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Noise (2023) Review – a harrowing yet sobering experience from start to finish

We review the Netflix film Noise (2023), which does not contain spoilers.

Directed by Natalia Beristain ,  Noise  (original title: Ruido) is a harrowing crime drama about a desperate mother’s attempts at finding her 20-something daughter, who’s been missing for 9 months. With an ensemble cast featuring Julieta Egurrola , Teresa Ruiz , and Erick Israel Consuelo , this compelling piece won several awards and accolades since its premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival in Spain and recently had its global premiere on Netflix . 

Noise (2023) Review and Plot Summary

Noise  starts with a haunting close-up of the protagonist, Julia (played masterfully by Egurrola), before introducing her story. Julia is a distinguished artist whose daughter, Gertrudis or Ger for short, has been missing for nine months and the incompetent authorities made little progress on her case. The police, her ex-husband, and even her son are urging the woman to let go and move on with her life. As a mother, she can’t do that. At a support group for families of missing people, Julia meets journalist Abril (Ruiz) and the two embark on a clandestine and dangerous investigation trying to find out what really happened to Ger. 

This film offers a harrowing yet sobering experience from start to finish. The more we follow Julia on her journey, the more infuriating her situation feels. She’s making noise while the authorities would rather she and other bereft mothers like her stayed quiet. As the desperate woman is trying to find answers, the film exposes a level of corruption we’d all like to pretend doesn’t exist. The police use security footage of Ger using drugs on a night out as an excuse to blame the victim for her disappearance. The few people willing to help families in Julia’s position are putting their own lives at stake, one lawyer who investigates missing persons works in a derelict building and has armed security for protection. There’s even a horrific scene where our protagonist has to bribe a police officer to check a truck full of dead bodies before the authorities sweep the whole incident under the rug. 

As the movie progresses, the protagonist delves deeper into a world where corruption and greed rule, while human life is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Julia, herself only finds the little bit of information she does because she has the funds to bribe the right people. And even then, she’s still risking her safety. The authorities aren’t really trying to find Ger. The cartels are running the show. And anyone asking too many uncomfortable questions becomes a missing person themselves. 

What makes Noise unique is the way it gives screen time to as many stories similar to Julia’s. The director shares her story while poignantly reminding the viewer that she’s one of many. Through the protagonist’s perspective, we meet others just like her, who are desperately seeking answers. And despite the bleak prospects, we also get to see women coming together and helping each other in times of need. While it seems like the whole world is stacked against them, these women continue fighting for their mothers, daughters, and sisters. There’s a strong female-centric message in this movie, and despite its grittiness, just enough light is allowed to shine through. 

Is the 2023 film Noise on Netflix good?

While  Noise is set in Mexico, the film’s relevance extends far beyond. During its one-hour and 45-minute runtimes, the movie paints a hauntingly realistic picture of what too many families across the globe are forced to endure when someone they love vanishes. It’s uncomfortable to watch, and that’s what makes it crucial viewing. 

What did you think of the Netflix film Noise (2023)? Comment below.

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Article by Lori Meek

Lori Meek has been a Ready Steady Cut contributing writer since September 2022 and has had over 400 published articles since. She studied Film and Television at Southampton Solent University, where she gained most of her knowledge and passion for the entertainment industry. Lori’s work is also featured on platforms such as TBreak Media and ShowFaves.

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Noise (Ruido) Film Review: Speaking Out Against Violence

• Joseph Tomastik
• January 13, 2023

Noise ( Ruido ) looks at crime and violence from the perspective of its victims’ loved ones, before urging everyone to speak against the corruption that lets it happen.

Noise (Ruido) is a Spanish-language Netflix film directed and co-written by Natalia Beristáin. Julieta Egurrola stars as Julia, a mother whose daughter disappeared many months ago. All attempts to comfort her have failed, and the police have proven to be of no real help to her. In her continued search, Julia comes across more mothers, sisters, daughters, and other women who have gone through similar losses, exposing her to the deeply rooted corruption, violence, and trauma that has torn apart so many lives in Mexico. In the process, maybe she’ll find a way to speak out and stop the ceaseless noise that’s haunted her own head for so long.

I am not the person to go to when it comes to understanding Mexican politics or history . I’m not going to pretend I have that much knowledge on what’s been going on in that country or how accurately it’s represented here. With that said, if you’re like me and are perhaps turning to Noise as a possible way to remedy that lack of knowledge, you probably won’t come out of it with too much more insight outside of how widespread the issues are. Noise doesn’t go too deeply into the nuances or core problems fueling the crises and violence we see. It really clings to the viewpoint of an observer who’s going through such a crisis herself, and even her conversations with other women or officials are more centered around emotion than history or explanation.

But as far as that emotion goes, you definitely feel it. Egurrola’s performance is very quietly effective . You’d expect her to understandably play the role with the loud, rageful intensity that almost anyone would feel in her situation. But Julia always holds herself together even though she looks and sounds like she’s about to completely break down or scream. It’s a much more fatigued kind of anger, laced more with sadness and helplessness. Her pain also comes not as much from the idea of losing her daughter as the lack of closure and having no idea if she’s truly lost her for good. That’s the noise that won’t leave her head, and you see her bitterness rising slowly throughout the film as she witnesses many more people who are suffering through that same noise.

A majority of Noise is spent simply following Julia around to different places for the sake of investigations, searches, or just sharing stories with other women. You’re taken from location to location to see the aftermaths of horrific acts of violence of varying scales, and you don’t really learn that much new with each visit. I was going to criticize the film for that repetitive structure and surface-level portrayal of tragedy, but then I realized: that reflects what these people are going through . All of the tragedy is so frequent and so widespread that it’s become similarly repetitive without anything being moved forward. The frustration a viewer may feel when being shown essentially the same thing again must pale in comparison to the torture it is for the characters to go through that and know that their whole country is bleeding as well. You also see such torture pile onto Julia’s psyche. She’s not alone in her pain, but that also means she’s just another of many victimized people.

Once an unjust act happens to someone else close to her, right in front of her, you can see all of that experience reach its boiling point. And in the finale to Noise , the film itself finally lets its pent-up anger out. A protest is brought together to make a grand stand, and it’s as well-acted as it is uncomfortably shot and staged . A lot of relatively long takes make you feel like you’re there in the midst of the resulting chaos, and you see the widespread corruption of the country’s government and enforcement firsthand when things turn ugly. But what also makes the sequence so effective is how much of the horrors of the country we’ve been seeing from the start, putting us in the women’s points of view and letting us be sick of it all . This includes Julia herself, who starts to break out of her shell after going through the whole film looking nervous to speak so loudly and be a part of something so big.

I still wish there was a little more insight into why all of these tragedies keep happening, rather than the more general, vague details we get. I again completely understand why the perspective was kept more to the observers, but I wonder if a bit more of a balance between those two ends could have worked without sacrificing either. Really, though, what matters most is that Noise gets its point across in an overall engaging and resonant way. Even with my very limited knowledge on the subject matter, I have no doubt these issues are real and deserve to be looked into and fought against, so to bring more people’s attention to them like this can only be a good thing. Even when the film is frustrating or numbing to watch, I really feel like that’s the intention, and when it reached the end, I understood why it needed to be that way. Clearly, there are other points of view that matter far more than mine when it comes to these topics. But if you have any interest in Noise , I can at least nudge you a little further into seeing it for yourself.

Noise ( Ruido ) is now streaming globally on Netflix .

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After moving his family into his childhood home, a man's investigation into a local factory accident connected to his father unveils dark family secrets. After moving his family into his childhood home, a man's investigation into a local factory accident connected to his father unveils dark family secrets. After moving his family into his childhood home, a man's investigation into a local factory accident connected to his father unveils dark family secrets.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Noise’ on Netflix, in Which a Mother’s Quest for Her Missing Daughter Illuminates Mexico’s Epidemic of Kidnappings and Femicide

Where to stream:.

