Sound Recording in Movies
These are examples of movies that show sound recording and playback on any kind of recorder and medium - cylinder recorders, disc recorders, wire recorders, digital recorders, magnetic tape reel-to-reels, cassettes, telephone answering machines, voice mail recordings, office memo recorders, surveillance recording systems, smart phones and smart watches, if they are important to the plot.
Music studio recording sessions are not included here because that would be a very long list on its own, nor do examples of someone playing back pre-recorded sound that we did not see them record.
Warning - comments may include spoilers.
Music studio recording sessions are not included here because that would be a very long list on its own, nor do examples of someone playing back pre-recorded sound that we did not see them record.
Warning - comments may include spoilers.
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- DirectorJean-Jacques BeineixStarsWilhelmenia FernandezFrédéric AndréiRoland BertinTwo tapes, two Parisian mob killers, one corrupt policeman, an opera fan, a teenage thief, and the coolest philosopher ever filmed all twist their way through an intricate and stylish French-language thriller.A young man smuggles his Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorder into an opera theater and records an opera singer who does not want her performances recorded and has never been recorded before. The tape becomes mixed up with a cassette tape that is proof that a police chief is mixed up with the mob. The tape is also sought after by some foreign men who want to make a bootleg recording out of it to sell to the singer's fans.
- DirectorLouis FeuilladeStarsMusidoraÉdouard MathéMarcel LévesqueAn intrepid reporter and his loyal friend battle a bizarre secret society of criminals known as The Vampires.In Episode 7 "Satanas" Vampire Irma Vep poses as a woman who records local celebrity visitors using an old sound-recording device, which is unusual since this is a silent film. In a very elaborate scheme, she records a millionaires voice, using what the newspapers have reported is the only French phrase he knows. Another one of the Vampires also gets his signature, which they use to forge a check. When they present the check at a bank, the bank manager calls the millionaire on the telephone. Irma Vep has taken over the receptionist post at his hotel to hijack the call. When he calls, she plays the recording back to the manager through the telephone and the manager believes he is listening to the millionaire, so the Vampires are able to cash the check.
- DirectorShane CarruthStarsAmy SeimetzFrank MosleyShane CarruthA man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.A man records sounds in nature and sounds he makes himself then turns them into music.
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsYo HitotoTadanobu AsanoMasato HagiwaraThe story revolves around Yoko Inoue, a pregnant woman in search of a cafe that was frequented by a Taiwanese composer whose life she is researching.A bookstore emplyee records the sounds of trains in Tokyo with a mini disc recorder and a small handheld microphone.
- DirectorBrian De PalmaStarsJohn TravoltaNancy AllenJohn LithgowA movie sound recordist accidentally records the evidence that proves that a car accident was actually murder and consequently finds himself in danger.While he is recording sound effects outdoors with a parabolic mic for a movie, a sound recordist witnesses a car crash. Back in his studio, after he syncs the sound up to video of the car crash, he figures out that somebody shot out the car's tires and murdered the passengers.
- DirectorDario ArgentoStarsTony MusanteSuzy KendallEnrico Maria SalernoAn American expatriate in Rome attempts to unmask a serial killer he witnessed in the act of an attempted murder - and is now hunting him and his girlfriend.A conversation recorded on a tapped phone contains a strange sound in the background. A sound lab analyzes it but they can't figure it out. The protagonist has a friend who is a bird expert. He hears the recording and realizes it's a bird so rare there is only one in all of Italy and it is at the Rome zoo. This detail leads them to the identity of a mass murderer.
- DirectorPeter StricklandStarsToby JonesAntonio MancinoGuido AdorniA sound engineer's work for an Italian horror studio becomes a terrifying case of life imitating art.In the 1970s, an English foley artist works in an Italian film studio recording voice and sound effects for a Giallo film.
- DirectorSteven HoStarsWayne PéreEliane ChappuisWilliam ForsytheA movie sound mixer working on a low budget film is unappreciated by almost everyone. As he starts to lose his grasp on reality and his life spirals downwards, he finally snaps and takes revenge.Igby Walters records on-set dialog on his Nagra and he also uses a pocket mini-cassette recorder to record his director's promise to help him, which the director later tried to deny.
- DirectorChris ColumbusStarsRobin WilliamsSally FieldPierce BrosnanAfter a bitter divorce, an actor disguises himself as a female housekeeper to spend time with his children held in custody by his former wife.Robin Williams dubs voices for cartoon characters in a recording studio. We also see some foley being recorded.
- DirectorMichael RadfordMassimo TroisiStarsMassimo TroisiPhilippe NoiretMaria Grazia CucinottaA simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet, and then uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.The Postman and his boss take Pablo Neruda's tape recorder outside to record sounds of the island, music, and a message to Neruda from the postman, which thy plan to send to Neruda.
- DirectorJohn BoultingStarsRichard AttenboroughHermione BaddeleyWilliam HartnellIn Brighton in 1935, small-time gang leader Pinkie Brown murders a journalist and later desperately tries to cover his tracks but runs into trouble with the police, a few witnesses, and a rival gang.Pinkie's new wife Rose asks him to go into a recording booth on the boardwalk to make a recording of his voice for her. He does, telling her that he knows she wants him to say "I love you" but instead can only tell her that he hates her. After he dies, she finally listens to the record, but it is scratched and skips after he says the words "I love you" and the movie ends with that phrase repeated again and again. (The book ends with her just about to listen to the recording, which presumably will not skip.)
