diff --git a/whisperx/asr.py b/whisperx/asr.py
index 07e5115..0ea03b6 100644
--- a/whisperx/asr.py
+++ b/whisperx/asr.py
@@ -269,6 +269,7 @@ def load_model(whisper_arch,
                model : Optional[WhisperModel] = None,
                task="transcribe",
                download_root=None,
+               local_files_only=False,
                threads=4):
     '''Load a Whisper model for inference.
     Args:
@@ -279,6 +280,7 @@ def load_model(whisper_arch,
         language: str - The language of the model. (use English for now)
         model: Optional[WhisperModel] - The WhisperModel instance to use.
         download_root: Optional[str] - The root directory to download the model to.
+        local_files_only: bool - If `True`, avoid downloading the file and return the path to the local cached file if it exists.
         threads: int - The number of cpu threads to use per worker, e.g. will be multiplied by num workers.
     Returns:
         A Whisper pipeline.
@@ -292,6 +294,7 @@ def load_model(whisper_arch,
                          device_index=device_index,
                          compute_type=compute_type,
                          download_root=download_root,
+                         local_files_only=local_files_only,
                          cpu_threads=threads)
     if language is not None:
         tokenizer = faster_whisper.tokenizer.Tokenizer(model.hf_tokenizer, model.model.is_multilingual, task=task, language=language)