21 of the Best Wordless Gags in Comedy History

Brad Pitt smiling in the closet in ‘Burn After Reading’

You know what? We’ve become too reliant on sound in movies. We used to not even have any, and we managed just fine, but now we depend on music, dialogue and a library of sound effects to make us feel what skilled silent directors could pull off with body language and title cards. Now, the art of the wordless gag is all but dead. 

Yeah, we said it. Come at us, pro-soundies.

Not entirely, however. For example, Redditor SeaEmergency7911 says it “cracks me up every time” in Office Space when “Peter asks Lawrence what he’d do if he had a million dollars and Lawrence replies ‘two chicks at the same time’ and Peter kinds of laughs it off… and then looks at Lawrence and sees he has a deadly serious expression on his face like this is the most important thing in the world to him.” 

They then asked r/Movies, “What’s the funniest nonverbal thing you’ve seen in a film?” and silently waded through all the responses below.

Ratatouille

Tremors

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Shaun of the Dead

The Big Lebowski

Airplane!

The Other Guys

The Royal Tenenbaums

Borat

Beetlejuice

Dr. Strangelove

Trading Places

Zoolander

Monsters, Inc.

Napoleon Dynamite

Burn After Reading

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

The Hangover

Back to the Future

The Nice Guys

Crazy, Stupid, Love

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