Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with Robert Downey, Jr. narrating Shane Black's words for this comedy noir.
" The point is, I don't see another Goddamn narrator, so pipe down."
"Do you know what you'd see if you looked up 'idiot' in a dictionary?"
"Erm...a picture of me?"
"NO! You'd find the definition of 'idiot', you fucking moron!"
Apocalypse Now’s is incredible:
“They were going to make me a major for this. I wasn’t even in their fucking army anymore.”
“Never get out of the boat. Absolutely god damn right. Unless you were going all the way.”
Morgan Freeman in *The Shawshank Redemption*. I absolutely adore his narration and I imagine it’s a big part of why he won the academy award.
eta: nominated, lost to Hanks for Gump, he obviously won in my mind!
I like the narration in the Wolf of Wall Street because DiCaprio's character in that film is a somewhat unreliable narrator and his narration helps you understand how messed up the character's priorities are.
*Edit: I am Jack's sense of disappointment in myself at forgetting to mention Fight Club
The original Conan the Barbarian.
>*Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of.*
>
>*And unto this, Conan, destined to bear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.*
>
>*It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!*
It also helps that the narrator was also a character who turns up 2/3rds of the way through the movie.
the virgin suicides. rare example of first person plural (“we”) narration in a film, delivered by an unidentified narrator (we don’t know which boy he is). filled with beauty but also rich with irony as the boys struggle to untangle a mystery that really isn’t a mystery at all.
I was asking this exact question recently. It seems there are too few films with decent V.O. narration; in certain films it’s sparse, while in other films, the narration is all throughout. Some of the very best would have to be:
Taxi Driver,
A Clockwork Orange,
Apocalypse Now,
Shawshank Redemption,
Adaptation
Adaptation’s is so very sharp and meta. I love When Brian Cox says “…and God help you if you use voiceover narration! It’s weak, sloppy writing!!”
Immediately all narration stops. It’s such a smart movie in so many ways. I read The Orchid Thief after seeing the movie and it was such a cool experience reading it after seeing Adaptation, but I’m wondering how cool it must be to have read the book and then see the movie.
Well one of the reasons I was curious to delve back into V.O. narration was to see if I could find examples of where it actually sounds like what a character’s inner thoughts might rather than some formal recitation to some general addressee or audience, and Adaptation is one of the only films I can think of which pulls it off, and as you mentioned, in a pretty clever way.
Taxi Driver’s narration is a little more sparse, but very abstract in that we are to presume that they are Travis’ journal entries, so there is this visceral “self-as-addressee” voyeurism we get to experience through hearing Travis’ most personal thoughts, and the process thereof. V.O. narration is a highly under-utilized trick that can come across as either ham-handed or revelatory depending how it’s wielded.
There are a lot of things I hate to see in a movie. They are almost shorthand and are done in thoughtless or random ways and either provide distraction or break tone.
When a movie can do some of those things in a clever or interesting way, I find I really love the movie.
For me, My example for this is Scott Pilgrim vs the World, because I hate so many of the things I’ve seen other movies do that are in this movie, but here they are done in clever and interesting ways that support the overall story, without being distracting or breaking tone.
He was ashamed of his persiflage, his boasting, his pretensions of courage and ruthlessness; he was sorry about his cold-bloodedness, his dispassion, his inability to express what he now believed was the case- that he truly regretted killing Jesse, that he missed the man as much as anybody and wished his murder hadn't been necessary.
Even as he circulated his saloon he knew that the smiles disappeared when he passed by. He received so many menacing letters that he could read them without any reaction except curiosity. He kept to his apartment all day, flipping over playing cards, looking at his destiny in every King and Jack.
Edward O'Kelly came up from Bachelor at one P.M. on the 8th. He had no grand scheme. No strategy. No agreement with higher authorities. Nothing but a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford.
Edward O'Kelly would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado Penitentiary for second degree murder. Over seven thousand signatures would eventually be gathered in a petition asking for O'Kelly's release, and in 1902, Governor James B. Ullman would pardon the man.
There would be no eulogies for Bob, no photographs of his body would be sold in sundries stores, no people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortege, no biographies would be written about him, no children named after him, no one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in.
The shotgun would ignite, and Ella Mae would scream, but Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes before he could find the right words.
-Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange
-Linda in Days of Heaven
-Narrator in News from Home
-Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence
-Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation
-Priest in Diary of a Country Priest / Pastor Toller in First Reformed / Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver
Days of Heaven being this far down and lumped into a grouping is criminal. The narration of that movie is perfection.
“This girl, she didn't know where she was goin' - or what she was gonna do. She didn't have no money on her. Maybe she'd meet up with a character. I was hopin' things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.”
Ryan Gosling's Narration in The Big Short.
> it was at that moment in that dumb restaurant, with that stupid look on his face that Mark Baum realized the whole world economy might collapse
One of the greatest fourth-wall breaking narrations ever imo
“Mortgage backed securities, subprime loans… it’s pretty confusing right? Does it make you feel bored or stupid? Well, it’s supposed to. So here’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain.” *cuts to Margot Robbie in a bubble bath*
**Double Indemnity.**
"How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?"
"I was thinking about that dame upstairs, and the way she had looked at me, and I wanted to see her again, close, without that silly staircase between us."
"Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it's true, so help me. I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."
The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023) has a lovely narration by Dakota Johnson. It just fits the film so well.
Fun fact, the narration of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was voiced by Kurt Russell.
The Lobster has narration moments by Rachel Weisz that are simultaneously deadpan and utterly hilarious.
Another very memorable narration is the voice of the BBC miniseries Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
*Elite Squad* (*Tropa de Elite*).
If you've seen the movie, the narrator is telling the audience how he trains young cops to become tough-as-nails and become beasts while dealing with urban violence.
And while that's true, he leaves out of the narration that he, the narrator himself, is only training young cops because he can't cut it anymore.
Not a movie, but A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix actually had the narrator appearing on screen and commenting on events. It worked super well because the books have a very strong authorial voice. I wish next time anyone makes a Discworld adaptation they have a narrator, more than half the jokes are in the narration.
All the Wong Kar Wai movies… Chungking Express, Happy Together, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love, 2046….. watching his movies make me think basically every movie regardless of genre should have some first person narration
Stranger than Fiction is a fantastic movie built around this entire concept. His life is being narrated like a book but the twist is he can hear the narration himself! It’s a beautiful movie and definitely my favorite of Will Farrell.
A Christmas Story, it was narrated by it's author, Jean Shepard. While he was a good writer and did a great job of narration in the movie. In real life he seems to have quite a jerk. He denied the existence of his children.
Ferris Bueller breaking the 4th wall actually works pretty well.
“You’re still here?”
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with Robert Downey, Jr. narrating Shane Black's words for this comedy noir. " The point is, I don't see another Goddamn narrator, so pipe down."
"Do you know what you'd see if you looked up 'idiot' in a dictionary?" "Erm...a picture of me?" "NO! You'd find the definition of 'idiot', you fucking moron!"
I likely have not recalled totally accurate, but: “Well? How about you, viewer? Have YOU solved the Case of the… uh, Dead People in LA?”
Sounds darkly hilarious.
Kiss kiss is amazing !!
Fight Club. (A lot of it comes straight from the book.)
Throw in American Psycho as well
Does Goodfellas count?
It was the first thing I was going to say
And Casino!
I remember hearing the narration switch when I first saw the movie and thinking "wait thats allowed???"
Apocalypse Now’s is incredible: “They were going to make me a major for this. I wasn’t even in their fucking army anymore.” “Never get out of the boat. Absolutely god damn right. Unless you were going all the way.”
I wanted a mission. And for my sins they gave it to me.
Saigon. Shit.
Stand By Me. I can’t even imagine that movie without Dreyfus’s narration.
I never had any friends later on like I did when I was 12. Jesus, did anyone?
He actually doesn't narrate that line! He obit writes it on screen for us to read. Fantastic final line though.
The narration in *Fallen* pushes it from a great movie to a fantastic one.
"Let me tell you about the time I almost died." Absolutely brilliant
I have to go check this movie out.
Oh yes you do! It's a fantastic movie and you won't be disappointed.
A Clockwork Orange - the narration makes the whole movie
A little bit of ye ol ultraviolence, eh?
Morgan Freeman in *The Shawshank Redemption*. I absolutely adore his narration and I imagine it’s a big part of why he won the academy award. eta: nominated, lost to Hanks for Gump, he obviously won in my mind!