• Noise (2023)

Stream It Or Skip It: 'UFO Factory' On Hulu, Where A Con Artist Tries To Lure UFO Believers To A Tiny Mexican Village

Stream it or skip it: ‘frida’ on amazon prime video, a wonderfully immersive documentary dive into frida kahlo's diaries, stream it or skip it: 'bandidos' on netflix, where a quirky group of thieves improvise a plan to steal mayan treasure, stream it or skip it: 'dating santa' on prime video, a miraculous mexican rom-com starring a legit hot santa.

Noise (now on Netflix) dramatizes one woman’s grueling ordeal in the wake of her daughter’s likely kidnapping. Veteran filmmaker Natalia Beristain co-writes and directs the film, the fictional counterpart to her 2019 documentary Nosotras , about endemic femicide in Mexico. Noise (Spanish title: Ruida ) is a gripping, artfully conceived, superbly acted drama about a real-life problem that spans social, personal and political avenues; the film risks getting lost among Netflix’s persistent content onslaught, so here’s a plea to not let that happen.

NOISE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We meet Julia (Julieta Egurrola) in extreme close-up. She has an expressive, but weary face. Nine months ago, her 25-year-old daughter Gertrudis went missing. Ger’s life was just beginning. She was on vacation with friends; she was there one moment, gone the next. Understandably, it put Julia in a tailspin. Interactions with authorities only adds to the nightmare. She and Ger’s father Arturo (Arturo Beristain) arrive at the police station to potentially ID Ger’s body, but there’s some confusion – the body doesn’t have a forearm tattoo like Ger has. The associate dealing with them is rude and inattentive. They meet the new, third prosecutor on the case, who seems distracted, or overworked, or dispassionate.

At home, Arturo confesses: He wished the body was Ger’s. At least they’d know . They’re imprisoned in the limbo of uncertainty. Julia gets a tattoo just like Ger’s. She attends a support group whose members sit in a circle and share their emotions and embroider tributes to their missing family members. Sometimes she stares into the mirror, as if searching for something. Once, she walks by a mirror on the street and the angle of the shot and the angle of the mirror makes it look as if she just disappears.

What happened to Ger is shockingly common in Mexico. Young women are kidnapped and either trafficked or killed by affiliates of drug cartels, and the police and government are either corrupt, inept, indifferent, underfunded, turning a blind eye or some combination thereof. It happens so often, young women gather in the streets in protest. Julia watches as they shout and run and cover the square with protest art. She hits her vape cartridge and a young, friendly protester asks if she’ll share. She does.

At the support group, Julia meets Abril (Teresa Ruiz, Father Stu ), a journalist writing about the kidnapping epidemic. Abril takes her to a lawyer who might be able to help them find Ger. They get a lead and take a cross-country bus to a police station; they ask to see the morgue, and they’re welcome to, except it’s been broken for months. A cop takes them to a semi trailer parked beneath an overpass. It’s a stacked bunkhouse full of bodies. Julia walks in and gags. Afterward, she stands at an ATM and can smell death on her clothing. She withdraws a wad of cash and hands it to the cop, who says, hey, at least you didn’t find her. Next we see Julia amidst a surreal nightmare: She’s outside, in the sun, at the foot of a hill, and she opens her mouth to scream and nothing comes out, only silence.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Shades of Lost Girls and Prisoners here; there are also moments where Noise mirrors the intensity, immediacy and thematic relevance of 2022’s best movie, Athena .

Performance Worth Watching: Egurrola intuitively expresses feelings of grief, despair, frustration and confusion without resorting to hysterics or grandiose Oscar-clip overtures.

Memorable Dialogue: Working with a volunteer group of people searching for their lost loved ones, Julia bumps into her prosecutor:

Rodriguez: What are you doing here? Julia: Doing someone else’s job.

Sex and Skin: Brief female toplessness.

Our Take: Julia’s journey finds her in brothels and shelters, poking through fields with search parties, climbing down into abandoned bunkers to discover scraps of clothing and charred remains of women who were murdered, dumped and burned. She finds a second family among the many, many people searching for answers to the same questions that torment her; they urge her to join them as they listen to music and dance, a moment of necessary lightness while investigators nearby lay out scorched bones and personal effects for examination. In another scene, she walks down a dark street at night, and senses a threat from a nearby truck, and whether it’s an intimidating presence – perhaps spurred by Abril’s viral reporting on Julia’s quest – or just a passerby is left unresolved.

The director Beristain carefully balances Noise ’s contextual and emotional fodder, honing a powerful portrait of systemic corruption, moral rot and the anguish of the powerless. One of the keys to the film’s absorbing and powerful drama is Egurrola’s performance, which exists in the ethereal space between Julia’s desire for closure and a need to do something besides wallow in her grief, something constructive, something within a community instead of isolation. Julia’s doing her damnedest to hold onto hope in spite of the numbing tedium of her pain, although her journey is sometimes mind-bogglingly harrowing; it leads to an enthralling final sequence, a bizarre and horrific reverie executed with considerable technical precision by Beristain. It’s a visually arresting moment, but emotionally, it’s frustratingly ambiguous. It’s also all too fitting.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If Beristain’s aim is to rip our hearts out, consider it done.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com .

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Netflix’s Noise Ending Explained: Michelle, the Factory and What’s Wrong With Matthias

Belgian thriller Noise is a twisty-turny mystery. Here's what went down and what it all means.

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In Netflix Belgian thriller Noise Mattias (Ward Kerremans), a social influencer with a baby son, uncovers secrets from the past when he and his wife, Liv (Sallie Harmsen), move back to his childhood home. It’s twisty and tinged with horror, but it also requires attention to follow what’s going on, and indeed, what’s real and what is not. 

Co-written and directed by Steffen Geypens, it’s a small-town chiller that’s high on atmosphere, in particular (as you might expect) the audio elements as the increasingly unsettled Mattias dives down a rabbit hole of his family history, while becoming more and more disconnected from his child.

But what happened and why? We break it down.

Why have Liv, Mattias and Julius moved house?

Mattias’ father Pol (Johan Leysen) has dementia and is now in a nearby care facility. It’s close enough to the house where he used to live for him to wander back, which he frequently does (it’s not a very secure facility). Matthias is a social media influencer, initially posting videos painting him as a perfect devoted father, but later posting frantic conspiracies theories about the factory where his father worked, while growing colder towards Julius. Liv runs a catering business which she’s trying to establish in the small town – she’s not having much luck charming the local business owners because of Pol’s reputation. 

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At first the house seems idyllic but as Mattias sinks deeper into his father’s history and his own the house grows menacing. 

The house itself is of significance. Pol and Mattias’ mother, Michelle (Lize Feryn) were happy in the house until their baby (Mattias) was born. Pol says he built her a pond (more like a lake in this case) as she constantly asked for one. After her death, though, Pol and Mattias were stuck in the house alone which, according to the town’s people, didn’t do them any good at all. The factory’s tunnels also appear to lead right into the house, linking Pol, the factory, the pond and the tragedies that defined his life. In moving back there Mattias is drawn into those tragedies too.

What happened to Mattias’ mother, Michelle?

She drowned. This we see in the opening scenes of the film. What we don’t learn till later is that she was trying to drown both herself and her baby. Michelle was suffering with post-partum psychosis, which made her extremely depressed and paranoid but Pol had insisted that she was ok. When she walks out to the pond to end her life and that of the baby, Pol chased after them both, saved Mattias but was unable to save Michelle.

What’s wrong with Mattias?

Mattias becomes intolerant to noise, obsessed with putrefaction, paranoid, volatile and experiences hallucinations. It is the house? Is it the stress of his and his fathers’ past? Or could it be hereditary?

Michelle’s condition is listed as being hereditary but was triggered by having Mattias. Is it possible that what Mattias is currently experiencing is his own version of post-partum psychosis? It’s a disorder mostly found in women but post-partum psychosis in males is not unheard of. Certainly Mattias is displaying similar symptoms to the ones his mother was described as having. 

