Tuner (2026) – Review by Andrea Carnevali

Tuner ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It may sound like a niche thriller on paper, but in practice Tuner is far more satisfying and entertaining than that: controlled, precise, and confident in its own rhythm.

If the aim of a night at the cinema is to unwind for a couple of hours watching a gripping, well-made film with some good actors and a plot that doesn’t insult your intelligence, then look no further than Tuner this week.

To quote my good friend Karen, who watched this just a day before I did, ‘it won’t change the world, but it was an enjoyable way to pass an evening.’ And to be honest, that’s what one wants from time to time. Not everything needs to be challenging or high art. A good thriller is often just as satisfying… if not more.

The plot revolves around Niki, a gifted piano tuner with hyperacusis, which basically means he is extraordinarily sensitive to sound, and which turns out to be both a curse and, unexpectedly, a useful skill when it comes to listening to the right ‘click’ to open various safes. What begins as a very specific character set-up gradually opens out into a thriller about a crime world Niki was never quite meant to enter.

This comes from Daniel Roher, the director of the 2022 Oscar-winning documentary Navalny (a film I loved) and the deeply moving 2024 film Blink. On this one, once again, Roher shows complete confidence as a filmmaker and understands how to create and release tension perfectly.

Even when the plot is moving through familiar thriller territory, there’s a real sense of style and control to it. It’s tightly paced and beautifully edited, often cut to music and sound, and even if at times it can be seen as a bit flashy, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

The sound design is also one of the film’s greatest achievements. This is a film where listening matters just as much as looking. It isn’t just an aesthetic layer of the filmmaking process, but it becomes part of the storytelling itself. It creates a world where every little noise, every pause, every mechanical detail becomes the focus of the scene. The use of sound also helps us understand the main character both emotionally and physically, because we are often trapped inside his experience with him.

Leo Woodall is really excellent as Niki. He has that kind of presence that makes you want to stay with him, even when his character is making increasingly risky choices. There’s something very appealing about the way he plays him: smart, slightly awkward, vulnerable, but never weak. He gives the film its emotional centre, in a story that could easily have become just another slick crime caper.

And then you have Dustin Hoffman, who is simply a joy to watch. He brings that old-school authority and wit that only he can bring, and even when he’s doing very little, he feels like he’s shaping the entire atmosphere of the film.

The supporting characters are all neatly drawn, from Hoffman’s wife to the various thieves and lowlifes who populate the film’s underworld. They’re a curious mixture of genuinely scary figures and slightly exaggerated caricatures, which works because the film itself is operating in that same tonal space: serious enough to matter, but stylised enough to enjoy. Some of them feel threatening, others almost cartoonish, but together they help create a world that is heightened without ever becoming absurd. That balance is one of the film’s real strengths.

It knows when to be tense, when to be playful, and when to slow down and let the mood do the work. That balance is often harder to achieve than it looks, and here it’s one of the reasons the film leaves such a good impression (the fact that the film ends with a joke makes you leave with a smile on your face, too).

So yes, this was a very pleasant surprise. It may sound like a niche thriller on paper, but in practice it’s much more satisfying and entertaining than that. And in a cinema landscape so often obsessed with noise, scale and constant escalation, there is something genuinely refreshing about a film this controlled, this precise, and this confident in its own rhythm.

Highly recommended.

Andrea Carnevali is a Bafta winning film maker who lives in Chiswick, and a co-creator of the Chiswick In Film festival.