothing but dialoge.

16

Well, Quest for Fire (which you either hate or like, and I liked) had no dialogue.

Another great dialogue-free film is Koyaanisqatsi. Many more recent films borrow heavily from it in terms of technique, effects (IMHO).

17

Ah yes, I’ve seen both *Quest for Fire * and Eraserhead. Both excellent examples. Although I’d have to say I’m in the “hate it” camp when it comes to Q4F - likely due to the fact that the french channel shows it every other weekend.

I’d be tempted to list *The Cube * but that might be pushing it a little.

18

What about Duel, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Dennis Weaver? I’m remembering that it had very little dialogue.

19

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope is pretty dialog-heavy. Takes place in this guy’s apartment, the whole time.

20

Basically all of David Mamet’s films are:

House of Games
The Spanish Prisoner
Glengarry Glen Ross
etc.

So are basically all of Richard Linklater’s:

Slacker
Waking Life
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
SubUrbia (which is also an Eric Bogosian film, since Linklater directed it and Bogosian wrote it)
etc.

And films made from Bogosian’s scripts are also dialogue-driven, like:

Talk Radio

So are basically all of Whit Stillman’s:

Metropolitan
Barcelona
The Last Days of Disco

So, although not quite as much, are all of Kevin Smith’s:

Clerks
Mallrats
Chasing Amy
Dogma
etc.

Quentin Tarantino’s films are more dialogue-driven than you might expect, given that they’re action films:

Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
True Romance
etc.

Spike Lee’s are rather dialogue-driven:

She’s Got to Have It
Get on the Bus
Do the Right Thing
School Daze
etc.

So are the films of Noah Baumbach like:

Kicking and Screaming
etc.

But then look at the films of Woody Allen:

Annie Hall
Play It Again, Sam
Husbands and Wives
Shadows and Fog
Broadway Danny Rose
and on and on and on . . .

They’re also sometimes driven by narration, but mostly they consist of talk. I consider directors like Stillman, Baumbach, Smith, Linklater, and maybe even Lee and Tarantino to be “the children of Woody Allen.” They’re all about a generation younger than Allen and presumably grew up seeing Allen’s films. Allen is the reigning master of the film where everyone talks their problems to death.