Movies We Like: Sans Dialogue

Of course the birth of comedy filmmaking is rooted in silent cinema, which relied on pure visuals to tell a story and create hilarious comedy.

There are several contemporary short comedy films out there that emulate silent classics.  Ones we like include Kevin Maher and Casimir Nozkowski’s silent homage Silas and Mange...

stunt-man turned Buster Keaton fan Cliff Cronan’s The Lucky Penny...

The Lucky Penny from Elusive Minds on Vimeo.

...and from one of our earliest shows, the very first collaboration between Iron Mule legends Jay Stern and M. Sweeney Lawless, Suffer the Little Children.

But you don’t have to just copy Buster Keaton to make a comedy without dialogue.  Animated films do this all the time.  Below are some short films that prove that good ideas and good comedy can be made without people shouting one-liners and saying funny things in words.

Flowerpot, from Austin, TX filmmaker Steve Collins.

flowerpot - watch more funny videos

Any movie by Hotdogboy, our favorite Canadian short comedy comedy film duo.

The Modern Daydreams films by Mitchell Rose are simply beautiful and also funny.

Modern Daydreams 1: Deere John from Mitchell Rose on Vimeo.

Jay Stern and M. Sweeney Lawless’ Turkey Shoot features the first appearance of Iron Mule regular Ramona Floyd who later became one of our producers.  Not using dialogue made it much easier to mask the fact that this film was shot entirely in Central Park.





Do you know of some good short comedy films (non-animated) that are dialogue-free?  Leave a link in comment section.