Then there’s the life-long trauma of the implicit blame his father places on him for the death of Michelle, and the fact that he was a cold and difficult parent who Mattias was never able to please, he rather had the odds stacked against him.

What happened at the factory?

It’s not entirely clear, since Pol has dementia, Mattias has some sort of psychosis and the newspaper reports are unclear (and we can’t pause and read the full articles because they’re in Dutch). Also, Mattias and Pol would claim that the true story was suppress in the papers anyway.

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What we know is that Pol was the CEO of a chemical plant that initially the town welcomed because it created jobs. The factory began working with some experimental materials and there was a flood, with the waste water affecting the neighboring villages and posing health risks including difficulty breathing and eye irritation. This revelation, along with the vision of the dead rotting animal he finds when he visits the factory, causes Mattias to become preoccupied with rot. He refuses to eat the fish Liv has made for him, the dessert she leaves for him in the fridge is shot in such a way as to make it appear gory and gross (rather than fruity and delicious!). Then there’s the deeply unsettling (but indelible) image of the eye of a toy fish on Julius’ mobile dissolving and running as if putrefied. 

The accident at the factory resulted in the deaths of five workers whose families sued the plant for damages. But Mattias is convinced that the death toll was 15 and that the rest of the bodies are still down there in the labyrinthine tunnels under the factory – tunnels, we are told, that most workers could not navigate without a map. Tunnels that Mattias believes run right up to the house. 

There are certainly maps that make the underground network appear larger than the surface level of the factory. And Mattias appears to find a corpse during one of his explorations. But Mattias is not a reliable source – he also saw a corpse standing in the car wash and we’re pretty sure that never happened. 

What happened to Timme?

Timme (Jesse Mensah0 is Liv’s brother. He’s a big support to Liv and Mattias, initially going to the factory with Mattias. Though Mattias’ mania leads him to reject Timme, Timme is a good dude. He sees Mattias’ deranged social media post where Mattias talks about vindicating his father. Timme goes to the tunnels under the factor, where he surprises Mattias (who may or may not have seen a corpse – we think ‘not’). Mattias hits Timme over the head. It’s not deliberate but instead of helping him he abandons him.

Before going to find Mattias ,Timme calls Liv and leaves a message for her. But when she calls back he is unconscious and the tunnel system is difficult to navigate (and Liv doesn’t even know he’s down there). 

Fortunately though, it’s implied that Timme will be ok. At the end of the movie the local kids who we have seen playing in the factory have stumbled upon Timme. He’s not been there long and his injuries don’t look life threatening to us.

What happens at the end?

In the frantic conclusion to the movie, Mattias has left Timme in the tunnel and come back to the house. He goes down to the basement, which he believes is his way into the section of tunnels where the missing corpses are (we see floor pulsating in an earlier hallucination of Mattias’) and begins to dig his way in, creating a hole which is rapidly filling with water from a burst pipe. Mattias dives in, in the hope of finding the bodies.

But… Liv arrives home, find Julius abandoned and rushes down to the basement to see an increasing disturbed Mattias in his watery hole. She dives in to try to save him, but herself gets sucked in.

However, Pol arrives! Pol has had an episode with Liv, who is wearing a yellow dress very similar to one Michelle wore. Thinking she’s Michelle, Pol makes his confession and apology about what happened the day she died. 

Mattias has been desperate to connect with his father, but his father has been unreachable, wishing he had saved his wife ahead of his child.

There’s redemption here, of a sort. Pol is able to use a walking stick to drag Liv out of the water and with her help they are able to save Mattias too. Pol has finally (symbolically) saved both his wife and his son. 

At the end Liv, Mattias and Julius are seen outside gazing into the pond. A happy ending? 

Pol might have found his redemption but Mattias almost lost his family it maybe too late to connect with Pol. Also he bashed his brother-in-law over the head and left him for dead – not sure how Liv’s going to feel about that.

Noise is available to stream on Netflix now.

Rosie Fletcher

Rosie Fletcher is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Den Of Geek. She’s been an entertainment journalist for more than 15 years previously working at DVD & Blu-ray Review, Digital…

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Common sense media reviewers.

Mother searches for missing daughter; violence, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The Mexican government created a "macho rapist rep

Julia doggedly keeps looking for her daughter, eve

The film is set in Mexico with a Mexican cast.

It's implied that women are kidnapped for the purp

Two women at a protest are briefly seen topless.

"F--k," "s--t," "ass," "hell," and "damn."

Cocaine use is mentioned. Adults vape. It's implie

Parents need to know that Noise i s a fictionalized account of a middle-aged mother's attempt to find her kidnapped daughter, missing for nine months in the midst of a missing person crisis in Mexico. Drug lords and other criminals are thought to be in collusion with government officials, making it difficult…

Positive Messages

The Mexican government created a "macho rapist repressive state."

Positive Role Models

Julia doggedly keeps looking for her daughter, even in the face of danger.

Diverse Representations

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

It's implied that women are kidnapped for the purposes of human trafficking and/or forced prostitution. It's implied a woman was kidnapped and raped, then killed. Police raid a vehicle at night and illegally drag someone off. A woman is punched and knocked down by a police officer.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Cocaine use is mentioned. Adults vape. It's implied that high-end drug dealers, among other members of organized crime, are responsible for kidnappings.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Noise i s a fictionalized account of a middle-aged mother's attempt to find her kidnapped daughter, missing for nine months in the midst of a missing person crisis in Mexico. Drug lords and other criminals are thought to be in collusion with government officials, making it difficult to follow up on individual cases. Peaceful protesters are beaten, gassed, and arrested by riot police. It's suggested that many missing people have been raped, sold to human traffickers, and/or murdered. Cocaine use is mentioned. Adults vape. It's implied that high-end drug dealers, among other members of organized crime, are responsible for kidnappings. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "ass," "hell," and "damn." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In NOISE, Julia (Julieta Egurrola) is looking for her 20-something daughter Ger, who disappeared nine months before. The authorities aren't helping and even suggest too many mistakes were made in the original investigation to keep looking. Journalist Abril (Teresa Ruiz) tries to help, and the two follow up leads. Things get dangerous as someone warns them they're getting too close and thereby making important people angry. The backdrop is an epidemic of similar missing person cases in Mexico, where drug lords and other criminals are thought to be in collusion with government officials and cover-ups are rampant. Julia is led to believe that Ger might have been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery, giving hope that she can be rescued. When last seen, she was partying with friends and snorting cocaine, so perhaps drugs played a role. Women protest on the streets for help finding loved ones, pointedly accusing the government of obstructing investigations.

Is It Any Good?

Noise builds from the agony of one woman's search for her daughter to mass demonstrations of outrage by others in the same situation. By the time we meet the protagonist Julia, she has reached the end of her patience, well portrayed by Julieta Egurrola. She carries the film with the strength of her outrage and doggedness but at times the story leaves us confused. Although we are at all times searching for Julia's daughter, it's not always clear where we are or how we got there, which allows the film's momentum to flag repeatedly.

The connection between the government and the disappearances is claimed but not explained. Almost all the protesters are women and the movie suggests that certain elements in Mexico are waging a war against women, but as the closing credits roll, pictures of real missing people follow and there are quite a few more men among them than women, arguing against that point.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the agony of searching for a person who may be the victim of foul play. How well does the movie communicate that pain?

What political benefits might there be to government officials helping cover up kidnappings, rapes, and murders? How does the movie suggest that bribery and kickbacks are involved?

Why do you think someone tells Julia that she's making the "wrong" people angry? What does that mean?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : November 9, 2022
• Cast : Julieta Egurrola , Teresa Ruiz
• Director : Nataia Beristain
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 105 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : November 20, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Noise – Netflix Review (3/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Mar 17, 2023 | 4 minutes

NOISE on Netflix is a new thriller from Belgium. Actually, it is perhaps more of a slow-burn mystery drama, but the thriller element is certainly there as well. A small cast makes the story work in a very organic way. Read our full  Noise  (2023) movie review here!

