Rebel Ridge has claimed the top spot on Netflix’s global movie chart after dominating headlines as the greatest action movie of the year. While little was heard about the movie after its production troubles in 2021, the film has become a word-of-mouth success on Netflix with a huge debut that many big cinematic blockbusters have failed to achieve.
Rebel Ridge features a strong cast led by Aaron Pierre, AnnaSophia Robb and Don Johnson, and has been masterminded by Jeremy Saulnier, who acts as writer, director, producer and editor on the film. Delivering such a singular vision has clearly paid off, and Rebel Ridge has very quickly gone from being “just another Netflix movie” to the must-see action thriller of 2024.
The story of Rebel Ridge centers on Pierre’s Terry Richmond, who finds himself battling corruption and racism in the town of Shelby Springs when money intended to post bail for his cousin is stolen by the local police force. As Richmond attempts to get back what has been stolen, and save his cousin from being sent to the state penitentiary, he begins to uncover a dark underbelly of the town.
Rebel Ridge’s Rocky Road to Success
Rebel Ridge did not have an easy route to its current success. Originally developed back in 2019, the film was set to be led by Star Wars and Attack the Block star John Boyega. The movie was originally set to begin production the month after the Covid pandemic arrived in 2020, and in 2021, when filming was finally allowed to begin, Rebel Ridge hit a major stumbling block when Boyega left the production citing “family reasons” for this departure.
It was several months before Pierre finally boarded the movie and production finally commenced in April 2022, but it would take another two years for Saulnier to complete post-production on the movie. While time is money in Hollywood, it seems that giving the movie so much of his own attention has dispelled any fallacy that timeliness was important to the possible success of the movie. Five years after it was originally announced, Rebel Ridge has now become a much bigger movie than anyone could have imagined.
As well as its stunning debut on Netflix, the film has garnered a near-perfect reaction from critics, landing a 95% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its debut on September 5. While audiences have been a little more critical of the film, it seems that it has done more than enough to encourage millions of Netflix subscribers to give it a shot. In a genre littered with cliché-ridden duds, Rebel Ridge has provided a breath of fresh air to the action genre that audiences seemingly cannot get enough of.
Rebel Ridge
is streaming now on Netflix.