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Almost as soon as people started being able to talk on the big screen, people started narrating on the big screen. See 1931’s City Streets, which was one of the first, even if it did technically star Gary Cooper, the strong, silent type (sorry, Tony… not so silent if he was narrating). But it makes sense, because silent films often had title cards that weren’t just for dialogue, and sometimes explained certain details in a scene the way voiceover might later.
Some movies use narration when they don’t really need it, and it’s sometimes thrown into a movie in a way that feels like more of a producer’s choice than a filmmaker’s. Still, when narration is used properly, or implemented in some kind of clever/novel way, it’s worth celebrating and can indeed make a good movie great, which the following examples of greatly narrated movies will hopefully demonstrate.
10
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013)
There are probably more than three Martin Scorsese movies worth praising here, since he’s made quite a few films that boldly (and effectively) utilize narration, or maybe, or maybe some will see three of his here and think that’s a bit much, if it’s only a top 10 or whatever. Eh, if it’s done well, it’s done well, and The Wolf of Wall Street does it very well, with the narration being particularly in-your-face because Jordan Belfort also addresses the camera directly at certain points.
The way Belfort flaunts everything he does while still pretty much getting away with almost all of it by the end does also leave a bit to think about once all is said and done.
It adds comedy to this crime (but not gangster) movie for sure, and it’s a way of almost getting you to feel as though you’re in the world of white-collar crime and the debauchery that comes with being of a certain personality and having too much money. The way Belfort flaunts everything he does while still pretty much getting away with almost all of it by the end does also leave a bit to think about once all is said and done, so it’s not just that the narration here is funny and quotable (that helps, though, undoubtedly).
9
‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986)
Sorry, here’s another instance of narration that’s kind of in-your-face, with a character who acknowledges the camera and stuff, but Ferris Bueller’s Day Off feels like it has to go here. The titular character is a teenager who fakes being sick so he can have his titular day off, and his narration says a lot about him, in contrast to his friend, Cameron, whose emotional ups and downs come across – and prove readable – in other ways.
Anyway, it’s mostly a comedic romp (with some memorable music used throughout), so most of the narration in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off being employed for humorous purposes ultimately works. Anything that’s not funny (again, some of the Cameron stuff) is explored in other ways, so when Ferris is sort of just yapping to the camera and letting the audience in on all the (occasionally) shady things he does, it’s made largely amusing.
8
‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (1994)
Not that The Shawshank Redemption has super subtle narration or anything, but it’s a lot more laidback and less intrusive compared to the two already mentioned movies, since Morgan Freeman doesn’t ever look at – or acknowledge – the camera/viewer. He’s Red, and he’s a prisoner at Shawshank who doesn’t have much by way of hope of ever getting out, though he strikes up a friendship with the somewhat mysterious Andy Dufresne, who very much does think he’ll get out one day.
Red’s narration does a lot for the movie, because he gets to read some of the best lines found in Stephen King’s source material (a novella with the slightly different title of “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”), plus Freeman’s voice is famously great for narrating. Hell, the first line of his Wikipedia page describes him as “an American actor, producer, and narrator,” so it would feel wrong not to mention at least one film or documentary he was involved with, as a narrator.
7
‘Taxi Driver’ (1976)
One of Scorsese’s earliest films, Taxi Driver, also stands as one of his darkest and most serious, which is saying quite a lot (though, as The Wolf of Wall Street showed, he’s not against the idea of making entertainment altogether). It’s about a lonely man working as a late-night taxi driver in New York City, and he finds his mind slipping while he has increasingly intense thoughts about how he might go about “cleaning up” the city.
The film really needs the voiceover to get you into the head of its disturbed main character, and even then, there are still mysteries when it comes to Travis Bickle, and how genuinely he believes what he thinks. There are other psychological drama/thriller movies that might over-rely on narration to put forth how troubled the protagonist is, but Taxi Driver does it properly, and then some.
6
‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950)
Classic film noir titles don’t necessarily need narration, but narration helps. Only highlighting one might seem a bit unfair (though Taxi Driver is sort of a neo-noir film), but the one most worth highlighting would have to be Sunset Boulevard. This has the novelty of being narrated by someone who introduces himself as dead at the start of the movie, making almost the whole thing a series of flashbacks.
