A New York gem dealer with a gambling addiction juggles a rare opal, a debt to loan sharks, a bet on an NBA game and several relationships that are falling apart. He does it all at the same time, loudly and without pause. It's pretty much the most anxious film ever made.
Uncut Gems is a 2019 crime, drama and thriller film directed by Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (1 narrative, 2 editing and 1 sound), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Conversation uses several of the same techniques.
Building the story around a clear deadline the hero must beat. The time pressure and the obstacles grow with each scene until the climax.
How this film uses it
Every scene in Uncut Gems is a deadline. The opal has to be back before the auction, the bet has to be placed before tip-off and the debt has to be paid before the enforcers arrive. The Safdies never give Howard (or you) a scene without a countdown running. The anxiety is built into how the film is put together, because every sequence has a time limit.
Where to see it
The final Celtics game. The bet, the debt and the men locked in Howard's store all depend on the same game, and Howard watches it play out.
Cutting rapidly between fragments, threats and pressures, often with fast music and shifting camera angles. You feel the character's panic and the sense of being closed in from every side.
How this film uses it
Howard's crises all happen at once, and the Safdies cut between them at a set rhythm. You never finish taking in 1 threat before the next arrives. The editing works the way Howard's mind does. He can't prioritize, because everything is the most important thing at once. The montage is exact about this, and nothing in it is exaggerated for effect.
Where to see it
The last stretch of the film. The Celtics game, the men locked in Howard's store and Julia's bet at the casino close in on Howard at the same time. Cutting between them makes it feel like Howard is being surrounded with no clear way out.
Using sounds the characters themselves can hear, like footsteps, radios or traffic, to build tension or show how someone feels. The sound does more than make the scene realistic.
How this film uses it
The film's sound mix fills its world with overlapping voices, music from several sources and background noise that never settles. Several conversations happen at once. The television, the phone and the person in the room all speak at the same time. All of it is diegetic, meaning it comes from inside the scene, and that pile of sound is the film's anxiety made audible. Howard lives in a world where he can never hear 1 thing at a time.
Where to see it
The gem store sequences. You get overlapping voices, the jewelry store's own music, the phone calls and the television. So much sound at once makes the room feel impossibly tense.
Building tension from scenes where 2 characters, or a character and the answer they want, come close and never meet. The dread comes from how near they get.
How this film uses it
Howard almost gets the opal back. He almost wins enough to clear the debt, and he almost gets the bet placed in time. The Safdies build every possible way out as a near-miss. Howard's hand closes on what he needs and something takes it away. You live in the gap between what could fix things and what actually happens. That gap closes only in the final scene.
Where to see it
The repeated times Howard nearly gets the opal back. Each time he almost has it, another hand takes it or another deadline moves. The run of near-misses becomes a kind of drawn-out torture.
Questions
Uncut Gems: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Uncut Gems use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Uncut Gems (2019): Ticking Clock Structure, Paranoia Montage, Diegetic Sound Design and Near-Miss Tracking Structure.
Who directed Uncut Gems?
Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie directed Uncut Gems, released in 2019. CineCode also covers Heaven Knows What (2015), Good Time (2017), Marty Supreme (2025).
What films are similar to Uncut Gems?
Films that share techniques with Uncut Gems include The Conversation (1974), A Quiet Place (2018), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Post (2017).
