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● Movie Guide · Last updated May 18, 2026

White Noise: Plot, Cast, Ending & Where to Watch

2022 · United Kingdom · Comedy, Drama · 2h 16m · English

White Noise is a 2022 United Kingdom comedy film directed by Noah Baumbach. This guide covers the plot, full cast, an overview of the ending, where to watch, and similar films you might want next.

Read Ending Explained → Movies Like White Noise Where to Watch
ComedyDramaNotable
Original Title
White Noise
Director
Noah Baumbach
Writers
Noah Baumbach
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
2h 16m
Release
Nov 25, 2022
§ 01 Plot · 6 min read

White Noise Plot Summary

White Noise is a 2022 absurdist comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach, adapted from the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo. It is Baumbach's first directed feature not based on a story of his own. The film stars Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle. Set in the 1980s, it follows the life of a niche academic and his family as they go through trials and tribulations, beginning with an environmental disaster near their home.

● Quick takeaway

White Noise (2022) is a United Kingdom comedy film, directed by Noah Baumbach, running 136 minutes. Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own mortality. Stars Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. Critical reception: IMDb 5.7/10, Rotten Tomatoes 64%, Metacritic 66/100. Tagline: "You can’t hear it if it's everywhere.." This guide covers the plot, full cast, ending, and where to watch.

§ 02 Cast · 6 roles

Cast and Characters

Adam Driver headshot
Adam Driver
as Jack Gladney
Driver's fourth collaboration with Baumbach after Frances Ha, While We're Young and Marriage Story, and the most pointedly costumed role of the four. The film aged Driver with a paunch, glasses and a sustained mid-Western academic register that the actor has never previously occupied, and Driver plays Jack as a man whose professional confidence is a performance the household and the campus have agreed to take at face value. The opening lecture and the late motel sequence are the performance's bookends.
Greta Gerwig headshot
Greta Gerwig
as Babette Gladney
Gerwig, Baumbach's longtime partner and creative collaborator, takes the role written as DeLillo's most opaque major character and gives her a Midwestern-bright optimism the novel allows but does not specify. Babette's late-film reveal — that she has been trading a self-destructive private arrangement for the drug she hopes will solve her fear of death — lands harder because of how unsuspecting Gerwig has let the character look across the opening hour.
Don Cheadle headshot
Don Cheadle
as Murray Siskind
Cheadle takes the role of Murray, the Elvis Studies aspirant, and runs DeLillo's most performative dialogue at the cadence of an academic who knows he is also an entertainer. The dual-lecture sequence with Driver is the film's tightest passage and would not exist without Cheadle's willingness to play Murray as both intellectually serious and tonally unstable. The casting against the part's original whiter-collar feel is one of the adaptation's better decisions.
Raffey Cassidy headshot
Raffey Cassidy
as Denise Gladney
Cassidy, fresh off The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Vox Lux, plays Denise as the household's quietly-most-attentive person: the pre-teen who has noticed her mother is taking something, has copied down the prescription name, and is methodically interrogating every adult in the room about it. The performance is one of the small structural keys to the film's plot machinery, and Cassidy lands it without forcing the precociousness DeLillo's novel could have rewarded.
Sam Nivola headshot
Sam Nivola
as Heinrich Gladney
Nivola, son of actors Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer, takes the chess-prodigy teenage-son role and plays the character's running scepticism about whether the cloud is really toxic, whether the radio is right and whether his father knows anything as the household's most useful counter-voice. The car-evacuation back-seat lectures are largely Heinrich's, and Nivola handles them with the deadpan DeLillo's dialogue requires.
May Nivola headshot
May Nivola
as Steffie Gladney
May Nivola, Sam's sister, plays the household's youngest school-age child and the family's most reliable conduit for whatever the radio or the television is repeating that hour. Steffie's mid-sleep recitations of brand names and weather phrases are one of the novel's most quoted images, and Nivola plays them with the matter-of-factness the gag requires.
§ 03 · Spoiler Zone · Read with care

Ending Overview

How does White Noise end? Our spoiler-aware breakdown walks through the final act beat by beat — including the choices, motivations, and ambiguous final shot that viewers most often debate.

Read full Ending Explained →
§ 04 Watch · Updated May 18

Where to Watch White Noise

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§ 06

Frequently Asked

What is White Noise about?

Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own…

Where can I watch White Noise?

See the Where to Watch section below for the current streaming, rental, and purchase options in your region.