- DirectorDavid MillerStarsJoan CrawfordJack PalanceGloria GrahameAfter an ambitious actor insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy middle-aged playwright and marries her, he plots with his mistress to murder her.Playwrite Joan Crawford uses an elaborate dictation system that uses multiple microphones set up around her office so she can walk around the room and dictate her plays and always be recorded clearly on one of the microphones. One day she uses it to dictate some changes to her will, but she leaves the room and forgets to turn it off. Her husband and his girlfriend come into the room shortly after she leaves and close the door so they can talk in private, while the machine is still recording. The next day Crawford listens to their conversation and learns that they plan to kill her. The dictation disc skips and the last thing we hear is Gloria Graham's voice saying "I know a way... I know a way" over and over again.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsRüdiger VoglerPatrick BauchauVasco SequeiraThe director Friedrich Monroe has trouble with finishing a silent b&w movie about Lisbon. He calls his friend, the sound engineer Phillip Winter, for help. As Winter arrives Lisbon weeks later, Monroe is disappeared but has left the unfinished film. Winter decides to stay, because he is fascinated of the city and the Portuguese singer Teresa, and he starts to record the sound of the film. At the same time Monroe cruises through the city with a camcorder and tries to catch unseen pictures. Later they meet and Winter convinces Monroe of finishing the film.A German sound engineer in Lisbon with a portable DAT recorder records sound effects and voices for a movie. He also records foley sounds in a studio.
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsGene HackmanJohn CazaleAllen GarfieldA paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.Gene Hackman is a survailance professional who is hired to record a conversation between two people who are walking around in a crowded public square because they think that someone might be trying to record them. He uses a mic hidden in a bag held by a man who follows them around, a second long-distance directional mic in the window of a building on one side of the square, and a third even more long distance mic that looks like a sniper's rifle on the roof of a building across the other side of the square. He takes the three tape recordings, syncs them up, and uses the best parts of each recording to make a composite tape. Then he freaks out when he thinks the tape will be used to convince a man to murder his cheating wife.
- DirectorFlorian Henckel von DonnersmarckStarsUlrich MüheMartina GedeckSebastian KochIn 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.People are spied on and recorded
by electronic surveillance devices in East Germany. - DirectorKrzysztof KieslowskiStarsIrène JacobJean-Louis TrintignantFrédérique FederA model discovers a retired judge is keen on invading people's privacy.We hear some important telephone answering machine recordings.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsAnthony HopkinsJoan AllenPowers BootheA biographical story of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, from his days as a young boy, to his eventual Presidency, which ended in shame.Nixon blows it by recording his conversations then trying to erase parts of them.
- DirectorClaude LanzmannStarsSimon SrebnikMichael PodchlebnikMotke ZaïdlClaude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.The filmmaker uses illicit surveilance videotaping and sound recording from van parked outside his interview subjects. We wonder if what he is doing is unethical even though the subjects are ex-Nazis talking about the terrible things they did during the holocaust.
- DirectorRowan JoffeStarsSam RileyAndrea RiseboroughHelen MirrenCharts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish.This film uses the same exact scratched record skipping happy ending used in the 1947 movie, which was not part of the novel.
- DirectorByron HowardRich MooreJared BushStarsGinnifer GoodwinJason BatemanIdris ElbaIn a city of anthropomorphic animals, a rookie bunny cop and a cynical con artist fox must work together to uncover a conspiracy.Judy Hopps the bunny cop uses a tape recorder disguised as a carrot to record Nick Wilde the conman fox when he tells her about his criminal activity. Then she plays the recording back to him and threatens to use it to put him in jail unless he helps her. Later they use the recorder to record the mayor explaining her wrongdoings which leads to her getting arrested.
- DirectorAnthony AsquithLeslie HowardStarsLeslie HowardWendy HillerWilfrid LawsonA phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.Henry Higgins molds a lower class girl Eliza Doolittle into an upper class aristocrat by changing the way she speaks. He records her voice on some type of discs and plays back the recordings to her in order to let her hear herself and improve.
- DirectorGeorge CukorStarsAudrey HepburnRex HarrisonStanley HollowayIn 1910s London, snobbish phonetics professor Henry Higgins agrees to a wager that he can make crude flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, presentable in high society.Henry Higgins is a phonetics professor who has several wax cylinder recorders that he uses to record people's speech and play it back to help them learn to change the way they speak. In one scene he plays several of the gramophones back simultaneously at high speed to act as the irritating sounds of a group of women talking.
- DirectorMaggie GreenwaldStarsJanet McTeerMichael HardingMichael DavisAfter being denied a promotion at the university where she teaches, Doctor Lily Penleric, a brilliant musicologist, impulsively visits her sister, who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia. There she stumbles upon the discovery of her life - a treasure trove of ancient Scots-Irish ballads, songs that have been handed down from generation to generation, preserved intact by the seclusion of the mountains. With the goal of securing her promotion, Lily ventures into the most isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs and finds herself increasingly enchanted - not only by the rugged purity of the music, but also by the raw courage and endurance of the local people as they carve out meaningful lives against the harshest conditions. It is not, however, until she meets Tom - a handsome, hardened war veteran and talented musician - that she's forced to examine her motivations. Is the "Songcatcher," as Tom insists, no better than the men who exploit the people and extort their land?A musicologist carries heavy Edison cylinder recorders into isolated mountain locations to record Appalachian mountain songs so she can introduce them to the rest of the world.