NOISE is a Netflix movie from Belgium. We’ve watched quite a few amazing Belgian series on Netflix, but when it comes to movies, it has been more of a film festival event. A series like Into the Night is a very international Netflix production, but it is actually from Belgium.

YOU MIGHT LIKE Our review of Into the Night season 2 >

This new feature film from Belgium is a bit of a genre-bender. It’s both a thriller and mystery as well as a very dark drama. There is a focus on both a local tragedy, that happened in a small town decades ago and depression along with other mental illnesses. It’s a slow-burn mystery with a small and strong cast, and with a runtime of just 90 minutes, it’s worth watching.

For the record, this new Belgian Netflix movie has nothing to do with the recently released Netflix movie  White Noise .

Continue reading our Noise  (2023) movie review below. Find it on Netflix from March 17, 2023.

Big city influencer moves back home

Noise on Netflix is a simple story about the young influencer, Matt. He’s been living in the city with his girlfriend, Liv, and their newborn son, but now the little family is moving back to the small town where Matt grew up. In fact, they move into his childhood home, which is a big and gorgeous mansion with its own lake.

Moving back home is very idyllic on the surface, but Matt is struggling with both work and being a parent. He is especially struggling with noise. All kinds of noises. Admittedly, I can relate to some of this, but I would never unplug an important device because the humming coming from it annoyed me.

OTHER BELGIAN MOVIES TO WATCH Be sure to check out  Megalomaniac  which is a tough and brilliant movie >

After moving back home, Liv discovers that Matt comes from a rather important family. One that wasn’t necessarily the most popular one, so she’s met with the cold shoulder from quite a few people. At first, anyway.

Matt, meanwhile, is working on making new content for his influencer status when he discovers a dark secret from his dementing father’s past. His father still shows up from time to time, when he has left the retirement home and walked the fairly short distance back to his old home.

Whenever Matt’s father, Pol, is somewhat lucid, Matt tries his best to get details about the tragedy that still haunts the small town. A tragedy his father was directly involved with. As he starts an in-depth investigation, he opens a virtual Pandora’s box of secrets. One that includes family dramas he never anticipated.

Few strong characters

For me, the most interesting character in Noise (2023) on Netflix, is Liv. She’s the new mother, working as a caterer, and depending on Matt to help take care of their son. As an influencer, he can work whenever he wants. It’s still a job, but more flexible than being a caterer at events.

Liv is portrayed by Sallie Hamsen, who just might be a familiar face to many people. Sallie Hamsen played the lead role in the Dutch horror movie Moloch  (2022) . A role that earned her a Best Actress award at the Anatomy of Crime and Horror Film Festival. Also, she played the very memorable and heartbreaking role of “Female Replicant” in  Blade Runner 2049 .

The role of Matt is portrayed by Ward Kerremans ( Grond ), who also does a brilliant job. His character just isn’t very likable to begin with and gets increasingly unhinged. In part, due to everything, Matt learns from his own father, who is portrayed by Johan Leysen ( The American ). These two work extremely well as son and father.

Watch Noise on Netflix now!

Steffen Geypens is the director of  Noise  (2023) which is only his second feature film. The first one was the fantasy horror movie Logger from 2022 which has a runtime of just 62 minutes. I haven’t watched it, but I am curious about it based on the plot alone .

The writers of this new Belgian Netflix movie are the director Steffen Geypens along with Robin Kerremans and Hasse Steenssens. This is the screenwriting debut of Robin Kerremans (if IMDb is to be trusted) while Hasse Steenssens has worked as a writer on the TV series Geldwolven .

Calling  Noise  a thriller might be doing it a disservice. It’s more of a slow-burn mystery drama, even though the thriller element is certainly there as well. The small cast –  along with the key supporting characters – makes the story work in a very organic way. It’s believable and comes across as a small slice of a few people’s lives. At an extremely tough time!

Noise  (2023) is on Netflix globally from March 17, 2023.

Director: Steffen Geypens Writers: Steffen Geypens, Robin Kerremans, Hasse Steenssens Cast: Ward Kerremans, Sallie Harmsen, Jesse Mensah, Johan Leysen 

After moving his family into his childhood home, a man’s investigation into a local factory accident connected to his father unveils dark family secrets.

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Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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'Noise' Ending Explained: The Belgian Film Ends on a Mysterious Note

The ending of 'Noise' is as mysterious as its plot.

Netflix's Belgian offering, the twisty mystery Noise , follows a social media influencer, Matthias ( Ward Kerremans ), who's pushed into a deadly mystery when he shifts to his childhood home, along with his girlfriend, Liv ( Sallie Harmsen ). When he comes to know from his father, Pol ( Johan Leysen ), about a mysterious accident at an abandoned factory nearby, Matthias sets himself on a deadly path that finds him fighting the horrifying memories of his own past. A suspense-filled psychological thriller, Noise leaves many questions in the open by the end of its run-time even though it delivers enough for a near-conclusive interpretation.

Matthias and Pol Suffer a Tumultuous Relationship

Matthias and Liv have recently moved into a new and spacious house with their young child, Julius. Liv helps Matthias, who's a social media influencer, give a tour of the house to his followers. The couple is visited by Liv's brother, Timme ( Jesse Mensah ), who not only helps them settle in but also brings a nice toy for Julius. The very next day, another guest pays a visit to the couple's new home in the form of Matthias' father, Pol, who was admitted to a retirement home. As they were readying themselves for breakfast, the couple noticed, through the window, Pol nearing the large lake behind their house. In the conversation that follows, a feeling of resistance is felt in Matthias toward his father as Pol mentions how he dug the pond himself for Michelle ( Lize Feryn ), his wife, who always wanted to live near a pond.

Matthias decides to accompany his father as they start walking toward the retirement home nearby, but the journey is slowed down when Pol stops by an old factory that's been shut down. Evoking Matthias' curiosity, Pol hints at an incident that happened way back in time when he used to work there. He even mentions being blamed for the event despite having warned the others. Pol ends the conversation by stating that it is about time for the truth to be discovered.

RELATED: ‘Boston Strangler’ Isn’t the First Time Keira Knightley Was a Thriller Queen

On the way back home after leaving Pol at the retirement home, Matthias stops by the factory to take a picture of the gate, which says "Soubaylo," for his social media account and asks his followers if they want to know more about the "mystery factory." While leaving for his home, he notices a few teenagers climbing over the wall of the factory. Much to Matthias' happiness, he gets an overwhelming response from his followers and decides to look up the factory on the internet. After a brief discussion with Liv, Matthias finally makes up his mind on pursuing the mystery behind the factory's past. Meanwhile, Liv thinks of exploring the town to find a meat supplier for her catering business. To her surprise, she ends up getting a hostile welcome from many in the town who do not seem the happiest about Matthias' decision to return.

Matthias' Investigations Start Feeding on His Own Fears

Matthias requests Timme's company to go and investigate the Soubaylo factory in a bid to find more information about what transpired in the now-abandoned chemical factory. In the factory, Matthias and Timme discover nothing but a carcass of an animal that seems to have died recently. In the midst of it all, Matthias also seems to have developed a heightened sense of hearing. From the cries of his baby to the buzzing of flies, every sound starts falling on his ears as if it's an intolerable noise. The noises soon start affecting Matthias' mental health as he tries to balance his investigation amidst sleepless nights with the noise of Julius' cries constantly ringing in his ears. The noise is followed by hallucinations as Matthias starts losing control over reality. In the basement, he finds the ground moving as if the floor beneath him has started breathing all of a sudden.

Having not made any progress since the start of his investigation, Matthias resorts to his father's help in knowing more about the factory. By this time, it becomes pretty clear that the factory had a very confusing architecture that made it very difficult to navigate. People often required maps to move around inside the factory. Pol also keeps referring to a water incident, hinting that possibly the factory was flooded. All these details keep flooding Matthias' imagination as his obsession with the factory continues to grow.

