Everyone can appreciate a film’s visuals, but good sound are (at least) half the artistry of a movie. Today we pay tribute to some of the best Sound Design out there. Subscribe: http://goo.gl/9AGRm

From explosions in pitched battle to the judicious use of silence; from Foley effects to fully immersive soundscapes, what you hear in movies shapes the experience of watching them in ways you may not even consciously realize at the time. And these 10 movies illustrate that fact wonderfully.

What do you think of the list? What movie do you think of has having great sound? Do you think we left anything off the list, or put something undeserving on? Did we make you think more about what you hear at the movies, as much as what you see? What other topics would you like to see us cover in future CineFix movie lists?

Let us know in the comments!

THE LIST

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Sound Designer: Gary Rydstrom
The soundscape of the landing at Normandy is epic and personal in turns, thanks in large part to the soundscape the audience is immersed in.

Das Boot (1981)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Sound Design By: Milan Bor, Trevor Pyke, Mike la Mare
So much of the sound that creates the claustrophobic atmosphere of the German submarine had to be-recreated in post by master artists who worked on this film.

M (1931)
Director: Fritz Lang
Sound Design: Fritz Lang
One of the earliest “talkies” M had the opportunity to be truly experimental in its sound design… and the results are amazing.

Stalker (1979)
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Stalker paints its bizarre landscape with sound every bit as much as it does with image.

A Man Escaped
Director: Rober Bresson
Thanks to the focused minimalism of sound, we feel the prisoner’s anxiety about being dissevered as much as he does.

Gravity (2013)
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Sound Design By: Glenn Freemantle
There is no sound in space, but there is vibration – Because the sound effects are so limited in Gravity, the audience forced to feel the same isolation and urgency as the characters.

Star Wars (1977)
Director: George Lucas
Sound Design By: Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt’s creative use of real-world sounds to populate a sci-fi/fantasy universe gives this classic film that right combination of fantastic and familiar.

Wall-E (2008)
Director: Andrew Stanton
Sound (and voices) By: Ben Burtt
Ben Burrt returns to the sci-fi world to create all the sounds that made Wall-E so charming, the abandoned Earth so desolate, and the futuristic space ship so… futuristic.

Eraserhead (1977)
Director: David Lynch
Sound By: Alan Splet
The torturous industrialized environment of Eraserhead pretty much wouldn’t exist without the sound to pull it off.

The Conversation (1974)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Sound Design By: Walter Murch
Halfway through this story about a paranoid surveillance technician, traditional dialogue drops away, forcing us to live in the same soundscape as Harry Caul.

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