Whiplash
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: October 10, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
89
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 50 Critic Reviews
Positive:
49
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Radio TimesAdam SmithDec 2, 2025
Damien Chazelle's blisteringly told tale of an aspiring jazz drummer and his bullying mentor is a hugely entertaining, refreshingly subversive take on the well-worn "inspirational teacher" theme. Read full review
100
Total FilmPaul BradshawJan 15, 2015
Marches to the beat of its own drum… Lands with a bang… There just aren’t enough musical clichés to describe Whiplash. A masterclass in technique, power and rhythm, it stings and sings like nothing else. Read full review
100
EmpireOlly RichardsJan 12, 2015
Sum up the plot and it sounds interminable. Watch the film and it will spit you out elated, exhausted and cheering for an encore. Read full review
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 14, 2014
Whiplash is, at its core, about jazz -- that smoothest, mellowest of American art forms. But don't let that fool you. Writer-director Damien Chazelle's impressive sophomore effort is about as rock 'n' roll as a movie about jazz can possibly be. Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 13, 2014
Teller plays notes all over the emotional chart, dovetailing into a divine riff on ambition. And he does nearly all of Andrew's drumming, aggressively and impressively so. Read full review
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 30, 2014
In a stunning performance, Teller resists the impulse to sugarcoat Andrew’s egocentricity. Simmons is equally impressive, lending Fletcher just enough humanity to render his monstrousness all the more shocking. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 23, 2014
At Sundance, Whiplash quickly picked up the nickname “Full Metal Juilliard” on the basis of scenes in which Andrew, plucked from a late-night practice session to be the orchestra’s drummer, is raked over the coals by his new mentor. Horrifying as they are, these sequences are dazzling exercises in total humiliation. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 16, 2014
Whiplash is true to its title. It throws you around with impunity, yet Chazelle exerts tight, exacting control over his increasingly feverish and often weirdly comic melodrama. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensOct 10, 2014
Even if you couldn’t care less about jazz drumming, though, Whiplash is a thrill to watch. Underneath that taut, stylish surface, it’s really a movie about the perils of pedagogy, about the relationship between a passionate (perhaps too passionate) student and a demanding (perhaps too demanding) teacher. Which is to say, a movie about a uniquely powerful and potentially destructive form of love. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoOct 10, 2014
Whiplash is cinematic adrenalin. In an era when so many films feel more refined by focus groups or marketing managers, it is a deeply personal and vibrantly alive drama. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyOct 9, 2014
It is one of those scorching films that burns through emotions, uses up actors, wrings out audiences. And the jazz, well, it has its own moments of brutal, breathtaking fusion. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonOct 9, 2014
It also happens to feature a pair of performances that eclipse all else around them. Read full review
100
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 9, 2014
The exhilarating, inventive and suspenseful story hinges on a pair of commanding performances. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 8, 2014
More "Full Metal Jacket" than "Dead Poet’s Society," the film is an epic battle of wills between two fanatical artists, one doing everything in his power to painfully make a master out of the other. Read full review
100
New York PostKyle SmithOct 8, 2014
A thrilling and propulsive drama. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyOct 8, 2014
If you can appreciate the sight of two totally dialed-in performers simmering until they boil over, that's enough. And P.S., that's pretty much the definition of jazz. Read full review
100
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreOct 8, 2014
The script and Simmons, known for TV’s “The Closer” and as tantrum-tossing editor J. Jonah Jameson in “Spider-Man,” make Fletcher a monster, and then look for ways of explaining him. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 21, 2014
Although a couple of narrative twists late on threaten to drum us into melodrama, Chazelle never misses a beat and the film builds to a cathartic crescendo. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJan 22, 2014
However genius may flourish, you know it when you see it, and Whiplash is it. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 22, 2014
Chazelle proves an exceptional builder of scenes, crafting loaded, need-to-succeed moments that grab our attention and hold it tight. Read full review
91
IndieWireEmma Myers Jan 22, 2014
Revealing both the dangers and payoffs of artistic ambition, Whiplash is sure to establish Chazelle as a directorial force to be reckoned with. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 20, 2014
This is a muscular and accomplished work of kinetic cinema built around two tremendous acting performances, and it’s really about teaching and obsession and the complicated question of how to nurture excellence and where the nebulous boundary lies between mentorship and abuse. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 23, 2014
The last act takes a couple of turns that rely too heavily on coincidence, but overall Whiplash (the title comes from the name of one of the songs the band plays) hits very few sour notes. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 13, 2014
Thanks to Whiplash, Simmons will lend comfort to those actors who believe that, if they wait long enough, the right role — their role — will come along. Fletcher is such a part. Read full review
90
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeOct 10, 2014