When he finds a box of documents related to the factory, Matthias discovers that more people died in the incident as opposed to the five deaths that were reported officially. Matthias realizes that Pol was aware of this reality, and he vows to help him. However, Matthias' obsession starts taking a toll on his relationship with Liv as the latter gets irritated by her partner's detachment. Liv and Timme even try to talk to Matthias, but Matthias ends up blaming Julius' constant cries as a reason for his stress, trying to run away from the truth. One day, Timme follows Matthias into the factory as Matthias goes looking for clues. On seeing hallucinations of a dead body inside the factory, Matthias gets paranoid and ends up knocking Timme unconscious before escaping the factory in a hurry. Liv, on the other hand, finds out from the local butcher that Matthias and Pol had a rough time when they lived there before. This revelation makes Liv go a bit easier on her husband as she understands that he has seen his fair share of troubles.

As Liv continues to dig into Matthias' past, her husband pays a visit to Pol to reveal that he believes a hallway connects the factory to his house. He theorizes that the bodies of the dead employees of the factory are hidden beneath the floor of his basement. As soon as Matthias leaves the retirement home, Liv pays a visit to Pol who mistakes her for Michelle, his wife and Matthias' mother. Pol confesses to Liv that Michelle tried to drown herself and Matthias in the lake behind their home. He rescued Matthias first and went back to save Michelle, but unfortunately, he could not find her. He even expresses regret for not saving Michelle first. This revelation by Pol connects to the opening scene of the film in which Michelle is seen drowning in the lake.

Pol Saves His Son One More Time

Back at home, Matthias starts digging into the basement of his house in an attempt to find the missing bodies. After her meeting with Pol, Liv rushes home in fear of losing Julius the same way Pol lost Michelle lest Matthias attempts the same. At the factory, Timme is found by the teenagers who frequent the factory premises. On reaching home, much to her relief, Liv finds Julius completely fine. But in the basement, Matthias hits a water pipeline when digging the floor, leading the basement to flood.

Liv tries to convince Matthias to come out, but she fails in her attempt. Luckily for Liv, Pol arrives at the basement as if something had drawn him towards it. On finding Liv and Matthias struggling to make it out of the flooded hole, Pol helps Liv come out of the water first, followed by Matthias as Pol continues to see images of his drowning wife Michelle, whom he was not able to save. Fortunately for Pol, he manages to save his son and his girlfriend this time around. When Liv wakes up the next day, she finds Matthias standing next to the lake.

Noise ends on a rather mysterious note, much like its plot. While throughout the majority of the film, the impression remains that the plot revolves around the mystery accident at the factory, it quickly deviates to focus on the mental health problems faced by Matthias. By the end of the film, the mystery of the factory just serves as the breaking point for Matthias, who has suffered from a troubled childhood. Within the opening scenes of the film, Matthias' obsession with his online fame is established quickly. It becomes clear that Matthias earns a sense of validation from his followers. For a man who's been neglected by his father, validation becomes Matthias' driving force. However, as he continues to delve deeper into his investigation, the horrors of his childhood return to him.

In the end, the fate of Matthias' investigation remains unclear. It is possible that Matthias' delusions fueled his suspicion as much of his investigation was boosted by the testimony of his father, who was not in the best of health and spirits himself. Given the impact Michelle's loss would have had on Pol, it also becomes highly doubtable whether he did not have any role in the tragedy that stuck the factory as he claims. It's possible that the film ditched the angle of the investigation by the end to hint that most of it was anyway supported by the fall of Matthias' sanity. It makes all of Matthias' conclusions quite questionable. The only sweet spot in Noise' s puzzling ending is that Pol was able to save his son once again and this time, he won't have any regrets to steal from the joy of the rescue.

A new thriller with seriously mixed reviews is climbing up Netflix’s streaming chart

Netflix viewers are very mixed about new thriller Noise

Belgian thriller Noise has been creeping up Netflix’s streaming chart since its release. Currently, the Steffen Geypens-directed movie is sitting in the number three spot in the top 10 films list worldwide.

Noise centers around Matt (Ward Kerremans), an influencer and new father, who discovers a dark secret from his father’s past. As he begins to investigate more about what’s going on, Matt discovers plenty of family drama as he slips deeper into the past. His wife Liv (Sallie Harmsen) is determined to pull him back, but it seems she might already be too late.

Despite its popularity on the streamer, many viewers have been less than convinced by its premise. "A movie that takes you down the yellow brick road, but that's all it does," one wrote on Rotten Tomatoes . "You never get anything solid back. A movie with so much potential, yet all the breadcrumbs lead you to a lackluster ending. More questions than answers."

Another agreed, adding: "If you base a movie around the premise of an annoying baby crying, your audience will also slowly lose their minds." While a third wrote: "The description of the movie was very misleading. I was expecting some legitimate deep dark family secrets to be revealed."

Some reviews have been more positive, including Decider’s Marshall Shaffer writing: "Admittedly, Noise begins to fall apart as it begins to pull the rug out from under the audience in its final act. But even through it all, the craftsmanship of director Steffen Geypens shines."

On Rotten Tomatoes, one viewer concluded: "The characters develop well, and the actors deliver a good performance. For me, Noise is an above-average entertainment film that seems a bit long-winded in some places."

If you’re looking for what else to stream, check out our guide to the best Netflix thrillers and the best Netflix movies .

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I’m the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering TV and film for the Total Film and SFX sections online. I previously worked as a Senior Showbiz Reporter and SEO TV reporter at Express Online for three years. I've also written for The Resident magazines and Amateur Photographer, before specializing in entertainment.

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'Noise' movie review: Frame of resilience

The ‘missing child’ trope isn’t new to cinema. It is, however, often reserved for testosterone-powered action films like Taken or investigative thrillers such as Gone Baby Gone and Trade. What sets apart the Spanish film, Noise (Original title, Ruido), is not just the fact that it’s based on real-life incidents, but also how it uses the premise to shed light on systemic problems that continue to remain unaddressed.

Noise follows the tribulations of Julia (Julieta Egurrola) as she fights the system, the bureaucracy, the police and her personal trauma, while she looks for her missing daughter. Set in the barren lands of Mexico, the film throws us right in the middle of an ongoing revolution. While we are not made privy to the specificities of the issues, they form the background of the plot, which follows Julia with singular focus. It is through her struggles that the real-life stories of those searching for their loved ones are vindicated.

The film takes its time to unravel, but director Natalia Beristáin makes up for it with a rousing climax that brings the arduous search to a halt. As the story progresses, we get to know more about Julia; her son, who is worried about her; her ex-husband, who is exhausted by the search; and journalist Abril (Teresa Ruiz), who accompanies the protagonist. The narrative also brings to the fore the incompetence of the cops. When the fog clears, we understand how the cartels run the show in a ruthless way. It gives us an understanding of why the film often cuts to Julia’s mind, as we see her scream her lungs out.

Apart from passing the Bechdel test with flying colours, Noise also emerges as a tale of women’s perseverance. Julia’s external hassles and internal battles are brilliantly brought to screen, thanks to a strong technical team and a brilliant Egurrola, who aces the role of the person searching for a needle in a haystack with just a small piece of magnet called hope. Although the morbid theme might discourage viewers from giving Noise a chance, the sensitive manner in which it spotlights the social faultlines, makes it an important film that is effective in running home the point that silence, amid a crisis, is never a solution.

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What is the Netflix movie Noise 2023 about? (Noise plot and more)

By crystal george | mar 20, 2023.

We have a new thriller flick for you to check out on Netflix, and it’s called  Noise . But don’t go thinking we’re talking about the Netflix Mexican drama film of the same name that came out in January 2023. The movie we’re talking about is the Belgian thriller that was released on March 17.

