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I have to admit I hate reading voice over narration, especially in amateur scripts. They usually tell you exactly what you're watching on the screen. Unless, it's Billy Wilder who seems to use to add atmosphere to his movies, it usually comes off redundant or silly. I was reading the fan comments for the movie Savages and they all seem to hate the voice over narration of the Blake Lively character saying the thoughts were silly and not integral to the plot.

Days of Heaven (1978), written by Terrence Malick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKGXc_Re-9E “Nobody’s perfect. There was never a perfect person around. You just got half devil and half angel in you. She promised herself she’d lead a good life from now on. She blamed it all on herself. She didn’t care if she was happy or not. She just wanted to make up for what she did wrong. The sun looks ghostly when there’s a mist on a river and everything’s quiet. I never knowed it before. And you could see people on the shore, but they was far off and you couldn’t see what they were doing. They were probably … calling for help or something, or they were trying to bury somebody or something. We seen trees that the leaves are shaking, and it looks like shadows of guys coming at you and stuff. We heard owls squawking away, moving away. We didn’t know where we were going, what we were going to do. I’ve never been on a boat before. That was the first time." Here's some background on the use of voice-over in this film: http://bigother.com/2011/06/28/a-d-jeremy-talk-about-movies—extra-lindas-voice-over-narration-in-days-of-heaven/

American Beauty Lester Burnham: "Look at me, jerking off in the shower... This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCW10ZwUlwc I think Lester's voice over in American Beauty is the best ever -- or at least of the films I've seen. It's witty, comes from a dead guy and breaks the fourth wall with a clear purpose. If you want to use voice over in your script, I think you'd be smart to read American Beauty and learn from Alan Ball.

One my favorites is still Sunset Blvd. It still had one of the great quips about being just a screenwriter. MAN'S VOICE If so, you've come to the right party... You see, the body of a young man was found floating in the pool of her mansion, with two shots in his back and one in his stomach. No- body important, really. Just a movie writer with a couple of "B" pictures to his credit. The poor dope. He always wanted a pool Well, in the end he got himself a pool -- only the price turned out to be a little high... http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/sunset_bld_3_21_49.html

MICHAEL CLAYTON, written and directed by Tony Gilroy, begins with a voice over from a character named Arthur Edens who is leaving the title character a voicemail. The entire message plays over images of an empty high rise law office late at night. By the time it ends, we are in a conference room filled with attorneys hustling to finish filing a settlement. Arthur Edens: Michael. Dear Michael. Of course it's you, who else could they send, who else could be trusted? I... I know it's a long way and you're ready to go to work... all I'm saying is wait, just wait, just-just-just... please hear me out because this is not an episode, relapse, fuck-up, it's... I'm begging you Michael. I'm begging you. Try and make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness. Two weeks ago I came out of the building, okay, I'm running across Sixth Avenue, there's a car waiting, I got exactly 38 minutes to get to the airport and I'm dictating. There's this, this panicked associate sprinting along beside me, scribbling in a notepad, and suddenly she starts screaming, and I realize we're standing in the middle of the street, the light's changed, there's this wall of traffic, serious traffic speeding towards us, and I... I-I freeze, I can't move, and I'm suddenly consumed with the overwhelming sensation that I'm covered with some sort of film. It's in my hair, my face... it's like a glaze... like a... a coating, and... at first I thought, oh my god, I know what this is, this is some sort of amniotic - embryonic - fluid. I'm drenched in afterbirth, I've-I've breached the chrysalis, I've been reborn. But then the traffic, the stampede, the cars, the trucks, the horns, the screaming and I'm thinking no-no-no-no, reset, this is not rebirth, this is some kind of giddy illusion of renewal that happens in the final moment before death. And then I realize no-no-no, this is completely wrong because I look back at the building and I had the most stunning moment of clarity. I... I... I... I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism whose sole function is to excrete the... the-the-the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the stain of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undo. And you know what I did? I took a deep cleansing breath and I set that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself as clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe that I have witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time. And Michael, the time is now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WB-_Zq9UcE

DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID (1982) written by Carl Reiner & George Gipe and Steve Martin, directed by Carl Reiner This spoof of/loveletter to noir combines archival footage from classic noir films (including Double Indemnity!) with an original storyline, shot in black and white. Steve Martin is Rigby Reardon, the only private dick who can out-Marlowe Marlowe. Just don't say the words "cleaning woman" in front of him. Rigby is hired by Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) to investigate the mysterious death of her father. Naturally, there's chemistry... Juliet Forrest: Sometimes I feel I would like to... Rigby Reardon: [voice-over] You'd like to what? Kiss me? Yeah, that would be nice. It would give me a chance to tell her I was starting to feel something for her, too. Something warm and squishy. But how could I explain that a man in my business can't take on a wife, have a bunch of kids? Juliet Forrest: We wouldn't have to have kids. Rigby Reardon: [surprised] What? Dialogue on dialogue: This film is the best kind of parody: the kind that understands and genuinely likes the target of its humor. The voiceover is used throughout the film (in laconic, deadpan style of course!)would be at home in any noir film until that one line or two that reminds you how absurd it would be if people really did gaze into the middle distance while internally monologuing... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2efDnLZjsk

Raising Arizona Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITzOSwZjYAM LOW ANGLE CELL BLOCK CORRIDOR As Hi is escorted away from the camera toward his cell. At the far end of the corridor a huge con is sluggishly mopping the floor. VOICE OVER I was in for writing hot checks which, when businessmen do it, is called an overdraft. I'm not complainin', mind you; just sayin' there ain't no pancake so thin it ain't got two sides. Now prison life is very structured - more than most people care for... INTERCUTTING HI'S POV of the MOPPING CON, tracking as he approaches, and the Mopping Con's POV of Hi as Hi approaches. VOICE OVER ...But there's a spirit of camaraderie that exists between the men, like you find only in combat maybe... The Mopping Con snarls as Hi passes: CON Grrrr... VOICE OVER ...or on a pro ball club in the heat of a pennant drive. Notes: I love the way the Coens handle voice over narration in the first eight pages. It is used extensively through the first act and less so after that. It is cut well with the visuals which reflect what is said in the narration. The script has a few lines of action, followed by a few lines of voice over and then sometimes actual dialog from characters. This is repeated through the first act. I think it's highly original.

Eric, you have zeroed in on one of the main 'sins' when it comes to writing voice-over narration. Don't describe what we're seeing. Provide IMPORTANT insight into the character's internal life, what they're thinking and feeling.

Hi, im my opinion Truffaut's "Jules et Jim" has got one of the best voice overs.

I think that's why I hate amateur voice overs but LOVE LOVE LOVE Billy Wilder voiceovers like in Sunset Blvd and the Apartment. Wilder's narrations are witty and charming.