Taylor Sheridan’s $85M Oscar-Nominated Thriller Lands On Netflix’s US Top 10 Chart 10 Years Later

A movie written by Taylor Sheridan has become a streaming hit a decade after its release. Sheridan is a prolific writer who first became widely recognized for penning the screenplays for a number of prominent features, including the Chris Pine movie Hell or High Water. He also directed two of the most prominent movies that he wrote, namely 2017’s Wind River and 2021’s Those Who Wish Me Dead.

However, since 2018, Sheridan has become more associated with prestige television than with movies, as he is the creator of the shows in the Yellowstone franchise. The flagship neo-Western series has already spawned the prequels 1883 and 1923 and has more spinoffs in development. Additionally, he has either created or executive produced a number of other successful series, including Special Ops: Lioness, Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, and Landman.

Sicario Is Trending On Streaming

It Has Landed On A Major U.S. Chart

2015’s Sicario is making waves on Netflix. The movie, which was written by Sheridan and directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Dune, Dune: Part Two), follows FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) finding herself in over her head when she joins a task force targeting a Mexican cartel leader. The movie was a critical and commercial success, grossing $85 million against its $30 million budget, earning a Certified Fresh score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and spawning the 2018 sequel Day of the Soldado.

Now, Netflix has calculated their Top 10 chart of the most watched movies in the United States for the week of February 24 through March 2. After debuting on the platform on March 1, just one day before the end of the week, Sicario has landed at No. 8 on the chart.

It is the highest-ranked movie that is more than three years old, as the movies above it include the new release Counterattack (No. 3), the 2024 releases Venom: The Last Dance (No. 1), Despicable Me 4 (No. 2), the 2023 movies To Catch a Killer (No. 4) and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (No. 5), and the 2022 titles Watcher (No. 6) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (No. 7).

What This Means For Sicario

It’s Another Sheridan Streaming Success

It remains to be seen if Sicario is able to climb any higher up the chart, but the fact that it nabbed a position at No. 8 within just two days would seem to indicate that it has strong potential to do so. Additionally, even though the weekly chart will not be updated again until Tuesday, March 11, the movie had risen to No. 2 on Netflix’s daily chart of their most-watched movies in the United States as of Friday, March 7, more than midway through the week that will be tabulated on that chart, which is a good sign.

If the Denis Villeneuve movie climbs the chart, as it seems likely to do, and continues to maintain a position in the Top 10, it will serve to cement the streaming success of Taylor Sheridan after a recent report discovered that his Paramount+ series, which include the two Yellowstone prequels, Mayor of Kingstown, and Special Ops: Lioness, collectively earned the streaming platform more than $260 million between 2021 and 2024. This total was calculated before the premiere of his buzzy new series Landman, which features a star-studded cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Jon Hamm, and Ali Larter.

Our Take On Sicario’s Netflix Success

There Is A Precedent For Viewers Loving The Movie

The streaming success of the Emily Blunt movie is not entirely a surprise, even a decade later. Even though it was Taylor Sheridan’s breakout movie, Sicario remains his third highest-rated project on Rotten Tomatoes. This is even more impressive because, as a writer, executive producer, or creator, he has only earned two Rotten Tomatoes splats throughout his entire career. Below, see a ranking of the critical performance of all of his scored titles where he held any or all of those roles, with scores for the television entries representing the average score of all seasons:

While critics’ Certified Fresh score likely continues to point new viewers to Sicario, audiences have also historically responded well to the movie. With a solidly Fresh 85% audience score on the Popcornmeter, it is the fourth highest-rated movie and the fifth highest-rated project in general for Taylor Sheridan, with a score coming in a full 44% higher than audiences’ lowest-rated title, which was his 2021 Tom Clancy adaptation Without Remorse. Because of this, the 2015 movie could be building additional modern-day word of mouth on top of the bump that titles typically get when they first arrive on Netflix.

Source: Netflix

Movie

My Favorite Movies
My Watchlist

Sicario

9/10

Release Date

September 17, 2015

Runtime

122 minutes

Writers

Taylor Sheridan

Producers

Basil Iwanyk, Edward McDonnell, Ellen H. Schwartz, Molly Smith, Thad Luckinbill, Stacy Perskie