White Noise is a 2022 absurdist comedy drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach, adapted from the 1985 novel with the same title by Don DeLillo.^[5] It is Baumbach's first directed feature not to be based on an original story of his own. The film stars Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle. Set in the 1980s, the story 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.

White Noise had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2022, and was released in select theaters on November 25, 2022, before its streaming release on December 30, by Netflix. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with Baumbach's direction, cinematography, cast performances (particularly Driver's), and Danny Elfman's score receiving praise, although the film's screenplay, varying tones, and length divided many.

In 1984, Jack Gladney is a professor of "Hitler studies" (a field he founded) at the College-on-the-Hill in Ohio. Despite his specialism, he speaks no German and is secretly taking basic lessons to prepare for a speech he is due to give at a conference. Jack is married to Babette, his fourth wife. Together, they raise a blended family with four children: Heinrich and Steffie, from two of Jack's previous marriages; Denise, from Babette's previous marriage; and Wilder, a child they conceived together. Denise spies on Babette and finds her secret prescription stash of Dylar, a mysterious drug not in the usual records. Jack experiences a dream about a mysterious man trying to kill him, alluding to an earlier conversation with Babette focused on their mutual fear of death. Jack's colleague, Murray Siskind, a professor of American culture, wishes to develop a similarly niche field, "Elvis studies,” and convinces Jack to help him. They briefly become rivals as competition between their courses arises.

However, their lives are disrupted when a cataclysmic train accident casts a cloud of chemical waste over the town. This "Airborne Toxic Event" forces a massive evacuation, which leads to a major traffic jam on the highway. Jack drives to a gas station to refill his car, where he is inadvertently exposed to the cloud. The family and numerous others are forced into quarantine at a summer camp. Murray supplies Jack with a small palm-sized pistol to protect himself against the more dangerous survivalists in the camp. One day, chaos ensues when multiple families desperately try to escape the camp. The Gladneys almost make it out but ultimately end up with their car floating in the river. They later arrive in Iron City, where they encounter a man who rants about the lack of media attention on the evacuees and spots Jack, claiming he had seen him before looking at him. After nine days, the family manages to return home. However, since Jack was briefly exposed to the chemical waste, his fear of death becomes exacerbated.

Later, everything has returned to normal except for Babette, who has become pale, lethargic and emotionally distant from Jack and the rest of the family. Soon afterward, Jack begins having hallucinations of a mysterious, balding man following him around. Denise shares her concerns regarding Dylar and Jack confronts Babette. She admits to having joined a shadowy clinical trial for a drug to treat death anxieties, and when she was cut from the trial, agreed to having sex with "Mr. Gray" in exchange for a continuing supply of the drug. Intrigued by the idea, Jack asks Denise for the Dylar bottle, but she reveals she threw it away earlier. While digging through the garbage, Jack finds a newspaper ad for Dylar, prompting him to retrieve his pistol and get revenge on Mr. Gray. Jack tracks him down at a motel, where he discovers that Mr. Gray was the man in his hallucinations. Jack shoots him and places the gun in his hand so as to make it look like suicide. Babette unexpectedly shows up and sees a still-alive Mr. Gray, who manages to shoot them both. After Jack and Babette convince the confused Mr. Gray that he is responsible for their injuries, they take him to a nearby hospital run by German atheist nuns. There, the couple also reconcile with each other.

The next day, the Gladneys shop at an A&P supermarket, where the family participates in a dance number with all the other patrons and employees.

White Noise had its world premiere as the opening film of the 79th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2022,^[25] and also served as the opening film for the 2022 New York Film Festival on September 30.^[26] It also screened at the 31st Philadelphia Film Festival in October 2022.^[27] The film was theatrically released in the United States by Netflix on November 25, 2022, before its streaming release on December 30.^[28]

• Goebel Beer
• Postmodernist film
• Postmodernist literature
• 2023 Ohio train derailment