Noise is a new Netflix original movie directed by Steffen Geypens from a screenplay co-written by Geypens himself, Robin Kerremans, and Hasse Steenssens. In addition, Bert Hamelinck, Dimitri Verbeeck, and Clarissa Vermaak signed on as executive producers of the film.

As expected of a thriller, Noise  is dark and full of mystery and suspense. The cast gives amazing performances, and your eyes will be glued to your screen throughout the entire film. Overall, we strongly recommend watching it with a group of friends. But don’t forget to get your popcorn and drink of choice!

What is Noise about on Netflix?

The story follows a man named Matthias, an influencer and young parent, who along with his wife Liv and their newborn baby, decide to move into his old childhood home in rural Belgium. Once they arrive in the small town, Matthias discovers a dark secret from his father’s past. This leads Matthias to start an in-depth investigation to find out the truth about what happened with his father and the tragic deaths of many factory workers and residents of the town years ago.

But the deeper Matthias involves himself in finding out the truth, the more dark family secrets he unveils. His search for the truth also makes him mentally deranged, which ultimately puts a rift in his relationship with his wife and causes him to neglect his son. Seeing Matthias quickly spiral out of control, Liv does everything she can to save him. But is Matthias past the point of saving? Has he completely succumbed to the darkness?

Here’s the official synopsis via Netflix Media Center :

"The film tells the story of Matt, an influencer and young parent to newborn Julius, who discovers a dark secret from his dementing father’s past. He starts an in-depth investigation, which consequently opens a Pandora’s box of secrets and unravels more family dramas than anticipated. Matt’s wife, Liv, is deeply concerned and will do everything in her power not to lose him, but is it too late..?"

Who’s in the Noise cast?

Ward Kerremans stars as Matthias. He’s best known for his previous roles in the TV shows  Penoza ,  Blackout ,  Soil and  Billie vs Benjamin .

Sallie Harmsen plays Liv, Matthias concerned wife. She’s known for her roles in the movies  In Real Life ,  Blade Runner 2049 and  Moloch. Harmsen also had roles in the TV shows  De geheimen van Barslet ,  Catch ,  De jacht ,  Voetbalmaffia and  Heirs of the Night .

Here’s the cast list below:

• Ward Kerremans as Matthias
• Sallie Harmsen as Liv
• Johan Leysen as Pol
• Jesse Mensah as Timme
• Mieke De Groote as Brenda
• Katelijne Damen as Yvette
• Lize Feryn as Michelle
• Simon D’Huyvetter as young Pol
• Daphne Wellens as Laura
• Jennifer Heylen as Umulisa

What country was Noise made in?

According to TheCinemaholic , the Belgian thriller flick was filmed in Belgium, specifically in Brussels and the surrounding areas. Production reportedly started in May 2022 and wrapped sometime in the summer of 2022.

Noise is now streaming on Netflix. Will you be watching the thriller film ?

Next. 42 best Netflix movies to watch (and 18 to skip). dark

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

The launching pad for Bertrand Bonello ’s new picture “The Beast” (“La Bete”) is a 1903 short story by Henry James called “The Beast in the Jungle.” Seen by some James scholars as an autobiographical expression of rue for a life of inaction, it treats the case of John Marcher, who confides in his acquaintance May Bartram that he lives in fear of an unnamable catastrophe that could upend his life, and the life of anyone close to him. She claims to get what he’s talking about.

“‘You mean you feel how my obsession — poor old thing — may correspond to some possible reality?’

‘To some possible reality.’

‘Then you will watch with me?’”

And so May does. And Marcher’s fear translates into a passivity that compels him to hold May at arm’s length for the rest of his life. At the end of the story, he mourns a love he never allowed himself to have and understands that the catastrophe was his own fear.

In Bonello’s film, the fear belongs to the popular Parisian concert pianist Gabrielle Monnier ( Lea Seydoux ), who, around the time of the great 1910 flood of France’s City of Lights, confesses this fear to Louis ( George MacKay ), a young Englishman with whom she soon begins a tentative liaison. But the trouble they encounter has nothing to do with Gabrielle’s reticence to enter into a romantic relationship with Louis—although that does exist.

Bonello’s not here to tell us that the only thing to fear is fear itself. He’s here to tell us to be afraid—be very afraid. What he delivers is not just a densely packed art movie but the most potent horror picture of the decade so far. A vision of three (actually four) nightmare times, all of them in the same vexed world.

The cataclysms that fall upon Gabrielle—played by a superbly controlled and often heartbreaking Lea Seydoux—aren’t spiritual or conceptual (well, of course, at first, they are), they’re “real,” or Real. They’re corporeal/physical, or simulations of the corporeal physical. And they’re unavoidable. Boy oh boy can you not stop what’s coming. Close that browser window, rewind that video, press mute on the sound system, reset the house alarm, none of it will do you any good. Not even an alteration in the fabric of reality itself—and this seems to occur at least a half dozen times in the picture—will stave off horror. The beast isn’t in the jungle, it’s in the house, and it’s in the air we can only barely breathe when the movie gets to 2044. It is in us; it is us.

Sounds cheerful, right? Well, what can I tell you? Bonello has a way of throwing us into an enhanced vision of the degrading noise of contemporary life that’s all the more engaging for being so even-handed and deliberate. I mentioned three timelines that are actually four—the movie is framed, kind of, by a green-screen session in which Seydoux, possibly playing Gabrielle, possibly playing herself, is coached through paces for a scene in which she actually apprehends “the beast” and lets out a blood-curdling scream. The image degenerates into a gorgeous abstract mural of pixels. Digitization is here both a source of ravishing sights and sounds and an Excedrin headache of aural and visual glitch. The movie then bounces through three time periods: 1910, 2044—where Gabrielle’s character seeks to abolish her reincarnation torment through a “DNA purge”—and most terrifyingly, 2014, wherein “Gabby” is housesitting in L.A. and targeted by the angry incel version of MacKay’s Louis—Louis Lewansky, who’s 30 and never been with a woman despite his “magnificence,” and who’s now getting ready to avenge himself.

Dolls are a recurring motif here—there are old-fashioned ones made for fans of the pianist Gabby, and unhelpful talking doll in the Hollywood house, and a walking, talking A.I. helper (played by Guslagie Malanda , as impressive here in a relatively small role as she was in the lead of 2022’s “ Saint Omer ”). An electrical fire figures in the 1910 sequence; a malware attack on a laptop is one of the insane blowups in the 2014 scenario. There are bits and pieces here that feel Lynchian, especially in the Los Angeles scenes, during which Gabrielle is fascinated/repulsed by a TV singing contest show that feels like it might have sprung full blown from the creator of “Twin Peaks.” Then there’s the fact that the love song recurring throughout shows up at the very end, sung in its original version by, well Roy Orbison. But unlike Lynch, Bonello has a decidedly un-obscure point to make. Mainly about how the pursuit of the authentic in life is invariably thwarted by roadblocks of humanity’s own making. (Although one supposes that the eighth episode of the 2018 “Twin Peaks” season treated that theme in a relatively unambiguous way.)

“There must be beautiful things in this chaos,” Gabrielle tries to reassure the movie’s scariest version of Louis at one point. Bonello, and this movie’s, greatest dread is that someday a terrible order will emerge, one that will make whatever beauty remains disappear. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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2007, Mystery & thriller/Crime, 1h 46m

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Noise   photos.

Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell) is a Melbourne police officer beset with a painful ringing sound in his ears. The pain becomes so intense that it causes him to pass out at a train station one night -- the same night an unknown killer slays six commuters. McGahan is reassigned to a small town that is recovering from its own tragedy. Meanwhile, Lavina (Maia Thomas), the sole survivor of the train massacre, becomes worried that the mass murderer might try to silence her.

