History Main / HollyWoodsILencer

* Subverted in the season three finale of ''Series/BreakingBad'', where Mike uses a gun with a silencer to murder several cartel members selling meth on Gus's territory without permission. Only... the gun is ''far'' from silent.
** Though a lack of a gun blast is played straight, the casings hitting the wall/floor and the operation of the pistol are clearly heard.
* ''Series/{{Columbo}}'': In "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case", the killer uses a silenced ''revolver'' to kill the VictimOfTheWeek. The shots are quiet enough that a house full of witnesses downstairs cannot hear them, and he later uses squibs to fake the sound of gunshots to make it appear the murder had occurred later than it had.

* ''Series/{{CSI}}''
** An episode featured a coke bottle silencer. Another had a potato silencer. While neither would work for more than a few shots, the Coke bottle would be more effective after the first, having a much greater surface-to-volume ratio.
*** The potato was used for two gunshots, and it ''worked.'' Not because it actually silenced the shot, but because the target is deaf.
* An episode of ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' had a ''teddy bear'' used as a silencer for a large Desert Eagle pistol.
* In ''Series/DeathInParadise'', a near-perfect murder plot revolves around the guests of a pool party being unable to hear a suppressed handgun shot inside the house.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' features [[GunAccessories mods for firearms]] that reduce the chance of enemies hearing your shots, up to 100%. This means you can make pistols, assault rifles or even ''shotguns'' you can shoot at unalerted enemies and miss several times, without ever alerting them to your presence; they will be alerted only if the shot hurts them without killing them, or if they witness a corpse of their comrade. These suppressors hardly reduce the gunshot ''you'' hear, meaning your "silent" assassin weapon will still pretty much be a boomstick. The warframe [[MakeMeWannaShout Banshee]] can innately make any firearm she holds be silent.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "Murder By Magic", one of the victims is shot with a revolver that is later stated to have had a sound suppressor on it to explain why no one heard the shot.

* The 1972 French comedy ''Film/TheTallBlondManWithOneBlackShoe'' featured several government spies with silenced guns that, when fired, emitted only a puff of smoke with no sound at all.
* Parodied in ''Film/LesTontonsFlingueurs'', a 1963 French movie. There is a gunfight scene, involving at least half a dozen people, each one wielding a silenced gun making a different sound, including one of a bottle being uncorked. ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u800rP78Xg the scene]])
** Georges Lautner reused the same gag the next year in his spy comedy ''Film/LesBarbouzes''.

Basically, silencers control the discharge of gases that occur when a bullet is fired, which produce much of the sound. It's the RuleOfCool: Hollywood wants do depict a slealthy assassin or suave superspy make his hit in a public place, then [[StealthExpert melt into the night with nary a sound]].

* ''Film/McQ''. The opening murders of two policeman are committed with a .45 with a ridiculously short silencer. Later a witness is murdered with a silenced revolver. Only the silenced [[CoolGuns MAC-10]] sounds right, but as the Military Armaments Corporation was [[ProductPlacement using this movie to showcase the weapon]] it's not surprising.

* ''Film/SoylentGreen'' - Charlton Heston's character gets chased by some Mooks packing short-barreled revolvers fitted with silencers. It's handled surprisingly realistically; they emit a sort of dull, booming thump that's far from quiet, but which wouldn't be readily identifiable as gunfire at a distance.

* "Film/LethalWeapon2" has two instances of the bad guys doing this. The first time involving the secondary antagonist taking out one of his own incompetent subordinates is played a little more realistically as it makes a somewhat loud bang despite the popular sound effect. The second time involving an assassination of Leo Getz is played straight, on the other hand.

* "Film/LethalWeapon2"" has two instances of the bad guys doing this. The first time involving the secondary antagonist taking out one of his own incompetent subordinates is played a little more realistically as it makes a somewhat loud bang despite the popular sound effect. The second time involving an assassination of Leo Getz is played straight, on the other hand.

* Played perfectly straight in the dirty cop action film ''Film/SixteenBlocks'', where a hired hitman in the beginning tries to kill the witness with a silencer that esespecially soft and quiet.

* Played perfectly straight in the dirty cop action film ''Film/16Blocks'', where a hired hitman in the beginning tries to kill the witness with a silencer that esespecially soft and quiet.

%%* ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'': Henrietta carries a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_P90 Fabrique Nationale P90]] as her standard weapon (in a violin case, just to be cute). Later in the storyline, she uses it with a silencer (or more properly a suppressor).