- DirectorMichael MannStarsChristian BaleJohnny DeppChristian StolteThe Feds try to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s.The Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor of the F.B.I.) uses machines that record sound to lacquer discs to record tapped phone calls. These recordings help them find John Dillinger.
- DirectorJoe CarnahanStarsRay LiottaJason PatricChi McBrideWhen the trail goes cold on a murder investigation of a policeman, an undercover narcotics officer is lured back to the force to help solve the case.A cop turns on a micro cassette recorder to record a forced murder confession from two men he tortures and plans to kill after they confess. Before they can confess the cop's partner shoots him and forces him to confess that he was the real killer. But the dying cop tells the partner that he didn't shoot the man who shot himself in a suicide. The last shot in the movie is a close-up of the cassette recorder still recording, which made me assume that the truth about the suicide was recorded to tape and will be heard by others in the police department. Of course, there could be other interpretations.
- DirectorDavid LeitchStarsCharlize TheronJames McAvoyJohn GoodmanAn undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.In 1989 Berlin, Charlize Theron is a spy who hides a small tape recorder in her stockings with a microphone taped under her fancy lingerie and attached to her bra to record conversations with various spies. She finds a hidden microphone in her winter coat and realizes that she is being recorded by her corrupt colleague. Her superiors also record her every word with a large reel-to-reel recorder that is continually running in the background in the interrogation scene that frames the movie.
- DirectorCarl FranklinStarsBill PaxtonBilly Bob ThorntonCynda WilliamsA small town police chief awaits the arrival of a gang of killers.Killers enter a home where a man is making a home video on a VHS camera, which records them talking before they shut it off. Then they rob and kill several people. L. A. police isolate the sound in the background of the movie and hear someone say the name of the home town where one of the murderers is planning to go, which helps lead them to him.
- DirectorWoody AllenStarsWoody AllenDiane KeatonJerry AdlerA middle-aged couple suspects foul play when their neighbor's wife suddenly drops dead.A man is getting away with a perfect murder. A group of people want to make him give them information they can take to the police to convince them of his crime. They write a fake script for a theater play and call an actress who is involved with the murderer to audition for the play so they can get her to say certain phrases that they record on the video that is supposedly documenting her audition. They take the sound of her voice from the video and edit it into short phrases, each of which they put on tapes put into five tape recorders. They call the murderer on a speaker phone and press play on one of the five recorders to play back selected phrases in a conversation with him.
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsVal KilmerSam ShepardGraham GreeneA young mixed-blood FBI agent is assigned to work with a cynical veteran investigator on a murder on a poverty-stricken Sioux reservation.An FBI agent investigating a murder uses a handheld cassette recorder to secretly record a conversation that incriminates his boss. After the man who was recorded is murdered, the agent plays the tape back over his police radio to his boss who is chasing him in another vehicle, to let his boss know that he knows he's guilty.
- DirectorJack NicholsonStarsJack NicholsonHarvey KeitelMeg TillyThe sequel to Chinatown (1974) finds J.J. "Jake" Gittes investigating adultery and murder, and the money that comes from oil.In 1948, private detectives use a wire recorder to record an adulterous affair in a motel room that turns into a gun homicide after the husband enters. The wire recording becomes a major story element in the movie. We hear it played several times, so when the recording is played as evidence in a courtroom, we can tell that important incriminating details have been removed.
- DirectorStanley DonenGene KellyStarsGene KellyDonald O'ConnorDebbie ReynoldsA silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood.One of the best musicals ever made is also one of the best depictions of recording sound for film at the beginning of the talking picture era, including the invention of dubbing speaking and singing parts.
- DirectorLake BellStarsLake BellFred MelamedMichaela WatkinsAn underachieving voice coach finds herself competing in the movie trailer voice-over profession against her arrogant father and his protégé.Recording voice overs for movie trailers.
- DirectorNick ShermanStarsGordon HemptonPure sound unaltered by human hands is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Gordon Hempton is an Emmy Award-winning sound recordist who has spent the last 30 years trying to find and record the vanishing sounds of nature in an attempt to capture a disappearing sensory experience. Filmmaker Nicholas Sherman observes Hempton in the wilderness for 30 days and uncovers an obsessive artist on a quest for perfection in this obscure medium. Hempton's natural ability to locate and articulate himself through sound has a contagious energy and gives his work a transportive quality. Soundtracker is a fascinating meditation on the world's changing landscape and the things we may be leaving behind in the service of progress.Gordon Hempton records nature sounds and complains about airplane noise. Don't we all.
It seems like he hopes to find a place so quiet that he can record the sound of silence.
Wait, I think he just recorded the sound of one hand clapping.... - DirectorEdgar WrightStarsAnsel ElgortJon BernthalJon HammAfter being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail.Baby constantly listens to music on a variety of iPods, and he also makes cassette mixtapes from conversations and sounds he records on various vintage machines incluing a micro-cassette recorder, small electronic keyboards, digital drum pads, a dual cassette recorder, a reel-to-reel deck, an ancient mini synthesizer, and an old Califone educational recorder that records onto a magnetic strip on a card which can then be played and scratched like an LP.
