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Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor starrer The History of Sound has just gotten a new teaser, and it's giving fans a newer angle at the periodic romantic drama. The queer romance will be the first time both the stars are collaborating, with Oliver Hermanus in the director's chair. The teaser shows Mescal and O'Connor bonding over music, with highlights of its historical essence in the air and a war looming in the background.
The History of Sound was announced back in 2021, and over the last four years, the film has taken shape and form while both actors have climbed to stardom with their respective projects. Talking about this, Hermanus told Vanity Fair,
“Their lives were literally changing, and it was always this groupthink situation of, Where can we find the time to force the universe to let us make this film? We probably wouldn’t have been able to make this film when we wanted to, in 2022, because they weren’t the Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor that we now know today.”
More details about The History of Sound
Directed by Oliver Hermanus and adapted by Ben Shattuck from his own short story, The History of Sound follows Lionel, played by Paul Mescal, and David, played by Josh O’Connor, who meet at the Boston Music Conservatory in 1917. What begins as a quiet friendship blooms into a love that war cannot extinguish. When David returns from the front, they travel through the backroads of rural Maine in the summer of 1920, recording folk songs.
The film’s first outing was at the 78th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2025, competing for the Palme d’Or. It will reach theaters on September 12, 2025, carried by Focus Features in the U.S. and Mubi across the rest of the world, like a folk ballad passed from town to town.
Mescal leads as Lionel, joined by Chris Cooper as his older self, with O’Connor as David. The ensemble includes Molly Price, Raphael Sbarge, Hadley Robinson, Emma Canning, Briana Middleton, Gary Raymond, Alison Bartlett, and Michael Schantz.
The History of Sound was born when End Cue discovered Shattuck’s short story in a little-known literary magazine. The company approached Shattuck to adapt it, later bringing Hermanus on board to shape the film during the COVID-19 pandemic. Delays pushed production from 2022 to early 2024, when cameras finally rolled in Massachusetts. Shoots followed in New Jersey and the Italian countryside. O’Connor, who trained on piano for the role, completed his musical sequences before promoting Challengers.
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Locations ranged from a Hoboken restaurant dressed for period detail to the Oakley Farm Museum in New Jersey, reimagined as a Maine cabin. With its soundscape still in progress, the film skipped 2024 festivals, choosing instead to arrive fully formed at Cannes 2025.
The History of Sound will be in theaters on September 12, 2025.
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