Popular reviews

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  Review by Sean Baker 12

  Even though I may have seen this years ago in a dorm room on VHS tape, seeing the Film Movement Blu-ray of this restored classic was like watching the film for the first time.

  It is a must-see. Classic spaghetti western with a wholly unique approach - a snowy western. Without this film and Cut Throats Nine, there would be no Hateful Eight.

  From wiki: In March 2017, the Cinémathèque Française reported that Cineteca Nazionale, with the cooperation of Italian distribution rights holder Movietime, had authorised a complete restoration of The Great Silence (including the alternative ending) from the original camera and sound negatives in 4K resolution. The restoration was carried out at the film laboratories Augustus Color and Studio…

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★★ 5

  An unforgiving journey into the grim confines of ‘no hopesville’, this is Corbucci’s fully realized blizzard world of blurred morality, an ominous snow-swept frontier loaded with corruption, greed, despicable bounty hunters, a man called Loco, and a man named Silence. Beautiful, bleak, and unforgettable. 

  Corbucci’s masterpiece.

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  Review by Colin the dude ★★★★½ 6

  Someone build a bronze statue of Klaus Kinski so I have something tangible to pray and worship to.

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  Review by laird ★★★★★ 1

  Infinity: Avengers War

  "It's all within the law."

  Plenty of spaghetti westerns deal with the rippling effects of violent vengeance, but The Great Silence is something else, something heavier and colder and more malevolent. It's haunted. It's the ghost of all of the previous vengeance cycles, the blankets of snow its shroud, the sound of bullet casings hitting saloon floors its rattling chains. Its story is the prequel to a ghost town. A silent scream.

  It's hard watching it today not thinking of its relevance to current events. A crooked powerman looks a grieving widow in the eyes and shrugs at her cries of injustice. "Your husband broke the law. His death was his own fault." Starving, huddled masses considered outlaws by merciless bounty hunters, have to live outside of the town for fear of being taken down if they step foot in the wrong city. Life is cheap, but business is good if you lack humanity. Cold truth.

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 23

  Any hope for a gentler world is crushed beneath drifts of mountain snow in Sergio Corbucci’s “The Great Silence.”

  It’s tempting to call the alpine setting of “Silence” a type of purgatory — where acts of extreme damnation or deification are the tolls of passage through. But purgatoires are in-between places. Waystations of judgement. 

  The mountains of Corbucci’s masterpiece are, rather, nothingness. Whiteness fades into the blankness of the horizon, and there is no end to absence. 

  The film is so stark in its plotting, it may as well be a parable, rather than an allegory, as Corbucci intended. But it’s not the sort of parable you’re likely to hear from a preacher in church. It’s one to fill the…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★½

  "What times we live in!"

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★ 7

  "The law has a right to kill."

  Grotesque political nihilism. The Great Blizzard of 1898 has thrown the small Utah town of Snow Hill on hard times, but rather than help those forced by circumstance to steal in order to survive, the government puts out rewards on the heads of the unfortunate thieves. A mute gunslinger (Jean-Louis Trintignant) comes to the aid of the peasants, but the fearful ruling class hires a gang of ruthless bounty hunters led by the heartless killer known as Loco (Klaus Kinski) to cleanse Snow Hill of its supposed impurities. Two immortal performers embodying two essential extremes. The epitome of frontier justice: the ethical outlaw vs. the dishonorable lawman. Morality forced outside the bounds of…

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  Review by Lara Pop ★★★★

  Honestly, I could revel in Corbucci's world of frozen bleakness and crusted morality for days and not get bored once. A lone gunslinger seen from a distance in a snow-swept landscape; a crisp gunshot slicing into the murky stillness; a Morricone soundtrack which lives its own life and creates an ambience to die for. The Great Silence is the ultimate atmospheric western with a most hard-hitting, flawless ending. A perfect choice to close 2020 with.

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  Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★ 1

  Yeah I'm digging this Spaghetti Western deep dive!

  A very different aesthetic than the others, Corbucci utilizes the cold, snowy landscape to his advantage, creating a wildly different tone than the Leone films. The Great Silence feels much more bleak, opting for a quiet intensity over grandeur. While it still has big moments, they don't play quite the same in Corbucci's world, where there's a sense that there's genuine evil lurking about.

  Klaus Kinski can't not be evil. He also can't not be captivating in everything he does. He has such a bizarre appearance and is incredibly expressive, he's always unnerving while he's on screen.

  I won't spoil the ending here but WOW!

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 4

  *Uncut version with original Italian dubbing (some parts spoken in English)*

  "And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."
  -Luke 16:15

  "That western in the snow" is the cinematic equivalent of "that samurai film in the snow", and just like Okamoto, preconceived notions about the consequences of self-applied justice and the fates of the characters and antagonists are ultimately challenged as Corbucci not only finds the peak of his aesthetics and storytelling capabilities, but also makes an incisive debate between death and capital punishment, between violence and self-defense, between law and the right to kill,…

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★½ 1

  A western as much for our time as its own, presenting the myths of the Old West as nothing more than a murderous farce that will immolate us all.

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  Review by Timcop ★★★★½

  If you look up "Fuck You" in the dictionary, there's a poster for this movie as an example.