Do you ever watch a movie chase scene and wish you could actually feel the roar of the engines and screeching tires racing past you? Or a space epic with starships whooshing overhead and alien cries enveloping the room? Surround sound technology lets filmmakers fully immerse audiences sonically so you‘re not just watching movies anymore – you‘re experiencing them.
In this guide from a film sound enthusiast to a fellow fan, I‘ll highlight the 9 movies that blow me away every time thanks to their innovative and meticulous sound mixing. Get ready to be transported!
Surround Sound – The Next Level of Immersion
First, let‘s quickly cover what makes surround sound so powerful. While a basic sound system has front left, center and right channels, surround adds rear speakers plus a subwoofer for deep bass. Sound designers spatially place and move audio around this 360-degree soundstage to put viewers inside the scene.
Formats like Dolby Digital and DTS deliver 5.1 or 7.1 discrete channels of audio to speakers at home. The latest Dolby Atmos and DTS:X even add "object-based sound" – dynamic sound elements mapped to 3D space that can move anywhere overhead during playback too!
When paired with an awesome movie mix, surround sound executed well utterly transforms a passive viewing experience into an engaging multidimensional world. In moments, I forget about my living room and feel transported alongside the characters thanks to the vivid directional sounds.
Now let‘s spotlight directors, mix engineers and sound designers who wield this audio power with finesse and innovation across many genres…
1. Gravity (2013) – Isolation in Space
In Alfonso Cuarón visionary lost-in-space thriller, surround sound leaves me floating as alone as Sandra Bullock‘s character. With dialogue minimal, the music and sounds of her labored breathing, flaming debris rushing past and tethers snapping outside her suit ratchet up visceral tension.
Re-recording mixers Skip Lievsay and Niv Adir even pioneered new "Sound Objects" technology to spatially place sounds anywhere, including above the audience. This became the basis for Dolby Atmos 3D cinema sound released the same year. It marked the first movie mixed natively for immersive audio instead of adapting a normal 5.1 mix.
This forwarding-thinking approach paid off with Oscars for Best Sound Editing and Mixing. Throughout the 90 minute running time, expertly crafted audio directionality conveys the vast emptiness yet continuous danger surrounding a woman stranded in the cold darkness of space.
Skip Lievsay – Surround Sound Mixer
One of the most prolific and acclaimed sound mixers in film, Lievsay has worked on over 100 movies from acclaimed directors like the Coen Brothers and Spike Lee. He won his first Oscar for mixing on The Hurt Locker in 2008.
"I think of sound for a film as being something that has color and shape and taste and smell."
2. Saving Private Ryan – A Violent Immersion
I still shudder remembering my first experience with Steven Spielberg‘s WWII film blasting from my roommate‘s brand new surround sound system. From the opening minutes thrusting viewers onto Omaha Beach into bloody combat, sound designer Gary Rydstrom bombard the senses.
The terrifying realism comes not just from deafening gun blasts and explosions, but subtle contributions I notice thanks to precise surround mixing: all sides echo with painful cries, waves crash directly behind me, bullets whiz past ears, shells clatter at my feet. Every meticulously placed sound element combines to entrench me within the unfolding battle.
Rydstrom and his team worked for 8 months recording weapons, vehicles and foley to construct elaborate soundscapes blending multiple tracks. Their dedication resulted in winning the Oscar for Best Sound Effects Editing in 1999 beating even Star Wars: Episode 1! Not just loud but intricately layered, this technically masterful approach compelled me to enlist in his cinematic tour of duty many intense times since.
Gary Rydstrom – 7-Time Academy Award Winner
One of the most decorated sound designers ever in film, Rydstrom has won 7 Oscars for iconic favorites like Jurassic Park, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan and more. He also led sound for major Pixar movies and directed both Toy Story Toons shorts and feature film Strange Magic.
“Great sound is often as important as great cinematography and editing in making a film work.”
3. Baby Driver – A Musical Ride-along
Filmmaker Edgar Wright sets Baby Driver‘s nonstop heist action to an infectious soundtrack serving as a metronome to the onscreen chaos. This clever audio interplay enabled through immersive mixing puts me right alongside Baby in the driver‘s seat.
Oscar-winner Julian Slater handled the surround sound editing and mixing to distinguish between what Baby hears internally on his earbuds versus the score, dialogue and effects filling the environment externally. The detail that went into mapping distinct sound elements like tire squeals careening behind me or gunshots cracking to my side make me feel wedged dangerously yet excitingly inside the getaway vehicles.
By subverting expectations of a standard surround mix to reflect Baby‘s disrupted hearing and music-centric perspective, the innovative soundscape racks focus across spaces mirroring his unique sensory world. This refreshing spin showcases surround sound‘s capacity to increase engagement and tension when applied creatively.
Julian Slater – Sound Mixer
Slater has mixed over 60 films ranging from children‘s animations to violent action movies. He won Best Sound Mixing Oscars for both Baby Driver and the musical biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Currently he leads sound teams on major Marvel projects like upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
"The most important thing is to tell the story and bring the audience into the story.”
4. A Quiet Place – Silence as Suspense
In John Krasinski‘s smash hit alien invasion thriller A Quiet Place, the suspense stems not from blaring noise but enforced silence. With vicious creatures attacking anything they hear, mixing in enveloping surround sound makes every accidental footstep and dropped item-triggered jump scare more nerve-wracking.
Supervising sound editor Erick Sawyer ensured off-screen sounds of encroaching creatures, swaying tree branches or raindrops land precisely to keep me swiveling apprehensively. The climax finds the family carefully moving about their creaky farmhouse trying not to make any noise. Here the meticulous detail put into soft effects like breathing, rain and firecrackers subtly immerse me into that space as an unseen threat.
The sound team‘s innovative manipulation of quietude through detailed presence and spatialization in surround mixing earned them nominations from both the Oscars and BAFTAs for Best Sound Editing. Their work intensifies suspense within acoustic restraints unlike any traditional horror movie‘s shock tactics.
Erik Aadahl & Ethan Van Der Ryn – Sound Editing Partners
Aadahl and Van Der Ryn collectively have edited sound on over 100 films spanning the past 20 years. Both won Oscars for sound editing on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and King Kong (2005). Most recently they‘ve collaborated on blockbusters like Transformers: The Last Knight and Godzilla vs Kong.
5. Dunkirk – Harrowing Only Gets Louder
Acclaimed director Christopher Nolan ratchets up the tension exponentially in his WWII battle epic by structuring the film across three interwoven timeframes. As each timeline depicts British troops attempting to retreat from Dunkirk beach in 1940, the auditory perspectives layer one on top of the other into maelstrom.
The sound editing crew led by Oscar-winner Richard King worked for almost 2 years compiling field recordings from historic planes, firearms and vessels to authenticate the audio backdrop. Their meticulous editing and mixing in surround sound means screams echo behind my seat from sinking rescue ships, while ahead aerial dogfights fill the room with engine roars and machine gun clatter. The lines blur sonically between land, sea and air leaving me struggling to process so much unrelenting sensory input.
King‘s phenomenal team took home an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing. By aligning the intricate sound editing so tightly with Nolan‘s signature multi-threaded narrative style executed in visuals, acting and editing, Dunkirk compels from all artistic fronts by overwhelming the senses.
