A gifted piano tuner’s meticulous skills for tuning pianos lead him to discover an unexpected aptitude for cracking safes, turning his life upside down. A film by Daniel Roher, starring Leo Woodall, Havana Rose Liu, Lior Raz, Tovah Feldshuh, Gil Cohen, Nissan Sakira, Jean Yoon, Jean Reno, Alisen Richmond-Peck, Ellyn Jameson, Tim Blair, Nicola Correia-Damude, Amy Lee, David Reale, Graham Knox, Alexandra Verma, Bridget Lisbeth Gaines, Ari Cohen Mann, Jonnie “Dumbfoundead” Park, Rek Lee, C.S. Lee, Earl “Bubba” McLean, Herbie Hancock, Abanoub Andraous, Ty Kostyk, Dorren Lee, and Dustin Hoffman.

Niki White (Leo Woodall) works as an apprentice to Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman), a piano tuner and an old friend of his late father. Harry and his wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) love Niki like their own nephew. Niki was once a child prodigy, but his future was cut short by a diagnosis of hyperacusis, a condition that causes extreme sensitivity to sound, where loud noises trigger severe physical pain.

With no current cure or treatment for the condition, Niki has abandoned his dreams of performing and now relies on hearing protection to navigate everyday life. To help him, Harry has taken Niki under his wing, training the young man to become a piano tuner like himself. Despite the diagnosis, Harry remains hopeful that Niki will one day return to piano, often reminding him that he is the most gifted pianist he has ever heard.

During dinner, Marla becomes frustrated when she notices Harry isn’t wearing his hearing aids. She insists he find them, warning him that if they are lost, they will have to pay out of pocket for replacements. Harry claims they aren’t lost and that he knows exactly where they are. He explains that he put them in the safe because he accidentally left his watch in the bathroom.

However, the situation escalates when Marla tells him to go get them, only for Harry to admit he recently changed the safe’s combination from their anniversary date and has completely forgotten the new one. Siding with Marla that Harry needs his hearing for work, Niki volunteers to take the safe home to see if he can crack it open.

Once home, Niki turns to YouTube to research how to manipulate a combination lock. He learns the technique requires listening for the faint sound of internal components brushing against each other, which is usually impossible to hear without specialized equipment. Turning his greatest vulnerability into an asset, Niki removes his hearing protection. His hyperacusis allows him to pinpoint the microscopic clicks and perceive the exact moment the lever nose drops into the aligned tumblers. Relying on his heightened hearing, he successfully unlocks Harry’s safe.

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@pradt

TUNER 🎹
The perfect crime starts with the perfect pitch.
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A film by Daniel Roher, starring Leo Woodall, Havana Rose Liu, Lior Raz, Tovah Feldshuh, Gil Cohen, Nissan Sakira, Jean Yoon, Jean Reno, Alisen Richmond-Peck, Ellyn Jameson, Tim Blair, Nicola Correia-Damude, Amy Lee, David Reale, Graham Knox, Alexandra Verma, Bridget Lisbeth Gaines, Ari Cohen Mann, Jonnie “Dumbfoundead” Park, Rek Lee, C.S. Lee, Earl “Bubba” McLean, Herbie Hancock, Abanoub Andraous, Ty Kostyk, Dorren Lee, and Dustin Hoffman.

Directed by Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roher in his narrative feature debut from a screenplay he co-wrote with Robert Ramsey, Tuner is an exceptional crime thriller. It follows a former child prodigy whose life is derailed by hyperacusis, a condition that causes extreme sensitivity to sound. His life takes another unexpected turn when he begins using his unique hearing to crack safes in order to cover his mentor’s massive medical debt.

I love how the script seamlessly weaves familiar elements from thrillers, heists, and romantic comedies into a captivating narrative where the characters feel convincingly authentic.

The ensemble cast is outstanding, anchored by a remarkable lead performance from Leo Woodall as Niki White and strong supporting work from Dustin Hoffman as the veteran piano tuner Harry Horowitz.

The on-screen chemistry between Niki and Ruthie is so electrifying that I wouldn’t mind spending more time with their love story.

There is only one issue that keeps bugging me. When a furious Uri tracks Niki down after a bailed job, he intentionally blasts a canned air horn to knock Niki unconscious. It feels illogical because Uri knows about Niki’s hyperacusis. Risking permanent damage to the exact tool he relies on to crack safes makes no sense. Aside from that scene, the film hits all the right notes.