It does interesting things for the tone of the movie, since he’s understandably bitter about the whole ordeal and the fact that it saw him dead by the end of it all, with the suspense coming about from finding out how he died, not whether he will survive or die. Sunset Boulevard is clever and pretty much timeless for so many other reasons, but the narration is one of the very best things (of many) it has going for it.
5
‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971)
A Clockwork Orange might not have looked particularly adaptable, as a novel, yet Stanley Kubrick managed to do it justice with his 1971 film of the same name. The book has first-person narration by the central character, Alex, and unique narration at that, owing to the slang he uses, which can make both book and movie alike hard to follow for a bit, until you sort of get used to it.
It’s a great stylistic choice, though, and Alex’s head is an undeniably uncomfortable one to be in, both when he’s committing heinous crimes and having a heinous form of rehabilitation inflicted upon him. The narration is pretty much constant throughout A Clockwork Orange (1971), but not as a storytelling shortcut or anything, instead being instrumental for what the story’s going for as a character study and as a broader examination of issues regarding crime, justice, rehabilitation, and violence.
4
‘Trainspotting’ (1996)
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It’s easy to compare the narration of A Clockwork Orange to the narration of Trainspotting, since Trainspotting was also a book (and later a movie) distinguished by the choice of language used through the narration. In the book, Renton narrates most of the chapters, though in the movie, he’s the sole narrator, with Ewan McGregor more than rising to the occasion in this regard.
There’s energy to Trainspotting that comes across through the way the movie’s shot, edited, and paced, too, but the narration is significant in making this feel like the sort of ride it is. It’s very descriptive, sometimes confronting, sometimes eye-opening, and sometimes darkly funny, and absolutely perfectly used for Trainspotting and its overall (not to mention distinctive) look at drugs, addiction, and also sort of just life more generically. It’s a movie (and novel) worth choosing to devote your time to.
3
‘Fight Club’ (1999)
In Fight Club, Edward Norton plays someone known only as “Narrator,” so that qualifies the whole movie for top 10 status for present purposes by default. Like, he is the narrator, and whatever – or whoever – else he might be does not seem important, especially when Fight Club starts. He’s a blank slate of a character whose life gets considerably more interesting when he meets Tyler Durden, who’s basically his opposite.
They start a fight club, some other things happen, and then some crazy revelations also occur, with lots of that being well-known now, but better to keep vague on the off-chance you’ve not watched Fight Club at some point in the last 27 years. Edward Norton’s narration as the narrator is great from the start, and gets better the longer Fight Club goes on, plus more interesting in ways that are only really understandable – or appreciable – once the entire film is over and done with.
2
‘Goodfellas’ (1990)
The best of all the Martin Scorsese films, Goodfellas, unsurprisingly also has the best narration of all the Scorsese films. It’s done by Henry Hill, who’s the viewpoint character into the world of the mafia, and it turns out he’s probably a better storyteller than he is a gangster, since his observations prove immersive (even if he himself is distanced from being a full-on made guy).
Much of the narration is lifted directly from Wiseguy, the non-fiction book Goodfellas was an adaptation of, and Ray Liotta does the narration so well, even when he briefly pulls a Jordan Belfort, talking to the camera, at the very end. Also, Goodfellas has some narration from Karen (Lorraine Bracco), who’s Henry’s girlfriend-turned-wife, and her insights into the whole lifestyle are also illuminating and highly interesting (as she’s even more of an outsider than Henry).
1
‘Grizzly Man’ (2005)
Grizzly Man is standing in for all the Werner Herzog documentaries here, because whenever he narrates, you get gold. It’s a combination of his unique voice and the distinctive way he sees the world, so listening to him talk about the sometimes-strange topics he picks for his documentaries can prove simultaneously frightening, sad, thought-provoking, and maybe even a little funny at times, too.
With Grizzly Man, his narration is especially great, and the documentary as a whole – about a troubled man named Timothy Treadwell who spent many summers in Alaska among grizzly bears before being attacked and killed by one – is also enthralling. It might well score extra points narration-wise because Treadwell himself also filmed and narrated his various experiences among the bears, so you get narration on top of narration. Narraception. No one’s ever narrated better than Herzog, though, so putting what’s probably his best documentary in the top spot here feels fitting.
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https://collider.com/best-narrated-movies-all-time-ranked/
Jeremy Urquhart
Almontather Rassoul
