Films with minimalistic/nonexistent scores

I'm still discovering what I like in movies, but I seem to gravitate toward those with minimalistic soundtracks, where the score is simple, austere, background-ish, sporadic, or where there's no music at all. Examples are There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men. I adore these films. Both are driven largely by dialogue, and there isn't much music to speak of. This is extremely appealing to me, as music to me is sometimes distracting and often overly-dramatic (especially in mainstream movies). I like to hear only dialogue and focus on the actor's performances. What are some other movies like this that are worth seeing? (Are other movies by Anderson and the Cohens like this?)

Dead Man
Paris, Texas
Eraserhead
Face of Another


PT Anderson's The Master has a similar soundtrack as TWBB, also by Jonny Greenwood

The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami)

If I remember Through The Glass Darkly only had some cello here and there.

Princess Mononoke

The Pianist, as far as I remember, has practically no score. I felt this was a masterful decision by Polanski. The film - particularly once the Adrien Brody character is in hiding - is full of silence, and this perfectly reflects the devastation and desolation of the ongoing war/holocaust.

When he eventually returns to a piano and plays it the contrast between the former silence and the beautiful music is gut-wrenching.

Antonioni's The Passenger - a film I adore - is without a score, I think. And it helps create a taut canvas for the juxtaposition of emptiness and suspense.

Very early talkies have no background music.

__________________
It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

Is that right? I know that pre-talkie silent movies usually had live orchestras in the theaters, but I thought that even the very early talkies, for the most part, included musical scores.

Except for musicals they didn't have it.

Frankenstein and Dracula has classical music over the titles, but when the movie starts there is no score.

By the time Frankenstein and Dracula came out in 1931 there are notable examples of talkies - including all sorts of non-musicals - with musical scores.

E.g. Blackmail (Hitchcock - 1929)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
The Blue Angel (1930)

I'm sure, if you do some research, you'll find many more.

Valhalla Rising

__________________

I saw it 2 days ago. The music was one of the weirdest I've ever heard in the movie. Don't know if the endless high drum roll sound was in a film, or was just a glitch on the audio track of my copy...

absolutely

Movies directed by Clint Eastwood tend to have very minimalistic scores. His philosophy is that music should supplement the emotions that are evoked by what is going on on the screen and shouldn't be used to manipulate viewer's emotions. For examples of this, check out "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby."

Blackmail started as a silent and it is a part talkie. The music is over the portions that was filmed silent. Silent movies caught in the talkie transiton had music scores.

Blue Angel was part musical and a German movie. I was talking about American movies.

I don't remember if there was music in Western Front, but since it was a Universal movie like Frankenstein and Dracula, I wouldn't think it had much.

Here is the ending for All Quiet on the Western Front and I see no sign it has a score. We just hear someone playing (presumably a soldier) a harmonica badly. And the very last scene of dead soldiers has no music at all.

Ballast
Wendy and Lucy
Dog Day Afternoon

To me, "nonexistent scores" implies no intrusive sound that the characters wouldn't be able to hear. I'm thinking Julien Donkey Boy or Red Desert. Red Desert especially makes excellent use of diegetic soundscapes.

The Coen Brothers usually have very minimalistic scores in their films, but Anderson uses a lot of music in his earlier films.

Personally I'm a music fan. I think it contributes to the magic of a movie, but of course pictures without a really 'present' score can also be brilliant. No Country For Old Men for example was perfect as it was. The silence contributed to the suspense. It had a function.

'Diegetic' - good word.
Had me scrambling for the dictionary!