Warfare skips the soundtrack and drops viewers straight into the chaos of combat, using only sound design to build its intensity. Co-directed by a former Navy SEAL, the film recreates real missions with unsettling accuracy—right down to the snap of a bullet overhead.

Los Angeles

The film 'Warfare', produced by A24, distinguishes itself by omitting a traditional musical score and instead using detailed sound design to convey the intensity of combat. Co-directed by Ray Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL, and Alex Garland, the film is based on Mendoza's experiences during the Second Battle of Ramadi. The sound team, led by Glenn Fremantle and Ben Barker, recreated every audio element from scratch, capturing the nuances of battle such as the snap of bullets and the chaos of radio chatter. 

To enhance realism, sound effects were played on set without warning actors, resulting in authentic reactions. The film opens with a moment of levity before plunging viewers into a soundscape that mirrors the unpredictability and trauma of real warfare, making the experience both immersive and emotionally impactful.

How A24's 'Warfare' got the sound of war right

Warfare is a film that feels brutally immersive and emotionally unfiltered, and it does it all with no music score to guide you, just the raw, chaotic sounds of battle, bookended by the two deliberate song choices. So how does it build and hold that tension with such a sparse soundtrack? Let's get into How It Hits. Warfare opens with a bizarrely effective scene. A group of soldiers gathered around a laptop watching Eric Pridze's 2004 music video Call on Me. It's catchy, familiar, and strangely comforting, and apparently it actually happened. Ray Mendoza, who co-directed the film and served as the Navy SEAL, said his team would watch it before missions. It's a moment of levity that makes what follows hit even harder, because once the mission starts, the tone shifts. And it shifts fast. Unlike most war films, Warfare skips the emotional soundtrack. There's no musical score manipulating how you should feel, just silence, dialogue, and the terrifying reality of combat. And that's by design. Mendoza and co-director Alex Garland wanted the film to feel brutally real, drawing from Mendoza's actual experiences during the Second Battle of Ramadi in 2006. One of the most unforgettable and frankly terrifying moments in Warfare is the IED explosion. It's loud, sudden, and filmed with a commitment to chaos that makes it feel alarmingly real. And that moment legitimately made me jump harder than I have in any recent horror movie, so that's saying something. It was crafted to shock, not just visually, but sonically. The concussive blast sets the tone for what the rest of the film will be, a fight for survival inside a soundscape designed to feel like you're actually there. Sound designers Glenn Fremantle and Ben Barker built every audio element from scratch, recording live rounds and capturing tiny details like the snap of a bullet flying overhead before the bang. Mendoza drilled into that realism. In the film, the snap isn't just a sound effect, it's a signal. Soldiers react to it instantly, and that rhythm of chaos and response becomes its own language. The mix puts you right inside the soldiers' heads. There's a sequence where Mendoza's character is overwhelmed by incoming radio chatter during an attack, voices bouncing from left to right, louder, more frantic, until suddenly… silence. It's dizzying, and incredibly effective. To enhance this realism on set, Garland and Mendoza even played sound effects through a PA system without warning the actors, making every flinch and reaction feel terrifyingly genuine. Warfare builds its world not through music, but through memory, turning real-life trauma into immersive cinema. What do you think about films that use sound like this? Let us know in the comments. And for another look at how silence can shape a story, check out our How It Hits episode on The Pit. And for more breakdowns like this one, head over to Mashable.com.

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