From the stellar cast to the beautiful cinematography in every frame, everything about the production is top-notch. Tied together by an incredible sound design, it easily stands out as one of the best films of the year.

TUNER premiered at Telluride Film Festival on 30 August 2025. The film had a limited theatrical release on 22 May 2026 before expanding nationwide on 29 May.

How Havana Rose Liu and Leo Woodall Transformed Into Musical Virtuosos for Tuner
Liu, of Bottoms and Lurker fame, underwent piano boot camp. Although she learned to play when she was young, she stopped around middle school and had to relearn the basics before shooting. However, there wasn’t much time: “I only had two months of prep, and I had five concert piano pieces to learn basically.” Instead of a thorough refresher, she focused more on the pieces she’d play in the film, as well as some scales and warm-ups so her improvisations on-screen would look natural. Growing up, actor Leo Woodall was always drawn to the pianos at his performing arts school, but he never really learned to play them: “It required a lot of piano training. Every day, hours a day, I would be sat at a piano learning exactly the correct seating position, body posture, and hand posture, and how your body moves around the instrument, how the music affects your body, and how you can affect the music with your body.”

With their charming genre-bender, Tuner, warming hearts and unlocking imaginations, Havana Rose Liu and Leo Woodall talk finding their chemistry and keeping it casual.
It’s impossible to be friends with Leo. He’s the worst. He’s just super annoying. Super cocky. No, I don’t know. I think we just had a lot of shared values going into it and a lot of care for the other’s performance and their capability in making sure the other was okay. And that built a real sense of trust to be able to go wherever we needed to go. On another level, I had a very emotional connection to Ruthie through having really recently lost my own grandmother. So there was a cathartic element to her and the synchronicity between her and me, trying to figure out how to open myself up again after that much heartbreak.

British actor Leo Woodall is one very talented piano tuner in his latest film “Tuner”
“They say you shouldn’t write for specific actors,” Daniel Roher says, “as you’ll only get your heart broken. But I wrote this for Dustin. I’m a huge fan. And I found out that when he was 15 years old, he wanted to be a piano player! Dustin remembers seeing Art Tatum as a young man. Leo was more of a challenge. I saw him on the British TV show, One Day, and I could see his special quality. I knew him slightly, via my wife, so I sent him the script and I’m delighted to say he really loved it.” In order to project a convincing performance on screen, Woodall spent much time in the company of piano tuners, watching them work and copying their skills. Both Leo and Dustin worked really hard at the piano. We all tried hard to make it as “real” as possible so that people in the piano world found it acceptable. At the end of the film, in the final scene, Leo is playing. Yes, it’s edited, but that’s all him.

Tuner is Leo Woodall’s first leading movie role
It was just a film I read and immediately wanted to watch, and that’s always an important component for me—whether I actually want to see this thing. It’s the kind of film I love. I’d been fortunate enough to have spent a decent amount of time in New York before this. I had a baseline, but I wanted to be more specific, so we went to Brooklyn. There were a couple of small things, which don’t apply to everyone from Brooklyn, obviously, but I thought it’d be fun to incorporate. Like saying “Haaaarry” instead of “Hairy.” Tiny things that just differentiated it a little.

Dustin Hoffman and Leo Woodall Bring the Noise in Daniel Roher’s “Tuner”
There’s a moment before the first screening of Tuner at the Eccles Theatre on opening day of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival where director Daniel Roher pauses, looks out at the packed room, and admits he might cry. “There’s a non-zero chance,” he says, voice already catching. “There’s a lot going on in the world, people.” It’s his first time at the Festival in person — his documentary Navalny premiered virtually back in 2022 — and the pride, gratitude, and sheer relief of being here lands heavily. Roher dedicates the screening to his mentor, Rob Reiner, and Reiner’s wife Michelle, sharing the advice from Reiner that’s clearly been rattling around his head throughout the making of this film: create something people want to watch. Roher speaks about being inspired by a friend of his wife’s, who is a real-life piano tuner, and about resisting the idea that his career needs to stay neatly categorized. “I don’t want to be put in a box,” he says, comparing this pivot to Bob Dylan going electric. Tuner is exactly that kind of move: risky, surprising, and alive with intent. As applause rolled through the Eccles, it was hard not to think back to Rob Reiner’s simple advice — create something people want to watch. Between the laughter, the gasps, and the buzz that followed the credits, Tuner proves that Roher heard him loud and clear.