Silence

2016 Directed by Martin Scorsese

Pray with your eyes open

Two Jesuit priests travel to seventeenth century Japan which has, under the Tokugawa shogunate, banned Catholicism and almost all foreign contact.

Andrew Garfield Adam Driver Liam Neeson Yosuke Kubozuka Tadanobu Asano Issei Ogata Shinya Tsukamoto Ryō Kase Nana Komatsu Yoshi Oida Ciarán Hinds Béla Baptiste Michié Katsuo Nakamura Motokatsu Suzuki Yasushi Takada Ten Miyazawa Kaoru Endô Diego Calderón Shi Liang Miho Harita Hairi Katagiri Hiroko Isayama Yutaka Mishima Yoriko Douguchi Kansai Eto Shun Sugata Hako Ohshima Hideki Nishioka Show All…

Alternative Titles

Milczenie Boga, Мълчание, Silencio, ศรัทธาไม่เงียบ, Молчание, 사일런스, Silêncio, خاموشی

history drama

161 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 31

100
"Those five in the pit are suffering too, just like Jesus, but they don't have your pride. They would never compare themselves to Jesus. Do you have the right to make them suffer? I heard the cries of suffering in this same cell. And I acted."
I remember it vividly; like a memory still lingering fresh in the mind. It was my first time attending the sacrament of reconciliation, and I was just as nervous as the many other students lined up in waiting for their turn at the confessional. One by one, people entered and exited the booth with a degree of rebellion and solemnity. It eventually dawned on me that my time had arrived, and taking a…
Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 10

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF GARFIELD
Review by Karsten Runquist ★★★★ 8

I'm....hm....uh....
Writing about movies is hard lol, writing about Silence is hell.
At the ripe age of 22 I still don't know where I stand on religion, I just have a lot of opinions on it that nobody wants to hear about. But what I'm trying to say is I feel like with a film like this, a film as subtly extreme and exhausting as this, your view on religion is going to impact how you take in this movie. Which is why I think the most impressive part about Silence, aside from how it looks, is the objectivity of it, I think. It's taking you in with open arms and dragging you through a whole lot of honesty. Brutal ass honesty. I did a lot more thinking than I did feeling with this one and I'll definitely be coming back to it some day. Yet another classic gangster film from the one and only Martin Scorsese!
Review by maria ★★★★½ 11

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

andrew garfield and adam driver: *go through hell to save liam neeson and his soul*
liam neeson: me no christian no more me a weeboo
andrew garfield: please say sike
Review by adrianbalboa ★★★★ 2

nothing fills my heart up with joy quite like imagining marty scorsese watching the final cut of this movie with a big ol smile on his face cause it turned out the masterpiece he intended......bushy eyebrowed king im about to cry
Review by Evan ★★★★½ 7

This one is going to have to marinate in my brain for a few days before I even attempt to write down some cohesive thoughts. But I'll leave you with this: Holy Fucking Shit! Marty hasn't lost it one bit.
Also, that final shot...WOW! One of the best final shots I've seen in a film to date.
Review by josh lewis ★★★★★ 4

Even on rewatch I'm still unsure what to say about this one other than I already see myself wrestling with it for years to come. Shūsaku Endō’s book itself is a masterpiece, a book about reconciling belief and inquiry, love and cruelty, calm and brutality (spoiler: you can’t), and out of it Scorsese has stayed faithful to it and sculpted it into an extraordinarily empathetic portrait of arrogance and endurance. Many have already compared it to Scorsese’s previous spiritual works Last Temptation and Kundun, but it’s closest relative for me is his criminally underrated Bringing Out The Dead, the story of a paramedic addicted to the high of saving life, but unable to endure the pain of death—late in the…
Review by katie ★★★★½ 3

Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver further prove they are two of the most convincing and diverse actors today. Unlike Hacksaw Ridge, in my opinion, the faith in this film was handled beautifully and very respectfully. I absolutely adored Silence.
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 5

"Grace ﬁlls empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it." - Simone Weil
Preliminary notes - because like all great art, it is not consumable within a single experience. But where to start with a film as dense as this one? Reading 'Mizo on Mizo'* earlier, Mizoguchi stated in regards to 'The Life of Oharu' that "it takes several years before a true work of art begins to take shape." I don't think any of us need to be reminded at this point that Scorsese was developing this project since 1991, but it frankly feels like it (I consider this a huge compliment) - it's the most concentrated film of his career and…
Review by Jake Cole ★★★★★ 2

"Go on, then, Rodrigues, pray. But pray with your eyes open."
I remember reading a review of this when it came out that dismissively compared it to Shinoda's original adaptation, arguing on demonstrably woke lines that Scorsese's emphasis on Endo's rumination on faith came at the expense of the novel's critiques of colonialism. It struck me as a blinkered, surface-level reading of the film then; now, it seems downright oblivious. Scorsese has worked with strong scripts for so much of his career, but he communicates visually, one of the few filmmakers who can shoot impressionistically and expressionistically with equal skill. It is hard to ignore how both Rodrigues and especially Garupe recoil at every Japanese person who approaches them, instinctively…
Review by Brendan Michaels ★★★★½ 1

If you follow the career of Martin Scorsese loosely you would be fairly surprised that he would follow up his epic of debauchery and greed, The Wolf of Wall Street, with the tranquil, yet brutal Silence. But peering closer at some of the hidden gems of his filmography it was only a matter of time before he made Silence. Silence is a culmination of Scorsese’s themes of religion and faith that drive many of his films. It’s a tale of anguish, suffering, faith, agony, and reconciliation. Possibly Scorsese’s most harrowing of his films as the characters are put through hell to prove their faith which is the foundation of their lives. You will find no other film quite like Silence this year or any other year.