Genre: Mystery & thriller, Crime, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Matthew Saville

Producer: Trevor Blainey

Writer: Matthew Saville

Release Date (DVD): Oct 26, 2010

Runtime: 1h 46m

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Brendan Cowell

Constable Graham McGahan

Maia Thomas

Lavinia Smart

Henry Nixon

Craig Finaly

Nicholas Bell

Senior Detective Noel Birchall

Constable Melanie Ryan

Maude Davey

Senior Constable Rhonda Harris

Luke Elliot

Dean Stouritis

Simon Laherty

"Lucky" Phil Heydon

Matthew Saville

Trevor Blainey

László Baranyai

Cinematographer

Paddy Reardon

Production Design

Kitty Stuckey

Costume Design

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Amy Paturel

Are You Noise Sensitive? Here's How to Tell

As a mom of three boys, I can barely hear my thoughts against the cacophony of my brood plotting their next Minecraft moves, bartering Pokémon cards, or singing a Weird Al parody. They’re not fighting or wreaking havoc, but life with three energetic school-aged kids is, well, noisy … and I’m noise sensitive.

It turns out, I’m in good company. According to a 2023 PLOS One study conducted in the UK, nearly one in five adults have some level of noise sensitivity. And Richard J. Salvi, cofounder and director of the University at Buffalo's Center for Hearing and Deafness, tells me that at least 29 medical conditions are linked to noise sensitivity.

People with hyperacusis or misophonia , for example, find everyday sounds unbearable. Other people have a sensory sensitivity (often from sensory processing disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or autism). Still others may suffer from chronic ailments like migraine, fibromyalgia, or mental health issues, where loud sounds exacerbate symptoms.

But even without a diagnosable “condition,” repetitive exposure to loud sounds can impact your health. The good news: Once you get a full hearing evaluation to ensure your sensitivity to sound doesn’t reflect early signs of a hearing disorder, myriad tools can make the noise level in your immediate environment more tolerable, or at least block your ability to hear it.

Turn Down the Volume

In the 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency treated noise just like any other environmental pollutant. Society was conscientious of the effects of sound as a form of pollution, and the government regulated it as such. Unfortunately, since the Reagan Administration phased out funding for Noise Abatement and Control in 1981, our world has grown exponentially louder . Some of these noises are being piped directly into our ears (thank you, ear pods!), but others are a product of noise pollution.

“Everyone has a different threshold of sensitivity to sound. But we know that repeated exposure to sounds above 75 to 85 decibels for more than eight hours a day can damage your auditory system,” says Deanna K. Meinke, an audiologist and audiology professor and researcher at the University of Northern Colorado and codirector of Dangerous Decibels . That’s about the noise output your lawnmower or power tool produces. But the louder the sound, the greater the risk to your hearing—even at shorter durations. In fact, listening at 100 decibels for just 15 minutes (about the sound level of a bulldozer) delivers the same hit to your hearing as seven or eight hours at 85 decibels.

“Our ears distort sound when it’s loud,” Meinke says. “So whether you’re noise sensitive or not, turning the volume down is positive for everyone”—a point I tried to drive home when I introduced my boys to my newly downloaded NIOSH Sound Level Meter (SLM), a handy app that allows you to measure your “dose” so you can monitor your progress toward creating a quieter, calmer environment.

Salvi tells me that normal speech hovers around 50-70 decibels, depending on background noise, acoustics, and other factors. During the first week, SLM measured our mealtime conversations at 80 decibels and the boys’ roughhousing typically hits 90. When the boys were out of school, SLM alerted me that I’d reached 100 percent of my daily dose of loud sounds before 1 pm “Too loud!” I yelled, far above the 90-decibel level. Clearly, I needed more than a meter to preserve my sanity … and my hearing.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Decades of research shows that excess noise creates a host of issues from the obvious (hearing loss and sleep problems) to the insidious (heart disease, metabolic disturbances, anxiety and depression). For the 20 to 40 percent of people who are noise sensitive, sounds above a certain decibel trigger the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain designed to protect us, to fire on all cylinders.

“The brain interprets a sound as toxic, and the nervous system reacts with the fight/flight response,” says Jennifer Brout , cofounder of the Sensory Processing and Emotion Regulation Program at Duke University, who suffers from misophonia. It’s not a psychological disorder, but rather a multidisciplinary disorder that ultimately has psychological effects because the affected person is in a constant state of stress.

Julian Chokkattu

Parker Hall

The sympathetic nervous system kicks in, boosting your heart rate, increasing your blood pressure, and triggering the body to produce inflammatory cells. Over time, these changes can lead to chronic inflammation, high blood pressure, and plaque buildup on your arterial walls.

To complicate matters, when you begin to lose your ability to hear at a particular frequency due to aging, illness, or injury, the auditory system goes into overdrive and overrecruits at another frequency. This over-recruitment is helpful in terms of allowing you to hear softer sounds, but it can also amplify unwanted noise.

Noise-Quieting Tools

You can close your eyes, avoid being touched, and even deprive your taste buds, but you can’t turn off your ears. They’re working all the time, even, or maybe especially when you’re sleeping. That’s one reason there aren’t great therapies for noise sensitivity disorders, Brout tells me. “In the face of sound that is either painful or that the brain is misinterpreting as dangerous, it’s really difficult to dampen the nervous system reactivity,” she says.

So it’s no surprise that Brout is a big believer in identifying tools and devices that can help quiet the sounds in your environment. The most obvious, of course, are earplugs , which dramatically reduce environmental noise by preventing sound waves from reaching your inner ear, the place that triggers your body to react to noise in the first place. Protective earmuffs operate the same way, and they’re typically more comfortable and user-friendly than earplugs. Though, depending on your environment, they may not be as practical as their smaller, less noticeable peers.

“Typical foam earplugs attenuate high frequencies like the upper keys on a piano. But there are specially designed earplugs called high-fidelity or “musicians’ earplugs” that attenuate (weaken) sound equally across all frequencies,” says Meinke, who uses myriad protective devices to protect her ears in different environments—regular earmuffs or foam earplugs when she mows the lawn, high fidelity filtered earplugs when she goes to noisy live music events or restaurants, and electronic shooter's earplugs or earmuffs when she does firearm impulse noise research.

A more sophisticated solution—and my birthday gift from my boys last year—are Bluetooth-enabled noise-canceling headphones , which emit sound waves that complement and cancel surrounding noise. The technology allows me to listen to the latest true crime podcast or immerse myself in Spotify’s Feel Happy playlist while blocking the sound of my boys sparring in the same room.

“These tools not only minimize the physical effects of noise pollution, but they also give you a sense of control over the sounds in your environment,” Brout says. “Just make sure to do your homework before you purchase. Some of these devices are legit, and they can be a boon for people who are sound sensitive, but others are essentially useless.”

Worried about inadvertently drowning out the sound of an approaching car during your run, your crying baby, or your pooch who needs an open door to pee? Meinke says if you fit the earplugs to match the amount of attenuation you need for the listening environment, you’ll never be in a position where you don’t hear anything.

Environmental Controls

Whether you use high-tech tools or creative furnishings, Meinke tells me it’s better to spend money upfront on effective prevention efforts than paying downstream for hearing aids and rehabilitation. “You can modify your space to plan for the sound level you want to achieve,” she says. “Soft window coverings, fabric art on the walls, absorbent floorings, acoustic ceiling tiles and wall treatments. All of these things can help mute sounds.”

I don’t have heavy draperies or sound-absorbent flooring, but I now use an air purifier and white noise machine in my home office to drown out disruptive sounds during working hours. I choose meditative soundscapes on YouTube. I also asked my husband and sons for thoughts on how we could collectively turn down the volume. My youngest had an idea from school. His teacher uses a web-based tool called Bouncy Balls , to bring awareness to rising noise levels (other options include Too Noisy Lite and Calm Counter ).

I pulled up Bouncy Balls on Google Chrome and watched, mesmerized, as a plethora of brightly colored circles bounced in concert with the ambient noise level in our kitchen. When the noise got too loud, based on my chosen sensitivity level, a noise alert from the site (not me) told the boys to quiet down. Soon I began placing my laptop in the center of the table at mealtimes. Yes, I know screens at mealtimes are not ideal, but neither is deafening conversation, and it did reduce the cacophony to a mere buzz most nights.