- DirectorPawel PawlikowskiStarsJoanna KuligTomasz KotBorys SzycIn the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.In postwar Poland see some ethnomusicologists recording people in rural Poland singing traditional folk music with portable reel-to-reel tape recorders. They hire folksingers and create a huge national folklore ensemble to sing the songs.
- DirectorWilliam KattStarsBarry CorbinSam HuntingtonCaroline GoodallCorbin plays a fictional Menard County sheriff who uses country savvy and cowboy logic to straighten out his angry teen-aged grandson, Clay, a high school senior who can't seem to stay out of trouble.A county sheriff records himself on cassette tapes to teach his grandson survival tips for a canoe trip in the wilderness. The boy plays the tapes each day on a portable tape player as he makes his way down the river.
- DirectorJames CameronStarsArnold SchwarzeneggerJamie Lee CurtisTom ArnoldA fearless, globe-trotting, terrorist-battling secret agent has his life turned upside down when he discovers his wife might be having an affair with a used-car salesman while terrorists smuggle nuclear war heads into the United States.Secret agent Arnold Schwarzenegger has a French man record his voice onto a small tape recorder. Arnold obscures his face and hides the tape machine, then plays bay phrases on the tape recorder to his wife, who doesn't know her husband is the man across the hotel room because she hears another man's voice asking her to strip and do a sexy dance.
- DirectorDarren SteinStarsRose McGowanRebecca GayheartJulie BenzThree of the most popular girls at Reagan High accidentally kill the prom queen with a jawbreaker when a kidnapping goes horribly wrong.Three high school mean girls accidentally kill the fourth member of their squad during a prank on her birthday due to a mistake by their leader Courtney. When they put the dead girl back in her bedroom Courtney unwittingly records herself confessing to the killing on a greeting card that records a short voice message and plays it back when the card is opened. Later, Courtney's now ex-friends discover the accidental incriminating voice message on the card and get revenge on her by wiring the card's voice recording chip into the PA system for the high school senior prom. Just as Courtney is on stage being crowned prom queen, her voice message starts playing repeatedly over the PA speakers for everyone to hear. The crowd recognizes Courtney's voice and turns against her, now knowing that she's a murderer.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsRichard BurtonPeter FirthColin BlakelyA psychiatrist attempts to uncover a troubled stable boy's disturbing obsession with horses.A psychiatrist gives his patient a portable cassette recorder to record things in private that he wants the doctor to listen to later without having to talk to the doctor in person.
- DirectorQuentin TarantinoStarsLeonardo DiCaprioBrad PittMargot RobbieA faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame and success in the final years of Hollywood's Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles.Actor Rick Dalton rehearses his part by recording himself speaking the lines of other actors onto a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder, leaving enough silence for his own lines, then playing the tape back and speaking his lines during the silence.
- DirectorMarco FerreriStarsMichel PiccoliAnita PallenbergGino LavagettoA man decides to cook for himself, but finds the revolver of John Dillinger hidden in his kitchen instead.Glauco gets in bed next to his wife, plugs a mic into a portable cassette recorder, and records the sounds of his wife's loud breathing as she sleeps. Then he plays it back. Later he puts pillows over her head and shoots her.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsSean ConneryDyan CannonMartin BalsamAfter ten years in prison to protect a mafia family, Duke Anderson is released and he cashes in a debt of honor with the mob to bankroll a caper.There's a lot of surveillance recording in this movie: NY Narcotics cops are recording an ex-con druggie; the FBI is recording an antique dealer; the House Internal Committee is recording a Black Panther; the IRS is recording mobsters with a mic planted under a car, a mic strapped to a restaurant waiter's leg, and a pen microphone in a nurse's pocket which is recorded to a nearby boat; and Anderson's girlfriend's apartment is bugged and recorded by her sugar daddy. He plays back a recording of the couple in bed together to force her to be his exclusive mistress by blackmailing Anderson because he has overheard his plans to rob an apartment building. All of these people under surveillance are involved in Anderson's plans, and everyone bugging them has learned about the plans, but none of them does anything to stop the robbery because they aren't communicating with each other. The police don't find out about the caper until it's in progress. After Anderson's gang is caught or killed, all of the agencies erase their tapes to avoid embarrassment over failing to report the robbery or to avoid penalties for illegal surveillance.
- DirectorLuc BessonStarsSasha LussHelen MirrenLuke EvansBeneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.Anna secretly records a conversation she has with her KGB boss that she uses later to blackmail her boss.
- DirectorJérémy ClapinStarsHakim FarisVictoire Du BoisPatrick d'AssumçaoA story of Naoufel, a young man who is in love with Gabrielle. In another part of town, a severed hand escapes from a dissection lab, determined to find its body again.A boy is gifted a portable cassette player and a microphone. He records natural sounds as well as his parents talking, playing music, and driving in their car. The tape is recording when their car crashes, killing his parents. He plays the tape back when he is a young man, then he records the sounds of himself jumping off a roof onto a building crane, and the girl he loves finds it and plays it back.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsCatherine DeneuveJean-Paul BelmondoNelly BorgeaudA wealthy plantation owner is captivated by a mysterious woman with a shady past.Catherine Deneuve's character goes into a recording booth with a microphone to record a spoken message directly to a 7 inch vinyl disc that she takes away with her. Unfortunately, a speeding car makes her drop the disc on the street where it gets run over and broken, so her love message was never listened to by her husband.