FULL REVIEW ON TALK FILM SOCIETY
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½ 7

61/100
Las Vegas Weekly review, in which I remain quasi-objective and don't discuss the ways in which my atheism informs my reaction. For me, the experience was a bit like watching 9/11 truthers refusing to step on a copy of Loose Change—intensely admirable in the abstract, but faintly ludicrous in the particular. Consequently, I was absorbed but unmoved until Father Ferreira reappears, at which point Silence finally starts speaking to a heathen like me. Final half hour or so is sublime, and may well transform what had seemed like a sluggish route to that destination when I inevitably take a second look.

Recent reviews

Review by ISkarthi ★★★½

An exhausting,self questioning, brutally honest film about the Last priest in Japan in 1600s.. The movie not only creates sepf doubt of the Rodriguez character but Also asks the audience where do you belong? & what would you do if you you were in that situation?.. This film constantly questioned me (I'm not religious person but I'm a spiritual person).. The kichuruki character was well written at various levels.. The usage of silence in some scenes are picture perfect that it hit hard than it would have with the noise.. Exotic visualization.. MARTY does what's always he does, the best of bringing psychological edge on his characters & audience..
Review by noah

i love you marty
Review by BigDina ★★★

Spider-Man and Kylo Ren are actually incredible in this film
Review by Stephen Morgan ★★★★★

Extraordinary, tense and Powerful drama about two Missionary Priests trying to find their former mentor while spreading the word of Christianity in Japan.
I was surprised to see that the consensus of opinion is fairly lukewarm on this movie, as I thought it was incredible.
The film looks at the meaning of faith, devotion, belief, religion, prayer, how religions translate across different cultures and whether, if God exists, how and if he would reveal himself.
It is shot incredibly well, and it often looks breathtaking.
Andrew Garfield is superb here, and his performance captures the confusion, sorrow, trauma and, most of all, anguish of the choices his character, Father Rodrigues, must make.
The Inquisitor, played by Issey Ogata, is superb,…
Review by Pedro Correa ★★★½

This movie made me think a lot. I couldn't rate or review it when I finished the film.
I searched some other reviews that could help to undertand the movie, because I was very confused with its ending.
I found a review from the bishop of Los Angeles Robert Barron. I'm not catholic, but his words expressed the same feeling I had: besides the movie has a lot of interesting meanings about the complexity of spirituality, he says a really true thing: the film also shows a way of thinking of the elite: religion is better if it's quite and no one talks about it - going against the religion itself, especially Christianity.
People don't want to see changes or…
Review by linusjar ★★★★★

I'm not religious and not an Andrew Garfield fan, but this is the best Scorsese. Just thick with intensity, spirituality, and fantastic performances. The start of my Adam Driver love affair. Incredibly powerful film and profoundly moving.
Review by Elwyn Hofmann ★★★★½

Silence (2016)
Rating: 9/10 ⭐️
Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver are great in this. It challenges the traditional understanding of the term “martyr”, and I thought it’s messaging was extremely original. It can be quite a drag to get through. The middle seems a bit redundant, but it really puts you in the mind of these missionaries going through the same turmoil day after day. It can be a challenging watch, but the ending is a great pay off.
Review by jstorey13 ★★★½

Very thought provoking but I was still pretty bored throughout this one
Review by Hayden Young

Adam 'Big ears' driver
Review by JMR ★★★★

“God has heard their prayers as they died, but did he hear their screams?”
A cinematic achievement for Martin Scorsese’s lifelong filmmaking career, Silence captures an understanding common within religious groups — the knowledge one may be speaking to God, but in return they receive deafening silence. It is a show of ones faith to continue believing.
During the 17th century Christianity was seen as a threat to Japan and their mission for unity — a overreaction, sure, but enforced through Japan and it’s regent at the time. Anyone breaking the edict was met with force, and at times death. A dangerous time for Christians, Scorsese takes a long, objective look at fundamentalist religion.
This film left me speechless, silent if you will.…
Review by souza ★★★★

A religião sempre foi um tema muito importante pessoalmente e profissionalmente para Scorsese. Suas obras, mesmo as mais violentas, geralmente contam com personagens com certa dose de religiosidade e tradição. É claro, ele também foi responsável por produções diretamente religiosas, como A Última Tentação de Cristo por exemplo.
Já aqui, em Silêncio, Scorsese criou um de seus mais belos filmes. A cinematografia mescla tomadas suntuosas e cenários incríveis com momentos mais íntimos, geralmente representados em planos-detalhes, focados em elementos específicos, como as mãos dos padres e inúmeras imagens religiosas.
Trata-se de um trabalho impactante, com visual deslumbrante e excelentes atuações, especialmente a de Andrew Garfield, que está MT bom aqui.
Silêncio é mais do que um título ou um voto. É um estado de espírito necessário para se absorver tudo que o filme e seus personagens têm a dizer. Um dos melhores e mais especiais filmes de Martin Scorsese e uma das melhores provas do quão versátil é o diretor.
Review by Justin Bromley ★★★★½

Saw this four years ago and I’ll probably never watch it again. I’ve never had a film suck my entire soul and spit out to a complete mess