I am looking for some movies that explore silence or use silence to interesting effect. A couple of examples are 3-Iron and Old Joy. Any others you can think of? (And no, silent films don't count, haha.) Thanks in advance for any insights.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that horror/suspense films often use silence, so I should add that I am not really looking for those kinds of movies. More dramas and romances. Thanks!

Not complete silence, but in Saving Private Ryan, during the D-Day part when the mortar goes off next to Tom Hanks and the sound gets all muffled I thought was pretty interesting.

2001?

Take a bite out of Takeshi Kitano's 'Dolls'. This is a very contemplative romance drama with minimal dialog. It might be right up your alley.

BTW - you did mean Old Boy right?

Into Great Silence, Philip Groning's pseudo-documentary about a French monastary, is incredible. There is virtually no dialog or music, yet this is one of the most hypnotic, engaging films I've seen in years.

If you can track it down, Shinji Aoyama's Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachtani? is quite an interesting take on the "post-apocalyptic" emptiness and seclusion themes in movies and features a bare minimum of dialog and music, using mostly ambient sounds and a smattering of drone/noise music performances (Tadanobu Asano's nearly 10-minute piece near the end is stunning if you're a fan of this sort of thing).

As for an effective use of silence in a particular scene, you can't get much better than Rififi's heist.

Riffifi has about half an hour with no music, no dialogue, and only the rustle of people's clothing.

Aren't the scenes in both The Andromeda Strain and On the Beach, when the people explore the empty towns, extremely quiet?

You should check out L' Iceberg. It has almost no dialog.

Don't know how I forgot that one. I've seen that one many times and yes, was blown away by the heist scene. Thanks for the reminder to watch it again.

Nope, Old Joy, which has lots of silent or near-silent scenes in the Oregon mountains. I have seen Old Boy as well (very different movie), but don't remember silence playing a big role in that one.

Thanks for all the recommendations so far!

The first part of No Country for Old Men. There's some narration at the beginning, and a short interchange of dialogue later. I believe there's only one or two moments in the entire movie with music, and they don't last more than 10 seconds.

Gerry was very quiet.

Check out any of the work of the late great Michelangelo Antonioni, who just died earlier this year. His '60s work is amazing -- "Blow Up" is a fantastic portrait of swinging London that also is a kind of existential murder piece and uses silence for huge swings of the movie. It just has a mesmerizing vibe I think. Ditto with his '70s African movie "The Passenger" which stars Jack Nicholson in a role where he barely talks. Any of his other movies are great too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_Antonioni

Mrs. Danger says: The first ten minutes of Once Upon a Time in the West.

Surprised no one mentioned The New World yet.

Ok, maybe not complete silence, but the movie goes for long periods of time without spoken word.

Mm, good choice. I'm not much of a fan of van Sant's films, but Gerry really impressed me.

cast away

Last Days (2005)
The Naked Island (1961)

In the beginning of 28 days later there is probably a good minute of silence before the music begins to start. Probably my favorite scene I've seen in any movie so far.

The scene in The Fountain where hugh jackman is walking through a busy street and all you hear is his footsteps. It is silent... kind of?

Dead Calm

There's a scene in Road to Perdition where there's a silent shootout (though there may be a musical score), but I don't know if that qualifies as exploring silence.

I think there are also some parts in Immortal Beloved where it's silent to empathize with Beethoven's deafness.

Babel. The shots from the deaf girl's POV are silent.

Not a movie, but you'll find no better examination of silence than the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Hush".

L'Avventura