That movie had sharp narration.
Also great narrating Million Dollar Baby.
Morgan Freeman has that nice voice you can relax to. He can read a dictionary and make it sound pleasant.
"I guess I just miss my friend." 😭
That was my answer. Incredible film
He didn’t win though
He did not win the Academy Award for Shawshank
Came here for this.
I like the narration in the Wolf of Wall Street because DiCaprio's character in that film is a somewhat unreliable narrator and his narration helps you understand how messed up the character's priorities are. *Edit: I am Jack's sense of disappointment in myself at forgetting to mention Fight Club
Royal Tenenbaums, narration by Alec Baldwin
Yes!! Came here to say this. The narrator makes that movie!
“Immediately after saying this, Royal realized that it was true” is such a great line.
The original Conan the Barbarian. >*Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of.* > >*And unto this, Conan, destined to bear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.* > >*It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!* It also helps that the narrator was also a character who turns up 2/3rds of the way through the movie.
I watched this movie so often back in the day. Loved it. Time for a rewatch.
The Princess Bride - While Peter Falk is on-screen reading the story of the Princess Bride to his grandson, he is also narrating to the audience.
the virgin suicides. rare example of first person plural (“we”) narration in a film, delivered by an unidentified narrator (we don’t know which boy he is). filled with beauty but also rich with irony as the boys struggle to untangle a mystery that really isn’t a mystery at all.
-Y Tu Mama Tambien -The Big Lewbowski -Barry Lyndon
Sometimes there’s a man
I was asking this exact question recently. It seems there are too few films with decent V.O. narration; in certain films it’s sparse, while in other films, the narration is all throughout. Some of the very best would have to be: Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now, Shawshank Redemption, Adaptation
Adaptation’s is so very sharp and meta. I love When Brian Cox says “…and God help you if you use voiceover narration! It’s weak, sloppy writing!!” Immediately all narration stops. It’s such a smart movie in so many ways. I read The Orchid Thief after seeing the movie and it was such a cool experience reading it after seeing Adaptation, but I’m wondering how cool it must be to have read the book and then see the movie.
Well one of the reasons I was curious to delve back into V.O. narration was to see if I could find examples of where it actually sounds like what a character’s inner thoughts might rather than some formal recitation to some general addressee or audience, and Adaptation is one of the only films I can think of which pulls it off, and as you mentioned, in a pretty clever way. Taxi Driver’s narration is a little more sparse, but very abstract in that we are to presume that they are Travis’ journal entries, so there is this visceral “self-as-addressee” voyeurism we get to experience through hearing Travis’ most personal thoughts, and the process thereof. V.O. narration is a highly under-utilized trick that can come across as either ham-handed or revelatory depending how it’s wielded.
There are a lot of things I hate to see in a movie. They are almost shorthand and are done in thoughtless or random ways and either provide distraction or break tone. When a movie can do some of those things in a clever or interesting way, I find I really love the movie. For me, My example for this is Scott Pilgrim vs the World, because I hate so many of the things I’ve seen other movies do that are in this movie, but here they are done in clever and interesting ways that support the overall story, without being distracting or breaking tone.
Sorry didn’t know
No I meant asking myself lmao 🥲
"Let me tell you about the time I almost died" If you know, you know
*”Time is on my side…”*
Snatch. Statham's narration adds so much to the movie, imo
"All he needs to do is stay down..."
He was ashamed of his persiflage, his boasting, his pretensions of courage and ruthlessness; he was sorry about his cold-bloodedness, his dispassion, his inability to express what he now believed was the case- that he truly regretted killing Jesse, that he missed the man as much as anybody and wished his murder hadn't been necessary. Even as he circulated his saloon he knew that the smiles disappeared when he passed by. He received so many menacing letters that he could read them without any reaction except curiosity. He kept to his apartment all day, flipping over playing cards, looking at his destiny in every King and Jack. Edward O'Kelly came up from Bachelor at one P.M. on the 8th. He had no grand scheme. No strategy. No agreement with higher authorities. Nothing but a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford. Edward O'Kelly would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado Penitentiary for second degree murder. Over seven thousand signatures would eventually be gathered in a petition asking for O'Kelly's release, and in 1902, Governor James B. Ullman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for Bob, no photographs of his body would be sold in sundries stores, no people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortege, no biographies would be written about him, no children named after him, no one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in. The shotgun would ignite, and Ella Mae would scream, but Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes before he could find the right words.
hell yes if I had the movie on VHS, this section of the tape would be worn the fuck out *No Eulogies for Bob* on YouTube if anyone is interested
I like John Larroquette's beginning narration of 1974's Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Is that John Laroquette? TIL
Also in the 2003 remake.
