The Great Silence

1968 ‘Il grande silenzio’ Directed by Sergio Corbucci

His voice was the silence of death!

A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.

Jean-Louis Trintignant Klaus Kinski Frank Wolff Luigi Pistilli Vonetta McGee Mario Brega Carlo D'Angelo Marisa Merlini Maria Mizar Marisa Sally Raf Baldassarre Spartaco Conversi Remo De Angelis Mirella Pamphili Fortunato Arena Giulio Baraghini Gino Barbacane Bruno Corazzari Jacques Dorfmann Paolo Figlia Adriana Giuffrè Rocco Lerro Loris Loddi Mauro Mannatrizio William Mayor Emilio Messina Benito Pacifico Fulvio Pellegrino Mimmo Poli Show All…

Alternative Titles

El gran silencio, Le Grand Silence, Leichen pflastern seinen Weg, Levend of dood, The Big Silence, O Vingador Silencioso, O Grande Silêncio, O Silêncio da Morte, Koroshi ga shizuka ni yattekuru, 雪海深仇

western action

106 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

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…
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.
Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 25

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…
Review by Colin the dude ★★★★½ 5

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

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.
Review by matt lynch ★★★★½

"What times we live in!"
Review by Lara Pop ★★★★ 1

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.
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!
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…
Review by Wes ★★★★½

[4K Restoration at Grand Illusion]
"He can't talk to you sheriff. He's mute."
"Well, ill be. He could've at least told me."
as acidic and erosive as xenomorph blood. contains almost none of the B movie wackiness (though it does have its levity) of its peers, but doubles down on ingenuity and taking its genre, ripe for masterpiece potential and cinematic idiosyncrasies, incredibly seriously. the 4k scan only enhanced how beautifully the landscapes added to the dread. bonus: pretty cool intro before the film by matt lynch too! my first time at grand illusion and it was wonderful.
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,…
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.

Recent reviews

Review by Nate Waggoner

Of all the westerns I've watched this past year trying to make myself like westerns, this one appealed to me the most. Cohesive morality that didn't confine itself too closely to either "just dudes trying to make deals and betraying each other in various ways" or "this is a comment on present-day America, man"-- it kind of expands on both of those types
Review by Chueps ★★★★★

Cruelmente hermosa e innovadora.
Me impacta que esta película sea tan poca valorada, que reciba tan poco mérito, claro, tiene buenas puntuaciones en todas las páginas de críticas pero el problema es cuando se habla tan poco de algo que se necesita de hablar mucho. Corbucci hizo algo nuevo aquí y dio para surgir a un nuevo sub-género del western, no se si realmente exista pero el de que DEBA existir si que lo debe, y más cuando el western esta más estancado que nunca.
Cuando pensamos en el género western, como su nombre lo dice, pensamos en el desierto, lugares cálidos, lugares misteriosos, lugares solitarios, lugares peligrosos, así es el ambiente esencial de los western, el tema es que…
Review by Jon ★★★★

Oh we love a snowy western. Ennio the GOAT. Jaw dropping final act.
Review by davefromknoxvil ★★★½

Beautiful to look at, bleak as hell to know.
Review by bgraziana ★★★★

Such a great Italian western. Set in snow, pure nihilist violence, grim aesthetic and a devastating ending.
Klaus Kinski (always amazing) as the villain. Ennio Morricone's score.
Jean-Louis Trintignant, the strong silent type.
Great cinematography and striking landscapes.
Review by Hunter Stewart ★★★★

Kind of slow, but beautifully shot and it's socred by Morricone! The cast is filled with surprisingly interesting characters and great perfomacnes top to bottom. Almost every element of the film feels lke subversions of tropes that weren't stale yet which is pretty impressive.
Review by Stu_The_Protege ★★★★

Damn! This film is Cold.
Review by Mahmoud Sayed ★★★

مطلعش great ولا حاجة
Review by OgnjenZ ★★★★½

The Great Silence
2 dan 2 film Sergia Corbuccia. Nakon ovoga Django deluje maltene bledo, i ovo mi svakako postaje jedan od omiljenih westerna. Radnja filma se fokusira na praćenje dva dijametralno različita lika, Locoa i Sllenca. Loco je lovac na ucene, čovek koji svoj posao obavlja bez ikakve griže savesti, kome data reč nije bitna, i Silenca , revolveraša koji se zbog nepravde iz prošlosti bori protiv takvih ljudi. I ako kao likovi nisu oreterano razradjeni, njihova motivacija za to što čine nam je jasna.
Prvo što cu istaci kao jednu od glavnih pozitivnih stvari je svakako gluma Klausa Kninskog, i sada mi je jasno zašto je toliko voljen ovde (ovo mi je prvi njegov pogledaju film. I iako…
Review by wdario01 ★★★★½

I knew this was a huge influence on Tarantino but I did not realize that so much of the first half Hateful 8 is such an homage to this.

Incredible film in its own right but finding those connections just made this that much better
Review by grownwomansober

feels as if it’s on about good and bad cops, and/or good and bad senses of justice, before it blindsides you with pure, clear, and historic evils. crazy how well the whites and blacks clash in technicolor*. one of those films that demonstrates how effective it is to have a great villain overpower a great hero in terms of screen presence. genre tricks fall away when you wanna talk real life.
*not technically technicolor
Review by RustyPatriot957 ★★★

6.5/10