25 Great Movies With The Most Effective Uses Of Voice-Over Narration

Created by Igor_Brynner.

Favorited 1 time, disliked 0 times, added to 1 watchlist.

Voice-over narration is a technique commonly used in film, theatre or television productions in which a voice, that is generally non-diegetic, occurs in the course of a work’s narrative.

Usually uttered by a character from within the work, voice-over typically aims to elucidate a story’s development and mise-en-scène, thus creating elements of structure and continuity. It can be used as a way to recount past events and create an ambience, but is also recurrent in non-fictional films, such as documentaries or televised-news, due to its characteristically informative nature.

However, by reflecting on which motion pictures have employed the most significant uses of voice-over narration, we can discern films that often transcend and defy this method’s conventional expectations.

Though voice-over is a technique that frequently causes debate in the cinematic world due to the claim that a film is inherently narrated – and thus that a supplementary voice would merely interfere in the storyline, it is surely due to the work of some remarkable screenwriters that voice-over has proven its ability of not necessarily intruding, but enhancing the effect of a narrative.

This list is an attempt of categorising the films with the most effective and innovative uses of voice-over narration in a somewhat suitable order, with the effort of avoiding to merely classify them on a best-film basis.

We can find works with varied but distinctively creative ways of employing voice-over, some based off literary works in order to preserve the author’s language, and others with entirely inventive uses – rather justifying why several were either nominated or won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.