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Published Sep 30, 2026, 6:22 PM EDT
Giovana Gelhoren is a High-Trending Topics Writer at Collider, covering the most-talked-about stars, movies, and TV shows. Before joining Collider, she was a Digital News Writer at People Magazine and served as Associate Editor at SheKnows, where she honed her expertise in celebrity coverage and entertainment journalism.
A proud Latina from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Giovana graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism and International Studies. She has interviewed countless celebrities, including Anne Hathaway, Halle Berry, Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brenda Song, and is known for her encyclopedic knowledge of film, TV, and pop culture.
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While some movies, like Inside Llewyn Davis and Once, have gone to show the not-so-glamorous aspects of being a musician, no movie has ever shown what being a great musician can take than 2014's Whiplash. Directed by Damien Chazelle, the movie, which was released at the Sundance Film Festival on January 16, 2014, tells the story of a young jazz drummer (Miles Teller) as he begins training under his most demanding and exacting teacher to date (J. K. Simmons) at an exclusive conservatory in New York.
Whiplash, often lauded as a modern classic, went on to win the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize for drama at Sundance. Months later, it also won Academy Awards in the Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing categories, and more notably, in the Best Supporting Actor category for Simmons, who swept the awards season that year. Whiplash also earned a Best Picture nod and a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Chazelle. Overall, while it's been 14 years since the movie premiered, it is still one of the best dramas about music, let alone dramas, of all time.
'Whiplash' Has Only Gotten Better With Time
When audiences first watched Whiplash, while praise for the movie was high (the film holds a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes), the dynamic between Teller's Andrew and Simmons' Fletcher was certainly eyebrow-raising. After all, as viewers slip further and further into the story, the pressure on Andrew's shoulders increases until he's shed blood, sweat and tears. At the time, viewers left theaters not only with their hearts racing, but perhaps believing that Fletcher's guidance was flat-out abusive, and that Andrew was just a dedicated yet innocent bystander.
With time, however, the dynamic between these two characters has changed, making the movie all the more interesting. As conversations around toxic workplaces, coaches, teachers and mentors have become more prominent, Whiplash feels less like an extreme jazz-school story and more like a recognizable examination of that mentality. In other words, as society started to pay attention to these cases, Fletcher feels less like an outlier, and more like a story among many. The same can be said for Andrew, who, throughout the movie, is willing to sacrifice relationships, friendships, sleep and even his physical well-being for the possibility of becoming great. In an era of hustle culture and career optimization, Andrew's obsession with greatness feels more relatable, but it also makes it harder to view him as merely a victim. Andrew isn't responsible for Fletcher's abuse, but his willingness to endure it becomes an essential part of the movie's uncomfortable question: at what point does the pursuit of greatness become destructive, even when you're the one choosing to pursue it?
Part of the Magic of 'Whiplash' Comes From How it Was Made
In a September 2024 interview with Collider, Chazelle and Simmons remembered what filming, directing, starring and editing was like, and how the process made the movie a standout. For starters, Whiplash was shot in a span of only 20 days in October 2013, and premiered only a few months later in January 2014. That meant that every part of Whiplash's production was quick and fast-paced. "That state of adrenaline certainly, looking back, was helpful in its own indirect way," Chazelle told Collider. "The movie is about that kind of state in a way. So, not that it had to be made in that compressed timeframe, but there was something about the running gun, not overthinking it, not second-guessing." Chazelle then admitted that the timeframe meant that his own directing was sped up and more improvised than usual. "I know in myself, I've learned for myself, that I can fall victim very easily to the overthinking, second-guessing end of the spectrum, where you sort of hem and haw almost to infinity," he said. "There was something about the pressure cooker atmosphere of how Whiplash was made and edited and cut and mixed, every aspect of it, that I think maybe helped preserve it from some of that. It's not an overthought movie."
To Simmons, Whiplash's magic also stemmed from the collaboration between its actors, Chazelle, cinematographer Sharone Meir and their whole team. Per Simmons, the production team was always "immaculately prepared" but were still "open to whatever Miles and I and whoever in the cast were bringing to any given moment, too." "There are some other directors that I feel a similar way about, having that combination of immaculate preparation but openness to collaborating, and it was a beautiful thing," Simmons said.
Ultimately, while it's been over a decade since Whiplash premiered, the drama will continue to be a fan favorite for decades to come. With incredible directing, sound-mixing, and, of course, performances from both Teller and Simmons, Whiplash is a true cinematic masterpiece.
Release Date October 10, 2014
Runtime 107 Minutes
Director Damien Chazelle