While there’s no surefire solution to quieting the mind-numbing decibel level in our home, I’ve discovered that when I use tech tools in tandem with self-care—getting enough sleep, taking breaks, removing myself from the chaos—the stressful sounds my beloved boys produce becomes more manageable.

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Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review: I’ve never felt so immersed in my music

These are some of the best noise-cancelling earphones you can buy in 2024

In September 2023, the American-born company refreshed its headphones portfolio with the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds , the QuietComfort Headphones and the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones .

If you're searching for alternatives to AirPods and don't mind splashing out, Bose's latest true wireless earbuds are a very tempting choice. They have a lot going for them including Immersive audio, aptX Adaptive codec support and a shiny new design.

At launch, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds would set you back about £300, but we've already seen the price drop to as little as £220 since then. Keep an eye on them during big sales like Prime Day , Black Friday and the Spring Sale .

I've been trying them out over the last couple of weeks to find out everything you need to know about the design, comfort, sound performance, noise cancelling, battery life and connectivity. Ultimately this Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review should help you decide whether these in-ear headphones are right for you, or not.

Bose Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review: what’s new

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds came in to replace the Bose QuietComfort II. The QC II were £280 at launch while the Ultras started at a slightly higher price of £300. There aren't loads of differences between them but there have been a few improvements to justify the extra cost.

One of the biggest changes is the new Immersion mode, which you get in addition to the Quiet and Aware modes. The QuietComfort Ultra also now support the aptX Adaptive codec which was lacking before.

The design has also been enhanced with a new glossy stem, making the most recent earbuds look even more sleek than their predecessors.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds design and fit

Bose knows how to make good-looking gadgets and the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are exactly that.

You can buy them in three colours: black, white smoke and moonstone blue. I tried out the white version, which has a grey undertone to it. It looks pretty smart although after a few days of use, the case and the earbuds picked up a bit of grime so I constantly found myself wiping them clean.

The case is a little bigger than other true wireless earbuds, yet it still fits in the palm of my hand and is small enough to slip into my pocket. The Bose logo is written discreetly across the front, next to a small LED light to let you know the case's battery level. On the back, there's a button to reset the earbuds or put them into pairing mode.

Generally speaking, the case feels sturdy but the lid doesn't feel that secure which is a concern given the fact that we've known the QCII case to break in the past.

Each earbud has a wide stem with a silver plate over the top. On the inside are grooves to help seal the sound, with silicone stability bands and umbrella-shaped tips to improve comfort. You'll get three sizes of stability bands and three pairs of tips included in the box.

To help you figure out if you've picked the right size, there's an earbud seal test in the app which takes a few seconds to tell you whether there's a good seal, or not.

I was impressed by the earbuds' aesthetic design because they look more like an accessory than a bit of tech. But to add to that, they were super comfortable. At 6.24g each, they are heavier than some other earphones, but the fit provided by the silicone bands and tips meant that didn't matter so much. I wore them everywhere and it took a long time for my ears to feel fatigued.

These earbuds stayed put no matter what. I took them out running a few times and at no point did I feel they were even close to falling out. Plus the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are IPX4 water resistant which means they'll survive sweat and splashes of rain.

You can control the music without reaching for your phone thanks to touch controls on both buds. Tapping either panel once pauses the music, twice skips to the next song, three times skips backwards and swiping up or down changes the volume. You can also press and hold to use the shortcut, which can be switching between noise cancelling modes, changing the immersive audio from still to motion or calling upon your voice assistant. If you're not happy with the default shortcut, you can change it through the app.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds performance and noise-cancelling

Producing people-pleasing sound is what Bose does best. Unlike other brands, its default tuning doesn't lean too far in any direction.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are a prime example of that. The sound quality is rich and punchy without being overbearing, you still get the crisp detail from the treble without muddying of the mid frequencies. In real-world terms, that means that every genre of music sounds excellent. Ballads give you crystal clear vocals, energetic dance tracks are dynamic and exciting and you can hear every instrument in classic rock tracks.

Away from music, I regularly used these earphones to listen to podcasts. Again, the content was clear and coherent, although it tended to be a little quieter than music, so sometimes I had to dial the volume up.

If you like to have control over the sound, there are a few EQ options in the dedicated smartphone app. Most people will only go as far as to use one of the four preset sound settings, but audiophiles will appreciate the manual four-band equaliser to tailor the audio in more detail.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds nail noise cancelling. That's something that not a lot of brands can say when it comes to their true wireless earbuds. As soon as you put these in your ears, the world around you disappears. Most surprising is the fact that it even works when you don't have music playing. These earbuds are top of the class in that sense.

Listening to playlists, I felt completely engaged in the sound. It's a bit of a weird sensation at first but it's a marvel, particularly in a noisy office or on a loud underground train. I could barely even hear the sound of my keyboard taps. As a team, we have tried every pair of earbuds you can think of, from the AirPods Pro to the Sennheiser Momentum 4 , and none of them beat Bose's ANC.

Bose gives you the choice of three sound modes: Quiet, Aware and Immersion.

Quiet is standard noise cancelling which cuts out distracting sounds from your environment. Unfortunately, there's no way of adjusting how much sound is cut out, nor can you turn it off entirely. But what it can do is very impressive.

Aware is Bose's transparency mode, which uses the microphones on the earbuds to boost outside sounds so you can hear what's going on through the music. It's useful for listening to announcements on the train or if you need to speak to someone. Compared to other headphones, Bose has one of the best transparency modes I've ever used. Again, it's better than anything currently on offer from Sony or Apple or Samsung .

But it's the Immersion mode that sets these earbuds apart from the crowd. Bose's take on spatial audio makes the music sound as if it's coming from two separate speakers in front of you that follow you as you move your head. It's really cool. I felt like I was hearing the music played live. You can use the Immersion mode when you're sat still as well as when you're on the move, you'll just need to switch the settings over in the app (it'd be great to see this be automated at some point).

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds battery life and connectivity

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds last up to six hours of music at a time. They can be topped up three times using the charging case, which holds about 24 hours of playtime.

The total time between charges isn't as impressive as some other pairs of true wireless earbuds, like the JLab Epic Air Sport ANC which provide a total of 55 hours with ANC turned on. In saying that, I used the QC Ultras daily for my commute and workouts, and it was just over a week before I needed to plug the case in.

When they're inactive, the earbuds automatically switch off to preserve the battery.

According to Bose, it should take about three hours to charge the case and an hour to charge the earbuds. If you're running late, you can plug the case in for 20 minutes to get up to two hours of use.

Bluetooth 5.3 made sure there was a stable uninterrupted connection between the buds and my phone. Occasionally, one of the two earbuds wouldn't connect straight away, but I found putting it back in the case and trying again fixed the problem.

Speaking of calls, the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds delivered clear and precise phone calls on both ends. The person on the other end could hear me perfectly well, and I could hear them equally as well.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds drawbacks

There aren't many downsides to the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. The design of the lid could be a bit sturdier, the case could be smaller, the battery life could be longer, it'd be nice to have the option to turn off the noise-cancelling and it's a bit annoying that sometimes both earbuds don't connect immediately. But in saying that, none of those points are dealbreakers.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds verdict

Bose is out to impress with the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. I thoroughly enjoyed testing them out, so much so that I would be inclined to buy them.

There are barely any negatives to point out, and yet there are tonnes of good things to say.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds look great, they sound fantastic and they work well. But the very best thing about them is the noise cancelling which is about as good as it gets. They create a little bubble of music for you to live in, and it's so much fun.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds: also consider

If you want to shop around, we'd recommend considering the Sony WF-1000XM5 . The design is a little different, they sound great, the ANC is solid and they have around 24 hours of battery. They're also slightly cheaper than Bose's earbuds but you won't get Bose's impressive Immersion mode.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds

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