Whiplash redefines the teacher movie (to say nothing of the young-musician movie) with a brutal energy and no easy resolutions. It's a challenging tune that will nonetheless get stuck in your head. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 10, 2014
As a go-for-it music movie, Whiplash is just about peerless. The fear is contagious, but so is the jazz vibe: When Andrew snatches up his sticks and the band launches into a standard—say, Hank Levy’s “Whiplash”—it’s hard not to smile, judder, and sway. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 9, 2014
It may get a few things wrong, but it aims at, and finally achieves, an authenticity at once more exalted and more primal than mere verisimilitude. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 20, 2014
Whiplash is writer/director Damien Chazelle's hyperventilated nightmare about artistic struggle, artistic ambition. It's as much a horror movie as it is a keenly realized indie about jazz, about art, about what it takes to claim greatness. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 30, 2014
The film’s true subject, though, is innate talent — for music, writing, painting, sculpture, plumbing — and the superhuman lengths we sometimes have to go to in order to wring it out of ourselves. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 27, 2014
It's a noteworthy achievement for director Damien Chazelle to infuse a tale about the development of a musician with all the tension and intensity of a top-notch thriller. Whiplash is riveting. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerOct 23, 2014
Whiplash is an intense, unmelodious, highly amped and probably unrealistic drama set in the fictionalized Schaefer Conservatory in New York. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 16, 2014
The music is brilliant, Chazelle’s writing and directing are something to behold, Teller is really good — and Simmons delivers one of the most memorable performances of the year. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 9, 2014
Beat the drums for a Simmons Oscar, and add a cymbal crash for Whiplash. It's electrifying. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineChris CabinSep 16, 2014
The thrill of watching Fletcher and Neyman's fray unfold is intensified by Damien Chazelle's attention to the craft and challenge of musicianship. Read full review
85
Film.comEric D. SniderJan 20, 2014
[An] unusually unromantic approach to music education is one of many noteworthy things about Whiplash, a funny, exhilarating drama — bordering on psychological thriller. Read full review
83
HitfixDrew McWeenyDec 20, 2014
By far, the best part of the film is the last twenty minutes or so, and it's so good that it almost makes up for some of the missteps along the way. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJames RocchiJan 22, 2014
The quest to be the best is a familiar film story, but if director-writer Chazelle has achieved anything here, it’s a deeply and richly different take on that journey—not only examining the cost of struggle but the reward of it, showing both what it takes to be great and what happens when you don’t have it. Read full review
80
TimeRichard CorlissJan 5, 2015
Directing with a cool, steady hand that renounces shaky-cam the way Fletcher would denounce rock ‘n roll, and getting strong performances from his two leads, Chazelle provides a potent metaphor for artistic ambition as both a religion and an addiction. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanOct 9, 2014
Teller delivers a career-making performance as Andrew Neyman, a 19-year-old jazz drummer who wants to be great. Like Buddy Rich great. Read full review
80
The DissolveNathan RabinOct 8, 2014
The film’s aversion toward clichés and hitting expected beats lends it a rare, welcome edge of danger. Read full review
80
The GuardianHenry BarnesJan 22, 2014
It's rare to see a film about music that professes its love for the music and its characters equally. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJan 22, 2014
The antithesis of “let’s-put-on-a-show” fluff, Whiplash...is about the wages of all-out sacrifice and commitment. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 22, 2014
Whiplash scrapes the far edge of crazy passion. It never apologizes. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanOct 30, 2014
Because Whiplash is two characters in search of a plot, it ramps up the happenstance and improbability as it stumbles toward a final showdown between teacher and student that would be emotionally satisfying if it had the ring of truth. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 16, 2014
The soundtrack, full of jazz standards, is an enjoyable feature, though in the context of the movie, audiences will mostly feel anxiety hearing them. The amount of work required to sound breezy and effortless is daunting. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedOct 8, 2014
The question is: how much should one talented but sensitive individual be willing to suffer for his art at the hands of one brilliant but terrifying bully? The two stars are fully committed to the concept that the pursuit of perfection doesn’t always triumph, and the film pounds in the temples with the feverish tempo of a jazz riff. Read full review
70
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekOct 7, 2014
If Whiplash doesn't quite hang together, Chazelle has still managed to pack it with some wonderful ideas. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesOct 29, 2014
The leads’ prolonged, puffed-feathers sparring is entertaining while it lasts, but the sensation of something sizable is only fleeting. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 16, 2014
The dynamic between Fletcher and Andrew makes for highly pitched drama, which strains for credibility during two climactic scenes. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 10, 2014
I don’t get the enthusiasm for this movie, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, which is such a cooked-up piece of claptrap that I half expected Darth Vader to pick up the baton. We’re supposed to think that Terence’s tough love is more “honest” than the usual pussyfooting tutelage, but in any sane society this guy would have been brought up on charges long ago. Read full review
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