Whiplash

Aspiring jazz drummer Andrew Neiman earns a place in conductor Terence Fletcher's elite conservatory band. Fletcher's humiliations, sudden auditions, and exacting tempo demands push Andrew to equate artistic greatness with total physical and emotional sacrifice.

Chazelle shoots rehearsals like combat, deploying close-ups of hands, sweat, blood, cymbals, and Fletcher's gestures, while Miles Teller and J. K. Simmons transform musical discipline into an unstable contest among ambition, abuse, control, and exhilaration.