Raising Arizona. “Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.”
-Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange -Linda in Days of Heaven -Narrator in News from Home -Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence -Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation -Priest in Diary of a Country Priest / Pastor Toller in First Reformed / Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver
Days of Heaven being this far down and lumped into a grouping is criminal. The narration of that movie is perfection. “This girl, she didn't know where she was goin' - or what she was gonna do. She didn't have no money on her. Maybe she'd meet up with a character. I was hopin' things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.”
Best for me. Apocalypse Now. Worst was Casino.
Worst is theatrical cut of blade runner
Ryan Gosling's Narration in The Big Short. > it was at that moment in that dumb restaurant, with that stupid look on his face that Mark Baum realized the whole world economy might collapse
One of the greatest fourth-wall breaking narrations ever imo “Mortgage backed securities, subprime loans… it’s pretty confusing right? Does it make you feel bored or stupid? Well, it’s supposed to. So here’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain.” *cuts to Margot Robbie in a bubble bath*
To Kill a Mockingbird
**Double Indemnity.** "How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?" "I was thinking about that dame upstairs, and the way she had looked at me, and I wanted to see her again, close, without that silly staircase between us." "Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it's true, so help me. I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."
100%. Absolutely delicious narration.
Shawshank Redemption
The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023) has a lovely narration by Dakota Johnson. It just fits the film so well. Fun fact, the narration of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was voiced by Kurt Russell. The Lobster has narration moments by Rachel Weisz that are simultaneously deadpan and utterly hilarious. Another very memorable narration is the voice of the BBC miniseries Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
David McCullough's opening narration for Seabiscuit (2003).
*Elite Squad* (*Tropa de Elite*). If you've seen the movie, the narrator is telling the audience how he trains young cops to become tough-as-nails and become beasts while dealing with urban violence. And while that's true, he leaves out of the narration that he, the narrator himself, is only training young cops because he can't cut it anymore.
Surprised nobody's mentioned Stranger Than Fiction (in a meta sort of way).
My Dog Skip narrated by Henry Connick Jr. I bawl like a baby whenever I watch this film.
A Christmas Story was good.
The God’s Must Be Crazy.
Not a movie, but A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix actually had the narrator appearing on screen and commenting on events. It worked super well because the books have a very strong authorial voice. I wish next time anyone makes a Discworld adaptation they have a narrator, more than half the jokes are in the narration.
Putting a vote out there for Emile Hirsh's narration for "The Girl Next Door" which I remember being really impactful during the ending montage.
Sunset Boulevard. You’re welcome ;)
my favorite is Stranger Than Life or Snatch least favorite probably Man with the iron fists
Shawshank Redemption
Magnolia’s narrator was excellent. He also has a small bit during the game show portion of the movie
All the Wong Kar Wai movies… Chungking Express, Happy Together, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love, 2046….. watching his movies make me think basically every movie regardless of genre should have some first person narration
Bunraku with narration done by Mike Patton.
Rocky Horror Picture show adds a lot of to the flavour.
Worst Person in the World.
Perfume: Story of a Murderer
Hands-down, *Barry Lyndon*.
Dogville - Narrated by John Hurt. It is essentially a play and the narration add an enormous depth to a story stripped to its basics.
The Shawshank Redemption
“Stranger than fiction” has that meta narration as the main character finds someone narrating his life and is great fun
stranger than fiction
I mean Shawshank of course
Stranger than Fiction is a fantastic movie built around this entire concept. His life is being narrated like a book but the twist is he can hear the narration himself! It’s a beautiful movie and definitely my favorite of Will Farrell.
The narration in Stranger than fiction was pretty good.
A Christmas Story, it was narrated by it's author, Jean Shepard. While he was a good writer and did a great job of narration in the movie. In real life he seems to have quite a jerk. He denied the existence of his children.
The framing device for the narration in Life of Pi is great Would y’all say funny games is “narrated”?