10 Movies To Watch If You Loved Sound Of Metal

Sound of Metal is a movie starring Riz Ahmed as a metal drummer who loses his hearing. Confronting his condition, he goes through several internal dilemmas while admitting himself to a deaf rehab facility where he learns ASL under a caring teacher (Paul Raci). The film is a harrowing and empathetic character study of its protagonist, without unnecessarily romanticizing its deaf ensemble. As Raci’s character remarks later in the film, ‘everybody here shares in the belief that being deaf is not a handicap. Not something to fix. It’s pretty important around here’.

Apart from being an engaging watch, Sound of Metal definitely paves the way for more movies that would try to genuinely represent disabilities without any appropriation.

10 Love And Mercy (2014)

The Beach Boys’ co-founder and visionary singer/musician Brian Wilson seemed to have a pretty cheerful career until his struggles with mental illness. Love & Mercy switches between the 1960s and 1980s to show two phases of Wilson’s life (Paul Dano and John Cusack). The first timeline explores the beginning of his mental health issues as well as his experimental approach to record iconic albums like Pet Sounds.

His heavily-medicated future self becomes the victim of an unethical physiotherapist, and he’s shown to struggle with a new romantic relationship. Instead of overtly glorifying him, Wilson is shown to be a misguided, confused man trying to find some meaning in his life.

9 Mogul Mowgli (2020)

Starring Sound of Metal‘s Riz Ahmed, this drama revolves around a Pakistani-British rapper who is struck with an autoimmune disease right at the start of a world tour. With his musical career and mental peace, the protagonist plans to make a visit back home to London to meet his family after two years. He hopes to find some closure and reassurance while connecting with his roots.

The film is an intensely emotional watch further showing Ahmed’s acting prowess in dramatic roles. Acting as the rapper Zed, he’s in complete control for the opening scenes, largely owing to his own career as a rapper.

8 Rudderless (2014)

When Sam (Billy Crudup) turns towards alcoholism to grieve his son’s death, he finds out that he always dreamt of being a musician. Sam makes it his life’s mission to turn his son’s songs into soulful songs, assisted with a band called Rudderless. The film is a bittersweet tale of loss and dealing with loss.

Crudup pulls off one of the most intense roles of his career while providing vocals for many of the Rudderless‘s original songs. The soundtrack (credited to the titular fictional band) is definitely one of the most underrated ones in recent cinema.

7 The Hammer (2010)

The Hammer is a biopic centered on the deaf wrestler Matt Hamill who fought social stigmas to consecutively win three collegiate-wrestling championships. The film takes great care in portraying the story with nuance with hardly any appropriation as Russell Harvard sinks his teeth into the role of Hamill.

Harvard’s casting as the lead was a positive step towards a normalized representation of deaf actors on screen. The Hammer tries to stray away from cliched underdog elements, with great attention to detail.

6 A Late Quartet (2012)

An acclaimed quartet of classical musicians plans to play a special concert for their 25th anniversary. But a chain of unforeseen incidents creates tensions as their cellist (Christopher Walken) reveals that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. To add to the tensions, the egos of the four musicians clash and one of them engages in an extramarital affair.

A Late Quartet is a charmingly mellow caricature of the ups and downs that a group of artists can face while dealing with their own genius. The talented ensemble also includes Catherine Keener and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

5 Whiplash (2014)

Whiplash is arguably the greatest drummer film of all time. An extremely stern and foul-mouthed teacher coaches an aspiring jazz drummer to greatness. However, his patronizing methods drive the student to great limits that test him both physically and mentally. Even though the toxicity seems to bear fruit, Whiplash can make one question the unhealthy extent to which artists go to confront their fears and achieve greatness.

Morally, the film would yield different interpretations but cinematically speaking, there’s a universal consensus to Damien Chazelle’s masterful direction and JK Simmons’ intense supporting performance.

4 Metalhead (2013)

Metalhead (originally screened as Málmhaus) is an Icelandic drama that fuses a personal tragedy with a passion for metal music. A twelve-year-old girl gets scarred as she witnesses the death of her brother in an accident. In a fit of helplessness, she resorts to Black Metal music as an escape mechanism. Soon, the dark themes of the genre take over her mind and she plans on transitioning into more than just a metalhead. She aspires to become a growling, face-painted rockstar of her own.

Apart from a strong musical and human drama, the film also functions as a mature coming-of-age story avoiding the easygoing, feel-good cliches and using a more tragic approach.

3 Bird (1988)

Bird is a biopic of legendary saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, starring Forest Whitaker in the lead role. Like many other acclaimed music biopics, the Clint Eastwood-directed Bird also tries its best to show an unbiased behind-the-scenes picture too of the maestro apart from his musical influence.

Even though the saxophonist constantly innovated his music for the generations to come, he also succumbed to his self-loathing and a fatal heroin addiction that led to his untimely death. Aficionados of the biopic genre and jazz-influenced cinema should definitely check out Bird.

2 Crip Camp (2020)

A hit at Sundance and other film festivals, this Netflix documentary is a fitting tribute to the landmark movement it covers. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution starts off with a summer camp in 1971 that turned out to be a safe haven for people with disabilities. As they build life-changing friendships, many of them turn out to be disability rights activists in the years ahead leading an intersectional revolution along with war veterans and African-American protestors. These protests are geared towards equal treatment and access to public spaces for the disabled.

Through some memorable archival footage and candid interviews, directors Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht preserve an iconic (rather underappreciated) phase of American history.

1 Three Colors: Blue (1993)

The first installment in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy of French films, Blue is a slow-burning drama detailing the pain that a woman feels after losing her husband and daughter in a car accident. Juliette Binoche’s toned-down acting evokes a certain mellowness that never transcends to melodrama. Instead, her calm and controlled facade of a persona shows viewers that there’s a lot for her character to vent out (even if she doesn’t).

She also lives in the shadow of her dead husband’s fame as he was a renowned music composer. Freeing herself away from the pressures of his fame and her own sadness, she desperately attempts to forget it all. The film might not be for everyone, but it does offer a nuanced portrayal of coping over grief.

About The Author

Shaurya Thapa
(736 Articles Published)

Shaurya Thapa is an Indian freelance journalist who mostly dabbles in writings on cinema, music, and human interest features. When it comes to Screen Rant, he writes lists on a wide array of subjects ranging from international films to mainstream Netflix series and comic book trivia. He also hosts a podcast called ‘BhindiWire’, an Indian parody of IndieWire.

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