Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal (2020) is Darius Marder's drama you can watch online on iFILM. Ruben, a metal drummer, starts losing his hearing in the middle of a tour.

Riz Ahmed plays him: a recovering addict, four years clean, with music and his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) holding his life together. First the cymbals turn into a dull rumble. Then most of the sound is gone. A doctor is blunt — it will only get worse. Lou drops him at a community for the deaf run by Joe (Paul Raci), a former Marine. Nobody there tries to fix him. They teach him to live again, which scares him more than the silence does.

The sound design keeps pulling you straight into Ruben's head, into the muffled ringing — work that earned the film Oscars for Best Sound and Best Editing, plus a Best Actor nod for Ahmed. A quiet, honest movie with no false notes. Stream Sound of Metal (2020) online on iFILM.