Silent Night is a 2023 American action thriller film directed by John Woo and stars Joel Kinnaman, Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi, Harold Torres and Catalina Sandino Moreno.

The film, which features minimal spoken dialogue, follows an aggrieved father avenging the death of his son, who was killed by local gang members in a drive-by shooting on Christmas Eve.

Brian Godlock is an electrician living a happy life in the fictional town of Las Palomas, Texas with his wife Saya and young son Taylor Michael.

Brian immediately tries to catch and kill the gangsters only for Playa, the leader of one of the gangs, to shoot him in the throat and leave him for dead.

Saya becomes emotionally overwhelmed and leaves Brian, who plans to kill all the gang members involved in Taylor's death on Christmas Eve in 2022.

Saya attempts to contact Brian, expressing that she and his parents are worried about him, but he continues to ignore her text messages.

Brian spends the entire night of Christmas Eve 2022 killing the members of Playa's gang one by one, often interrupting their crimes in the process.

In October 2021, Silent Night was first announced as an action film without spoken dialogue, with John Woo as director and Joel Kinnaman as lead star.

The lack of communication left the actor feeling lonely, and after multiple start attempts, he decided that the silent car ride to his first day on set was long enough to get him excited for the film.

The website's consensus reads: "Silent Night reaffirms that an action movie doesn't need much dialogue if the set pieces are solid enough—and that even second-tier John Woo can be worth the price of admission.

[21] Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal criticized the decision to have no dialogue in the film, stating that the result is "surprisingly dull".

[22] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote, "Silly as it might be, Silent Night gives audiences reason to get excited about the Hong Kong innovator once again, ranking as one of the few bloody Christmas counterprogrammers since Die Hard that feels worthy of repeat viewing down the road".

[23] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "It's to Woo's and screenwriter Robert Lynn's credit, as well the fiercely commanding, intensely physical performance by Kinnaman, that the film's lack of dialogue proves not a gimmick but an asset.

He noted the film's highlight was "not one of many lavishly staged gun battles, but an intensely brutal, lengthy hand-to-hand combat between Brian and one of Playa's minions that makes the classic fight scene in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain seem like a schoolyard tussle".

[24] Glenn Kenny of The New York Times praised the film for its well-crafted and brutal action scenes, stating that "there’s a lot of sound and fury and it works: This is suspenseful and cathartic, and even the schmaltzy stuff is so distinctly John Woo that it’s welcome.

He emphasized that with Woo's bold yet elegant editing style, "[t]he cliches of the action/revenge movie ultimately stop seeming merely familiar and begin to feel ritualistic", and stated, "Movies like this don't work unless the people who made them aren't afraid to risk going too far[....] Sometimes, if they keep pushing and pushing, they overcome any supposed rational objections the viewer might have, and there's a breakthrough.

[26] In 2024, film critic Scout Tafoya, a colleague of Seitz on RogerEbert.com, included Silent Night in his video series "The Unloved", where he expressed disappointment in how "very few people seemed willing to engage with the visual language of the movie."