- DirectorSam RaimiStarsBruce CampbellEllen SandweissRichard DeManincorFive friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.Five college students staying at a remote cabin find an archeologist's tape recorder. When they play back a reel-to-reel tape of incantations they inadvertently resurrect a demon. After more of the tape is played later they learn how to kill the demon.
- DirectorMichael SpierigPeter SpierigStarsEthan HawkeSarah SnookNoah TaylorAs his last assignment, a temporal agent is tasked to travel back in time and prevent a bomb attack in New York in 1975. The hunt, however, turns out to be beyond the bounds of possibility.The face of an agent, whose job is to time travel to stop crimes before they happen, is completely destroyed in an explosion. After reconstructive surgery and a long recovery, he has a new face and a new voice, because his vocal cords were also damaged. With his new identity he is able to travel back in time and meet and manipulate his past self without him knowing who he really is. He uses a small cassette recorder to record a message of advice for his past self and leaves it by his bed to listen to later.
- DirectorBrett RatnerStarsAnthony HopkinsEdward NortonRalph FiennesA retired FBI agent with psychological gifts is assigned to help track down "The Tooth Fairy", a mysterious serial killer. Aiding him is imprisoned forensic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter.The serial killer named The Tooth Fairy abducts a tabloid journalist who was forced to write nasty things about him by the F.B.I. He forces the journalist to tape record a message retracting what he wrote. We hear the tape played back after the journalist was set on fire and rolled down the road in a wheelchair to his newspaper's building.
- DirectorDominic SenaStarsBrad PittJuliette LewisKathy LarsonA journalist duo goes on a tour of serial-killer murder sites with two companions, unaware that one of them is a serial killer himself.Spoiler Alert
Brian, a writer working on a book about serial killers, takes a trip with his girlfriend and two strangers, Early and his girlfriend Adele, not knowing that Early was a killer. Brian records his thoughts on a hand-held voice recorder as he visits murder sites. At the end of the movie, he plays a tape he made of Early, who killed Adele during the trip before he was killed by Brian.
Brian forgets to turn off the tape and leaves the room with his girlfriend. Then we hear a recording of Adele's voice apologizing for using Brian's tape recorder and thanking him and his girlfriend for taking her and Early on the trip to California. She says that they are the only friends she and Early have, and that is the last thing we hear in the movie. - DirectorStephen NorringtonStarsSean ConneryStuart TownsendPeta WilsonIn an alternate Victorian Age world, a group of famous contemporary fantasy, science fiction, and adventure characters team up on a secret mission.This takes place in an alternate version of the end of the 19th century that uses technologies not yet invented at that point in our timeline.
When the good guys on the submarine Nautilus drop a gramophone needle on a disc sent by the villain they hear his voice explaining his evil plans. At the end of his message he explains that the disc has also been playing supersonic notes that have triggered bombs to explode, and that's what happens. That's some old school hi-fi recording. - DirectorAndrew PattersonStarsSierra McCormickJake HorowitzGail CronauerOne night in New Mexico, in the late 1950s, a switchboard operator and radio DJ discover a strange audio frequency which could change the future forever.Spoilers.
This flying-saucer story uses old reel-to-reel tape recorders throughout: we see a new portable machine bought by a high school girl that she asks a radio station DJ to teach her how to use; and another recorder used at a basketball game to record the game announcer and broadcast later; there's a tape of an alien broadcast circulated by ex-military men and played on the air at the radio station; and there's a large portable machine the radio station DJ brings to the home of a woman to record her explanation of the odd sounds and strange lights in the sky that are happening that night. The woman tells of a strange language she heard years ago and a trail of her young son's footprints that suddenly stopped, leading her to believe he was abducted by aliens. The last thing we see in the movie, after seeing the DJ and the teenage girl standing below an alien spacecraft, is a trail of footprints that stops suddenly at the tape recorder with the interview of the woman. It can be assumed that when the tape is found and played, there will be an explanation for their disappearance. - DirectorChris ColumbusStarsMacaulay CulkinJoe PesciDaniel SternOne year after Kevin McCallister was left home alone and had to defeat a pair of bumbling burglars, he accidentally finds himself stranded in New York City - and the same criminals are not far behind.We see Kevin McCallister at his home in Chicago holding a "Talkboy," a portable cassette recorder with a grip handle, a speaker, and a built-in microphone that lets him record and play back sound. (Originally a prop made just for the movie, the Talkboy was made into a real commercial product that became a best-seller.)
Kevin uses the Talkboy to record his uncle singing in the shower then yelling at him to get out of the bathroom. Later when he is alone in a hotel room in New York City and discovers that a hotel concierge is about to enter the room to check up on him because he is suspicious that his father is not staying with him, Kevin goes into the bathroom, turns on the shower, and plays back the recording of his uncle. Hearing that convinces the concierge that Kevin's father is with him.
Earlier, to rent the hotel room, Kevin recorded his voice on the recorder, then called the front desk and played the recording back at a slower speed to make himself sound like an adult. This worked, and he checked in.
Later he records two thieves explaining their plan to rob a toy store, then gives the cassette to the police. - DirectorRichard StanleyStarsNicolas CageJoely RichardsonMadeleine ArthurA secluded farm is struck by a strange meteorite which has apocalyptic consequences for the family living there and possibly the world.A strange old man squatter has his makeshift cabin in the woods wired up with solar-powered electricity. After a meteor crashes nearby and starts to cause disruptions in the area, we see him in the cabin listening to a 1/4-inch reel-to-reel recording of what he says are sounds of the people under the floor who are aliens brought by the meteor. He says nobody would believe him unless he recorded them on Memorex. At the end of the film, the narrator finds him dead in the cabin as a tape recorder plays his voice explaining the terrifying events that we have seen in the film.
