History Main / YouAlwaysHearTheBullet

* In most movies, the sound heard by the person being shot at is more like the sound the person firing the weapon should hear. In particularly bad examples, the gunshot will be accompanied by a ricochet sound, even when there is nothing for the bullet to ricochet off of. This has been frequently used in UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} and various [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods Otherwood]] productions, to a point where many grow up thinking bullets ricochet when just fired from guns.

Related is the sound effects of a silenced weapon. While in real life, the explosion of the bullet is muted, you will still [[NoisyGuns hear the mechanical noises of the gun itself]]. In TV land, [[HollywoodSilencer these guns are completely and utterly silent]]. See also TheCoconutEffect.

* [[IncrediblyLamePun Soundly]] averted in the tactical first-person shooter game ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'' and its sequels in the ''VideoGame/{{Arma}}'' series (including Arma 2's famous ''VideoGame/DayZ'' mod), in which sound travel time is simulated, so it's entirely possible to be killed by a bullet before the report of the rifle that fired it reaches you. All other sounds follow the same rules, so if a huge explosion takes place a few kilometers away from, the sound reaches you several seconds later.

* Averted in the 1972 Clint Eastwood film ''Film/JoeKidd'': when Kidd and a band of Mexican revolutionaries come under fire at extreme range by a sniper using a scoped buffalo rifle the sequence is shown in proper order (muzzle smoke - bullet sound - gunshot) reflecting the relative speeds (light, bullet, sound) involved.
* Averted in ''Film/QuigleyDownUnder''. At one point you see three mooks drop dead, and then you hear the gunshot. Quigley had watched for hours, waiting until three guys stood in a row, so he could pull it off.
* In most movies, the sound heard by the person being shot at is more like the sound the person firing the weapon should hear.
** In particularly bad examples, the gunshot will be accompanied by a ricochet sound, even when there is nothing for the bullet to ricochet off of. This has been frequently used in UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} and various [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods Otherwood]] productions, to a point where many grow up thinking bullets ricochet when just fired from guns.
** True. Also, despite this trope's name, ''hearing the bullet traveling through the air'' and ''hearing the report of the gun that fired it'' are two different things. In reality you do hear bullets "whiz by" when they pass nearby, even if the sound of the actual gunshot hasn't reached you yet. As two characters said in ''Film/BlackHawkDown'':

* Averted in the final episode of ''Series/TheSopranos''. [[spoiler:One interpretation of [[SmashToBlack the ending]] is that Tony Soprano was killed in reprisal for killing another mob boss previously, and the screen immediately cuts to black because he died. The clue is in a conversation Tony and Bobby have earlier that season, where Bobby explains that bullets travel so fast that if it's a headshot, your brain can't even register the sound of the gun having been fired before you're dead.]]

* Averted in the final episode of ''Series/TheSopranos''. [[spoiler:One interpretation of the ending is that Tony Soprano was killed in reprisal for killing another mob boss previously, and the screen immediately cuts to black because he died. The clue is in a conversation Tony and Bobby have earlier that season, where Bobby explains that bullets travel so fast that if it's a headshot, your brain can't even register the sound of the gun having been fired before you're dead.]]

* Outrider's standard victory taunt in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' mentions this - "One shot, one kill. Won't even hear it coming." The ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series otherwise plays this straight, however, where there is no sound traveling. If you're far away enough from someone that you can't hear their shots exactly when they're fired, you're not ''going'' to hear the bullets until the killcam shows you your death from their perspective (and that's assuming you're also not far enough that [[ArbitraryMaximumRange their bullets won't disappear mid-flight]], although unless they're using a [[ShortRangeShotgun shotgun]] that's generally rare in most maps).

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* Played Straight [[DependingOnTheWriter most of the time]] in the play by post RP ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest''.

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* Averted in a first-series episode of ''{{Series/Life}}'', when a hostage taker in a bank is shot by a police marksman: you hear the shattering of a glass window first, followed by a reverberating distant report. SFX carry this event, since you never see the window or the sniper; the only cue that the shot's coming is a voice over the radio saying "I'm in position".

* Averted in ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke''. The shot that paralyzes Barbara Gordon has no sound effect. It is never heard (although that's an artifact of the SignatureStyle of Creator/AlanMoore, which does away with onomatopoeia.)

Note that this only applies when one is standing at a distance and someone is shooting ''at you''; Anyone standing next to the shooter will not experience a significant enough lag between the events to notice much of a difference, unless the bullet travels a very long distance (light being much faster than sound or a bullet)

* Speaking of the Barrett, this is also averted in one portion of ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 3'' - at one point halfway through, you are treated to a flashback to ''Call of Duty 4'', specifically the mission where the player as Captain Price shot at Zakhaev from a mile away, with the player now viewing from someone who was within the target area. If you pay attention to the hotel, you can see the muzzle flash from Price's rifle a full three seconds before Zakhaev's arm flies off, followed about half a second later by the actual firing sound.

[-'''NOTE:''' As of March 9, 2010, this page mostly only lists [[AvertedTrope aversions of this trope]]. Ranking it a [[DeadHorseTrope dead horse]]. -]

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare'' itself has a justified example. When Al-Fulani is executed, the scene cuts to black with the gunshot echoing; the shot is point blank, so in this specific case this ''is'' possible.

** Of course, such subsonic rounds or firearms are often especially kept subsonic for use with a suppressor, meaning that there's almost no noise to go by (guns specifically chosen for their ability to perform quietly can actually get reasonably close to being a HollywoodSilencer). There's also the issue that while the rounds may not be supersonic, they still travel at a high subsonic speed; so while the sound may get to you before the bullet, it usually beats it to the mark by a margin shorter than the human reaction time. Essentially, while this trope would be technically correct under such cases, its still of no real practical use. The reason why subsonic bullets are used in silenced weapons is that supersonic bullets produce a significant sonic boom while travelling. No suppressor on earth could do a thing about quieting that if it's already happened - the best one can do is to restrict the velocity of the bullet before it leaves the barrel, so it never goes supersonic in the first place.

* Also averted in ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' when we see shootings from a distance. In the season 2 finale, "Klick," when Mike is watching the Twins kill the truck driver through his sniper scope, there's a long delay between the shot and Mike hearing the bullet. Also seen in the season 4 finale "Winner" when Mike kills Werner, where there's a delay between the muzzle flash of Mike's gun and the gunshot sound.

* The flavor text for ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'''s Sniper Rifle averts this, mentioning that the [[SpaceMarine NEG Marines]] say "any shot you hear [[InstantDeathBullet is nothing to be worried about]]." It's played straight in-game, however: the bullets are HitScan, the sound is instantaneous, ''and'' the rounds [[EveryBulletIsATracer are all tracers]], so you know where the sniper shot from too.