Greatest movie SFX (sound effects)

[Chedney Honks]

After the chat in the Ghostbusters thread about the iconic ECTO-1 siren which has this indefinable ecstatic quality, it got me thinking about the greatest SFX in the movies.

The first thing to jump out is probably the pulse rifle sound from Aliens. It's hard to say what makes it so exciting but I think it's the flange, perhaps. There's so little body to it, it's almost like a hammer drill, a very fast staccato but with a kind gaseous flange. Either way, it is the sound of inhuman annihilation. Such a rush whenever I hear it.

Any more?

[bakabaka]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSGFatM1ktU

The sound of wildernesses, deserts, jungles, mountains, post-apocalyptic cities, alien landscapes. If it's wild and untamed and in a film, this is what you will hear. Every single fucking time. Far, far more prevalent than the Wilhelm scream.

[mothman]

I liked the "guitar chord" sound of the sort-of depth charges (seismic charges, apparently) that Jango Fett uses in Attack Of The Clones (

Spoiler alert

and by Boba in The Mandalorian

[close]

).

https://youtu.be/pzxEETy_4B8

And, though there are many space films with pew-pew SFX, I do think the phaser, photon and quantum torpedo sounds in Star Trek: First Contact are pretty good.

https://youtu.be/vPzJSBHG4pI&t=230s

[Jerzy Bondov]

Pooing noises. Dumb and Dumber.

[Shit Good Nose]

It's one I mention regularly, but for all its other stupidity and shitness, the entire sound effects track for Jaws 3 is genuinely stunning.  The sound guys put everyone else working on that film to shame.  Or worked WAAAAAAYYYYY harder than they needed to, depending on which way you look at it.

[greenman]

I liked the "guitar chord" sound of the sort-of depth charges (seismic charges, apparently) that Jango Fett uses in Attack Of The Clones (

Spoiler alert

and by Boba in The Mandalorian

[close]

).

https://youtu.be/pzxEETy_4B8

Probably the single best thing in Send in the Clones.

Mentioning Alien the med bay sound effect is great to fall asleep it, was re used in Deckard's apartment as well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FhEpif1cA

[Brundle-Fly]

That weird crunching sound of a punch to the face in old movies and the impossible wind noises fists and legs make in martial arts films. Oh, and a ricochet of a bullet in a Western shoot-out.

[bgmnts]

Something about the TIE Fighter screeching that is just ace. It's so evil and mechanical sounding and you just hear that and go yeah that's what the baddies fly.

The wilhelm scream is also amazing if that counts.

Pulse rifle is pretty cool too.

[beanheadmcginty]

The War of the Worlds laser cannon sound effect that was later recycled in Star Trek as the photon torpedo sound is a very satisfying listen. I think it was created by striking a high tension cable.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Pretty much all of the ones in the original Star Warses. The sound of the lightsabres is as effective as it is iconic - it really sounds powerful and dangerous. One of the things that bothered me about the sequel trilogy was how generic the sound effects were.

I've not watched it in ages, but I remember the gunshots in L.A. Confidential being really good. There was something very aggressive, almost angry about them.

[mothman]

Pulse rifle is pretty cool too.

Ooh, the Smart Guns, too!

[Mr Banlon]

The James Brown SFX in Raw Deal : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9BnS44VxU8

[Disc_4]

Most of them have already been mentioned, but these ones have stuck with me from films i watched as a kid:

The T-Rex's roar for J-Park is still good. The heat-vision scanning and heartbeat sound for the vision and horseshoe crab inspired clicks of the predator from Predator (although if voice over effects are allowed, then i guess Darth Vader's breathing would be more iconic.) Star Trek transporter noises. Transformers' electronic transforming noise. I thought the gun sounds from Heat and Saving Private Ryan when i was about 10.
The various sounds from Terminator 2 - all the gooey liquid metal sounds, the thwump of the grenade launcher firing and the spark igniting the nitrogen truck towards the end, and the sound of the heavy metal girder being slowly dragged into the t-800. Maybe the glitchy noise people make in the matrix when they are taking over by an agent. TARDIS.

[Pink Gregory]

Gotta love a Wilhelm scream, even if it's included ironically as it will be in any modern film

[Catalogue Trousers]

The sound of the clock pendulum in the 1964 The Masque Of The Red Death. There's just something so fucking doomy about what the sound people did to that particular tick and tock.

[bakabaka]

Gotta love a Wilhelm scream, even if it's included ironically as it will be in any modern film

Was very pleased to hear Wilhelm scream #5 in Wrath of Man the other night, albeit a bit truncated.

[Brundle-Fly]

Those dark, deep tuba-sounding echo noises of the humungous creature in The Mist (2007), used before in the War Of The Worlds (2005) remake but done to death for a while in monster movies.

[The Mollusk]

The descending "bwOOOooooo" tone that the security hover bike things make in the sewer scenes in "Akira" has always stuck with me.

Also on a Japanese animation tip, the sound effects for the Studio Ghibli films, which are never stock sounds but always recorded especially for every scene, are always masterfully done. I dunno why you can tell the difference, but you can; every footstep and sizzle of food and drip of water sounds flipping gorgeous.

[Chedney Honks]

Some great examples here, great thread.

[Gulftastic]

Attack Of The Clones is bobbins, but I love the sound they put on the bombs that Jengo Fett uses in the asteroid field to try and get Obi Wan.

[mothman]

Do tell. 🙄

[Thomas]

The T-Rex's roar for J-Park is still good.

This is my favourite. Elephantine bellow on a platter of guttural, alligatoroid growls. My neighbour's patio chair, scraped at just the right pace and angle, sounds similar enough to elicit nostalgia. The squealing and coughing Velociraptors are classic, too.[nb]well-know noise trivia: this particular sound is a recording of a tortoise mid-coitus.[/nb]

The thought and creativity in that original sound design has not been matched by any of the sequels, which settle on generic_roar.mp3 for all of their new dinosaurs.

Godzilla, he's got a good voice, too.

[Dave The Triffids]

I've always loved the sound design in The Thing - the wet squelching when the alien emerges from the dog (and that weird tweeting sound it makes later in the same scene) and that horrible cracking sound when the spider legs emerge from Norris's head.

[Brundle-Fly]

I like the glass cracking sounds in this gripping scene.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feVLH-m_9TY

[Yussef Dent]

The noise of the dining room door in Mr Hulot's Holiday, such a ridiculously loud and bizarre "thwonk" sound that its constant happening whenever people walk in and out becomes funny, you never forget it.