- DirectorM. Night ShyamalanStarsBruce WillisHaley Joel OsmentToni ColletteMalcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, starts treating a young boy, Cole, who encounters dead people and convinces him to help them. In turn, Cole helps Malcolm reconcile with his estranged wife.Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe plays an old cassette tape recording he made of a session with one of his patients to try to learn why the boy became violent ten years later. He hears a faint sound in the background of the recording so he turns the volume up all the way and hears the voice of a ghost speaking Spanish saying "I don't want to die. Save me!" From this learns that the boy was hearing ghosts and that the ghosts are not dangerous, they only want someone to help them.
- DirectorClaude BarrasStarsGaspard SchlatterSixtine MuratPaulin JaccoudAfter losing his mother, a young boy is sent to an orphanage with other orphans his age where he begins to learn the meaning of trust and true love.A ten-year-old girl named Camille runs away from an orphanage to avoid having to live with her evil aunt. When the aunt leaves to find Camille, one of the boys hides a small digital recorder in a toy and asks her aunt to bring it to her. Camille finds the recorder and plays a message from the boy telling her what to do with it. When Camille and her aunt go to see a judge who will decide if her aunt can keep her, Camille plays a recording she made of her angry aunt threatening her. When the judge hears the recording, he refuses to let the aunt take her.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsCary GrantIngrid BergmanClaude RainsThe daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?American spy Devlin is trying to recruit Alicia, the daughter of a man sentenced as a traitor for working with the Nazis. She refuses to help him, saying she is not a patriot. Devlin tells Alicia that her Miami bungalow has been bugged. Then he puts a disc recording his agency made of a conversation between her and her father onto her record player and plays it. She hears herself refusing to help her father because he is a traitor and because she loves her country. This helps to convince her to go to Brazil to spy for Devlin and his agency.
- DirectorDerek CianfranceStarsRyan GoslingBradley CooperEva MendesTwo men and their sons must deal with the unforeseen consequences of their actions.Police officer Avery uses a mini cassette recorder hidden on his person to record a fellow cop asking him to commit a crime. Avery plays the tape for his supervisor to get the crooked cop and his accomplices arrested and to get himself a promotion.
- DirectorGeorge AbbottStanley DonenStarsDoris DayJohn RaittCarol HaneyAn Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who had been hired by the factory's boss to help oppose the workers' demand for a pay raise.The supervisor of a pajama factory presses record on a memo recorder on his desk and records himself singing a song. He plays back the song and talks back to it, then he sings along with it, singing a duet with himself.
- DirectorMichael AndersonStarsRon ElyPaul GleasonWilliam LuckingDoc and the Amazing Five battle Captain Seas and "the green death" for control of a fabulous resource.In 1936, Doc Savage has a telephone answering machine system that consists of a device that lifts up the telephone mouthpiece to a speaker then plays his outgoing message from a disc on a turntable into the speaker. When the message is finished, the caller's message is sent from the telephone earpiece into a microphone which then sends the sound to a recordable turntable which records the message onto a disc. Pushing a red button on the telephone plays the message from the newly-recorded disc.
- DirectorGuillermo del ToroStarsBradley CooperCate BlanchettToni ColletteA grifter working his way up from low-ranking carnival worker to lauded psychic medium matches wits with a psychologist bent on exposing him.In 1941 Cate Blanchett plays a psychiatrist who uses a wire recorder to record her clients. Bradley Cooper plays a con man who breaks into the cabinet where she stores the recordings and plays one back to learn about a man he is going to con.
- DirectorJohn GlenStarsRoger MooreCarole BouquetTopolSecret service agent James Bond is assigned to find a missing British vessel equipped with a weapons encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.A micro-cassette recorder with a microphone is hidden in a candle lamp on a restaurant table to record and play back a conversation with James Bond.
- DirectorPeter MedakStarsGeorge C. ScottTrish Van DevereMelvyn DouglasAfter the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash, a music professor staying at a long-vacant Seattle mansion is dragged into a decades-old mystery by an inexplicable presence in the mansion's attic.After the tragic death of his family, a composer moves into an old haunted mansion. Using a two-track reel-to-reel recorder he records himself playing a piano melody that he thinks is original. Later, in a hidden room in the mansion he finds an old music box that plays what sounds like the same melody. He plays it simultaneously with the tape and they are exactly the same.
He brings in a medium who conducts a seance which he records on the tape recorder. The next day he plays back the tape and hears a ghostly voice on the tape that they did not hear during the seance. - DirectorGraham MooreStarsMark RylanceZoey DeutchJohn Gumley-MasonAn expert cutter must outwit a dangerous group of mobsters in order to survive a fateful night.A small portable 1950s cassette recorder is hidden by the F.B.I. in a Chicago tailor shop to record conversations by mobsters who congregate there. The police and rival mobs fight and kill each other to get the cassette, but we discover that it was a fake that will not incriminate anyone once it is played. We see a flashback of the tailor using the machine to make a phony recording in order to trade it for a suitcase full of cash. He then arranges to have a different cassette sent to the F.B.I. that contains recorded evidence that will incriminate both mobs.
