Sound of Metal · reception & legacy
2020 · Darius Marder
How Sound of Metal has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
It premiered at TIFF in 2019 and slipped onto Amazon Prime in the pandemic winter of 2020, then snowballed from streaming sleeper into an awards juggernaut — six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, with wins for Sound and Editing. It's since settled in as one of the defining 'discovered at home' films of the COVID era.
What's debated
The recurring fight is over its portrayal of deafness and cochlear implants — widely praised for centring Deaf culture (and releasing with open captions), but debated over whether a hearing actor should have played Ruben and how fairly it frames the implant choice.
Its footprint
Joe's quiet monologue about 'moments of stillness' is the film's endlessly quoted passage, and the subjective sound design — hearing the world drop out through Ruben's ears — made it the modern go-to example of sound as storytelling; 'watch it with good headphones' became the standard recommendation.
Where it stands
A certified Letterboxd favourite of the 2020s — the streaming-era canon climber people now cite as proof that year's Best Picture race was deeper than it looked.