

The Look of Silence
An Indonesian man with a communist background named Ramli was brutally murdered when the "Communist" purge occurred in 1965. His remaining family members lived in fear and silence until the making of this documentary. Adi, a brother of his, decided to revisit the horrific incident and visited the men who were responsible for the killings and one survivor of the purge. These meetings uncovered sadistic details of the murders and exposed raw emotions and reactions of the killers' family members about what happened in the past - much to Adi's disappointment.
TMDB
7.8/10
328 votes
IMDb
Not rated yet
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- Status
- Released
- Budget
- —
- Box office
- $332.7K
- Language
- Indonesian
- loss of loved one
- mass murder
- biography
- indonesia
- torture
- murderer
- genocide
- guilt
- death of brother
- ophthalmologist
- indonesian genocide
Top billed cast
Behind the camera
Director
Produced in
Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, Norway, United Kingdom, United States of America
Where to watch
Availability for United States. Provided by JustWatch through the TMDB API.
Gallery






Videos
Release dates
United StatesUS
- PremiereTelluride Film Festival30 Aug 2014
- PremiereNew York Film Festival30 Sept 2014
- Theatrical (limited)New York City, New York17 Jul 2015
- Theatrical (limited)Los Angles, California24 Jul 2015
United KingdomGB
- Theatrical11 Jun 2015
- Digital / OTT2 Oct 2015
CanadaCA
- Theatrical (limited)18A17 Jul 2015
Bosnia & HerzegovinaBA
- PremiereSarajevo Film Festival14 Aug 2015
CzechiaCZ
- PremiereOne World Film Festival6 Mar 2015
DenmarkDK
- Theatrical13 Nov 2014
EthiopiaET
- PremiereAddis International Film Festival12 Jun 2015
FranceFR
- PremiereAngers Film Festival25 Jan 2015
GermanyDE
- PremiereBerlin International Film Festival16 Feb 2015
- PremiereDOK.Fest München14 May 2015
- Theatrical1 Oct 2015
IndonesiaID
- PremiereJakarta10 Nov 2014
- Theatrical (limited)10 Dec 2014
- Digital / OTTYouTube10 Dec 2015
ItalyIT
- PremiereVenice Film Festival28 Aug 2014
- Theatrical11 Sept 2014
Myanmar (Burma)MM
- PremiereYangon Human Rights Film Festival15 Jun 2015
Frequently asked questions
The Look of Silence was released on 11 September 2014.
Audience reviews
2- F
Frank Ochieng
10/19/2015
Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer was instrumental in delivering one of the most harrowing and heart-breaking documentaries in 2013’s The Act of Killing. As an impressive result of the critically acclaimed documentarian’s gut-wrenching narrative, The Act of Killing deservedly earned an Academy Award nomination for its unsettling truth and revelation. Killing concentrated on the frightening accounts involving the 1965 In…
- C7/10
CinemaSerf
9/15/2026
Indonesia in the mid-1960s was a dangerous place to live. With the government overthrown by the military, much of the country was left in the hands of butchers who used a fear of Communism to excuse atrocities that reputedly saw one million people slaughtered. One of those killed was Ramli and now his brother, an optician called Adi, has set about trying to help the aged with their sight problems whilst getting to th…
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