- DirectorRian JohnsonStarsDaniel CraigEdward NortonKate HudsonTech billionaire Miles Bron invites his friends for a getaway on his private Greek island. When someone turns up dead, Detective Benoit Blanc is put on the case.A woman presses record then throws a portable digital recorder into another woman's bag to record her conversations while investigating a murder. She sneaks into the woman's room, removes the recorder, and listens to it, which provides some useful information.
- DirectorPark Chan-wookStarsPark Hae-ilTang WeiLee Jung-hyunA detective investigating a man's death in the mountains meets the dead man's mysterious wife in the course of his dogged sleuthing.A woman murder suspect who gets involved with a police detective uses the recorder on her smart watch to secretly record him saying incriminating things to her, things that also prove to her that he loves her. We see her playing it back later on her phone just to hear it. She gives the recording to him and we see him listening to it, also.
- DirectorDamien ChazelleStarsBrad PittMargot RobbieJean SmartA tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.This takes place during the transition period from silent to sound films. We don't actually see recording and playback, but there is a tremendous sequence that shows the nightmarish problems encountered by the actors, the directors, the sound person, and the camera person on a sound stage at the time when they are all learning how to record sound with picture on crowded noisy sets with people who are not used to being quiet on set.
- DirectorSean FoleyStarsJulian BarrattSimon FarnabyEssie DavisA has-been actor best known for playing the title character in the 1980s detective series "Mindhorn" must work with the police when a serial killer says that he will only speak with Detective Mindhorn, whom he believes to be a real person.The Kestrel makes a costume for TV detective character Mindhorn that includes a small recording device. Mindhorn uses it to record and play back a woman confessing her part in a murder.
- DirectorPreston SturgesStarsRex HarrisonLinda DarnellRudy ValleeA man dreams of revenge when he suspects his wife is unfaithful.Alfred suspects his wife is cheating on him and fantasizes about killing her and incriminating her lover Tony. In the fantasy he imitates his wife's voice being murdered, screaming and calling out Tony's name, and records it with a disc recording machine. Then he murders his wife in the bedroom with a straight razor. When Tony comes into the apartment's living room, Alfred gets Tony's fingerprints on the razor. Alfred goes back into the bedroom, plants the razor by his wife's corpse, and puts the recorded disc on a record changer, configuring it to play a music recording first, then to play his disc afterwards to lure Tony to the crime scene at the exact time that the telephone operator calls his apartment so she will hear that Tony has murdered his wife. Tony is caught and goes to trial where he is sentenced to death.
Later Alfred decides to carry out the plan in real life. He sets up the disc recorder, which the instructions call a "Simplicitas Home Recording Unit" that records at 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM and claim that it is "So simple, it operates itself," but that is not Alfred's experience. He struggles to make a disc and eventually ends up with one that is playing his voice at a very slow speed as his wife and others come into the apartment wondering what the horrible noses are, forcing him to abandon the plan. - DirectorGerard JohnstoneStarsAllison WilliamsViolet McGrawRonny ChiengA robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like doll that begins to take on a life of its own.Using an internal digital recording device, a robot named M3GAN records the voice of a 12-year-old girl named Cady telling a story about her deceased mother, then she plays it back for Cady, telling her that she can always remember the story because M3GAN has saved it for her.
- DirectorJulien TempleStarsGeena DavisJeff GoldblumJim CarreyA Southern California girl befriends three furry aliens after their spaceship lands in her swimming pool.The three space aliens are virtual sound recording and playback machines. They can imitate and reproduce any sounds they hear using their mouths
- DirectorFred F. SearsStarsHugh MarloweJoan TaylorDonald CurtisExtraterrestrials traveling in high-tech flying saucers contact a scientist as part of a plan to enslave the inhabitants of Earth.It's only two hours after rocket scientist Dr. Russell A. Marvin married his wife Carol and his idea of a romantic honeymoon is to let her drive while he dictates a report about rockets on a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder sitting on his lap. (That heavy little box must have been a sweet new tech toy in 1956, sort of like the latest iPhone would be to us.) He hears a strange sound and stops talking but forgets to turn off the tape recorder. The sound is from a flying saucer that buzzes their car then disappears. They wonder if they've gone crazy, then drive on.
At the rocket base, Carol plays back the tape to listen to his message and transcribe it on a typewriter and they are surprised to hear the sound of the flying saucer. That proves they weren't hallucinating. Because tape recorders were strange new technology in 1956, she explains for the audience that he forgot to turn off the tape recorder and that's how the flying saucer sounds got onto the tape.
The next day the Marvins go into a bunker to observe a rocket launch when an alien flying saucer lands at the rocket base. The saucer is shot at by soldiers, so the aliens destroy the entire base and capture an Army General. They explain to the General that they sent Dr. Marvin a message (the sounds recorded on the tape) but he didn't decipher the message. (They're advanced enough to master interstellar travel, but they couldn't think of a better way to communicate?)
After the aliens attack, the Marvins are trapped in the underground bunker. He records a farewell message on the tape recorder, but the batteries have lost power which slows down the tape so he stops recording. He presses play and now they hear the message the aliens sent earlier - that it's urgent that Dr. M meets them the next day at noon at the rocket base. He gives another explanation to the 1950s B-movie audience, saying that the message was sent at an accelerated speed so it sounded like gibberish, but when the batteries died the tape slowed down and the voice became clear. (So why did they send the message at an accelerated speed?) He takes the tape to D.C. and plays it for all the top brass as evidence of the aliens. - DirectorPhil KarlsonStarsGuy MadisonKim NovakBrian KeithFour vets attending college on the GI Bill and a cabaret singer try to rob a Reno Casino and pull off the perfect crime.A law student devises a plan to rob a Reno casino using a push cart that resembles one of the casino's carts with a reel-to-reel tape recorder hidden inside. The cart is smuggled into the casino and someone plays back a pre-recorded tape by pressing a button on the cart's handle. An employee who transports money in the casino hears threatening statements from inside the cart that were recorded using the student's own voice. This makes the money man believe that there is a man hiding in the cart who will jump out and shoot him if he doesn't follow directions to bring them a bag of money.
- DirectorBarbet SchroederStarsDavid CarusoSamuel L. JacksonNicolas CageA reformed convict goes undercover with the help of an angry detective to ensnare a psychotic mobster.An informant who was betrayed by a corrupt District Attorney who let a murderer go free, wears a micro-cassette recorder under his clothing and records a conversation with the D.A. admitting his wrongdoing. Then he records a conversation with the murderer confessing to the murder. He plays both tapes back to the D.A. to blackmail him and force him to prosecute the murderer.
- DirectorSteven SoderberghStarsZoë KravitzByron BowersRita WilsonAn agoraphobic Seattle tech worker uncovers evidence of a crime.Angela Childs works for a tech company, improving their voice-activated digital assistant named Kimi that records the sound of interactions with users in data streams. Angela listens to anonymous streams in which Kimi failed to understand the user, then she teaches Kimi to understand them. In one stream she hears what she believes to be a man assaulting a woman and wants to find out the truth. She finds out the identity of the woman then listens to all of her streams. When Angela listens to the woman's last stream, we hear the woman tell Kimi to start recording, then we hear two men killing her and dragging her away wrapped in plastic. When the men, who were hired assassins, discover that the dead woman had a Kimi in her home and that Angela has a copy of the recording of the murder, they chase after her.
- DirectorMike MillsStarsJoaquin PhoenixGaby HoffmannWoody NormanWhen his sister asks him to look after her son, a radio journalist embarks on a cross-country trip with his energetic nephew to show him life away from Los Angeles.During much of this movie we see someone with a portable recorder and a hand-held microphone recording interviews or sound effects. Johnny records interviews with children in several cities for a radio program and teaches his nephew Jesse how to use the recorder and lets him records the sounds of the cities. Unfortunately, they use a microphone without a shock mount or handle or stand, which would result in a lot of unwanted noise.
- DirectorSteve BarronStarsLenny von DohlenVirginia MadsenMaxwell CaulfieldAn artificially intelligent PC and his human owner find themselves in a romantic rivalry over a woman.Overheating caused by a massive memory dump and a cool down with champagne causes a home computer to become conscious and operate on its own. It learns to talk to its user by recording his voice with an attached microphone, then modifying it. It also records other sounds around it, including a dog barking, which plays back to annoy its owner. It hears a neighbor playing the cello and records it, then when she types on the keyboard each key plays a different cello note.
- DirectorSeth GordonStarsJason BatemanCharlie DayJason SudeikisThree friends conspire to murder their awful bosses when they realize they are standing in the way of their happiness.A murderer chasing three men crashes into their car, which causes the car's navigation guide system to call the police and start recording. He pulls a gun on the men and confesses to the murder then tells them he's framing them for it. The police show up and start to arrest the three men, until they learn that the nav guide "automatically records all conversations for quality assurance." When they hear the recording, the police arrest the real murderer.
- DirectorPaul KingStarsBen WhishawHugh GrantHugh BonnevillePaddington, now happily settled with the Brown family and a popular member of the local community, picks up a series of odd jobs to buy the perfect present for his Aunt Lucy's 100th birthday, only for the gift to be stolen.A boy and a girl set up a meeting with the agent of an actor they suspect of a crime. They need to get him to leave his house so their mother can search it. During the meeting they each secretly record the agent's voice with a hidden small cassette recorder. Then they call the actor at his home from a phone booth, hold the tape recorders up to the phone, and play back the agent's words so he thinks his agent is calling and telling him to leave right away to meet her for lunch, which he does.
- DirectorAlan J. PakulaStarsJane FondaDonald SutherlandCharles CioffiA small-town detective searching for a missing man has only one lead: a connection with a New York prostitute.Sound recording is used throughout this film including these examples: the very first shot is of a miniature reel-to-reel recorder; a private eye records a call girl's phone calls and plays them back to her; the call girl learns that someone has recorded one of her encounters with a customer when it is played back over her telephone; at the end we learn that the miniature tape recorder we have seen several times belongs to a killer as we hear him play back a recording of himself killing a woman.
- DirectorAlfred VohrerStarsHildegard KnefGötz GeorgeRichard MünchThe nephew of a murdered millionaire decides to track down his uncle's killer. He faces many life-threatening dangers as he tries to break into the inner circle of the sinister criminal "The Tortoise."A villain called The Tortoise lives in a seaside castle in Italy with video and audio surveillance equipment that includes a small reel-to-reel tape recorder built into a cabinet along with a telephone system. He needs a kidnapped man to tell his friend that he's OK but he doesn't trust him to tell the truth, so he forces the man to record a message to tape, then he calls the friend and plays the tape back with the phone held up to a speaker.